Unlike What We Remember

The night after Skipper’s arrest

It had taken him a long time, but he was finally free.

Well, free was a relative term, considering that he was in a cell again. But it was a different cell, built for only one pony. The other cells were empty, and the guards didn’t seem actively malicious. They’d pushed through some food at one point, and though he should have been more careful, he’d eaten it without pause because he was just too hungry.

He felt fine afterwards, so they probably hadn’t poisoned him. His paranoia had saved him before, though, and he’d have to keep it up until he was certain he was truly free.

Sleep never came easy to him. He’d always slept with one eye open as long as he could remember, fearful of a rival coming for his head. But it had been getting a little easier lately. Being able to see the moon, even through the cell’s small window, helped. Seeing it, he felt assured that the moon would be watching over him and protecting him, somehow, and that knowledge helped him drift into the other world.

His dream quickly took shape. There wasn’t really a point to it, now that Mitsuyoshi was gone, but he needed to stay in practice, just in case. Anything could happen out there. The pit was as it always looked, the pristine white sand covering it like a fine layer of dust. The piece of white chalk sat near the edge. Slowly, he picked it up and began to scrawl on the wall.

Mitsuyoshi had taught him to read and write, a skill he’d never thought would come in handy. Still, he practiced it as much as he could, using the dream chalk to keep a diary of sorts. He never kept it between dreams, but he needed to practice somewhere. As he picked up the chalk, though, he froze in place as a familiar feeling came over him.

“You’re dead,” he said out loud. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re dead! I watched you die!”

Strangely, it was a female voice that responded. “What are you talking about?”

He turned around, a look of fear in his eyes. Someone else had invaded his dreams. They were meant to be a sanctuary, for him and his mentor only, but... The purple mare reminded him a bit of Mitsuyoshi at first, but she was clearly someone else. “Get out,” he said quietly, his eyes narrowing.

“What?”

“Get out of my head! Get out, get out, get out!” He charged at her with a flap of his wings, and she focused a spell which he knew would immediately wake them both. Despite that, he still shot awake in the cell, wings flared out and screaming.

Calm down! he thought, as he had several times before. It was just a dream! Nobody’s trying to kill you right now! Slowly, he got his breathing back under control, taking stock of his surroundings. The cell hadn’t changed, but the guard outside had. There was a white pony with bat-like wings standing outside the cell. She looked familiar to him, and not just that she looked like him with wings he’d never seen on a pony before.

She said something, and it took him a while to realise it was Common Equis. He’d heard it a little bit back and forth, and he slowly switched his mindset into the other language. “...but I didn’t want to believe you could do something like that,” was all he understood of her last sentence. She looked at him with her head slightly tilted, and added, “But I don’t know if you even understand me anymore. It’s like my brother is gone, and something else is in there instead.”

The word ‘brother’ affected something in his head again, and he quickly started, shuffling towards the cell’s bars as quickly as he could. “Brother...” he said, then suddenly clutched his head, rocking back and forth as he tried to think. He had seen her before they’d fought, after all. It was fuzzy, and hard to remember any specifics from so long ago...

“Who are you?” the bat pony asked, and he quickly shot up again.

“I remember you. You were...” he started, and then stopped again. He’d lost the memory after all. “No, I can’t remember anything. Nothing from before...” He shook his head as he trailed off. “No. I’m not going back.”

“What happened to you, Skipper?” she asked, placing a hoof against the bars. On some impulse, he reached out and touched hers. “What did you go through?”

“No,” he repeated, and that was all he said. He couldn’t tell her about it. It was his burden to bear; the price of his freedom. Nobody else would know.

They stayed there for a while, until the other pony finally spoke again. “They said you can come out, if you promise not to start any more fights,” she said. “Can you do that for me?” He nodded slowly. He hadn’t started that last fight he was in, anyway. Unbidden, Mitsuyoshi’s first lesson returned to his head: never start a fight, but always finish it. That had gotten him into trouble...

