Slave Starlight

It turned out that Starlight was exceptionally clumsy when using only her hooves for anything. That was evident when Anon walked into the kitchen to grab a coffee a couple of hours later.

As a result, he should’ve expected what he found. Starlight was currently sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hooves, her mane starting to stick out a bit. There was half a pile of washed plates next to the sink on one side, not in the drying rack. The cutlery and cups and other stuff was all still in the sink, which was also full to the brim with soapy water which was at best lukewarm.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out there was quite a lot of dampness on the table around where Starlight was sat. She’d actually been crying from the look of everything. Seeing the poor pony in such a state caused any annoyance Anon had to fly right out the window. How could he be mad at her like this?

Completely ignoring the state of the washing up, and his need for coffee, he walked over to where Starlight was sat, grabbing and dragging a chair over as he went. He sat down and actually put his arm around her, which made her jump.

He kind of wondered how he didn’t hear her at all while he was reading. Deciding to ignore that as well, he spoke up.

“I can guess what you’re crying about, so I’m not gonna say it. I’m not a bad person, Starlight, although I may be a bit of a sarcastic asshole at times. I’m not mad at you any more, and I’m not gonna get mad just because you couldn’t do washing up or some other menial chore. While you’re here, as long as you don’t try anything or wreck my shit, I’ll be as nice to you as possible. I’ll also help you to become accustomed to doing things only with your hooves, as far as I can help with that, that is.”

She didn’t say anything. Anon sighed.

“Yeah, I’m beyond bad at cheering people up. Unfortunately, these circumstances are far from ideal, for both of us, although you definitely drew the short straw.”

She did say something this time.

“I don’t hate you. I hate myself. And Twilight as well for ruining my life. Although if I wasn’t such a screw up then she wouldn’t’ve needed to ruin it.”

Wow, that’s the best answer I’ve managed to get out of her so far. She blames herself? Well, that’s one good step to redemption; at least she recognises that she fucked up. Anon thought to himself as he thought of something to say that would hopefully get her to elaborate.

“Well, that’s good to hear at least. T-that you don’t hate me, I mean.” Good job, retard. “Well, you have a chance to, uh, fix yourself so-to-say now. Why don’t you tell me about what happened? I might be able to help. All I’ve heard is a load of shit from Twilight and her cohort that consisted of ‘she enslaved a village of ponies and stole their cutie marks for no reason’.”

That got her to raise her head And look at Anon. “You don’t care?” She said, sounding a bit in awe.

“If you’d’ve seen some of the shit that some people have done in my world and they’ve walked away free, what you did would look like all you did was fart really loudly in class in comparison.”

Surprisingly, she actually giggled a little at what you said. We’re actually getting somewhere! Maybe I can do this whole ‘cheering up’ thing after all.

“Was your world really that bad?”

“Fuck no. It was about a thousand times worse. From what I’ve been able to tell in the time I’ve been here, Equestria is like a utopia. Crime is nearly non-existent, everyone appears to always be happy, there’s no pollution, you’re all one united nation instead of being split up, and I could go into many, many other details that make this place better than my world.”

“I would actually be quite interested to learn about your world. If I’m gonna be stuck here indefinitely, I at least want to learn about the strange being I’m living with.”

“It’s nice that you’re finally coming around. I really don’t want us to be at each-other’s throats all the time, that would get very tiresome very quickly.”

“While you’ve been reading I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And crying. I decided pretty much the same thing. I also realised that despite your anger towards me, it’s not your fault that I’m in this situation, it’s mine, so I’d rather make this as painless for you as possible.”

“You know, you really don’t sound like a villain at all. As I said before, Twilight and her friends made it sound like you were some horrible pony that didn’t care for others and only cared about herself and her magic.”

“That’s because I’m not a villain. I’ve made some mistakes in the past, and I’ve tried solving them in all the wrong ways. I realised that quite some time ago, but by that point it was far too late. I’d already started my old village, and taken the cutie marks of several ponies. I hated myself for what I did, but if I ever told them, they would’ve probably killed me.”

Anon’s eyes opened quite wide upon hearing that. “So let me guess: as a result, you had no choice but to keep the town going, and when Twilight and her friends showed up, you panicked and thought she was going to go back and tell Celestia about the town, and then you’d get arrested and trialed for it?”

“Wow, you were pretty much spot on. Aside from the fact that because I’d been doing it for so long, I had actually kinda brainwashed myself in a way. I’m not trying to make what I did sound like it wasn’t my fault, but at the time I genuinely thought I was going to be doing them a favour. It took them finally beating me to un-brainwash myself to realise what I was actually doing, and the consequences. I also, um, may have thought that you were some kind of monster or something at first. After today, I can actually see that you’re not.”

