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The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
I can't remember when I last heard birds thing! Or anything, really.
Author's Note
Just in case, the cursive speech is the protagonist thinking, and non-cursive is someone actually talking. It should be reasonably clear from the context, but I thought I better clarify it.
I can't remember when I last heard birds thing! Or anything, really.
”What a lovely morning! The sun is shining, the birds are singing. I cannot even remember when I last heard the birds sing! ”
I laid there in my bed, eyes closed, too lazy to move even an inch. The sun was shining through a window right at me, and I felt all warm and fuzzy. Yes, that was a really pleasant morning.
”Though, I wonder why the birds are singing now, even though they didn’t before today... ” My brain, apparently, was also warm, fuzzy and lazy. ”Nah, it’ll come to me when I’m properly awake. ” And with that thought I continued laying there, enjoying myself and being far too lazy to even think any more.
Alas, no good thing lasts forever. Or even barely long enough.
”Oh. Come. ON! That infernal itch could not wait for a few more minutes before assaulting me, could it?
Resigned to my fate, I tried to scratch my back. ‘Tried’ is the key word. I didn’t get far. A searing wave of pain shot through my whole body as soon as I attempted to move. I almost cried out loud, panicked, abandoned the effort, and immediately opened my eyes.
An unfamiliar small room greeted me. The early morning sun was shining from the window on the opposite side, right into my face. Thankfully, it was not bright enough to be blinding that early in the day. The room was plain white and almost empty. There was my bed, and at the window there was a desk with drawers and a single chair.
Next to my bed, there was some kind of strange device. It had many indicators, some of them were blinking, and it was steadily spewing out a paper tape with some lines plotted on it. The device had no text or numbers on it that I could read. Some tubes and wires were connected to it, and to me at the other end. I think they were connected to me, at least. I could not move my head to actually see due to the fear of pain.
”Am I in a hospital? ” My panic started to subside, and my brain started working. ”How did I even get here? ” Still slightly dazed, I tried to remember what made my body ache all over and landed me in that bed. I did not have much time to ponder that, though.
Suddenly, a door opened and a nurse walked in. That was to be expected, being in a hospital and all. What I absolutely did not expect was that she was a little horse. No, I did not misspell that! If she was not wearing a white cap with a symbol resembling a red cross, I would have thought that a random white horse strayed into my hospital room! To be honest, though, neither possibility made much more sense than the other.
My brain stammered at the absurdity of the situation. A little horse, working at a hospital! As a nurse! I almost chuckled. And then she spoke.
”What!? ” That was the only thing I could think when it really sunk in. A horse was standing before me, looking like a nurse, smiling at me, and saying something to me! The only reason to believe that I was not dreaming was that the pain from before would have woken me up already. A sentient horse was tending to me in a hospital!
The horse, it seems, had noticed my stupefied state. She came closer and said something else, now with a slightly worried face. Her speech sounded kinda like normal horse noises, but it was most definitely structured and organized, like only an actual language could be. Also, now that I thought about it, calling her a ‘horse’ seemed wrong somehow. Sure, she looked kinda like one, but not quite. Her head and face were much less elongated, facial features more round, and her hair was like nothing I could imagine on an actual horse, and pink. Also, she was so small! She hardly was twice the height of my bed.
”Hmm, what was that word... Oh! Pony. Pony it is, then! Though I’m not really sure how this more precise, except for her size, it definitely feels much more right to call her that instead of ‘horse’. ”
My thought process was interrupted by her saying something more to me. She was still looking at me, worry all over her face. I decided it was time to do something, and thus I spoke.
“Good morning. I do not really understand what you are trying to say, I don’t know your language. Do you speak — Damn, I forgot what my language was called! — Do you understand me? — How could I forget what my language was called!? Also, is it just me, or did my voice actually sound kinda weird? ” I dwelt on the last thought for a bit, but nothing came out of it.
As I talked, nurse’s face changed from worried to surprised, and then to something worried-serious. She took a pencil in her mouth and jotted something on her clipboard, then went closer to the weird machine and took some more notes. While she was doing that, I was looking at her and chuckling internally.
”She’s writing with her mouth. She’s really doing it. This is hilarious! ” Then a thought struck me. ”But how else is she supposed to do that? She only has her mouth and one spare hoof, two if she sits. How is one supposed to write anyway? How do I write? ” And at that moment I realized that I had no idea whatsoever.
”Okay, that’s bad. ” I was racking my brain hard to find something. ”That’s very bad. ” Anything! ”I don’t remember writing anything, ever! ” I started breathing faster. ”I have no idea how to hold a pencil, except in my mouth! ” The machine started beeping, and the nurse turned towards me, mild panic on her face. ”But I’m not a pony. We don’t do that! ” She said something frantically. I barely heard her. ”But who are ‘we’? Who am I? What am I!? ” Nurse rushed towards the desk, looking for something in a drawer. I noticed a rather large snout at the bottom of my field of view. ”I’m not supposed to be a pony, am I!? ”
My head snapped down so that I could look at myself. What I saw was four heavily bandaged legs, with dark brown fur visible in the gaps gaps. They were ending in hooves. Between my sheer panic and the extreme pain from actually moving, I screamed. And then I quickly fainted.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
”What a lovely morning! The sun is shining, the ponies are talking... Wait, what!?”
My eyes shot open and I quickly turned my head towards the source of the noise. I also quickly regretted doing the latter, as a fresh jolt of pain almost made me scream again. I managed to bite it down, however, and only produced a loud hiss. The two ponies that were talking to each other before turned to me with concerned expressions on their faces.
My brain was quickly processing the events of this morning, from before me fainting. The machine beside my bed started beeping as I remembered that I probably was a pony like the other two in the room, and that I apparently didn’t remember much. The beeping prompted the nurse to take a syringe from the table and to start moving towards me. I took a couple deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. The beeping stopped, and so did the nurse. She slowly nodded to me and said something short in process, but did not let go of the syringe.
