Chapters I didn’t remember when it started. Somehow, I would keep seeing him.
There’s a difference of seeing and being seen; our paths would cross. I’d find how, if even for a minute, we would be walking the same way. In a blur of strange, brightly-colored furred bodies, his was a respite. The brown of his coat resembled a normal horse. I’d say nothing, he’d say nothing.
What could have been exchanged? I was a stranger in a strange land, one that seemed the product of a fever dream. The incandescent movements blurred together, as ponies went about their day, coordinated and cordial all the same. Clip-clop, hooves on stone, a foreign sound I quickly adjusted as the new normal. I watched, slower than the rest. While equine faces twisted themselves in open laughter and chatter, I meandered in silence.
Even though Ponyville is a small town, if you take the roads right, they will never end. I practiced my clumsy hoof-steps, over and over, until I knew how to move properly.
I was a pony. Maybe nothing was strange at all, except myself. I could not, and can not, recall anything about my childhood. There were figments of other things, things I quickly assumed were dreams. For some reason I didn’t know my own body. For a while, I would be terrified of it. The things I desired it to do did not make sense. The reactions I’d had to the sensation of swiveling ears, for some reason had made me cry.
I had said “normal horse” right? I don’t know where that phrase came from. Filthy Rich isn’t Saddle-Arabian. Sometimes I still do that, slipping up with nonsense.
I’d wander in a stupor that many politely ignored. Without the kindness of a few strangers, and a bit of food left here and there, I would have died as I made my slow circuit, days, nights. The points of thought didn’t connect back then. It was still a dream, and the sensations never quite reached me. The damp, cold fur plastered to my skin, dripping with accumulating insects. the noises of concern, starting as whispers but becoming louder - never so loud, when I found myself blinking blearily on my side, unable to move.
I remember purple. Then light. Warmth flooded my body, and my mind - and I realized for the first time - I was present within my own reality. Clarity dawned as I felt the many hooves weighing me down, smelled the shampoo of their coats, heard the collective whispers and musky breathing. The stone and the soil filled my nose with familiarity. When I lifted my gaze, the colors that had seemed so piercing and threatening were now soothing to the eye.
I didn’t say anything. I breathed in, and out while I continued to be restrained. I kept flicking my ears, troubled by the itching.
There was something about a spell. About how this could happen sometimes, a pony wasn’t fully freed from the dream realm after waking up. The voice spoke gently, educated and yet filled with sympathy. It wasn’t a common, or contagious problem. Everypony was fine. Can you tell me who - oh. That was a question.
“I don’t remember,” I’d try to say, but my voice was barely more than a croak.
“Oh.” The softness of her disappointment alarmed me. I looked up. Was that bad? But she misunderstood me. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll remember soon.”
Okay.
“I feel itchy,” I’d try to say. Despite what was probably incoherent - immediately my throat burned and I started coughing - she knew what I was trying to say. Or had a guess.
“You had to be shaved so that the mange will go away,” She told me softly. “Don’t worry. Ponyville’s hospital will take care of you and make sure your coat grows in fine.”
Coat? Oh, that. Still coughing, I’d given a nod. My eyes felt so sore, and although closing them also caused them to burn, I did.
I woke up in a white room in a white bed, linked to so many tubes I thought this was another dream. My throat still burned, but for a different reason - the feeding tube was abrasive, the breathing tube also wasn’t nice. I wheezed for a while, taking deep, steady breaths, and grew to be comforted by the sound.
I felt alert, and otherwise unbothered. Cozy. Looking down, I realized I was wearing a sweater. It was a braided, cream thing, heavy on my limbs and very warm.
However, moving was a different story. Every limb was stiff and aching, almost numb from lack of strength. I couldn’t turn my head, and I fumbled with the sheets, trying to find any sort of purchase to turn over. I realized swiftly I was also bound to the bed.
I didn’t have it in me to panic. Maybe I should have. But I laid there, letting my vulnerability wash over me like a cool wave. I waited, idly flexing my hooves, back and forth, kneading the sheets.