Anon now just sat there and looked at Starlight. A few minutes ago he didn’t even know this pony that had pretty much appeared out of nowhere. She also thought of him as a monster when she first arrived. Man, I must’ve given off a pretty bad impression for that, he thought.

“Well, this explains a hell of a lot. I’m actually really glad you finally saw that I’m not a monster, and just a regular guy stuck in some weird utopian horse land.

It was at that point that he realised he still had his arm around her. He withdrew it quickly, going a bit red. “Uhh, sorry.” What the fuck was that? When you carried her back home from the castle you were absolutely fine, now you jolt back and fucking blush just from having your arm around her while comforting her. You fucking weirdo. At least wait a while before you start falling in love with the girl you just practically enslaved.

After a few seconds of sitting there in awkward silence, Anon finally got up, stretching as he did. “Well, at least we’ve now got a few things sorted out. I see you didn’t really manage to do the washing up, so I’ll just do it myself now.”

Starlight sat there watching Anon in mild curiosity as he did the washing up. She was so used to using magic for everything that seeing a strange creature with hands manipulating things as easily as she did with magic kind of intrigued her.

As Anon was scrubbing a plate down, he spoke up: “You know, I don’t know why I didn’t do this last night. Well, I do: I was too cold and tired to care. But either way, if you’re going to be living here permanently you can’t keep sleeping on the couch every night. I have a guest bedroom upstairs that you can have. You can do what you want to it as long as it doesn’t interfere with anything. I’ll help you move stuff around and shit if you want as well.”

“Thank you. I would like to have my own room. I genuinely thought you were going to make me sleep on the couch or on the end of your bed the entire time I’m here…”

“Hey, you can sleep on the end of my bed if you want, only I don’t know if I snore so I may keep you up.”

“No, I think I’ll take the guest bedroom.” She said, blushing a bit. “I truly am glad though that you’re a decent, er, pony?”

“Person.”

“Person. After last night, and now this morning I was coming to dread what life might be like here.”

Anon continued washing up the plates. “Yeah, unfortunately you ended up seeing me when I was hella tired last night. And then this morning was pretty obvious. I guarantee I’m a decent guy once you get to know me.”

-

Things significantly improved after that much-needed conversation, for both of them. Anon went about doing the chores which he had put off for a few days (namely doing the laundry, tidying up his room and cleaning the house a bit. Starlight tried her best to help him where she could, however being without magic meant Starlight was very limited on what she could do.

She could still use her mouth, and use her hooves quite clumsily, but that was still enough to help with the non-sensitive jobs, such as cleaning the floors. Anon still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of a magical vacuum cleaner. He also couldn’t wrap his head around the difference between the magic in devices like the vacuum cleaner and his fridge, and unicorn magic, and why his apparent ‘immunity’ to unicorn magic didn’t apply to in-world magic.

That was where they were at now: cleaning the living room. Starlight was using her mouth to manoeuvre the somehow very quiet vacuum cleaner around the carpet while Anon was using a feather duster to dust off the higher places.

“Hey, I got a question for you, if you know the answer.” Anon said randomly, making Starlight jump a bit due to the relative silence they had been in for the last few minutes.

“Hm?” She said through a mouthful of handle, making Anon chuckle a bit.

“I know you probably don’t really want to talk about magic, but how come that vacuum cleaner works?”

Starlight stopped moving said device, pausing to think. She then dropped the handle (which was now covered in her saliva, which Anon tried his best to ignore). “What do you mean? It runs off magic, just like the fridge in the kitchen and every other appliance in Equestria.”

Anon gave her a deadpan stare. “I have a magic dampening field around me, remember. That’s why you cant use magic.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Well, I don’t know too much, but I know that there is a difference between in-world magic and unicorn magic. I never studied in-world magic, only unicorn magic, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t be affected by your field. Maybe your field is tuned to only disrupt unicorn magic?”

“Now you see to me that would suggest two things: one, that someone specifically engineered my ‘magic resistance field’ to only disrupt that of unicorns, and, well, alicorns, and two that these devices don’t truly run using magic. Back on my world, we had all of these same devices, and they were nearly identical. However, they ran off something we called electricity. To many people that might not know what electricity is, it might seem like magic.”

“Wow, that sounds really fascinating. How does this ‘electricity’ work?”

“It’s… quite complicated. I don’t know everything there is to know, but I knew more than your average person. I was studying to become an engineer when I got transported here a couple of years ago. That included learning about electricity.”

