Chapter 12
Another few days passed. Lotus spent them as productively as she could, running endlessly over the practice exercises a princess in another world had sent. At least she was making some small amount of progress—she could hold objects in the air now, so long as they weren't too heavy. That meant she didn't have to stick her face into food to eat it anymore.
If only she had trusted her entire savings to invest in meme stocks, maybe she could've bought a cabin in the woods somewhere, and wouldn't be trapped indoors to study. With a few months and plenty of space, Lotus could probably figure out how those more advanced spells worked without much risk.
She had no such time. Everyday Iron Feather reminded her of the growing danger—that “Luna wasn't telling them” how things were doing in Equestria, no matter how often he asked. That could only mean that things were grim. They needed to bring the book back, and seal away the dangerous sorceress it contained.
It wasn't that Lotus didn't care about the disaster happening in another world—but it was hard to invest the same energy in it that Iron did, when she had so many of her own problems.
He could say as many nice things as he wanted, she wasn't cut out to be an academic. She needed to be doing something. But Gus wouldn't even let her out back to help toss camping gear into her pickup. Even at night, he insisted the risk of discovery was too great. "Someone might be watching. Once you're on YouTube, it's all over."
He was probably right—someone would notice. But what was she supposed to do?
She would take any opportunity to escape, even if that was just into Gus's room for a few minutes with a camera in her face.
It could only happen when Iron had gone to sleep, or else the pegasus would just remind her to study some more. But like a bird, he rose at sunrise every day, and rarely lasted long past sunset. Much as Eric had always lived, albeit not by choice. But since she’d been fired, she saw no reason to suffer.
Gus sat her down on a cushion, with a sheet of green behind her and a GoPro sitting on a tripod just in front of her.
"Just a few questions," he said, rolling his computer chair over to the other side of the tripod. "I know it sucks, but this whole thing is kinda—incredible. So far as we know, you're the first human being to become something else. You're the first human being to be exposed to what we're calling 'magic'. You're becoming the first person to ever learn it, as well. We have to document this."
"You say first like there will be others," she muttered. Lotus set the heavy book down beside her on the cushion, careful to keep her rump firmly down. With all her time studying, there just wasn't time to worry about things like “making clothes.” "I'm hoping no one else ever goes through this. If you want to, you could go ahead and take a second turn with this."
She levitated the book up into the air beside her, turning it towards him. Despite her words, she didn't open the cover. The last thing she wanted was to blast Gus with a kirin-shaped transformation.
Her friend pushed the book away with one hand. "I'm content with the digital images you've been recording from its pages. I got lucky once, I'm not going to gamble a second time. Now why don't you tell me about how you feel. And... the future.
"Look, I know you can be nervous. I was nervous sometimes when I started streaming too." He reached up to his desk, then set something down on top of the camera—a little wooden bird. She wasn't sure what kind, but from the beak, maybe a woodpecker? "Just look at my friend here. Pretend you're talking to him, not the camera."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not a kid, Gus. I can do an interview. What do you want to know?"
He asked a half-dozen different questions—pretty much what she'd been expecting. How well was she adjusting to walking on four legs, did she feel dumber now that her head was smaller, what was it like to float things with her mind? He stayed away from the questions she really didn't want to answer, and the stuff she didn't want to think about.
But either he thought “what is it like to be a girl?” wasn't newsworthy, or maybe he realized that half the population already knew perfectly well. Gus's attitude towards the whole thing might annoy her, but at least he was respecting her wishes. He was still her best friend, Eric or Lotus.
"I'd like to see a little magic for the camera," he finally said. "More than floating things. I thought there were other kinds in that book. Maybe you could go over the one you've been practicing."
"I..." She settled the book onto the ground in front of her, then flipped through to page 358—the spell she'd been memorizing, that would help her find places worlds were thin. If she really put the effort in, she was sure she could get it to work.
"There wouldn't be anything to see with this one," she said, looking up again. "If it works, it will let me feel things I wouldn't normally see. Future audiences won't see anything."
Gus set his clipboard down. "Have you been practicing anything else? It wouldn't have to be very big, I'd just like to make sure the documentary has it clear: that magic can do more than just float things. Anything at all?"
She hesitated, flicking through the book ahead of her. There were all kinds of incredible spells in here—or they would be incredible to someone who knew how to make them work. She didn't, so they were just a list of promises.
Except for another familiar page, the only other one she'd been studying. The transformation magic.
Lotus had kept her word—she hadn't tried to cast this. But she couldn't study the same few pages day after day. "That depends. Did you still plan on dying your hair black?"
Gus gestured vaguely into a corner of the room, where a shiny box sat half-buried by dirty laundry.
There were some advantages to levitation. For one, Lotus would never have braved touching anything in that pile with actual hands. But magic was different. Distance was also a far more flexible quantity. Halfway across the room? No problem! It was the weight that mattered most, as well as trying to hold two things at once.