Eventually someone came in. I saw the shocked, blue doctor’s expression when he realized I was awake. I fumbled for a little wave. He composed himself, one expression shifting into another as he approached my bedside, smiling carefully.
“How’s our Jane Doe? It’s good to see you’re awake.” His forehead glowed. I felt a release as white cords were unfastened and levitated above my head. I stared at them for a moment. My expression must have been funny, because the doctor chuckled, and the cloud of pale magic whisked the things away, under the bed.
“Sorry,” He told me softly. “You were restless, we had to keep you still so that you didn’t hurt yourself. Weeks of walking around town must have ingrained a habit! But don’t you worry, since you’ve come in your have definitely been improving.”
I try to make a sound, but all I can do is gurgle.
He nodded. “We’ll get those things out now that you’re conscious. The biggest hurdle is over, now that your body is well-rested, fed, and hydrated. You might be feeling some muscle weakness and nausea. We’ve had to dose you up with antibiotics and vaccines to make up for your lack of medical records. With the state you were in, we did not want to take any chances.” He grinned and laughed again.
The doctor turned out to be Lifeline, and he called in Redheart, his nurse, to assist him in removing the tubes. As the plastic slid out, I struggled not to cough as I felt a tickle deep within my chest - fortunately, where my throat didn’t burn from dryness, it was completely numb, and again all I could do was sound like a baby.
I knit my brows and try to speak anyway. I wind up blowing a spit bubble when my mouth didn’t cooperate.
“That enchantment will fade in several hours,” Lifeline said to my plaintive grunting. “It’s harmless and just made it easier to keep the tubes in you without any reactions.” He grinned even wider, eyes crinkling.
“Line, don’t laugh at her,” Redheart scolded, her voice tired and gentle.
“I’m not,” Lifeline retorted. “I’m simply pleased by her development.”
Redheart rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t mean you should make that face while she’s struggling. It’s demeaning.”
“I was not.”
The white mare gave a little snort, and smiled in my direction. “Don’t worry, he really does take his patients seriously. He just doesn’t understand the way he looks sometimes.”
The doctor frowned lightly, walking now around to the foot of my bed, apparently to leave. “What’s wrong with my face?”
“Everything,” Redheart broke into a giggle.
Lifeline’s ears folded. “Well with that, I won’t save you the last piece of pie in the fridge.”
“You won’t have to, I already ate it.” She grinned behind her hoof.
Lifeline tossed his head in amusement, smirking before using his magic to adjust his glasses. “For shame, Redheart.” He looked at me. “I’ll return later to see how you’re doing. Redheart here will be staying to change out your bedpan and deliver more Get-Well cards.”
Cards?
I laid back with the barest nod, not wanting to see how my toilet-business looked and smelled. A pang of emptiness hit me, I didn’t know what it meant other than that I felt used to relinquishing power to others. It was sobering to realize I had emotions with no story, associations with little background. My existence was more than perceiving things and engaging in conversation. As a pony, I had come from somewhere. I had been, and I had gone. There was an untouched, unknown tome about my life - and of which, I could remember little.
Time passed. I let my body be manipulated to be moved and washed on the doctors’ schedule, and pretended the enchantments lingered longer than they should. No one asked me questions until my third day of being awake, when a sea of cards surrounded me from well-wishers in the little town. Turns out, I had been walking around for a month out there before I collapsed. No one had known what to make of me, only that I became a fixture in their routines that had steadily worried them more and more. Out of privacy, and also from lack of response, they hadn’t intervened except to offer bits of food and drink. And now, a number of them felt guilty.
I pulled together the facts from the cards and scraps of paper that were sent. It was all too surreal that anyone would have cared about me.
I was staring at a bad crayon drawing when the doctor and nurse entered in tandem. After I had first woken up, they had divided their schedule so only one visited at a time. It was probably because, as Redheart told me, everypony was relieved I had made it through the critical stage of my recovery. Now, they looked in concern, both at each other and at me.
“Now, you’ve been here for three days without sign of speaking,” The doctor began gently. “The Nurse and I have both noticed your fixation on the cards, and the decline in your mood. We would like to help you. If you remember anything about your identity - anything at all- we would like to know so that we can give you the care you need. Do you remember your name, or your family?”
