The amnesiac stranger who knows too much

I decided that I didn’t have all day to ponder conspiracies and such in front of the fridge, so I got going. I threw the note into the sink to let it soak and fall apart, washed the cupcakes down with some cider, and left the library. I left the saddlebags behind, I was going to do all my studying at the library anyway.

Once outside, I took another look at the library tree. Without the yesterday’s excitement of seeing it for the first time, it looked suspiciously familiar. That candle drawing on the door, the rounded windows, just the whole look. I could swear there was a telescope missing from the balcony, even! I filed that potentially disruptive thought for later, I didn’t need to freak out again. The sign near the door actually had something close to “PonyTown BookHouse” on it. Obviously, the latter meant ‘library’, and the former probably was the name of the town. Not very creative. And ‘Ponyville’ definitely sounded better, so that was what I decided to call it.

The first order of business was to talk to Shy. I needed to at least tell her that I was staying at the library for the foreseeable future, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t worried about the last night’s incident. I was going to retrace our yesterday’s path, hoping to meet Shy on my way.

Many ponies greeted me as I walked. I just waved and said “Hi!” in reply, for I could not really remember any names from the last night. The mint green unicorn who stood next to the formerly grumpy confectioner seemed especially enthusiastic at waving to me, for some reason. The confectioner rolled her eyes at that, and the whole exchange made me wonder if I didn’t remember something important.

As I reached the market tents, I could not see Shy anywhere around. I was going to continue on my way past the gingerbread house when ponies started acting weird all around. They started looking up, some started panicking and running all about. Some others started... “They are tidying the place up? What?” I also looked up, and noticed something shiny flying towards us.

Upon further inspection, I realized that it was some kind of chariot. Weirdly enough, it was pulled by two pegasi, not to mention that it was flying steadily behind them. Inside the chariot there were three ponies, one in the middle seemed to be a fair bit larger than the rest. She had white coat and long bluish mane which was waving in the wind, and she was wearing something shiny too.

“That’s... She’s...” I was staring at her getting closer and closer, hardly paying any attention to my surroundings any more. “I know her, I’m sure! I think... But... I can’t have seen her... Yet she’s...” The chariot flew over the library and touched down some distance away. “She’s important. The memory is important! I know it’s there, somewhere...”

The tall pony stood before me. Her gleaming white coat was almost blinding in the sunlight. Her mane was still waving despite the lack of any wind, and the tail was doing the same, both turned out to be mostly blue with a couple lighter streaks and one pinkish. She was looking at me.

I suddenly became very conscious of myself and my surroundings. I quickly turned my head to look behind me, and realized that I was standing in front of everypony, and they all were bowing. Pinkie was also wildly gesturing to me with a scared face from the gingerbread house’s porch. Next to her was a white purple-maned unicorn, who was looking at her with extreme worry and was whispering something. Shy also was next to them, hiding behind her mane as expected.

My head snapped back, and the tall pony was still looking at me, her face unreadable. There were two armored guards behind her, with stoic faces and spears at the ready. Oh, and she was wearing a crown, I noticed just then.

“That’s it. I’m dead.” I was standing frozen right before her, the only one standing at all, unable to move.

She looked at me for a moment more, and then spread her wings and started talking with a smile.

“Greetings, my little ponies! I, Princess Celestia, come here today to announce that Ponyville has been chosen to host this year’s Summer Sun celebration!” The name sounded kinda like ‘sky’ something, I thought, and the interpretation ‘Celestia’ just came to me. It sure sounded regal enough.

As she was saying that, she slowly walked past me. The crowd behind me started cheering at the announcement, and the princess continued talking. I plopped onto my rump and now was sitting before the two guards, who were looking at me stoically.

“I’m so dead. How could it happen? Why did I not pay attention? How could I be so careless? Now she’s going to banish me, or throw me in a dungeon. Or banish me and then throw me in a dungeon in the place she banishes me to!” The last thought almost made me laugh for some inexplicable reason. “And now I’m going insane too, that just adds insult to injury!” I spent some more time panicking, while the Princess was, apparently, talking to other ponies. After a few minutes that felt like hours, I heard her voice right at my right side.

“And you will come with me.” I quickly looked at her, only to see her horn glowing. A flash of light and one nauseating moment later, I found myself sitting inside the library, and the Princess was looking at me. We were alone. She smiled a little and continued talking.

“I must admit, it was refreshing to see somepony not ?bow? at the sight of me.”

I hit the floor with my head and started stammering frantically.

“P-Please forgive me! Won’t repeat! Please don’t send me to moon!” There was a brief silence. I wondered where the last part came from, but it was too late to take it back.

“H... How... Where did you...” I opened my eyes and looked at the Princess, without standing up. She was looking at me, mouth slightly open. She looked very surprised and a little... scared?

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to! Please forgive!” I cowered before her, ready for the worst.

“Rise, my little pony.” I did as instructed. “Tell me, what do you know?”

“I... I don’t... Don’t know... Not know why said that. Not remember.”

“Is that so?”

“Not remember. Lost memory.”

“Why are you speaking like that?”

“Lost all memory. Learn speak again.”

“I... see.” She was looking at me, her face now slightly curious and mostly unreadable. “How did that happen?”

“Don’t know.”

“When did it happen?”

“Woke up week ago. Not know much.” I was not going to tell the Princess that I possibly wasn’t a pony or from this world at all. Who knows what trouble it would land me in.

“Hmm...” She was thinking.

“Sorry, Princess.”

“Call me Celestia, please.”

“Sorry, Celestia. Do you... You know who I am?” I hoped that she might. I felt like I knew her, and now that my panic attack passed, her presence was almost calming. And she asked me to call her by name.

