Reforming Spell

The first thing I remembered was the last of my memories washing away as I emerged from the pool. Then, I stared in rapt attention at the pony across from me, the pony that I was copying. It was a mint unicorn, young adult female, well-groomed, with a completely blank look on her face. There was an invisible spark, and I realized that my reason to exist was to do nothing whatsoever.

So I stood there, staring blankly, as she was briefly outlined with a pink magical aura and collapsed in a heap. I felt nothing. I still felt nothing as the purple-furred alicorn responsible turned her horn on me next, and cast a series of spells, none of which made me collapse.

“Divine contamination?” she muttered, after one of the spells. She lifted a book off the stone floor of the cavern, and held it up next to her where she could refer to it as she cast the same spell again. “That’s just bizarre.”

There were a few other results she saw fit to relate aloud – I had a real cutie mark with all the appropriate magic, somehow (she poked at my rump, which gave a pleasurable tingle, but of course I didn’t respond), but no memories whatsoever, aside from the ones I was forming.

“Lyra?” she asked. When I didn’t respond right away, she waved a hoof in front of my face. I followed it with my eyes automatically. “Lyra? Are you in there?”

I tilted my head slightly. I wasn’t sure how to respond. My purpose was to do nothing. Would responding count as a thing?

“Answer me,” the alicorn ordered.

“I’m here,” I said.

“Are you Lyra? The real Lyra?”

“I’m a copy of her,” I said, pointing to the unconscious pony, which seemed to be slowly dissolving, the edges already a bit misty.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, and apparently despite my lack of memories, the skill-memory I’d been left with included idioms, since I understood what she meant by the question.

So I responded, “I don’t feel anything.”

“You’re not afraid because you lost your memory?” she asked. “You’re not curious about who you are?”

“I don’t feel anything,” I confirmed.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” She pointed a hoof at me. “You don’t make any sense! Pinkie’s clones at least had a personality!”

“My purpose is to help her do nothing,” I explained.

We went back and forth like that for a while, and then she started casting more spells. I’m going to skip ahead to the first thing I felt, which was curiosity at the intricate magic worming its way through my head, and fear that it was going to change me into something that couldn’t fulfil my purpose. Then fear that the fear meant that I already wasn’t fulfilling my purpose. Then, I suddenly had the urge to play the lyre, which terrified me because it just came out of nowhere.

“What are you doing?” I asked, during a break where the alicorn sat down on the stone, gingerly poking at her horn as it slowly cooled off.

“Oh, Celestia,” she said. “Casting un-optimized spells is exhausting.”

“What are you doing to me?” I asked her again. “What did you do to me? Why am I even asking you these questions?”

“Good, good,” she said. “You’re scared, and curious. Don’t worry, I’m almost done reconstructing your personality. This isn’t really the intended use for a Reforming Spell, but it is a straightforward application.” She paused. “Actually, if you want I could stop now. You have enough of a personality to be a full pony. The things I’d be leaving out aren’t really… they’re not really that important.”

She didn’t seem entirely sincere. I narrowed my eyes at her, suspiciously.

“Fine, fine, I’ll give you back your stupid obsessions,” she said, clambering to her feet. “You’d notice if I left them out after I gave you back your memories, anyway.”

There was more pink light, and another squirmy sensation running through my head, and for a second, I wanted to kill her. Whatever she was doing to me was really unpleasant, and I hadn’t even been able to understand the concept of something being unpleasant until she’d done it. I wanted to pin her in place, and make squirmy little tendrils of magic slither through her head until it exploded! I wanted to pull off all her legs and wings and hit her with them until they shattered! I wanted to shave her bare and cover her with something really itchy.

Of course, before she’d started, she’d restrained me by tying all four hooves together, and cast some weird spell on my horn that kept me from using any magic, so I couldn’t do any of that. I grudgingly admired her methodical dedication to safety, although it would have been more impressive if she didn’t keep using those cheat-sheets to make sure she didn’t forget anything.

I struggled against my bonds for a while, gleefully ignoring her demand that I stay still and stop wiggling, until she touched her horn to mine, and I suddenly remembered everything.

Well, not everything. Just everything that I ever knew, in perfect clarity. It was kind of disturbing.

“Did that work?” Twilight asked. “Lyra? Are you with me?”

“What did you just do?” I asked, trying to sort out which memories were recent and which were distant. The only ones I could be sure of were the ones of being there in the cave, not remembering anything, because they were fresh. “Everything’s… out of order.”

Twilight frowned. “I couldn’t use a standard memory spell since your head was completely empty, so I took a memory we had in common, used the law of contagion to expand the scope from that one memory to every Lyra-flavored memory in existence, and then pruned out all the memories that weren’t from your point of view. Did it work? Can you remember everything?” She paused. “Can you remember anything that you didn’t do?”

“Would I know if I didn’t remember everything?” I asked, trying to randomly remember things, which is harder than it sounds. I remembered having sex with Bon Bon, and having sex with Cloud Kicker, and making out with Spike, and then as hard as I tried I couldn’t actually think about anything other than sex, until I got frustrated and thought about oranges. Wow, when was the last time I’d had an orange?

“Wait,” I said, “am I a changeling?”

“No?”

“Because I remember being a changeling. Oh, wow,” I said, as a scene played out in my mind’s eye. “I remember being, like, three changelings. At the same time. Talking to each other.” I remembered what I’d been thinking, as I carefully showed only a friendly smile to my fellow infiltrators. “They really don’t like each other much.”

“I guess I should have expected that,” Twilight said.

"I know! When your whole life revolves around being a horrible pony, you have to know that you’re a horrible pony, and so is everyone you know. I wouldn’t like me if I was a lovesucking vampire, either,” I said, with a firm nod.

Twilight laughed. “No, I mean that it accidentally gathered extra memories from ponies who only looked like you. I had to come up with the spell on the spot, and those never work quite right.”

“I remember being a night guard, though?” I asked. “I don’t look anything like myself as a night guard.”

“It goes by your cutie mark,” Twilight explained. “Changelings copy those, too.”

I nodded. “And so does the mirror pool.”

“Speaking of the mirror pool,” Twilight said, leaning forwards eagerly. “How much do you remember about being a part of it?”

“Not much,” I admitted. “It seems to wipe our memories when we emerge. I do remember being Lyra, inside it, though…” I paused, considering how much detail I should go into. “How do you feel about tentacle sex?”

Twilight stared at me.

“What?”

“You were conscious inside the pool?” she asked.

“As far as I know, I still am,” I said. It wasn’t like I was the real Lyra.

“Just… stay there,” Twilight said, backing away. “Don’t touch anything. Don’t do anything! Just wait here and I’m going to go and read a few books and I’ll be right back as soon as I figure out how to… as soon as I figure something out.” She vanished in a pink flash, teleporting away. Then teleported back a few second later. “And don’t touch anything!” BAMF! She vanished again.

I sat there for a little while, looking around at all the papers and stuff scattered around the cave. After a bit, I started reading over one of the spell scrolls she’d left behind. I knew that she’d told me not to do anything, but if she really meant it she wouldn’t have left me all alone with her notes.