As I calmed down, I really noticed the other pony for the first time. She had yellow coat, long pink mane, cyan eyes, and she also had wings. I was really surprised by how little the wings surprised me. “So there are... those winged ponies too. Great! Now I really need to remember what they are called. It’s way too frustrating, knowing that there is a word, but being unable to recall it! ”
That yellow pony was inching closer slowly, almost painfully so. I also noticed that she was muttering something under her breath. I think I could even hear her when I strained my ears! “Wait. My ears... Move? ” That was a weird sensation. “Oh, right. I’m a pony now. ” I bit down another bout of panic before it could surface. “Better leave freaking out about it for later. ”
The yellow pony finally reached my bed. She stopped, hesitated for a bit, and then said something actually audible. She almost hid her face behind her mane as she did that. “Gosh, isn’t she a shy one! ” For whatever reason, that thought brought a smile to my face.
The nurse said something to the yellow pony. The yellow pony turned to look at her with surprise on her face and replied. The nurse shrugged and said something else. The yellow one replied with a slightly saddened face, and turned back to me. She paused in thought, and then raised her hoof, slightly waved it at me, and said something short while doing so. Then she paused with her hoof still raised and waited, slightly smiling at me.
“Has she greeted me? Is she trying to get me to reply? ” She repeated the gesture once more, and was waiting again. I thought she was getting nervous. I decided that I better do something.
“Hello! ” I said to her, smiling slightly, and wiggling my front right hoof a little. Turns out it didn’t hurt all that much when I did it slowly.
Instead of looking surprised, she almost beamed at me. The nurse snorted a little. “So, they probably were discussing me not knowing their language. ” The yellow one said something more to me in a gentle voice. “Hmm, maybe she can actually understand me? ”
While I was thinking, the nurse excused herself, apparently, and left the room. I decided that I had nothing to loose, and asked my question.
“I do not understand any of what you say. Do you understand any of what I say? ” I waited expectantly. She hesitated for a little, hid behind her mane, and shook her head. “Well, whatever she meant, she didn’t understand my speech, even if she guessed the question. Also, that was unbearably cute! ” My eyes studied her for a little more before my mind caught up with the last thought. “Oh, my! What am I even thinking! ” I’m pretty sure I blushed at that. “I’m not even a pony! At least I wasn’t... ”
She momentarily looked at me from behind her mane, her eyes widened slightly, and she retreated back behind her pink curtain. Yep, I definitely blushed, because now she was blushing too. That was getting very awkward very quickly.
The awkwardness was completely forgotten the instant a loud boom shuddered the room. The yellow one disappeared, confetti and streamers rained everywhere, and an almost impossibly pink muzzle was right in my face, topped with huge blue eyes and framed with even pinker mane.
“PINKIE! ” I shouted that in sheer panic. I have no idea where that came from, even if it was somewhat logical in hindsight.
“Surprise! And hello to you too! ” I think I’ve blown a fuse somewhere in my head at hearing that. The pink abomination continued speaking excitedly, animatedly and very quickly at me, but I could not make out any more familiar words.
While my brain was rebooting and processing what just has happened, the yellow one slowly crawled out from under my bed and said something to the pink one. That slowed her chatter a little and redirected it away from me. At first it looked like the yellow one was telling the pink one off, no doubt for scaring her and making all that mess. Then she calmed down and they had a little conversation. While they were doing that, I was thinking.
“What the heck was that!? Did she appeared out of nowhere, right in front of my face? Impossible! I just was too startled by her entrance, with that boom of confetti. But why did I call her Pinkie? It was almost like... I knew she was into that kind of thing, and tried to yell angrily at her for that? Maybe I did know her before... Nah, that’s impossible. I was pretty surprised when I first realized that a sentient pony was in front of me. Then... Stop, she actually replied to me in a way I could understand!? ” I dumbly looked at her, she was still chatting with the yellow one. I was completely confused.
“Maybe I’ve imagined it? Could it be possible that she knew my language? Why didn’t she use it after that initial greeting, then? Ugh. She’s making my head hurt! ” I stopped thinking for a bit, and decided to find out for sure.
“Um... Pinkie? ” Both ponies stopped their conversation and looked at me. I hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Pinkie, do you understand any of what I say? ” Pinkie tilted her head, and said something to me with a confused expression. “Just answer the question, please, ” I added, just in case. She tilted her head to the other side and added a few more confused words. The yellow one said something to her, and they exchanged a couple more phrases before the door opened.
The nurse came in. She looked angry. Very angry. She stomped towards Pinkie, while the yellow one backpedaled away and hid behind her mane, again. Did I say how unbearably cute that was, by the way?
Pinkie had decency to look ashamed, and she probably stammered a few quiet excuses, none of which seemed to persuade the nurse. She said something loudly and angrily, at which Pinkie turned turned to me.
“See ya! ” She waved at me, and then she was gone in a blink of an eye. I was very confused again. Of course, I could have imagined that short phrase, again, but in any case that paled before what really confused me. Pinkie was gone in a literal blink of an eye! Eyes open, eyes closed for a brief moment, opened again, and she wasn't there any more! She disappeared, together with all the mess of confetti she created earlier!
My brain ground to a halt. It was a slight relief that I wasn’t the only one confused. Both remaining ponies stood frozen for a few long moments, after which the nurse shook her head and went towards the table. “Huh. I guess Pinkie is always like that, and everyone just accepted it. I better not question her, too, for the sake of my sanity. ”
The nurse removed a food tray, which I somehow didn’t notice before, from her back and placed it on the table. I would have been surprised at how she kept it balanced on her back all that time, but seriously! Pinkie just broke the very laws of physics right before my eyes! My quota for being surprised was expended for today, if not for the next week or more.
Well, I guess it was breakfast time. I wasn’t quite thrilled to see hay on the plate, among other things, but I guess it’s normal for ponies to eat it. And I am one now, as far as I can tell. The yellow one helped me slowly raise my head, and fed me with a spoon. No matter how awkward that was, being fed nutrient solution through some tubes was definitely not an option in the long run, so I needed to get used to eating by normal means again.