I think about this, long and hard. Debating, wondering what qualified as a “memory”. Sometimes, throughout the day, I would hit deja vu, or feel like I was catching a glimpse of something in my mind’s eye, just out of reach. So much would escape me, things familiar with no name, tangents clipped off and muted, without any sound. Loss. Always loss.
It bothered me that I’d had to relearn my own body, how to walk, chew, and hold things. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t know after all, what I was doing wrong until someone -somepony-reacted
I shook my head.
“Canterlot,” The doctor began. “ Manehatten, Cloudsdale, Trottingham, Appleloosa - do any of these places sound familiar?”
I took a moment to run them over in my mind. Nothing comes to mind except manes, clouds, hooves, and apples. I shook my head again when they perk their ears, maybe expecting me to say something.
The nurse seemed terrified. She turned to whisper to the doctor in hushed tones, and after a quiet conversation between them, and a bit of patting, Lifeline smiled at me. It looked a little strained.
“Good to know, good to know,” He said. “I won’t lie, that is a bit...Concerning, but we have several professionals who have expressed interest in your case, so expect to meet new ponies soon.”
I nodded, and with hopeful, pained looks they departed. I frowned, realizing I was alone, wondering if my sense of loss was spreading. They were tense, worried now. And although they continued to persevere, they were hurting themselves over me. What if I never remembered anything?
I started daydreaming, wondering if I had an identity, what that would be.
I leaned against Nurse Redheart as we walked to the shower, my legs wobbling but, for the first time since I arrived, remaining upright. I did not often leave my bed. It embarrassed me to no end that along with everything else, something as basic as walking had been lost from my memory. We’d practiced several times the first day this was discovered, not long after the tubes had been removed and I’d been trusted to eat and drink on my own.
She’d shown me where the bathroom was, and I’d just collapsed in a heap. For some reason, four legs had felt like too many. After checking to make sure I was alright, the nurse had been kind to help me up and show me with the patience of a mother, how the leg motions were done.
I’d still needed help with balance, so I was given a bell in case I ever needed an escort. But after that discovery, I tried to hold it as much as possible. So it was only maybe twice a day usually that I needed somepony to walk me.
We were still cordial; her with her kind little nothings, me with my smiles and nods. But that evening we were bathed in an atmosphere of silence as she helped me reach the toilet, and then from there to the tub. It was clear I was not a normal patient at this point, and it started to alienate her.
She must have had the hopes that I’d rejoin my family soon, that I could settle down and put this behind me. Sometimes she’d talk at me, wondering cheerfully how my mother had washed my mane, what shampoos I was used to. I had striking looks for a mare; a muzzle that was almost boyish, she told me one day. My family must have been special.
We settled into a routine that went on for two weeks at that point, since I’d woken up. I sat on the cold tile and looked in the mirror while Nurse Redheart ran my bath, careful to have the water hot but not scalding. She’d lead me carefully in, holding my hooves while I balanced against her soft body. Before I settled in, I raised my hooves so that she could take off the sweater, and put it in a bin for cleaning. There was always another sweater waiting when I was done. Donated, I think.
I sighed softly to myself, ears drooping in pleasure as I settled into the steaming water. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see her sadness while I took a rag and the soap, and started to wash my face and neck. Sometimes she would use a file to help me with my horn. I think it troubled her that I had one, and didn’t use it. Today though, I felt her kneading soap into my hair and back, something heavy and minty that immediately made me feel refreshed as I inhaled it.
“I thought you’d like this,” Redheart laughed softly. I must have been smiling. Unwiling to open my eyes, I swivel one ear to face her. She had my attention. I heard a little hum of delight - but she said nothing more.
In the tub, I waited patiently for those hooves in my mane to complete their mission. I had done something wrong, I knew - the silence was a deafening reminder that I had overstayed my welcome, that I, the pony, was inches from bringing an oblivion of sadness into the Ponyville General Hospital if I didn’t show some sign of recovery.
