BridgeWorld

[993AB, Day 189]
She slowly woke in from the deeply warm comfort that surrounded her due to the sun shining in her eyes. Blinking, she tried to recall where she was but failed. The noise of something bubbling thickly, mixed with bouts of escaping steam, the strong scent of sulfur which was surprisingly pleasant, and the bright blue morning sky was totally baffling to her mind as she laid on her back. Puzzled by this, she raised her head to look about, and was even more confused by the stark basaltic landscape in which she found herself in. Looking down at herself, she saw that her lower body was soaking in a pool of glowing yellow-red lava.

"OHMYGOD!!" she screamed, scrambling to pull away, already knowing she was dead. What followed was the lava being splashed about as her legs and tail burst out of the molten rock.

…

Tail?

…

Stunned by what she saw, she looked over herself once more, only slowly for the sight to finally begin sinking into her mind that her body was not only not harmed by being immersed in liquid rock, but it wasn't her body, anymore, either.

…

"Four-footed stance? Scales? Tail? Wings!? Clawed feet and hands!!?? WhatthefuckamI!!!???" she screamed.

…

There were no answers to her questions other than echoes.

…

The shadow of the surrounding cliffs blocking out the sun finally got her attention and broke the utter fugue state she only just realized she had been stuck in for several hours.

…

She sat back on her hindquarters and used her hands to explore her face. There was definitely a long muzzle there, with a mouth filled with sharp teeth, horns on her head. Looking herself over, she noted that she indeed had a general dark blue scaly hide. There were wings, fore and rear limbs, thick heavy and long tail, and numerous dark blue crystal-like growths embedded in her hide in various places on her body. Her hands seemed serviceable for manipulation, despite the new thickness to her fingers and claws she now sported. Her toes, likewise, had wickedly powerful claws that certainly looked like they could do considerable damage to anything she might wish to set them against.

As she started walking around, she noticed that there were numerous flakes of black glass crinkling off her scales. Picking up a chip in her claws, she peered closely at it.

Like small slivers of glass… she thought, turning it over to look at it.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she walked back toward the pool of molten rock. She knew that she should be feeling the tremendous heat from it such that she should be getting burned alive being this close, but all she felt was just a gentle comforting warmth. After a moment to contemplate it, she impulsively dipped her hand in.

There was no searing pain. None at all. Just the feeling of a gentle warmth and the texture of the lava was like the consistency of thick heavy jam.

Pulling her hand out, she stared at the glowing glob of molten rock that quickly darkened, still feeling the warm taffy-like substance about her fingers as she wiggled them inside the mass.

After a while, the mass began putting uncomfortable pressure on her hand and she smashed it against the ground, shattering it and freeing her hand. Shaking off the dark shards of glass-like splinters, she looked closely at her hand again. There wasn't any sign of singing on the scales covering her extremity.

She had stood there staring in shock at her hand before she finally snapped out of her trance. Nervously looking around, she tried to find if there was anyone who witnessed what she had been doing. For some reason, she felt guilty for having played with a glob of lava, and she an uncontrollable urge that she didn't want to be caught playing with the stuff like that by anyone.

Looking about for anyone spying on her, she finally took in her surroundings. She was at the bottom of a small pit, the bottom of which contained the gently bubbling lava pool. On one side of the pool, there began a curved ramp with rough and worn, uneven steps partially circling the pit, leading up to a set of rocky crags enclosing the top and above that was mostly bright clear sky, but partially obscured by columns of smoke rising up from sources out of her view.

Curious, she shifted to her feet and hands, since her body seemed to favor that mode to move, and began walking up the ramp.

When she got to the upper level, she saw that she had come up from what was essentially, just one of hundreds of such smaller pits scattered about a huge volcanic cauldron that also had a suitably much larger sized lake of lava at its center. No other creatures were about that she could tell. Some pits had columns of dark smoke rising from them, while most others were void of such.

Looking about as she wandered around, she began getting the eeriest feeling—not that she was being watched, but rather that she had seen such a place—this place, specifically, before.

The eerie sense of déjà vu was strongest when her wanderings about the central lake of lava brought her to a wide, but shallow mound of what seemed to be precious gems. Her feeling said that it should be much higher than it was, but still, the amount and quality of such riches just lying about astounded her. She stopped to look at them, digging a little at the pile, trying to get an estimate of just how much wealth was in the pile, pausing to occasionally admire some choice crystals against the sun.

It wasn't until the sun suddenly set on her that she realized just how much time she had spent looking over those gems.

"What an idiot! I should've been looking for food, rather than playing with all this!" she spat out in disgust at herself.

When she looked up at the quickly darkening sky, however, she saw something that froze her spine: the moon that rose to hang over the landscape did so in mere seconds. Moreover, the markings on the lunar satellite shocked her to the core. She recognized those marks!

"LUNA!" she gasped in terror. That CAN'T be! she thought.

"I'M IN EQUESTRIA!?" she screamed.

She didn't know how long she stood staring at the cratered image of Nightmare Moon on the celestial orb, but the loud sound of a crunch and the spicy taste of something wonderous in her mouth made her glance down at the bitten ruby she had been holding since she was distracted from digging through the mound of gems.

"I—I—did I just bite this thing!?" she exclaimed. Only the flavor flowing over her tongue was making her drool, and she had to quickly swallow to avoid losing any of that wondrous taste. "I just ate a RUBY!? And—" She paused to let her tongue check her teeth. "—and I didn't break all my teeth!? Only a dragon can do that—"

A sudden sharp pain shot through her skull, making her drop the gems that she was holding to clutch at her head.

"I—I—I'm a DRAGON—YEE-EEAA-AAAHH-H-H-H!" she exclaimed screaming as the pain in her skull spiked to insane levels, and as she thrashed about in her agony, she fell into the lava….