After we were finished, the shy pegasus (I remembered that word, after all!) hanged around a little more. All the while, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew her before. Her appearance and behavior felt familiar, somehow. Soon enough, Shy left for the day. (I decided to call her that, her shyness was way too prominent.) The nurse took some blood samples from me later on, and that was it for the day. I spent most of the remaining time sleeping.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
Learning things about ponies
My stay at the hospital wasn’t going to end any time soon, if my still bandaged and aching body was any indication. Shy kept coming to me in the mornings, the nurse kept poking me to get blood samples, and I kept sleeping most of the remaining time, out of boredom if not exhaustion.
A couple days later, a horned pony arrived to my room together with the nurse. I don’t think I really was surprised to see his kind. “Horned pony sounds wrong. A hornhead? Horn... Horn... A ha! Unicorn. That sounds just about right. I wonder if he can do magic? ” The last thought made me snort. “If I settle for some more traditional definition of magic than ‘things evading explanation’, there’s no way he could do levitation or anything like that. ”
The unicorn himself was dark gray, with much lighter hair. Or maybe he was just getting old? He was wearing a white lab coat, square glasses, and a serious face. He came closer to me and asked something. The nurse answered for me. The unicorn looked at her and furrowed his brows. Then he turned back to me, and levitated a pencil and a notepad out of his coat pocket.
“Oh. ” That did surprise me, though not as much as I thought it would. “Oh well, so much for common sense. Now I live in a magical land, surrounded by magical ponies. This unicorn can levitate stuff. The pegasi probably need magic to fly, their wings are too small if Shy is a good reference. That nurse... She probably has some kind of magic, too, she makes doing things with her hooves look way too easy. And the less is said about Pinkie, the better. ”
As I finished thinking that, I felt a weird tingling move through my body. That was a little scary. The unicorn stood beside me, eyes closed and horn glowing with yellowish light. “Calm down, it’s all right. The unicorn won’t hurt me, the nurse is here. He’s probably a doctor anyway. ” The last thought actually made me calm down. “He’s probably just checking my health with some kind of diagnostic spell. ”
When he has finished scanning me, he opened his eyes, thought for a bit, and then shook his head. I think he was somewhere between sad and confused, if anything, and that did nothing to boost my spirits. He turned to the nurse and said a single word.
The nurse’s face acquired a confused expression, and she gave an even shorter reply, probably asking him to elaborate. The doctor gave a longer reply, and her face changed to utter horror. She sputtered a few short words, and then seemed to stammer a semi-coherent reply, turning to look at me towards the end.
I guess she realized what she’s done when our eyes met, for she quickly pulled a fake looking smile, weak and apologetic. I wasn’t quite hyperventilating yet, but I was close.
The doctor interrupted our exchange by covering his face with a hoof and grunting. He said something to the nurse, and her expression changed to confused and curious. He added some more, and she looked like realization hit her. Then I had an impression that she asked him something like “How is it even possible?”, and her face was nothing but confirmation.
The doctor simply shrugged, and continued to take notes. The nurse asked him one more question, and his reply made her relax quite a bit. The fact that she was no longer scared to death was a good sign, so I started to calm down myself. When he finished taking notes, they both left.
“So... The magic is real here. Levitation, scanning spells, and I’m pretty sure there is much more. Also, I wonder... ” I slowly moved my right foreleg up, towards my forehead. I felt my hoof touch something. “Ow yeah. This is gonna be fun! ”
Later that day, they disconnected me from that machine next to my bed. That meant that I was moving towards recovery, and I could not be happier at the moment.
When Shy arrived the next morning, she looked really sad at first. When I gave her a questioning look, she immediately brightened up and said something that was supposed to be reassuring, I felt.
“Was she sad on my behalf? Does it have something to do with how the nurse was scared to death yesterday? But she wasn’t any more in the end, so I have nothing to worry about, right? ” Any further pondering was cut short when the door opened.
The nurse came in, she and Shy greeted each other. Then the nurse said something that caused Shy to make that face, like she just realized something obvious. A moment later she nodded, turned to me and said something. Of course I didn’t understand it, but I bet she knew that.
Shy thought for a bit. Then she laid down on the floor, stood back up, and pointed a hoof at me.
“What is she... Is she trying to tell me to get up? I could hardly move without fainting just a few days ago! ” I gave her an incredulous look. She beckoned me with her hoof. The nurse nodded at that.
“Well, I might as well try. What’s the worst that can happen? ” I stopped at that. “Well, I wouldn’t disintegrate at least, otherwise the nurse would not be approving the idea. ”
I nodded and started slowly inching towards the edge of my bed. Moving that much wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable now as I expected it to be based on how it was a couple days ago. I removed my right foreleg from the bed and placed my hoof onto the floor. “Hmm, feels like I could actually stand on it! ” I did the same with my right hind leg. Then my left foreleg, at which point I lost balance and tumbled to the floor.
Shy almost rushed to me, but I raised my hoof to stop her. “Surprisingly, that didn’t hurt all that much. I might get out of here much earlier than I expected! ” I rolled onto my belly, pulled my forelegs under myself, then hind legs, and one push up later I was standing! “Yeah, I’ll be out in no time! ” I smiled widely and took a step forward, and faceplanted. “OUCH! That hurt! ”
Shy scrunched up her face like she felt my pain, and the nurse simply snorted. I glared daggers at her.
Nurse said something to Shy, to which she nodded. They came to stand at my sides and were looking at me. “Oh, I guess they are going to support me as I walk for now. Good. ” I pulled my legs under myself again and stood up, and they put their forelegs under me. I made a few steps forward to test my footing, after which we headed out of the room.
A surprise was awaiting me outside. The hospital was really small. I’m not sure what I was comparing it against, but it just felt so small! We were on the second floor, and it was just nine rooms long! I’ve seen the reception desk and the exit through the ladder down, and the ladder up definitely led to the attic, because I could see the inside of the roof.