The sound of the door creaking open brought him back, and he slowly stepped out of the cell, stretching his wings out as far as he could. He nodded to... his sister, and she nodded in return, leading him out of the dungeon. Every so often, she paused to say something to another guard, but he wasn’t really listening.

When the guard suddenly pointed a question at him, he realised he’d been mumbling, and stopped self-consciously. After that, he’d tried to keep his mouth closed the rest of the way, but he didn’t know if he’d succeeded or not. The walk had taken a while, and he didn’t recognise any of his surroundings. It didn’t even seem like the same place as the dungeon had been, with the gilded lining, open spaces and frequent tapestries, stained-glass windows and other artworks. For a while, he just stared open-mouthed at the sun streaming through one window in particular, depicting a purple mare with both wings and a horn, standing under a lunar eclipse.

“That mare, from the dream...” he mumbled to himself, before catching his mouth with a hoof.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“No... Keep going.” He tried to keep his head down as long as he could so he wouldn’t be distracted by the artworks on the walls, but the carpets seemed almost as ornate, and he found himself getting lost in their patterns a few times. Eventually, he came to focus on the white mare, following her as closely as he could and shutting out all external distractions.

When they finally stopped walking, she’d led him outside, into a garden full of statues. There were three other ponies there; two Unicorns and another of those bat-winged ponies. He remembered the grey Unicorn and bat pony from a few nights ago. Considering the fancier jacket that the white Unicorn was wearing, he was probably their boss. They’d been tougher opponents than he’d expected, and another one around leading them would only make things worse. “I’m not looking for a fight,” he reminded himself.

“Well, that’s a good start, anyway,” the white Unicorn said. “So, you’re the mysterious Cloud Skipper. I thought you were just an imaginary friend of these three.”

“...Cloud Skipper...” The name seemed to come easily from him. “It’s as good a name as any,” he murmured. Now he finally had a name to go by, which would at least make it easier if he had to talk to anyone else.

“Anyway, you’ve caused quite a stir in the past couple of days,” the Unicorn continued. “Beating up a group of ponies at Donut Joe’s tends to give you a bad reputation. We can’t let you back out into Canterlot for a while, even flying.”

He... no, Cloud Skipper looked into the sky for a moment, seeing a group of ponies doing a fly-by. All of them were wearing identical suits of golden armour that made it difficult to see through the glare given off by their reflections. He stretched out his wings again, but didn’t take off. He hadn’t had much reason to fly in a long time, and he didn’t know if he still could.

“Are you there?” Skipper snapped back to attention, and nodded quickly. “Well, as I was saying, we can’t keep you in the dungeon any longer than we have, but we also don’t have much room around the palace. Ponies would talk if somepony like you stayed in a guest room...”

He trailed off again, wondering what their armour was for. Clearly, they were soldiers of some sort, and that meant they all knew how to fight. Maybe he’d fit in among other fighters, but they wouldn’t take him on after he’d beaten up those three before. The white one didn’t seem to hold any kind of grudge against him, though. He had to take the chance. “I want to join your outfit,” he said suddenly, interrupting the Unicorn.

“Pardon me?”

“You know those guys in the armour, right? You’re all soldiers. I know how to fight, but I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t have to. I want to join your outfit so I can put my skills to use.” Skipper looked the Unicorn dead in the eye.

He broke off to look at the other three ponies first. His sister was the first to speak. “I can take responsibility for him. I’m Day Guard already, and besides, we still owe you for getting Donut Joe to drop the charges. Right?” The other two ponies nodded slowly, uncertainly. “There. Have him go through training, see what he already knows. He’s a Guard brat like us. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Guard brat?” Skipper asked. “What’s that mean?”

Sister just laughed nervously. “Well, I mean, he at least knows how to handle himself...”

“I don’t know, Florence,” the Unicorn replied at length. “He seems too... dangerous. But if you’re willing to vouch for him, I suppose I can pull some strings. If he does snap, though...”