“No... No, I don’t think so. Should I?”

“Don’t know. Nopony knows me, I think. They help still.”

“Interesting... What is your name, by the way?”

“White Coat. They called me White Coat.”

“I see.” She paused for a moment. “We shall discuss your memory problem later. For now, we are returning outside. You ready?”

I nodded lightly. The second teleportation felt less nauseating than the first one. We reappeared at the same spot that we departed from earlier. The ponies stopped doing whatever they were doing and bowed again, and I just stood there, thinking.

“Discuss my memory problem? With the princess? That’s... Not what I could have ever expected. Why is she even interested? And what’s with that business of sending ponies to the moon? Where did I even get the idea, let alone how could it even be possible? More importantly, why did she react like she did? Was that supposed to be some kind of classified information? Maybe me knowing it has something to do with why my memories were erased? Was I a spy? A secret agent? Wait, did she have both wings and a horn?”

“Farewell, my little ponies! I’m looking forward to the coming celebration!” said Celestia while I was pondering all that. She turned around and went for her chariot, the guards following her closely behind.

As they took off and started flying away, a blob of pink shot towards me and pinned me to the ground.

“Are you all right, Coatie? What did she do? Did you...”

“I’m fine, Pinkie!” I interrupted her as quickly as I could.

“What. Was. That?” It was Rainbow, floating almost above us.

“What were you even thinking? Disrespecting the Princess like that!” The white purple-maned unicorn mare said that with bewildered face.

“Ye’r lucky she din’ ?banish? ya or somethin’,” said the orange pony who sold apples. Her accent was quite thick, it felt like country folk speech or something like that to me. I still could understand it, though.

“We were worried for you,” said Shy quietly next to me.

“Thanks for your concerns. What are your names?”

“[Gasp!] Did she ?erase? your memory!?”

“No, Pinkie. I met you all at party, but not remember much detail from it.” Pinkie whistled nonchalantly.

“Well, ?darling?, I’m ???. Pleased to meet you,” said the unicorn. I’d have figure out what her name meant later. Had to try to avoid forgetting it till then.

“I’m Apple???, nice meetin’ ya too!”

“And I’m Rainbow ???, only the ??? and most ??? pony and the fastest ?flier? in Ponyville, and maybe soon will be in all of ???!” She did a small loop-de-loop as she said that.

“Don’t know half those words, Rainbow,” replied I with a deadpan expression. She sure was full of herself.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Um... He lost his memory. He’s now learning to speak again.”

“Oh.”

“Thanks, Fluttershy. Anyway, I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened!? But you were gone for more than two minutes! Darling, you simply must tell us what you and the Princess were doing!” The unicorn mare was definitely excited to hear my story.

“And if I say it’s royal secret?” I smiled a little.

“Oh. Well, then...” The unicorn was disappointed at my joke.

“Nothing happened. We talked. I said I lost memory and was confused. Celestia understood and forgave.” I reasoned that my moon outburst and her reaction to it weren’t supposed to be public knowledge.

“You called her by name?” The unicorn was surprised.

“She asked me to,” replied I truthfully.

Everypony looked at me surprised, except Pinkie, who was just smiling and bouncing in place as usual.

“You go. You have things to do. I need talk to Fluttershy.”

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” said Pinkie and started bouncing away.

“See ya!” The apple pony went towards her stall.

“It was pleasure meeting you,” said the unicorn and started walking away.

“Likewise!” replied I.

Rainbow wasn’t even there by that point, not sure when she left.

“So... Um... What did you want to talk about?” I think Shy said that quite hesitantly.

“I stay in library now. Nopony lives there, bed unoccupied. Much food left from party, enough for weeks. Easier to study, too.”

“Oh.” Shy relaxed a bit. “That’s fine. We didn’t have a ?librarian? for a while. You sure you’ll be fine?”

“Yes. And one more thing. About the party.” Shy tensed again.

“What about it?” She smiled nervously.

“Pinkie told you something?”

“Y-Yes, she did. She said you...” She started blushing as she got quieter and quieter.

“Yes, that. I don’t remember much, but sure nothing happened. I think pinkie... Worry too much? Did you really notice anything?” I needed to figure out the word for ‘overreacted’.

“No, I don’t think so.” Just what I thought. Shy started calming down little by little.

“Good. Would be too... bad of me to do it like that.” The foals’ books didn’t have ‘creepy’ in them, who could have guessed? “So... Are we good?” asked I finally. “Friends?”

“Friends.” She hugged me.

“So, even thinking about kissing makes her almost freak out, while hugging the same person is perfectly fine. Oh well.”

We parted after a few moments, and Shy was about to leave.

“I have questions,” said I as she started to turn away.

“Oh?”

“Ponies often have both wings and a horn?”

“Um... No, not that I know of. Only Princess Celestia is like this, I think.” That was curious.

“Okay. Next, what about Summer Sun celebration?”

“Oh, um, the Princess chooses ?random? town every year, and this year it’s Ponyville. She came to ?announce? it and choose ponies responsible for organizing it. I get to do the music with my ?songbirds?!” She looked happy.

“What is celebration about?”

“It’s... We celebrate Princess Celestia raising the sun, on the longest day of the year. We celebrate all night and then ?witness? her raise the sun herself.”

“Is that all?”

“Um, yes? There is a ??? about its ???, but it’s just an old pony tale.”

“Okay. When is it?”

“Three weeks from today.”

“Thanks, Fluttershy!”

“You are welcome.”

At that we parted our ways. She continued about her day, and I returned to the library to continue my studies.