The other part of the surprise was how empty it was there. Most of the rooms were open, and they were empty. I’ve only seen a single old stallion sit next to a window at the end of the corridor, and he looked pretty healthy to me, probably here for a regular checkup. With that few patients, I expected there to be little medical personnel. I didn’t see many, either.
“There aren’t many ponies in need of medical assistance, are there? ” I mused to myself as we were making yet another lap across the floor. I already felt steady on my hooves, but the two mares still stuck to my sides just in case. “Maybe that’s why it took me only a few days to heal almost completely? I am a pony now, after all... ”
The idea no longer made me freak out, but instead it made me think. “Yes, I am a pony now. And even though I feel like I wasn’t before... Maybe I really was? ” I furrowed in concentration. “I cannot remember what I was before I became a pony. Even though some things here seem to surprise me, the magnitude of surprise isn’t really that big. Even some ponies feel familiar to me! And this Pinkie... ” My head started to throb. “Ugh. Never mind. Still, could my... condition be that weird? Forgetting things that were, yet remembering things that weren’t? Maybe... ”
My thought process was interrupted by sounds of protest coming from downstairs. They seemed to interest Shy. She said something to nurse, who nodded, and went quickly to the stairs and then down. I heard a conversation between her and the voice that was protesting before. As we reached the stairs too, I looked down.
Near the reception desk, there stood a light blue pegasus with a vibrant multi-color mane. I think it sported all colors of the rainbow. “That’s a lot of colors. I’ll eat my shoes if her name isn’t Rainbow. Only I don’t have shoes... do I? ” I lifted my forehoof to check for a horseshoe. “No I don’t. Anyway, I’ll definitely call her Rainbow until I find out her actual name. And probably after that. ”
Rainbow’s right wing was outstretched and held in the yellowish aura of the unicorn doctor who visited me the previous day. Utter annoyance and boredom filled her face, and I would not be surprised if it was even worse before she started talking to Shy. She definitely hated doctors. Her face became less and less annoyed as she chatted to Shy, her friend I must assume. Still, she cheered and did a flip in the air as soon as the doctor released her.
After shrugging off what must have been the doctor’s reprimand for performing aerobatics inside hospital building, she asked Shy something. Shy turned, looked upstairs, and pointed her hoof at us. Rainbow was at my face in a burst of speed. She gave me a few inquisitive glances, then smiled, said something happily and raised her hoof.
“Does she want us to shake hooves? Is she really a ‘she’, by the way? ” Her smile faltered a little. I finally gave her a smile of my own and raised my hoof to shake hers. “Shaking another pony’s hoof feels difficult and awkward. Maybe they do something else? Wherever did I even get the idea? ” I didn’t say anything, of course, language barrier and all.
Rainbow’s smile fell completely and was replaced by a slightly annoyed frown. She asked something in an annoyed raised voice. When I didn’t reply immediately, she seemed to even become a bit angry. Luckily, the nurse finally replied for me, probably saying that I didn’t understand the language. Rainbow’s expression suddenly switched to surprised, and then to an apologetic smile. She stammered something meekly and raised her hoof again.
“Maybe I’m supposed to bump it instead of shaking? ” I tried to do that, and Rainbow seemed to be happy with the result. “Huh, that actually worked. ”
Rainbow exchanged a few more phrases with Shy, who by then finished walking up the stairs and was standing with us. After that, she turned, waved us goodbye, spread her wings and left the building through an open window.
As she was doing that, I took notice of a picture on her flank. It was a simple enough design, a tricolor lightning bolt striking out of a white cloud. Now, I’m not the kind of person who stares at someone else’s hindquarters without a really good reason! I don’t think I am, at least. No, I’ve just noticed something peculiar.
“Huh, she has a picture on her flank. The multi-color bolt definitely resembles her mane coloring. Shy also has one, three pink butterflies if I remember correctly. The nurse has a red cross with hearts in corners, just like on her cap. That unicorn doctor and the old stallion I’ve seen before also have theirs, though I don’t remember what they are. Every pony I’ve seen so far has a mark on their flank that is likely related to who they are somehow! ” I stopped in thought, and then turned my head to look at my own flank.
It was blank. “Well, maybe not everyone wears such mark? ” I moved my head as close as I could and studied my flank some more. There was not a single dull speck of color there. “I don’t think I was out for long enough for it to wash out so completely, not if it was meant to be worn all the time. Or maybe I wasn’t a pony after all... ” I turned my head back and looked at the two ponies accompanying me. Shy was holding a hoof to her mouth, horror on her face, and the nurse just looked sad. “Welp, I guess they realized I don’t remember anything! I would have remembered what my mark was, and if there was one in the first place. ”
Suddenly, Shy hugged me and wrapped her wings around me. She muttered something, and I realized she was crying.
I patted her back lightly. “Shh, It will be all right. Everything will be all right. I’ll manage, I promise. ” She didn’t understand the words, of course, but she could not miss my intonation. She broke the hug after a while and smiled at me weakly, rubbing away tears with her foreleg. I put my right hoof on her chest and donned the most reassuring smile I could muster. “It will be all right, I promise. ” She nodded lightly.
After we went back to my room, Shy stayed with me longer than before. I kept my smile as wide and genuine as I could, lest she started crying again. Truth to be told, my... condition sucked, a lot. I could not even remember what it was called, for god’s sake! Yet, I wasn’t too worried by it somehow. Hell, just the prospect of doing magic with my horn seemed to outweigh all the immediate problems I had, even before my pony nature seemed to erase half of them.
