The World As Her Own

by DougtheLoremaster

Prelude

Starlight powered up her horn. One blast. Just one blast and she would be the victor. It had been a long struggle against Twilight Sparkle and her band of misfits but finally she was the…wait what was going on?

An insignia of bright teal had appeared beneath her, radiating an aura of blinding light. Startled, her spell fizzled out and her horn stopped glowing. She glanced swiftly at Twilight, had she done this? Was this another trick? No. Twilight lay unconscious on the cloud she had fallen upon. But then what? The insignia grew brighter and brighter still, until it completely obscured her vision. The last thought she had before she knew nothing more was, is this summoning magic?

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Starlight’s eyes flickered open. She was laying on a polished wooden floor. Where am I? No sooner had she thought these words while trying to rise to all fours, had a strange blue window appeared. Startled, she let out a gasp, only to jump in surprise. What came out was not her voice. She placed her hoof to her mouth and froze. Her eyes grew wide. It was not her hoof. She stared at it, trying to figure out what it was.

It’s got five claws, like that of a dragon, only it’s fleshy instead of scaly. This doesn’t make sense. And speaking of making sense, what in Celestia’s name are these things? Starlight had managed to sit up and glanced down at her body, only to be greeted by two mounds of jiggly flesh. She poked at them in curiosity, watching as they jiggled before wincing. Whatever these are, they are pretty sensitive to touch. Wait, what are those? Starlight stared at her hind hooves only to see similar appendages to her fleshy dragon claws. What am I?

Once again, that strange blue window popped up in front of her eyes. She blinked as she stared at it: You need to get dressed. Okay, I can do that. Clearly these appendages she possessed were proof of walking on two legs. All she had to do was use her tail for balance since she was some sort of fleshy Dragon. There was just one problem.

Where is my tail?

Tail? Starlight read the strange prompt in confusion. Surely, she had a tail, right? Well yeah, Dragons have tails don’t they? She anxiously waited as the prompt took a moment to display the words But you are now a Human. Starlight mentally ran through a list of the thousands of various races she had encountered as the Disciple of Clover the Clever; the vast many civilizations she had spent time with over the course of hundreds of years of life. What is a Human? The prompt changed to an ellipsis, causing Starlight to roll the eyes of her new body. Very helpful.

While waiting for a response from the magic message box, Starlight placed what she had thought to be a Dragon's hand between her legs, flat on the floor and felt something strange. The polished floor felt grainy, almost sandy. Lifting the hand back up to her face, she noticed a white dust almost like…Salt?

Noticing no reply from the message box, Starlight looked more carefully at her surroundings. The room was barely lit, but her keen eyes picked up the stumps of candles, dwindling incense burners, and the beheaded corpse of a chicken. Her eyes widened as she rose instinctively in shock. She looked at where she had been sitting and barely made out the telltale circle of salt, with an insignia crudely drawn in fresh blood. And then she saw the book laying open on the ground. Starlight leaned down and after a few tries picked up the book, glancing at the ritual it described.

It was black magic. Necromancy. Starlight felt angry, there were some lines that you just don’t cross in magic and the owner of the body she was now in had paid the highest price. The worst part was, they hadn’t even performed the right ritual.

What an idiot. Instantly, the text prompt reappeared. Who? The owner of this body. This is a ritual sealing circle not a ritual summoning circle. Huh? A sealing circle forces a soul into a body, permanently binding it to its host. The cost for doing this is the caster’s own soul. Whereas a summoning circle uses a sacrifice to summon an immaterial being in order to strike a bargain.

How do you know it is a sealing circle? Starlight gestured at various lines, The markings here and here as well as there, the insignia is backwards as well. As a result, this idiot paid their soul and in turn gave me this strange body. Stop saying that! I am not an idiot!

Starlight felt the blood in her veins turn to ice as she stared at the prompt. She had assumed the original soul of this body had created the prompt using magic, but as she stared at it, she now realized it had been talking to her the entire time. You did this? Yes. Why would you do such a thing? Because…

Starlight waited, but the soul seemed to be thinking. It didn’t make any sense to her that any creature would risk non-existence for any reason. What could this person possibly have needed so bad, they would attempt a bargain with Tartarus? Starlight’s eyes had grown more accustomed to the darkened room, and she noticed the bed in the corner was broken, with a mold-covered blood-stained rice sack for a mattress. Her eyes scanned the room, spotting what looked to be a floor mirror, though the surface was cracked, with a broken shard upon the ground next to it.

Struggling slightly, Starlight stumbled over to the mirror to look at herself, noticing the ellipses were still in the prompt. Shivering slightly, as she wobbled trying to keep her balance, Starlight gazed upon her new body. And was instantly mortified.

It was a female, and though Starlight didn’t know what a Human was, she judged from its height to be a young one, possibly no more than a school-aged filly who had just gotten a cutie mark. Her skin was covered in heavy bruises and cuts, while certain areas showed the horrible disfigurement of abuse. Her frame was gaunt and bony, and her ribs could be seen through her tight skin, a sign of severe malnourishment. Starlight noticed clumps of a ragged, frayed head of autumn colored hair were missing. A new prompt finally appeared.

Starlight looked at it and instantly she understood why the girl had done this. Why someone had been driven so far as to sacrifice their soul to call forth another. She just silently stared at the single world that the box showed, feeling all the pain and anguish behind it. Just one word: Revenge.

Comments

[TheDriderPony]

Interesting start.
Is this an original setting or a crossover with something?

[DougtheLoremaster]

11656470
An original setting. Well as far as I'm aware of anyway. I usually get told my thoughts remind someone of this or that, but in my mind at least this is my own original story.

[MatTheBook]

Got my interest