I considered the facts I had found out about myself. I had boyish-looks, and I was a unicorn. My fur, mane, and tail were growing in, and I saw that it was a cream color, with white markings on my nose and hooves. My mane, while bristly, appeared to be either cerulean or teal, I couldn’t tell. My eyes were blue. I was scrawny, but no longer underweight. Just small, and packed with wiry muscle. I was also a mare, which was something to keep in mind as well, if I was going to give myself a name. I wondered how old I was. I wasn’t a foal, that was for sure. Or a filly. But mare covered a wide range of ages…
My thoughts trailed to the names on the cards. While they had stopped a while ago, I’d saved all of them in a tote bag the doctor had given me. There were a few letters as well. One was from a Pinkie Pie, another was from a Twilight Sparkle. But I had a drawing from a filly named Dinky I liked. There was also cards from Roseluck, Lily, the Cake-family, Holly Go-Lightly, Brights Brightly, Minty, and so many others I’d yet to memorize and had actually stopped looking at, because thinking about the ponies I had affected, who knew I was here and were probably all just as disappointed in me - I had developed an aversion to thinking about all that, the ripples in the stream.
But there was Nurse Redheart, with a pink mane and a red heart imposed over a medical cross. There was Doctor Lifeline, who had a green heart-monitor for a cutie-mark. I didn’t have a cutiemark myself, but there was apparently a trend for names to suit identities. Maybe it was on purpose, maybe it wasn’t.
I thought about my colors, and if they were themselves a hint at my true self. Greens made me think of life and energy, vibrance. Creams were mellow and earthy. Maybe I was named after a plant, then?
Abruptly, a splash of water sent me off tangent. I sputtered and opened my eyes, only to have my face smothered with a towel, and then my mane. Somewhere, a drain was pulled, and the water was sent away. I blinked at the nurse, who had taken another towel, and with a small smile, began rubbing my back.
“There, there,” She told me soothingly. “I’m sorry for surprising you, you must have been thinking hard about something, but we’re done now.” A thought occurred to her, and her ears perked. “Did you remember something, Jane?”
I worked my tongue over my mouth, and around my teeth. This was it. I’d had something, didn’t I?” My heart raced. I opened my lips.
“Name,” I whispered. Plant, plant, plant, plant! “Harvest.”
Redheart stared at me. This might have been the first time I’d spoken. She smiled. “Oh, did you want to send Golden Harvest a letter?”
Drat! That’s where that name had come from. I gave a quiet nod. Might as well.
Redheart seemed more cheerful than before, hugging me after she had pulled me out of the tub. “Now, don’t be shy,” She said. “This is progress. We all take babysteps to get to where we have to be.”
My chest lightened in relief at her pleasure. I let her dry me off, and show me a trick to drying off my rear.
“I would be happy to get you a pen and paper,” Redheart continued. “But, tomorrow you’re going to be allowed visitors, and there are several ponies who want to talk to you.”
I stiffened at that. Should I do something? My expression might have been enough for her to respond, giving me a gentle nudge with her hoof. “Don’t worry,” She said. “You don’t have to present yourself in any way other than as you are. Just be honest with them as you’ve been with us. They’re just ponies who want your best interests at heart.”
I wondered what those interests were, since they didn’t know me, but then Redheart said something else. “I heard they’re going to be using telepathy spells, so you don’t have to stress over being misunderstood. You won’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
I found myself grinning, and the nurse was happy to return the gesture as she led me to bed, and handed me another sweater. This one was grey, and had a cat’s face stitched on the front. I liked it immediately.
Dusk glimmered through the windows, casting the room into gentle shadows, as the final splashes of daylight faded in orange and pinks on the horizon.I sighed as I crawled into bed, once again ignoring Redheart’s suggestion to mingle with other patients. I think she knew why I didn’t want to see anypony, and it wasn’t much of an issue. While we were in the bathroom, somepony must have come in and changed the sheets. They smelled like detergent.
The nurse waved and smiled, before turning out the light. I enjoyed going to bed early, if only so that I had time to think whenever I woke up in the middle of the night. I took practiced, deep breaths as I wiggled into the sheets and got comfortable.