"Every winter. So what?"
She set the box down. "Well, you've been interviewing me about what it's like to be transformed. I've spent lots of it trying to find a way to reverse what happened. This spell right here is for transformation, maybe even the same one that happened to me."
Gus stiffened in his seat. He rolled it a little ways from her, eyes going wide. "I'm not so curious about your condition that I want to go through it too, Lotus. We need me to help hide you, to keep the house supplied. I don't want to be a horse."
"I know!" She lifted the box up again. "The spell doesn't force me to make you into another species. I can change little things too, like your hair-color. You'd never have to dye it again."
Gus relaxed. "Really? Damn, that would be awesome. Can you get the eyebrows too? It always looks weird when you don't, but the kit says not to. I think you go blind if you get that stuff in your eyes."
His tone made it obvious—Lotus had him then. Her first volunteer for a spell that actually mattered. The first steps to changing back.
Gus tilted the camera to the side, then sat down beside her on the ground, clearly in view. "Hair color seems like a great test. If it goes wrong, I can always dye it for a bit, until you're ready to try again. It won't hurt, will it?"
"Of course not." Lotus propped up the book in front of her, using the dye kit that Gus soon wouldn't need. "It didn't hurt when my things got all changed into horse things. You're going from brown hair to black, that's way easier."
She spoke with confidence. "Just sit still while I read this. Once the spell starts, don't move—I have no idea what that would do. So stay still no matter how bad your hair-day becomes."
Gus grinned back at her, then looked into the camera. "Consider this the first brave new day. When this is over, when we've returned the explorer to his homeworld, know that Lotus and I were the first. We will be the first to experience this new power. We do so bravely, like every explorer who came before us."
Lotus rolled her eyes. "I'm not teleporting you to the Moon, Gus. I'm just changing a color."
Gus shrugged. "You say that like this power won't change the world. Even when you're back to normal, when Iron Feather is gone, humans aren't going to forget about this stuff. Imagine what kind of problems that magic will solve, how much things will change. You may not be going to the Moon, but you're still a little like Armstrong. Which makes me Buzz Aldrin, I guess. I think I'd punch someone who said it was a soundstage like he did."
Lotus took another moment to collect herself for the spell. If she retreated and took the time to think about what she was about to do, she probably shouldn't be trying something so difficult for her very first spell. But if she slowed down now, Iron Feather might wake up. He would only be more upset with her for trying.
"Alright, ready," she said. "It only took a few seconds when it happened to me, I'm sure yours will go quick too—" Granted, the magic had knocked her unconscious when it hit her...
Then she started reading. They weren't words exactly, not in any language she spoke. But taken together, the sounds formed an important foundation for the magic she was casting. Her horn started to glow, just as when she was moving things around. It only took a few seconds for the light to grow, from a violet to brighter than the camera a few seconds later.
All she had to do now was focus on black hair. Just like the black box of dye in front of her. The pattern of the spell was incredibly complex. She had to hold it in her mind while she read, and do more than just speak.
"Did anything change?" Gus asked. He reached up, running one hand through his hair. "I feel... something, I dunno what. It's not exactly on my head."
She wanted to scream at him to shut up, let her concentrate. But if she stopped reading, she would just be inviting something much worse.
Picture black hair, not the little bird perched on the camera in front of them, not her own horse-shaped reflection in the lens, not Gus going on and on wondering when the magic was going to start.
Finally she finished. Her horn flashed. As it did, the bulbs overhead swelled with light, then vanished, plunging them into darkness. Only the dim blue glow of a computer display remained to light the space. Somehow, that was more than enough for her. Kirin eyes worked well in the dark.
"Woah, I think it worked!" Gus reached up, running one hand through his hair. "It feels different, anyway. I guess this is magic."
She watched as light brown hair turned dark before her eyes. It looked almost perfect, except that it wasn't even hair anymore. Were those feathers?
"Hmm... slight problem." His voice changed, becoming higher, narrower somehow. "I think there may be... a slight side-effect."
Lotus stared, frozen in shock and horror as his mouth lengthened and stretched out into a long, pointed beak. That would've been bad enough, if the spell had actually ended. It had not.
"Shit, Eric! I think it's still going!"
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Yeah, that's not good. At least he will still have fingers, ahem, talons.
Ayy, a birb!
Is Gus going to become a griffon or a hippogriff? I bet the fact that Lotus had to make an effort not to focus on the bird interfered. I wonder how Iron Feather is going to react to this.
This also happens to be the first chapter without art but I think the next chapter will show us how Gus looks like after he's beent transformed.
Reminding yourself what not to picture is the perfect way to get yourself to imagine exactly that. I can see what went wrong here. Apart from trying transformation on another living being in the first place, I mean.
he SCREWED UP badddddd
Transmutation is not a toy. Molding flesh like clay is never something that should be done lightly, even seemingly minor, cosmetic changes. Similarly, do not distract the wizard.
