OSHA-Compliant Binding Circle
If there's one thing you can say about Starlight Glimmer, it's that she's no fool. Recovering sociopath, sure. Prone to substance abuse? Maybe a little. Cynical? Oh, that and more. But naive? Never. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to get one over on Starlight. Eleven, at least. So, of course, the moment she laid eyes on the artifact, she knew it'd require Safety with a Capital S.
Capital S is her mitten, named after what she utters before donning it, which begins with an S and ends with a "that's hot/cold/esoteric!" With it, she picks up the artifact from its place by the mailslot (where she stopped Trixie from sorting through Twilight's mail) and heads for the center of the foyer.
It's pretty obviously cursed. A cube, so black that it looks like a hole, except for the eye-searing white spirals. Spirals etched in such a way that, if you look a little closer, perhaps they're instead a scrawl, some secret to be read, the last secret, the one that will split the world open like a pomegranate and let you scoop out its sweet flesh, and the black, the crawling darkness beneath all those answers, the answer that renders each one before it a question... Really. Starlight isn't stupid.
Trixie spits out the latest copy of Semantics Bimonthly, which comes every two weeks or every two months, depending on the editor at the time. "That thing gives Trixie the jeebies."
"It's fascinating, right?" Starlight asks, placing her own burden at the center of the room. "And we're going to learn everything about it! But first..."
Above all, Starlight Glimmer is safe. Judging by the lack of proper equipment in the castle, Twilight Sparkle is very much not. So, Starlight starts her jaunty trot into Ponyville with Trixie trailing behind. Twilight's out shopping, but she said that if Starlight needed anything, most ponies in town would be happy to help, and Starlight isn't one to let a hypothesis go untested.
"Explain to Trixie again why you are allowed to sort through Twilight's mail while she is not."
"Magic of friendship," Starlight says for the third time around the chalk in her mouth. Talking to her best friend is a good auxiliary activity and pairs well with primary activities like controlling her emotions or drawing an OSHA-compliant Binding Circle.
"Then I can go through yours? Sunburst's sonnets are really—"
Starlight shoots her a look.
"... It's better to ask forgiveness than permission?" Trixie ventures, asking for neither.
Starlight closes the circle, forming a thaumaturgic seal, then spits out her chalk. "Who says that?"
"You did," Trixie explained, pointing at the Luminiferous Ether Turbulence Inducer. "When you borrowed Pinkie's stand mixer."
Starlight frowns at the LETI like she expects it to defend her. Which it will, by keeping the ether surrounding the artifact messy. The other four instruments she's nudging into place around the circle's circumference have similar roles (and, admittedly, similar origins), keeping things safe on the various layers of magical strata that the artifact might influence.
With that done, it's time to shore up the circle. They say safety regulations are written in blood, but they don't specify what kind, so Starlight visited Fluttershy's Sad Puppies Blood Donation Drive and outlined exactly what would happen if she didn't give her a few bags. Clear communication is an essential component of safety, after all, and she's sure the puppies will be impressed by whatever she gleans from her study.
Safety regulations are written in Latin, too. Because they're so old.
All that's left is the standard conduits channeling the five instruments to the central Phase-Orientation Pentagon. All in chalk, thankfully. She's running out of puppy blood, and Twilight wouldn't appreciate improvisation in her foyer.
Starlight keeps her back to the artifact as she works. Vision is the primary vehicle for compulsion spells, so proper ocular warding is essential before you even think of glancing at an artifact. Really. Check the OSHA guidelines on Autophantasiac Objects.
"Trixie has a bad feeling about this."
"You know it confuses Trixie when you do that," Trixie whines from her perch on top of a bookshelf.
Starlight rolls her eyes. "This is all perfectly standard." She flicks some switches on the Super Easy Cipher Squeezy 6000. "Could find it in any OSHA handbook."
Trixie looks at her blankly.
"The Occult Safety and Health Administration?" Starlight provides. "I know you're just a hedge magician, Trixie, but even you should know that."
Tuning out Trixie's grumbling, she finishes all the safety measures and is left with a warm glow of satisfaction and a set of uncomfortable questions, like a slightly-too-old foal waking up in a wet bed. Where did she hear about OSHA? What's a LETI, or a Binding Circle? And if those things aren't real... What's she standing in the center of?
Starlight whips her head around at the 'safety instruments' — five, evenly spaced around what's obviously a pentagram, with the artifact glowing smugly in the center. She makes a break for the edge of the summoning circle, hooves ringing on crystal as dark energy arcs up around the rim. Trixie's trying in vain to pull one of the strange instruments out of alignment when the portal opens, sweeping them up in a vortex of energy.
"... Trixie would like an apology," Trixie says, demonstrating a remarkably strong stomach.
Starlight wonders how accurately she can puke.
Trixie clears her throat. "The Great and Powerful Trixie demands—"
"We're stuck in a tornado of dark energy! From an artifact I was clearly under the influence of!"
"Ohhhhh nooooo! I'm becoming disillusioned with the magic of friendship! Only you can stop me from regressing into villainy! Or Twilight will be super disappointed!"
"I'm home!" sings said Princess as she steps into the maelstrom of otherworldly energy that her foyer has become. She looks up, blinking with bemusement at the culprits swirling above her. "... Starlight, have you been going through my mail again?"
Author's Note
much love to all the good horror fics where twilight studies a cursed artifact with no safety goggles or anything
