A Disparate Bond

by the7Saviors

A Rude Awakening ~ Starlight

Starlight Glimmer woke with a start.

A sudden, almost violent sense that something wasn't right drove away any residual weariness or exhaustion she might've felt from her abrupt awakening. The enchanted chandelier above lit the windowless, circular bedroom in a dim amber glow. The room itself was completely silent save for the distant yet distinct rumble of thunder Starlight could just faintly hear somewhere outside the tower.

For a brief moment, the bewildered filly forgot where she was, but it wasn't long before her location and the events of the day before all came rushing back to her in one fell swoop. Still, even with all of that madness to think about, the nagging sensation that something was wrong continued to force its way to the forefront of Starlight's mind.

"Twilight?" she whispered, turning to see if the other filly was awake and felt the same sense of wrongness, "Twilight, do you—"

There was no other filly on the bed.

"Twilight?" Starlight sat up and scanned the room, "where...?"

But one quick glance around the dimly lit and nearly barren room was enough to see that Twilight was nowhere to be found. Another distant rumble of thunder in the ensuing silence was the only response Starlight received in return. Nervousness and worry bled into her confusion as she pushed the blanket aside and moved to hop off the bed.

Before she could get too far in that action, something on the bed next to her caught Starlight's eye—two items that had been hidden beneath the blanket where Twilight should've been until just a moment ago. Starlight's bemused frown deepened as she wrapped one of the objects in her magic and brought it in for a closer look. The object in question was a book.

More specifically, it was a large tome bound in worn black leather and lined with dull silver corner protectors. It was strange enough that the book had made its way onto the bed—it certainly hadn't been there when Starlight and Twilight had settled in for the night. What was even more baffling to Starlight, however, were the words inscribed in silver upon tome's cover:

'SÉ BÓC OF STÆFCRÆFT'

"What kind of title is that?" the pale pink filly muttered aloud, "what kind of language is that?"

There was nothing else to mark the cover—no author, no illustrations... nothing save for the enigmatic title. Starlight turned the book to check the spine only to see that it was also blank. Eventually, curiosity won out over caution and she opened the book before magically flipping through a few pages. Sure enough, from what she could see, the pages seemed to be filled from front to back with that same strange language, however...

"These..." the filly's eyes widened in surprise as she skimmed the book, "are these... runes? Yeah... these are the same type of runes I saw on that door and in that chamber with the sealed demon..."

Images of magical sigils and thaumatological formulae both complex and simple were dotted throughout the book, and much of what was shown was completely alien to Starlight. That said, as she continued to peruse the book's pages, she found that there were quite a few runes she did recognize. Even then the composition and overall structure of the runic language in this tome was completely different from what Starlight had learned from the many tomes she'd read on the subject back home.

And I don't understand these words, but... is this... Old Ponish maybe?

All the books Starlight read on runic magic back at her parent's cottage had been in Modern Ponish, but thinking back, she remembered her father mentioning something about runic magic being deeply rooted in Equestria's ancient history. She also knew that Ponish back then was far different than what ponies spoke today.

Given both those facts and the tattered state of the tome itself with its worn leather cover and aged and yellowed pages, it would stand to reason that the book Starlight held in her magic was very, very old. Just how old she had no idea, but the unfamiliar words and atypical rune structure was enough to tell the filly that this book was written quite literally ages ago.

It was a fascinating book to be sure, but any interest Starlight had in it was tempered and shunted aside by that lingering sense of wrongness. The feeling hadn't dissipated in the slightest and in fact, had only grown worse with the discovery of Twilight's absence. Frowning, Starlight snapped the book shut and set it aside to focus on the other object, a small piece of parchment that had been placed next to the book.

Taking up the parchment, Starlight began to read the note written upon it, hoping for some kind of explanation as to what was going on:

Trapped within these stone walls, you must earn your freedom and unlock the way forward by the seventh set of the sun. The key lies not within the book but within yourself and within the past. You already know the answer, Starlight Glimmer, as do all who truly aspire to walk the arcane path of Runology.

Endemenn þinde, eabdas onhwerfednes, fiðerfótníetenas forgitt, ac drýcræftas eftgemyndgaþ.

"Trapped within... wait," Starlight took a moment to process the message once more as several clues and realizations coming together to form one horrifying conclusion, "no, this is... they wouldn't..."

