Welcome to Distopia

Even with a fuzzy head from waking up, John felt that something- No, a few things felt off. He squeezed his eye shut to keep the light out. It didn't help much though. His head ached, half his face hurt, and his right arm felt almost swollen. Thankfully he was on a very soft bed.

"Blech..." He groaned out, cracking his eye open. His vision was blurry, but he could see a high, vaulted white ceiling. Out of the corner of his vision he could see the fluttering of white curtains in a window. He lolled his head over and saw it was more of a doorway that lead onto a small balcony with stone railing. The evening sun was pouring directly into his face however so he squeezed his eye shut with a grumble.

Wait...

Eye?

His eye snapped open. His only slightly sore left hand came up from under the sheets and felt around his face. The left half felt fine, though something was still off.

The right...

Nope.

He tugged his hand away as if burned. He wanted to see it first.

He did get a good look at his hand though. It wasn't his normal "cobbled together" biped form. It was almost... sleeker. His hand was more of a hand rather than a claw. The chitin looked more like black skin.

"Finally, you're awake."

Solaire's voice made him jump and his head snapped to the foot of the bed where Solaire himself was was standing. The knight walked around to the side of the bed and sat in a chair that John happened to have missed.

"You don't have to move it's okay." Solaire held out a had.

John, in response, struggled a bit to scoot back and sit up anyway. That made the sheets roll off his chest.

He froze.

In the center of his chest was a solid black circle surrounded by a ring of orange light that made the whole thing look like an eclipsed Sun. That wasn't as shocking as what really caught his eye. Where the left half of his chest looked relatively normal, the right half was swollen with bulges of chitin that seemed to emphasize his ribcage and pectoral muscle. He followed the change to his shoulder which was also swollen. This looked like it was muscle however. The same went for his strangely long arm that had a bulky bicep and tricep. His elbow bore a curved knob of chitin that curved back towards his shoulder. His forearm seem stretched out, almost thin compared to the rest of his arm.

His hand slipped free of the covers. It was wide-palmed and bore two long, thick fingers, and a just as thick thumb. The knuckles and joints of the fingers had thick knobs of chitin, making flexing the hand a little awkward and uncomfortable.

John immediately shoved the thing back under the covers and looked at Solaire.

"I'm... sorry, John. I'm so sorry." Solaire said, bowing his helm. "That was The Serpent- Discord's last gift to you."

John remained silent, trying not to feel the ungainly thing attached to him.

"I should have been faster. I should have done more." The god continued.

"Do... you have a mirror?" John asked quietly.

Solaire paused and nodded. With a gesture of his hand a full-length body mirror rolled over next to the bed. Taking a breath John looked into it.

The right half of his face was almost skeletal. There was no cheek over his sharp teeth. His snout had a hole where the right half of his nose should be. His "eye" was an empty socket. No, not exactly empty, an orb of purple light mirrored the movements of his other eye. Noting his other eye, he saw that it wasn't a solid color anymore. It looked human-ish, with an iris of bright blue, ringed in silver on the outer edge. He also saw what looked like a fin atop his head. He had blue membranous fin on top of his head like a mohawk. The fin itself stopped just about the six-edged blue gem in his forehead.

John tossed the sheets aside and scooted over to the edge of the bed.

"You don't have to get up." Solaire protested.

"I'm getting all this now so I can process!" Just snapped, though his voice shook a bit.

He stood up and looked himself over. He could called himself human, were it not for his pony-ish head, black chitin plates, digitigrade legs ending in hooves, and lack of external genitalia. He felt like he was a little taller than before. He saw that the chitin around his stomach and lower back was the same blue color of his head fin. He had a tail like some kind of blue silk hang off his backside, and he also saw that his massive right arm hung down to his knees. The damned thing also made him feel terribly off-balanced.

Both fists, normal and abnormal, clenched as he let out a shaky breath. His sat back down on the bed with a thump.

A tear rolled out of his eye and dripped onto the sheets.

There came . weird feeling, like ghostly arms wrapping themselves around him. The ghostly arms hugged him softly.

'It's going to be okay.'

John blinked. He knew that voice.

"You're inner conscious, whatever you'd like to call him, has been a great help." Solaire said as he walked around the bed to sit next to John and put an arm over the mutated bugs shoulders.

'I figured that I've graduated from survival and self-preservation, to happiness, contentment, and mental health. You're going to need it.'

John leaned over and rested his head against Solaire's chest. "What do I need to know?" He asked, not processing much but asking anyway.

"Well, Lorraine did a fantastic job sealing up all the physical, mental, and magical gaps Discord could use to use you again. Not to be outdone I placed more than a few of my own seals, as well as the great seal on your chest." Solaire explained.

"You given me the fucking Dark Sign." John monotoned.

"The... What?" Solaire asked, sounding confused.

'I'll remind you to show him Dark Souls when you two have time.'

"Hmmmm." John hummed. "What's that all do?"

"Well Discord can't get to you in any way, shape, or form." Solaire replied. "On the contrary, with the amount of seals on and in you, you might just actually disrupt his presence in general."

'Anti-Chaos-Mage.'

"That do anything else to me?" John sighed, looking out the window and blinking slowly at the unmoving evening sun.

"You regular changeling magic is unaffected. However beyond minor cosmetic changes, your Primordial nature is for the most part sealed. With one exception."

John raised his right arm, which felt rather heavy at the moment. "This thing."

"That it is. You will be able to change that to a point. I do not know how though. It resisted my changes though, your conscious could effect it to a degree." Solaire said, putting a hand on John's outstretched hand hand lowering it to the bed. "I apologize. There's only so much I can know about a species that actually predated myself."

John blinked. "Huh?"

'John, your an original Primordial, Pre-Discord fuckery. That and... You're now a Proto-King.'

"You evolved, but that might be thanks to me." Solaire explained as John shifted his head to look up at him. "See. In a manner of speaking, I adopted you."

"Huh?" The bug repeated.

"To properly create the seals I infused you with my own magic, effectively making you one of my children. Though your Inner Light, changeling magic, and your consciousness's own magic supersedes my own."

John frowned. "Own magic?"

'I can do stuff with water. Since I'm attached to the Primordialness, and they were original water-based, before coming on land that is.'

"So I'm kind of a fucked up demi-god?" John asked, shifting to prop up his right arm better.

"Well... You were already, you just weren't aware of it. Now that you're aware..." Solaire paused then shrugged.

"You gonna make me go fight monsters?" John looked back up at Solaire's helm.

"Of course not." Solaire shook his head. "I am not going to put any kind of onus of destiny upon you. I just want you to live your life, whatever choice you wish to make I will support you... within reason of course."

"Well there goes my plans for making a harem of princesses." John deadpanned, before chuckling tiredly.

'Oh my God, he made a joke.'

"You're going to be alright." Solaire said standing up. "But for now I believe you should rest more."

John blinked. "What about Lorraine, and everyone else for that matter?"

"Time functions differently here. And as to Lorraine she's fine. She safe and with friends. You don't have to worry about her. As to Gilda and Thorax, they're worried but they've been informed by the Thieves and Celestia's son." Solaire replied with a small chuckle. "You can stay here as long as you need."

"Where... are we?" John asked scooting back to get back under the bedsheets.

"My home plane. Astora." Solaire said, almost sounding sad as he walked out of the room.

"Huh." John blinked as he flopped back onto the pillow.

'Definitely need to show him Dark Souls.'

"That just sounds rude." John commented with a yawn.

'Yeah... Probably.'

"Soooo, what are we going to call you?"