I hoped there would be answers. In the absence of anypony around, the sense of loss bloomed within me, leaving me to think and consider my life so far. Sometimes this was effective, but more often than not it was tiring, and aided in my sleep.
Who?
I walked the streets of Ponyville again. My hooves were cracked and bloodied, leaving a trail in my wake that everypony avoided except for me, when I would eventually come around again. I ignored the calling of the distant owl. I ignored everything. I felt nothing. Thought nothing.
No, that was wrong. Flies buzzed around my eyes. I’d blink, and they’d return again. My hooves itched. Colors seemed too bright, too out of place. I moved without thinking, without thought. Around, and around, and around.
There were sounds that wounded the air, things that curled and twisted high and low. Around and around they followed me. Sometimes I would be knocked down. But then I’d get up again. Patiently, I’d continue my march.
This path wasn’t nothing, there was a rhyme to it, a pattern. I had to keep going.
If I would be successful- something would be unlocked, something important and deeply invested within my being.
I had to keep taking my steps, I had to keep the rhythm, keep the pace with my intent. Something would go wrong if I didn’t. Some spells didn’t need words, while others did. The mind, in any case, needed to be steady. The currents needed to hit their frequency. The tongue could hold a tempo, but so could a train of thought. If they could, what meant a body couldn’t?
Was that why priests were so devoted? Was this my equivalent of a sacred rite?
Who?
The perspective changed. The owl watched the mare. I watched the mare.
Her coat was dark with grime to the point of being black, mane long and tangled, dripping with lice. Her path was painted in rust. Each of her four hooves acted as brushes, to curve each stroke. Time passed; days flickered by without a blink, and her pace began to degrade into a hobble, and then a shuffle. The blood she left behind became harder to steady. The streets she had appropriated for her divine cause became infringed by normalcy, weakness. Her intent had been to create a figure-eight, with a smaller, third loop budding in-between.
But Ponyville didn't want the symbol. Day after day, its inhabitants made her reset her timing, stopping her over and over - all the while cleaning the streets of her blood. She kept trying to make it happen. Day, after day, after day, she managed to escape her captors and walk - no, shamble- to victory.
It made me angry to watch. Somewhere deep down, I knew the mare had lost something precious, something that made her whole. And now she was punishing herself.
But I was also angry at the town, wondering why they stopped her. How else would they know if she was dedicated or mad? What would happen if she had managed to defy Harmony?
I followed the owl, joining her on a bench. I watched the broken mare pass us by, a starving figure whose glassy eyes shivered erratically in their sockets, darting this way and that out of focus. Her mind was dreaming somewhere else.
Part of her hoof squelched underneath her. She stumbled but caught herself. The pony didn’t care about the puddle of maggots left behind as she resumed walking.
She clopped and shuffled down the path and turned down another, a cloud of insects following in her wake, and those who did not fly, crawled aimlessly to feed on her diseased blood.
Many stared and muttered at her with horror and pity. Nopony dared to leave their homes to go near her, unless it was to try to help. Children were kept away. There was one stallion that caught my eye. He was tired and older, brown-coated.
I had seen him before, from my entrapment, and now I watched as he struggled to avoid looking at me - rather, the diseased mare.
Does he mean something to you? The other owl asked.
“No,” I answered. “I wish he did. He stands out for some reason.”
Sometimes that is all that is needed, The owl remarked.
The owl flew off, leaving me questioning, and I struggled to follow. My wings felt so heavy. We touched down on a straw roof and observed the scene below. The mare had fallen and didn’t move. This was quickly noticed by other ponies. Some ran off to who knows where, while others clustered around the streets and alleys. A nervous murmur arose, no one quite certain what to do with themselves.
It was only after a lavender mare with wings and a horn fluttered down next to the body, that the world faded into silence. Her horn glowed purple. Between the two thatched houses closest to us, I could see another mare, this one a white unicorn and armed with a plethora of shears and shaving implements, arrive and join the first one.
Just as the mare was about to be shaved, the bodies of each and every pony turned into an ice sculpture and collapsed into snow.
I shifted my weight on the roof, feeling my feathers ruffle in the chilling breeze. The dream logic that had been pervading my senses faded away, leaving my thoughts clear, if fractured by the absence of confidence in the matter.