Still, I had to start fixing my language situation, and my memory if possible, as soon as I could. “I need to do it, for both our sakes. What if we actually knew each other before whatever incident put me here? ” I pondered that thought for a while, and came to a realization. “No, it cannot be. She knew that I didn’t know her language from the very morning when I first woke up, and she definitely does not know my language. She would not have only now reacted like she did if we ever talked before, she’d do it right away. ” I smiled a bit wider. “It would probably be easier that way, for everyone. The old me might really be dead by now, a stranger in his place for everyone who ever knew me. There won’t be an impostor to remind them of their grief if I just disappeared, and I can start a new life here, not weighted down by whatever past I had. ” I looked at Shy sitting beside my bed. “And I have a kind soul beside me who is willing to help. Whether there is a deeper reason for her caring about me that much, or if that's just the way she is, I’m grateful for that. ”
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
With the events of the previous day in mind, I knew I was leaving the hospital any time soon. Even if I thought the opposite just a day ago. Funny how that works.
Now that I could move freely on my own, the nurse apparently decided that I could eat my breakfast without extra help.
“Such a shame, I was getting used to how things were! Not. ” Even thinking about the awkwardness of being fed like that made me cringe a little. I was more than happy to finally dig in on my own! I took the spoon in my hoof...
“Um... And how exactly do I do that? ” I poked the spoon a few times, but nothing happened. “I could pick it up with two hooves, but then I won’t be able to eat with it. And they used only one hoof to feed me before. ” I looked at the spoon for a few moments more. “So... Magic. Not only it’s convenient, they cannot even eat their breakfast without it, apparently. ” I thought for a moment, put my hoof on the spoon, and tried to concentrate and wish it to stick to my hoof. Then I lifted it.
I’m not sure if I was surprised when the spoon stayed exactly where it was on the table, but I sure was disappointed. “Well, that didn’t work. ” I tried once more, imagining some force to push the spoon towards my hoof. “Maybe my horn will do the job? ” I stared at the spoon for a good half a minute, but it didn’t budge.
“Either my magic is too weak after whatever put me here, or I’m not doing it right. Or both. ” I turned to look at the nurse. Her face looked sad and... Apologetic? I raised a brow at that. She smiled a little and shook her head. I turned back to my plate.
“Well, that’s a bummer. Looks like I have no choice. ” I dipped my muzzle into the plate and started eating. The nurse snorted.
The breakfast experience put a little damper on my mood. I was pretty sure I’d be able to use magic eventually, but not being able to do it now wasn’t very encouraging, especially since it turned out that without it I can only grab things with my mouth.
Still, I needed to stay positive! And I had other things to do, like learning the local language.
Later in the day, the nurse came to remove my bandages. As she started uncovering my body, I was in for quire a shock.
“Oh sweet heavens! ” My eyes probably were as big as dinner plates, and I could hardly think any more. My whole body was covered in huge scars. One especially scary looking was running through my whole left side, almost from neck to hind leg!
As the initial shock wore off slightly, I added, “Those ponies are resilient lot. ” I stood there in silence, and my brain started working again after a little bit.
“I guess most of those healed while I was still out. These bandages hardly have anything on them, and I was wearing them since the moment I first woke up. How did I even get all those scars? ” I quickly decided not to dwell on the subject, lest it gave me nightmares.
Soon enough, the unicorn doctor arrived, and ran a few more tingling scanning spells through my body. He took some notes, exchanged a few words with the nurse, and then turned to me.
He sat down on the floor, and gestured to me, to do the same I suppose. Though some worry crept into my mind, I did as instructed. He closed his eyes and concentrated, his horn started glowing. I felt tingling again, mostly inside my head, and especially at my horn. A headache quickly started forming, and I shut my eyes. It was getting stronger by the moment. When I was almost ready to scream, though, the torment stopped, and only weak echoes of the headache were bouncing around my scull. I opened my eyes one by one to see the doctor, who was still sitting beside me. He was visibly panting and pressing a hoof into his forehead. The worried nurse was looking between us.
“Whatever he was trying to do, it gave him even worse headache than it did me. I wonder, what was he trying to do? Maybe he was trying to make my memory return? ” I tried to remember what I was before becoming a pony... Blank. How did I get all the scars? Blank. “Well, it didn’t work if that’s the case. ” Now that my headache was completely gone, I didn’t feel any different than before.
The doctor finally seemed to recover from his own headache, looked at me, and his horn started glowing again. I shut my eyes in preparation for another painful experience, but it never came. I cracked one eye open. The doctor was still sitting at the same spot, and now he was frowning. He turned towards the nurse, who asked him something. He shook his head, paused, and said a single word. Then he stood up and was taking notes again. The nurse sighed, but said nothing.
“I wonder what this was all about. ” I sat there for a moment more. “In any case, it didn’t seem to work. No point in thinking about it now. ”
When the doctor and the nurse were about to leave, I came after them. The nurse looked at me when the door refused to close behind her, and then continued on her way. I left the room and closed the door. No one tried to stop me when I went downstairs and left the building.
“I guess they cannot help me any more, and thus have no reason to hold me inside. Or maybe they just don’t expect me to get too far, they know that I don’t exactly have anywhere to go. ” I stopped just outside the doors. “Well, I’m pretty sure Shy won’t mind me staying for a wile, but I’d have to find her place first. She comes in mornings, so I’d probably have to spend the night at the hospital and wait for her. ”
It was a nice summer day outside. The sun was almost in zenith, bathing everything in its warm and bright glow. Feeling a fresh breeze and warmth of direct sunlight was a very welcome change from the hospital room, not that it was too bad back there.
I took a look around. The hospital, it seems, was on the edge of a small-ish town. It gave me an impression of a village, with its thatched roofs and mostly single- or two-story buildings, but it was far too large to call it a village. I started walking around the hospital building to see what was on the other side. As soon as I rounded the corner, my jaw threatened to fall off.
“Wow! ” I’ve never seen anything like it. I think. “A giant castle built on a side of a mountain. It looks like something from a fairy tale! ” I paused. “Not that magic felt particularly ‘realistic’ at first, or the ponies for that matter. Chances are, I live in a fairy tale now. ” I stared at the castle some more while continuing to think. “Why am I so sure that things around me aren’t realistic? I don’t even remember anything to compare to! ” Trying to figure it out started to make my head hurt, so I dropped that trail of thought.
