Prologue: How it happened.
It was a normal autumn day in Ponyville. Birds were singing, the tree leaves were golden brown, the sun was shining brightly, and the Running of the Leaves was coming up in a few days. Things couldn't seem any better if anyone tried to make it so. At least, that's what Star thought, trotting her way to class. She didn't go to school often, as better things were always seeming to happening involving her friends.
As she was trotting, she heard a familiar female voice call her name, and in an ugly tone at that. She turned around, and saw it was Diamond Tiara and her sidekick, Silver Spoon. She mentally sighed and prepared herself to tell them off. Or turn them into ponycicles again. That was good too.
"Well, the little cockroach decided to come back to school for once." stated the pink filly, with obvious mock in her voice. "It looks like it. Hey, bug! Go ruin somepony's life or something so you can get your damn stars out of here!" the silver filly added. Star kept on walking, trying to ignore them. Those two started picking on her the moment she came into the classroom for the first time, two years ago, for being a changeling who doesn't disguise herself. She dislikes the idea of disguising as another for any reason other than an emergency, but ponies seem to think that's all they do.
Once she was past the rude fillies, she pulled a forehoof to her face, looking at her star-shaped holes. She wondered why her holes were so different than other changelings. Her biological mother and father had normal circle holes, but why didn't she? She then stomped the hoof back at the ground for thinking of her biological parents. "Not gonna think about them again..." Star muttered to herself quietly, and continued walking.
She finally reached the school, and walked in the front door. A lot of other foals were there before her, but class hadn't started yet, so all was good. She walked over to her desk and sat in the chair, and looked around the room. She noticed glances around the room, but that was normal, even after being in the same classes with her for two years.
A few minutes passed, and the bell rang. Class was starting,and the teacher began her lesson over...something. The moment the teacher began, Star had put her head in her forelegs, and fell asleep. Every 15 minutes or so, the teacher would ask her a question over the current lesson, and every time, Star would wake up, and answer the question right.She was excellent at answering questions.
At about 11:00, the bell rang for lunch and recess. The young changeling nymph can't exactly eat anything, as her kind feeds only on love, but she herself doesn't have to be the target of the love to feed off it. All the foals ran out to the same playground, pulled out their lunchboxes, and ate. Star, however, growing bored of school, used the opportunity to leave the school grounds.
Trotting along, she ended up at her, and her friends, favorite spot to meet. At the bridge nearby the town hall. Star jumped onto the bridge's railing and laid on her belly, spreading her clear insectinoid wings and sunbathing. Her race was cold-blooded, after all, and she was cold from the chilling seasonal air. She laid there for a good bit, keeping a relaxed smile on her lips, before eventually nodding off into a nap.
She awoke a few hours later to a white stallion next to her on the bridge.
"Hi Star!" the stallion said in an upbeat tone. "Oh...Hey Peaceful..." Star responded groggily. She wiped her icy blue eyes, and looked at him. He was a rather normal sized unicorn stallion with a white coat, black mane, one yellow eye, one blue eye. His cutie mark was one of an interesting pattern, although Star didn't really mean to ask her friend that question.
"So. How are you Peaceful?" She asked her closest friend. "Good. And you?" He responded in a continued upbeat voice. "I'm good, thanks for asking." She replied. Peaceful then trotted over to the other side of the bridge and sat on the other side's railing. Both unicorn and changeling just stared at each other for a bit, before Star broke the silence with a question. "Have any ideas on how to break the boredom?" "I do have an idea..." Peaceful stated, trailing off a bit in voice, before resuming. "But even I'm not sure it'll fix our boredom..." he finished his statement. "I don't care right now, I'm soooooooooooo booooooooooooored." the nymph responded, half pouting. "Okay, okay...here's my idea..." the white unicorn started saying. "I learned of this spell, that supposedly can disarm the traps off those ancient scrolls I find...want to see if it'll work?" He told the nymph. "Sure." was her response. "Mkay..." his horn glowed, and an ancient scroll appeared before him in his hooves. His horn glowed again, and a white flash occurred, while Star watched closely the entire time. "The curse off this one should be removed now." he stated, half sure of the proper result. "Ooo, I wanna read it!" the nymph said excitedly. Peaceful thought a moment, weighing the chances of the curse still being there, then said "Alright, but be careful about it.". He levitated the scroll to the still cozy nymph, where she grabbed it in her own magic. She pulled the scroll to in front of her, opened the scroll and lightly skimmed the text.
She didn't even really take in the ancient information on it, but then, a small hole in what looked like the fabric of the universe was created, in the space between the two friends. They both looked up, the unicorn in slight horror of the trap that was still on the scroll, and the changeling in wonderment and curiosity. However, that look of wonderment was quickly changed to fear when she realized she was being sucked into the portal. She screamed while Peaceful desperately tried to close to rip in the universe and hold onto the nymph. Despite his effort, Star was pulled entirely into the portal, and the rip disappeared soon after. Peaceful, panting from all the magic force he was using to save his friend, quickly realized three things: One, he screwed up big time. Two, his fiancee would not be happy he accidentally sent their friend somewhere. And three, Star's adopted mother would probably literally kill him for this. All in all, not a good situation.
Star opened her eyes, and found herself floating in what looked like total blackness. Nothing created a source of light, not even her horn when she attempted to create a light herself. She attempted to use her wings to guide her in a direction, but to no avail, she couldn't. She continued floating along, unable to go anywhere but the direction she was being pulled to, until she hit what felt like the edge of a bubble. She was forced against the bubble, half squishing her. She was in intense pain from this, and fell unconscious from this. Her body eventually was forced inside the bubble, and a change of the surroundings was in order for her when she awoke.