“We have all day today, you know. And tomorrow. And pretty much every day for the next, well, forever.”

“That’s a good point. Well, I have quite a lot of really interesting things that I could tell you about what humans accomplished without magic. But lets finish cleaning first.”

“Oh please do tell us! I’ll sort the cleaning out for you!” Came a relatively familiar voice from nowhere, making both Anon and Starlight jump. A couple of seconds later, there was a very bright flash, and suddenly Discord, the god of chaos was sitting there smugly in Anon’s favourite chair. He snapped his fingers once, and the vacuum cleaner that was on the floor grew a set of 4 legs, started up again by itself, and started moving round the room at breakneck speeds, including on the walls and ceiling.

Anon was just stood there looking at Discord with disapproval, occasionally glancing at the vacuum cleaner which was running around the place. Starlight was just standing there in shock, unable to make her mind up whether she should be looking at the crazy vacuum cleaner, or the amalgamation of creatures now sat in front of her. “Really, Discord? Now’s not really the best time for your shit.” Anon said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Aw, whats wrong, Anon? Don’t want any help doing the chores? Starlight here was happy enough to help.” He snapped his fingers again, causing Starlight to yelp as a very frilly maid suit appeared on her, making her blush profusely.

Anon’s eyes went a bit wide upon seeing Starlight in her new attire, and quickly averted his gaze back to Discord. “I mean, I guess you’re welcome to help, and you’re always welcome here, but why now?”

“I happened to hear you say that you were going to tell Starlight a few things about your home world. I’m interested in seeing what kind of chaotic stuff your species has come up with. Also I was bored.”

“How did you hear that? Have you been spying on me?!” Anon asked, getting quite annoyed at the fact that someone may have seen all the shit that’s gone on in the last day or so.

“Ah, details details. Why don’t you just get on with your stories?” He replied, waving his hand in dismissal, as well as snapping the fingers on his lion paw, making a stool appear in front of the chair, albeit on it’s side, which he then put his legs on, as well as a cup of what Anon assumed was tea.

Anon stared at Discord a little longer, hoping he was going to confess, but Discord just sat there with an expectant smile on his deformed face. Finally Anon gave in and sighed. “Fine, whatever, make yourself comfortable, not that you aren’t already doing so. Can I at least have my chair back?”

Discord started humming, tapping his chin in mock thought. In the end he said “Nah, I like your chair. Its comfortable. You can join your pet on the couch and pet her while you talk.”

That made Anon blush, and Starlight glared at Discord in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

“She’s not my pet.” Anon said, attempting to control the blush on his cheeks, but unfortunately it was way too severe for Discord not to notice.

“Oh, I see that blush, don’t try to hide it!” His grin grew much wider, and much more devilish. “You like the idea, don’t you? If you didn’t want me to assume she’s your pet then don’t put a collar on her.” He then snapped his fingers again, causing both Anon and Starlight to vanish, reappearing on the couch, with Starlight laying over Anon’s lap, and Anon holding a brush.

“Discord, please.” Anon half begged, just wanting to be rid of the draconequus as fast as possible.

“You’re no fun. Fine.” He then snapped his fingers again, causing Anon and himself to swap places, with Anon holding Discord’s cup of tea and his feet on the sideways stool, and Discord now petting Starlight on the couch, while Starlight was trying her best to get off.

“This isn’t better. And do you want to hear about my world or not?”

“Ugh, fiiiine. I’m done now.” He then snapped his fingers one last time, causing Starlight to teleport onto Anon’s lap on his couch. She stopped fidgeting andjust looked up at Anon with a pleading expression. Anon thought it was fucking adorable, but agreed with her anyway.

“Right, well, what I was going to tell Starlight about was electricity, which from what I can see, is very similar to your in-world magic.” Anon said mainly to Discord.

“Normal magic is so boring. Why can’t you talk about any wars you might have fought?” He asked, obviously not appealed by the thought of learning about what to him was ‘lesser magic’.

“Just shut up and listen. You might actually find it interesting.”

-

It turned out that Discord did enjoy the topic. Well, some of it anyway. He was quite interesting in finding out what kinds of machinery humanity had created, although the science behind it bored him immensely. Anon had been talking for what felt to him like about half an hour, but for Discord was an eternity. He was now actually asleep on the couch.

Starlight on the other hand was very interested in all of it, and was listening intently for almost the entire thing. Anon’s hand had actually started petting her head as he spoke as well.

“So let me get this straight. You have these machines which can show a world… within themselves?” Starlight asked, trying to wrap her head around what Anon was saying.

“Kind of. They show things that are stored on the machine, but it is merely a series of lights made to trick the eye. Its called virtual reality.” Anon explained as best he could.