I finished my lap around the hospital and sat down on the grass, thinking on what I should do next. In all likelihood, I had nothing to do till the night, so I could as well take a look around the town. With that settled, I enjoyed sitting in the sun for a bit more, picked a round slanted roof poking out from somewhere in the middle of the town as my destination, and started walking.
Very soon I came across the first ponies, who were going about their day. They were a friendly bunch, it seems. Most greeted me as I trotted by, waving their hooves and saying something with a smile, even though, I was pretty sure, none of them knew me. I smiled and waved my hoof in reply. One peculiar thing I noticed was that some of them seemed quite a bit more reluctant to greet me, maybe even scared a little. It probably was due to my scars, since those ponies seen my left side, where the big and scary scars were, while my right side was almost untouched in comparison.
It is worth a note how colorful these ponies are. I’d say unnaturally so, but hey, a few days ago I thought that speaking was unnatural for ponies. Many of them had multi-color manes and tails, stallions included. “I wonder if their hair grows like that, or if all of them are obsessed with dying it? I’d probably feel very uncomfortable if I was that colorful. ” I turned my head back to look at my tail, which was plain black. “Good thing that my colors are tame like they are. ”
I kept trotting along the street, greeting everyone and observing ponies around me. “Hmm. I think every single pony I’ve seen so far, from young to old, has some kind of mark on their flank. No wonder they are following me with such curious glances, I would stand out without one. I’m even tempted to think that they appear naturally. Everyone has them on the same spot, and they are simple enough designs, I cannot imagine that all of them are trying to show these off for their artistic value. ”
Some sightseeing later, I’ve heard a shout from behind. I thought it was getting closer, and fast. “What the! ” was all I blurted out as I turned and received a faceful of orange filly. We both were on the ground, and my head hurt. “Ow. ” The filly recovered first. She hopped back on her scooter as I was still watching her from the ground. She said something, I hope it was an apology, and rode off, her little wings quickly propelling her forward.
“That was so un-fairy-tale-y it felt completely out of place. I’d even say it felt normal to me, if not for the fact that none of us got hurt from such a high speed collision. Those ponies must be half invincible or something. ” As I got up, a thought finally caught up with me. “That orange filly had a blank flank, like me. Maybe some ponies don’t have those marks, after all. Or maybe it’s just little kids who don’t have them, wouldn’t that be funny! ” I snorted at the idea. “I wonder if they see me as an overgrown kid? ”
I continued my trek towards that tall round building I choose as my destination before, which now was fully visible at the end of the street. As I reached it, I found myself in a rather large square. The square was surrounded by a small brook on one side and houses on the others. There was a fountain with a rearing pony statue standing on top of it, which for some reason was pink. “I don’t think there is a viable statue material that is naturally that color. Why would they paint it, let alone pink? ”
I came closer to the massive round building. “Huh, it looks impressive from up close. And it’s alone in the middle of the square. Must be the town hall. ” I looked up. “It has a walkway around its roof. Maybe I could get up there and take a better look at the town from above. ”
That plan was cut short when I noticed a blob of yellow and pink in my periphery vision. After I looked directly at it, I was sure it was Shy, who entered the square from the other side and was heading for one of the bridges across the brook. “Maybe later, I have more important things to do right now. ”
Author's Note
Fun fact: As I was writing this chapter, I spent more time trying to figure out a semi-coherent layout of Ponyville, or at least of its main landmarks. And you know what? Screw the map!
The railroad is at different sides of town according to different people. There isn't Sugarcube Corner at all in the aerial shots from the intro. And what in Equestria could make somepony build the clock tower at the edge of the Everfree, almost next to Shy's cottage!?
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
I was happy to see Shy again, now outside the hospital. I think she was slightly surprised to see me out and about so soon, but smiled all the same when I cantered closer and started walking beside her. She had a pair of connected bags hanging over her back. The bags themselves were at the sides, filled mostly with groceries as far as I could tell. I think I’ve seen other ponies wear similar bags, but I didn’t pay them much attention before.
“Huh, neat. A convenient way to carry your things around. ” After having a closer look, I could not miss the design stitched into the bags. “This is the same image that she has on her flank. I’m starting to think that those marks are kind of important. ”
We could not exactly have a chat due to my language difficulties, so we just crossed the bridge in silence and continued further towards the edge of the town. There weren’t many houses on that side of the brook, so we soon were walking an open field. A few houses were sparsely dotted there, closer to the forest. We were headed towards the farthest one, which was almost at the edge of the forest, behind a stream. It was a two story cottage, and its green roof made it look like a small and especially high grassy hill, or maybe a tree.
As we were getting closer, I started hearing birds chirping. Lots of them. And the closer we got, the louder was the noise. Then I started hearing the sounds of various small animals scurrying to and fro. By the time we reached a small bridge right in front of the house, I was mesmerized by the sight. Never in my life have I seen that many different critters in one place. Not that I would remember, but you know what I mean.
Not quite unexpectedly, I guess, said critters started crowding around Shy. They were visibly wary of me, though, and I started to lag behind a little to avoid interfering. When Shy was talking to a bird fluttering before her, it almost looked like she was replying to what the bird was saying. Then a rather big bear emerged from around the corner of the house, and it was my turn to be wary. Shy was unaffected, she simply greeted it with a wave. Interestingly, the bear did the same in reply.