“I can manage whatever you can throw at me,” Skipper said, placing a hoof over his chest. “And I won’t snap. I don’t start fights. But I do finish them.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.  The last fight you were in nearly killed somepony. If these three hadn’t been here to stop you...”

“I can stop him before anything goes wrong,” Sister—no, Florence quickly interjected. “Promise, on my honour as a Guard. Ex solis invictus.” She placed a hoof over her chest in a similar gesture, and the Unicorn sighed and turned away.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said finally, walking back towards the castle. “In the meantime, I’ll expect you to keep him out of trouble.”

~

Twilight hadn’t expected to see anything like that during her dream studies with Luna. But somehow, a Pegasus had detected her intrusion, and he’d seemed so violent that she couldn’t get out of his head fast enough. All she could tell was that he’d been in the dungeon before, and that meant he was probably dangerous. If he could detect dream invasions, he was even more dangerous to the two of them.

When Twilight arrived at Luna’s tower, though, the Princess of the Night was preoccupied with what she’d seen in her own dream explorations that night. “Twilight, something bad is happening,” she said. “We need to tell Celestia, as soon as possible. You’ll remember this message, won’t you?”

“Uh, yes?” Twilight asked. “But actually, there was something I wanted to...”

“It can wait for a serial kidnapping case.”

“What?!”

“I passed through the dreams of no less than six ponies who were woken up suddenly. The last I saw of their waking moments was invariably having a black bag shoved over their head. Nopony does that as a prank, and not in six different cities on the same night. This needs royal attention.” Twilight nodded dumbly. Compared to what she’d seen, this was definitely more important.

~

Day 1 of freedom

I found an empty book while I was riding on the train. Decided I might as well keep a record of what I’ve done, just in case I ever need to know what happened again. I’ll never forget what came before, but I might not remember this. I want to remember, though. I want to remember everything. It’s the only way I can live.

There was a pony nice enough to let me ride with him on the train, even though he didn’t know me. I believe he said his name was Kirei. He also gave me the book and a quill, which he’d given magic to not run out of ink. He didn’t know if I knew how to write, but it was something that Mitsuyoshi had taught me. I didn’t think it’d be useful at the time.

Shows how wrong I was not to trust Mitsuyoshi. He’s the only one I’ve ever been able to trust.

The train should get to a town called Baltimare in a few days. From there, Kirei told me to go on to Canterlot, the city on top of the mountain. I haven’t had a cause to stretch my wings in a long time, but hopefully I can still fly well enough.

Day 4

I finally made it to Canterlot, though I had to ride on another train. I rode on the roof, though, since they wouldn’t let me into the train itself. I could barely get off the ground so far, so it was the only way I could handle things. Still, coming to Canterlot should help me a lot, if Kirei wasn’t lying.

I don’t know anyone here, but it seems like a nice enough place. Plenty of ponies around, so I shouldn’t have any trouble staying hidden. Without any money, though, I’ll have to sleep wherever I can. Maybe there’ll be a low-lying cloud or two. I’ve seen a few other Pegasi sleeping on them, but I don’t know if I can reach them as I am...

Day 6

Well, it turns out that most ponies can’t handle themselves in a fight. That shouldn’t surprise me, but considering how badly they wanted one...

Anyway, no point thinking about it now. I got arrested for it, and I thought for sure that I’d be taken back there. But now I finally have something I can do. Canterlot’s a safe city, as far as I can tell, and being around other soldiers, even just those in training, should help me fit in.

I wonder just how many of the Day Guard are capable of killing, if they have to. Canterlot seems like such a peaceful city to me... That sister of mine, Florence, she didn’t look like she had any kind of killer instinct. I can see it in their eyes, or I did before, but now nobody has it, anywhere I look.

I’d better get some sleep while I can.

Cloud Skipper. I mustn’t forget that, either, because it’s my name. My real name. Or at least, as real as Hakumen ever was. It’s the name that everyone’ll be calling me now, anyway. Hakumen is gone. Hakumen is gone.

...But as long as I remember him, or that he was ever me, he isn’t truly gone yet. And I may still need his strength before long.