“I don’t know of any magic that can do that…”

“It seems that our technology has made some advancements that even magic can’t do.” Anon chuckled, although secretly he was still quite disappointed that he will never be able to use the technology again.

They finally stopped talking after that, Anon’s throat actually starting to get sore after so long just talking. Discord was snoring in the background.

“I didn’t even realise Discord could sleep.” Anon said, glancing over at him as he gave off a particularly loud snore.

“Oh, I don’t.” He said, opening his eyes and sitting up, which also made both Anon and Starlight jump.

“But… You were just snoring.” Anon tried to reason.

“Intentionally. I had to make it look like I was sleeping.”

“Um. Why?”

“So you would think I was asleep, obviously. Are you done with your little talk?” He said, getting up and stretching, his body literally stretching like rubber.

“Uh, I guess. My throat’s getting kinda sore, and its getting late.” He glanced over at the clock which was now reading quarter to eight.”

“You call this late?!” He exclaimed, stopping his over-stretching. “You should come to my place some time. Time has no meaning there, so you can stay up as long as you like.”

“I’m good thanks, I like my sleep, and my time. It makes sense.”

“What fun is there in making sense though?”

“More than you can think of.”

Discord just sighed. “Well, I can see that my reason for staying is gone. Maybe I can head over and see if Fluttershy wants to have dinner with me.” He raised his talon to click his claws, but Anon stopped him.

“Actually, hold up a sec. Maybe you could help me understand this. Do you know why my magic dampening field only affects unicorn magic?”

“Of course I do. I know everything there is to know about magic.” He chuckled. “I designed it that way.”

It took Anon a few seconds for that to sink in. “Wait… you designed this magic field around me?!” Anon exclaimed, standing up off the chair, causing Starlight to fall off his lap with a squeak.

“Of course I did! No-one else could design a field that completely prevents unicorn and alicorn magic from being cast inside it.”

“Why?! Do you have any idea how much of a pain this has been for other ponies around me?”

“I’m probably the only creature that actually does know what it’s been like, because I’ve seen the chaos that is caused from it for ages. It’s a brilliant design I think, one of my better creations. I’ve sat there laughing many times as a result of it.” He was currently laughing quite a bit at the minute, although Anon was glaring at Discord something fierce.

“When did you put the spell on me?” He asked as calmly as he could.

“When you first arrived. Well, I guess I’ll get out of your manes. You two have some fun, kinky sex tonight! Tata!” He then snapped his fingers one last time and vanished.

Anon was left standing there, staring angrily at the spot where Discord was mere seconds ago. Starlight was standing on the floor, another massive blush on her cheeks.

“Anon? Are you okay?” She asked, shoving her muzzle into Anon’s leg, much like a cat would.

After a minute, Anon replied. “Well, at least I know how I got here now. I should have suspected he’d have something to do with it.” He then just started walking to the stairs. “Well, it is actually late, regardless of what he says, and I’m tired as fuck, so I think we should head to bed.”

“Is he always like this?”

“Mostly. Occasionally I can have a good laugh with the guy, but he’s generally just a cunt. And now I dislike him even more after essentially finding out he’s the reason I’m here in the first place.”

“Is it really that bad here?”

“Oh, no, this place is amazing, and in some ways I think he did me a favour bringing me here. This world is better than mine in many ways. Its just I’ll never get to see any of my friends and family anymore, or use all the technology I told you about earlier, and quite a few other things.”

“I probably wont either. Get to see my friends and family again, I mean. All my ‘friends’ hate me because I took their cutie marks and lied to them for years…”

“Try and make new friends, then. You can definitely consider me a friend, and I’m sure that Twilight would be willing to befriend you if you can prove to her you’re not evil and such.”

“T-thanks. It might be a little difficult being stuck in here all the time though.”

“Good point. And it wouldn’t exactly come off good if you tried to make friends while being attached to a leash outside.”

“Do I really have to wear that?” She said exasperatedly.

“Yes. At least for now. To me you appear to be much better than you were, but no offense I still don’t know if you’re just acting and trying to convince me to let you go out just so you can run away.”

“I understand…” She said dejectedly.

“When Twilight comes round you can try and prove to her you’ve, well, changed, or at least improved though.”

“I guess.”

“Maybe in time. But look, I’m actually getting quite tired and hungry, and I kinda wanna go and take a bath. I’ll shove something in the oven for us to eat, and take a bath while it’s cooking. Can you keep an eye on the timer and come and get me out of the bath when there’s about 5 minutes left on it?”

She just nodded in response. “Alright, lets go decide what to have.”