As we entered the house, the critters were all over the place there too. Small burrows dotted the walls at floor level, and quite a few birdhouses were hanging from walls and ceiling. “Now that’s definitely taking it too far. She sure does like animals! No wonder she does not even lock the door. The critters definitely like her, and at least the bear seems to be smart enough, so any potential intruder would find themselves in a whole lot of trouble. ”
As I was thinking that, Shy dropped off her bags, arranged some bowls on the floor, and filled them with various greenery from the bags. The critters started eating, while I was staring slack jawed at all of that and wondering how exactly could Shy afford to feed all of them. “Well, at least I won’t be too much extra burden for her then. Maybe I could help her take care of the critters as a compensation. ”
One white bunny had already finished his carrots, and now was pestering Shy, probably to get more. He was jumping impatiently, patting his belly, and even pretended to drop dead at one point. Shy sighed and gave him another carrot, but he didn’t calm down. When she finally shook her head in refusal, he simply jumped into the bag and took the second carrot himself. Shy was not happy with that, but didn’t try to stop him. “What a spoiled brat, that bunny! I wonder if he can even eat all those carrots at once! ”
Shy said something, not sure if it was addressed to me, and went outside, probably to feed the remaining animals. The bunny already finished chomping down his two extra carrots, and took notice of me. He approached me with a frown and defiant attitude, probably wondering who the heck I was. After I snorted in amusement, he jumped right onto my muzzle. Now he was staring me right in the eyes and impatiently beating his right hind leg, which hurt my muzzle quite a bit.
“Who the hell do you think you are? ” asked I in frustration as I flopped onto my rump. As I grabbed him with my hooves to take him off, an idea struck me. “Oh, Shy is so not going to like this if she finds out, but this devil bunny deserves it. I hope it works. ” Instead of putting him down, I pulled a wicked grin and kept looking at him. His face became slightly less defiant and more confused. I slowly licked my lips, and bared my teeth a little. The bunny started to catch on, it seemed, for now he looked kinda scared and was frantically trying to free himself. I smiled even wider, baring all my teeth and slightly parting my jaws. Now he shut his eyes and his ears were hanging limp. “Ha, it worked! I’m pretty sure ponies are herbivorous, but he actually bought it! Maybe I even overdid it a little... ” I put the now trembling bunny onto the floor and lightly patted his head. He cracked one eye, than another, and was looking at my smile in confusion. As I bared my teeth again, he bolted away and hid somewhere. “I’m so glad we found a common language! ” I was giggling at that point.
I looked around the room once again. There was a table, a sofa, a couple soft chairs, plus a few smaller soft beds for the critters. There also was a ladder leading upstairs, a bookshelf, a stone stove with various pots and pans on it, a couple cupboards. Oh, and there was a mirror!
“Hmm... Yeah, I think I like how I look! ” I came closer. “I definitely prefer my color scheme to the bright and colorful of most ponies. Oh, and I love the horn! It’s all spiraly... ” As I was admiring my horn, I noticed how unkempt the hair around it was. “Oh, I so need to wash myself. My mane is in terrible shape, and I must be reeking from spending the past week or more in bandages! ”
Without thinking too much, I went outside, down to the stream, and dunked my head into the water. It wasn’t completely clean, but it had to do. The cool water also was quite refreshing after such a warm day. As I stood there and shook excess water out of my mane, I noticed Shy staring at me with a blank expression. When I looked at her, she smiled and waved a hoof for me to follow. Then she turned around and went inside. As I entered after her, she was heading upstairs and to the left. I followed, and found myself in a room with a sink and a somewhat large wooden bath. There also was a mirror over the sink, some bottles on a shelf next to the bath, and towels were hanging on a wall.
“I wonder why I didn’t even think to look for such room, I’m definitely not surprised there is one. Heck, I think I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a bathroom here! Maybe it was the stone stove and overall simple look of the cottage? ” I smiled at Shy and nodded, after which she left the room and closed the door.
I definitely knew how to use this room, but it still took me some time to turn the valves with my hooves. There even was hot water! I washed my mane and my tail with contents of one of the bottles, the one that had the weakest flowery smell of them all. I still would smell like dandelions for a while. The most difficult part, as I found out, was to scrub my coat clean with soap. It wasn’t easy to pour some liquid from a bottle onto my mane, and I in fact think I almost shattered that bottle, but at least I could hold it with two hooves. Holding the soap bar with one hoof was pretty much impossible. In the end, I opted to grab it with my mouth. After I washed the taste away and used hooves to spread the soapy foam everywhere I could not reach with my mouth, I washed it all off and shook myself reasonably dry. I wasn’t looking forward to brushing my mane, there was no way I could adequately hold the brush, so I was quite happy to find out that, after washing it, my short mane looked just fine as it was, without any extra effort.
Satisfied with the result, I walked towards the door and pushed it. It did not open. “Huh, weird. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it open outside. ” I tried to pull the handle with my hoof, but the door still did not move. I grabbed the handle with my mouth to pull it with more force, and then I noticed that it wiggled a little. “Oh, so this doorknob is rotating, and the door just clicked shut. And it probably opens outside just as I remember. ” I turned my head together with the knob and tried to push, but my muzzle was immediately stopped by the door frame. I tried to turn it with my hooves, but it was too slippery. “Oh come on! This is ridiculous. Shy just turned it with a single hoof, without even giving it a second thought! ” I tried to grab it with my mouth from the side, but this way I could not rotate it far enough.
“That’s it. Of all places, I’m stuck in a bathroom. No matter how stupid that is, I won’t be able to leave by myself if my life depended on it... Well, maybe I could have bucked the door down if my life really depended on it, but still. Those ponies are way too reliant on their magic. Why would not they be, anyway? It’s too convenient. But I don’t have any right now! ” I banged my head against the door in frustration. My currently useless horn was quite sensitive, as I quickly found out, so I winced in pain at the impact. I sat there for a little while, looking at the door with loathing. Then I sighed, stood up, and started banging at the door with my hoof.
“Shy! Let me out! I’m stuck here! ” I was already thinking how I would explain why I could not leave the room without outside help. “Ugh. This is so embarrassing. ” It wasn’t long before I heard hoofsteps outside that were quickly getting closer.
A scared looking Shy opened the door and asked something in a worried tone. Then she noticed me just sitting there and looking at her, and she became a little confused and slightly frowny. I sighed, stood up, approached the door, put my hoof on the doorknob and demonstrated how I could not rotate or pull it. Shy did not understand what I was doing at first, but then realization and surprise filled her face and she covered her mouth with a hoof. And then she was just sad. She gestured me to follow her and went downstairs.