This is an important learning experience for both of them, but at what cost?
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Woops looks like it didn't get added in time
It will be added later I'm sure.
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Embed is broken but working on it.
Hippogriff incoming! This is NOT a drill!
My bets on a hippogriff.
Not good. We're about to transform our only human and contact with the outside world. That'll make things much harder.
At least it wasn't lethal or crippling! Still, this isn't good.
Our local pegasi's warning has been vindicated; let's hope this isn't too much of a problem. It may be a while until reversal is possible...
Well if he becomes a hippogriff he will still have a way to grab the steering wheel
That was a good story goodluck with the rest of it.
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Blud already think they're screwed lmao
Predictable
Yeah... anyone who's read any Starscribe fics before knows exactly the flavour of how this is going to go horribly wrong
Yup
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Yeah, Starscribe has enough work available to see the repeated tropes/cliches.
Discussion of Starscribe tropes and examples below:
Humans turning into Equestrian creatures successfully change back less than 10% of the time. Those that turn from male to female change back exactly zero percent of the time (unless you count the minor side character from Message in a Bottle what's his name, Martin I think, but he was such a minor character I don't think he counts).
The pony world is almost always more appealing in its condition than the human world, which ranges from a dull to a hellish condition. Even in the My Little Apprentice series, as bad as Equestria got, Earth was still a nuclear wasteland at the same time.
Ponies can sometimes act with incredible evil in Starscribe's fics, including the princesses, yet never receive any consequences (Child of the Invasion and Don't Bug Me), just say sorry and then demand obedience and subservience at the same time.
The main characters are almost always the most thoughtful, friendly, nerdy, physically frail/weak, loyal, anxious, nervous, and unassertive characters. With the exception of basically just Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, and 'Sarah Kaplan', who is Jackie. Usually when characters grow confident, powerful, and sassy, they're not the main characters anymore, but the side characters of the sequel. Harlequin.
In the case of Olivia Fischer, things actually went the opposite way, where she started as the confident, powerful, and sassy Commander (as a side character), then lost all that when she became the main character of the sequel and became an explorer, a typical character archetype in Starscribe stories.
While this is all a critique of Starscribe's writing, it's not to say that any of this stuff is bad. In fact, Starscribe has fantastic writing and these tropes are quite enjoyable to read. It's just that, with so many examples of the same sorts of characters and plot devices, the predictability sometimes makes things a little boring. While the Message in a Bottle series, Child of the Invasion, Don't Bug Me, Luna is a Harsh Mistress, and to a degree all the My Little Apprentice and Jackie stories have been quite interesting, this story, Words of Power, feels like a rehash of Sisters of Willowbrook, Forbidden Places, Fine Print, Through the Aurora, Friendly Fire, or even The Last Pony On Earth. Each one of those stories I read felt less new and unique than the last due to the increasingly noticeable repetition of plot devices and character tropes, particularly the main characters.
It would be a breath of fresh air to have more main characters like Jackie or Amie. Perhaps even main characters that, dare I suggest it, actually cause harm through their mistakes or even intentional actions at one point or another in the story. You know, morally flawed? A main character that intentionally harms others of course isn't the most lovable of characters, but think of how interesting Eren Jager or Reiner Braun have been in Attack on Titan. Or how interesting any of the characters in Kaguya-sama: Love is War have been. Authors, mangakas, and directors often shy away from making their main characters unique or flawed, because the main characters are supposed to be relatable, and being too quirky, dumb, self-centered, or cruel is rarely relatable to the readers (regardless of how well such characters can match some readers).
Still, after watching Love is War in particular, I've gained an appreciation for characters with strange internal monologues and strange moral values.
I'd definitely like to see Starscribe experiment with more varied main characters. Some of Starscribe's side characters have already been interesting enough that it's a shame we haven't been able to see inside their heads. But Starscribe characters failing to make wacky, bizarre, potentially misguided decisions is I think one of the biggest things that could be changed to derail the usual plot development into new, interesting territory.
Buzz Aldrin never said the moon landing was on a soundstage. The claim that he did is itself a hoax.
Buzz was asked what the "scariest moment" of the journey was. He answered "It didn’t happen. It could have been scary.” When shown in context of the rest of the video and what else he said, you realize that this was a quote mine. When he said "It didn't happen.", he was specifically referring to a "scariest moment". Basically, a better way to word it was "It could've been scary, but it wasn't." Buzz later went on to talk about his experience in space and on the moon. If he said it never happened, then why did he continue on to talk about his experience of things that never happened?
To be fair though, this could be Gus's opinion and not the author's. He saw the the hoax version of the clip and was angered at what Buzz said, assuming that Buzz meant something different than he intended.