The moon was full, giving everything a ghost-like radiance. All I could hear is the wind, blowing and whistling around us. I noticed the owl was still there. And I, suddenly, was myself. A unicorn, perching on a roof, shivering in nothing but stubble-covered skin.
My tail flicked out in an attempt to keep me balanced. The winter breeze caused me to shiver, and it didn’t help I was pelted with ice. The roof was slick, I realized too late, as I began to fall. My mouth opened into a scream, and I closed my eyes, awaiting impact and pain.
Who?
I found myself sitting up and shaking my head. I was in an unfamiliar, small bedroom. Knick-nacks hung everywhere. They gave the sense of familiarity, helping me relax and shake off the dream. Yet, when I turned myself over, I saw I wasn’t alone. A strange blue mare stared back at me, somehow, impossibly, laying in my small bed with room to spare between us.
She smiled kindly at me - but it was a different sort of look than Redheart’s. Hers meant “Don’t worry”. This mare’s meant “Do not be afraid”.
I didn’t know what to feel, sitting there next to her.
“I don’t believe there is any wrong way to react in a dream,” The blue mare told me. “Still, I appreciate your calmness. That will make things easier.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
The question took her aback. Her eyed widened, and she blinked, not sure if I was kidding. I was instantly guilty for offending her. After staring for a moment and looking me over however, her expression resigned itself into understanding, albeit a sad sort, her smile withering into a frown.
“I suppose it is true then,” The blue mare whispered. “Oh, poor child. You truly do not remember anything?” She extended a hoof from the sheets to stroke my side. I felt my smile wobbling with tears.
“No, now don’t cry. I will not have that.” The mare frowned even more, and sat up. She was taller than me. I was enveloped by indigo fur. It did not last for more than several moments, but I could not hold it any longer. I broke down into sobbing. She froze, and I didn’t care. When she pulled back, I buried my face in my hooves, hissing and crying quietly.
“Ah-”
"I should know more than I do, but none of it seems real, not even myself," I whispered. "There are particles of truth, perhaps figments, but nothing matters. I'm so weak. I cannot explain anything."
“Please,” The mare intoned, loud and - was her voice uncertain? I felt the weight of her hooves on my shoulders. I rubbed my eyes furiously, and cracking through a swollen lid, I found the blue mare appearing nervous. “I-I’m not very...Good, at emotions, my little pony,” She said softly. “But that does not mean your feelings do not matter. And also know that nopony is judging you for what you cannot tell them.”
“I should though,” I protested softly, my voice rasping. “I should be able to say something. I was even thinking of coming up with a fake name, perhaps until I learn otherwise. I don’t want to be left in the hospital and treated as an invalid. Something happened to me. And I can’t do anything about it.”
“Perhaps you could suggest a nickname for them to use?” The mare offered. “Worry not. Soon, you will be out. It is apparent to them as well, that there is only so much that they can do with their healing arts.”
At my downcast expression, my eyes averting themselves, the mare took my chin beneath her hoof and turned my head to face her. “We will not let you be alone in these terrible of times, my little pony. That you care so much is a good sign. Do not mistake these tears for weakness. You have suffered enormously, and you have emerged with your spirit intact. That is no small feat.”
I opened my mouth to speak, and instead found my lips sealed shut. The mare shook her head. “It is not your duty now to be a hero. You must recover, and do all that you can to avoid the darkness within. Let others solve the mystery.”
She released me, allowing me to gaze upon her warily, taking a deep sigh. “All right,” I tell her. “I will try to get better.”
Although I heavily doubted that.
She nodded, finding my quiet voice to be satisfactory. Then, after a moment of staring at each other, she offered a slight smile. “I keep expecting you to thank me, but I forget you do not know who I am.”
“Right,” I mumbled, looking away.
“I am Princess Luna,” She told me, her smile widening just a bit. However, there was something in her eyes that still appeared sad. “I will give you kind dreams this night, and shall not invade your privacy any further.”
She faded away, as did the unfamiliar room. For a moment I was filled with relief, before I realized I was falling.
Then, I drowned.