She dropped the note and practically launched herself off the bed before galloping over the bedroom door. Wide-eyed and desperate, the filly lit up her horn and tried to magically yank at the doorknob. The moment her aura touched the knob, thaumic feedback hit her like a train and she stumbled back with a pained yelp. She fell back on her haunches and rubbed at her tingling horn, staring at the door in disbelief.

She'd looked just in time to see the slowly fading outline of a series of complex interlocking sigils imprinted upon the door. Each glowing circle was comprised of dozens of golden lines overlapping, crisscrossing over, and spiraling around one another in intricate, almost hypnotically beautiful patterns. Housed within and bordering around each sigil was that same unfamiliar composition of runes Starlight had seen before.

Again, some of the runes within were themselves familiar, but the way they were implemented was all wrong. It was like looking at a sentence where many of the words were in a completely different language and the structure was entirely disjointed. The filly couldn't make heads or tails of what she was seeing, but just by looking she could tell breaking the seal wouldn't be nearly as easy a feat as dissolving some iron bars.

"They locked me in here?" Starlight slowly shook her head, her expression incredulous, "they sealed me in here? Like... like some sort of demon?!"

She rose to her hooves and trotted back over to the door, her disbelief slowly turning to outrage.

"Are you kidding me?!" she shouted, whipping around and raising her furious gaze to the ceiling above, "this is your idea of training?! Just... just seal me in a room with some old book I can't read and a stupid cryptic note?! And you expect me to spend an entire week in here?! What about food? W-What if I need to go to the bathroom or—"

As if on cue, there were two loud pops and two sudden flashes of pale green light—one atop and one next to the small desk beside the bed. Starlight blinked at what had just been magically deposited into her room, her anger temporarily suspended by the unexpected display. Now sitting on the desk was a tall glass of what the dumbfounded filly suspected was orange juice and next to that, a plate with an adequate portion of eggs and hay bacon, both still fresh from the smell of it.

Below that, next to the desk on the floor was a large wooden bucket and roll of toilet paper. Resting beside the bucket was another small note. Starlight's face went red, though whether from fury or embarrassment, she didn't know but suspected it was both. In the end, she could only laugh at the sheer absurdity of her current situation as she made her way over to the bucket to read the note.

"A prisoner," she chuckled humorlessly, "I'm a literal bucking prisoner in my own room."

She picked up the note and read it to herself aloud:

The bucket is enchanted to be self-cleaning. Please remember to wipe when necessary.

~ Castor

"Buck you!" Starlight screamed, telekinetically tearing the note to pieces and tossing them into the bucket. She sighed and moved back over to give the door a forlorn look before sinking to the ground with a despairing groan, "what in Tartarus did I do to deserve this?"

She laid there on the cold stone floor simmering in silence for a few moments longer but eventually let out a mostly resigned sigh. With a flick of her horn, she brought the book from the bed over to where she was and laid it open in front of her, running her suddenly very tired eyes over the words on each page she flipped through without really seeing them.

With things as they were now, Starlight couldn't help but think back to those lonely days she spent back in the cottage, doing nothing but studying the same lessons day after day. She had a very good grasp of the basics and even some of what she thought were the more advanced techniques in rune crafting as a result. Now it was like she was back at square one and trapped in a situation she never thought she'd have to experience again.

What's more, Starlight wasn't even sure she wanted to 'walk the arcane path of Runology', not after what her foolishness and inexperience had cost her. As far as she was concerned, her cutie mark and the talent that came with it was nothing but a curse. And yet, here she was, forced to confront and overcome yet another trial being pushed on her against her will. Being forced to confront yet more reminders of a mistake she couldn't seem to escape.

I thought I left all that baggage behind when I burned that place down, but ever since I got here I feel like it's all just being thrown back in my face...

She gave a loud despondent sigh, closed the book, and rested her chin on the tattered leather cover.

"I don't know where those two freaks took Twilight, but here's hoping she's better off than I am," she smiled bitterly to herself, " ...yeah right. She's probably got it way worse than I do."

Author's Note:

Working on the Twilight side of things right now so we'll soon see what she's up to and if it really is worse or not...

Comments

[The Cynical One]

Ah darn, nothing like learning a language through sheer force of will... This DOES seem tame for a trial by fire. Sometimes it takes simple to beat being aprehensive. Where will these studies go? We won't know til post Twilight! Onwards!