Turns out she prepared some lunch while I was washing myself. Nothing fancy, just some vegetables and flowers, tea, and a little plate of cookies in the middle of the table. She sighed when I demonstrated being unable to pick up the fork and proceeded to eat right off the plate. When it was time for tea, I managed to drop the teacup, which promptly shattered and almost soaked me with hot tea. While Shy was cleaning up the mess, I just sat there and slowly chewed a cookie.
“Having no magic at all sucks so much more than being unable to properly speak or remember anything past a week ago. ”
Author's Note
Sorry for such a long delay on a not quite long chapter!
I got detained at Arstotzka border checkpoint in Grestin, and then I had to stamp various papers for hours and hours upon end!
I blame Vannamelon and her "Fluttershy plays" for this.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
When we were done with our lunch and Shy finished cleaning up the mess that I inadvertently created, it probably was a little past noon. I was not feeling very enthusiastic after the whole bathroom door disaster, so I decided that I needed some fresh air to think. I went for the door, but was stopped by Shy’s voice when I was almost out.
As I turned to look at her, she shook her head. I didn’t even know what to think, so I raised a brow at it. She probably understood that, and was now thinking how to explain herself. She soon got an idea, as was evident by the change in her expression, and went upstairs and to the right. No idea what was there, the door was closed when I passed it before. Soon she returned with a pencil and some paper.
“Oh, she’s probably going to draw the answer. That’s a good idea. ” She put the paper onto the table and started drawing, holding the pencil in her mouth. I came closer to watch. I could tell she was no artist, but the image she drew was easy to identify. It was a cloud, with rain falling from it.
“She’s trying to tell me that it’s going to rain? But it’s sunny, and I’ve only seen a few light clouds while I was outside not so long ago! ” I looked out of the closest window, and sure, quite a few heavy dark clouds were moving in, and fast! “Huh, she’s right. At this rate, the clouds will be here in just a few minutes. ”
I nodded to Shy, sighed, and just sat there. I still wasn’t feeling like doing anything, and there was little I could actually do. Shy looked at me for a while, and then sighed too. She went to the bookshelf, took one of the books, and settled on the sofa to read. Soon it started raining outside, and then it quickly became dark and windy. I heard a roll of thunder in the distance. It was going to be one wicked thunderstorm.
Shy got up and went towards the door. My confusion was quickly cleared when, instead of going outside, she tapped something on the wall, and the lights came on. I don’t know why it surprised me. Even though they never turned the lights on in my hospital room, for I was already asleep by the time it got dark enough, they still had that complex machine by my bedside. A simple light was nothing in comparison. As shy went back to her sofa, curiosity drew me to one of the light sources. “Heh, it’s some sort of crystal, and it’s glowing all by itself. Magic, again. They do use it for everything, it seems. ” That did remind me that I had none presently, but between my detour from moping and looking at Shy reading a book, a thought came to me.
“I can do nothing about my present magic disability, at least I think so. And even if I can, I don’t know what or how. I know next to nothing about the world around me, the ponies, even myself, and I cannot learn much because I don’t know the language. Which is the problem I can do something about. And what better time to start than otherwise pretty useless rainy afternoon! ”
And with that thought, a little determination and brighter mood, I went towards the table where the pencil and some paper still were. I took the pencil in my mouth, looked at the raincloud that Shy drew previously, and started slowly scribbling the words ‘cloud’ and ‘rain’ next to it. I remembered exactly what the letters looked like, but actually writing them with my mouth was a whole different story. About a minute later, not quite satisfied with my work but still enthusiastic, I put the pencil down, picked up the sheet of paper with my mouth and approached Shy.
She looked up from her book and at the paper. She took it in her hooves with curiosity, and I said the two words while pointing at them with my hoof. Then I pointed at the empty space on the other side, and at her. She definitely understood what I wanted her to do. She smiled, closed the book, left the sofa and went to the table. She added her own writing and pronounced the words, and I tried to repeat after her.
Repeating was not easy, for they apparently had sounds in their language that I wasn’t quite used to producing. Not that I could not, it’s just that whinnying didn’t come naturally for me. And when I replaced a short whinny with an ‘i’, shy insisted that I did it wrong by repeating the word, and adding some other word that had an actual ‘i’ in it when I failed for the third time. After I got close enough for her to approvingly nod, I started thinking how I could transcribe the pronunciation with my language, to write it down in case I forget it, but it was kinda difficult to do it precisely even without taking the weird horse noises into account. I quickly realized how much work it would be to transcribe every single word individually, and decided to try something else.
I dragged an empty sheet of paper closer with my hoof, took the pencil and started writing out the alphabet in a column. As I finished, I read it out loud. I realized that the letter names hardly sounded like the sounds they represented in words, and really hoped that that wasn’t the case with the pony alphabet. Shy thought for a little, and started writing another column of symbols, reading each one in sequence after she finished. It was a considerably larger alphabet, so hopefully there were separate letters for most of the sounds they used. I transcribed the pronunciation to the best of my ability, writing short descriptions for the weirder sounds. It took us at least ten minutes, maybe fifteen or more, for Shy to read every letter again, and for me to repeat it satisfactorily and write it down.
With the alphabet written down, it was time to check if I could actually read the words out loud with it! I’ve read the words ‘cloud’ and ‘rain’ again, and the pronunciation matched. I’ve drawn the sun, written ‘sun’ next to the picture, and silently pointed at it. Shy added her translation. I looked up the two letters that the word consisted of, pronounced them in succession, and looked at Shy for her verdict. She smiled and nodded.
“Yes! They probably have no weird pronunciation rules like my language does, which will make things quite a bit easier. ”
Time flies when you are having fun, and it seemed we both enjoyed playing charades. We went over some common stuff like ‘hello’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘I don’t know’ and so on, random things from around the room, a few of the critters, some actions. Some words required much more guesswork than others, like how do you even explain the abstract concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’? We also covered some simple sentences, questions, that kind of thing.
I noticed a small clock on the wall while we were pointing out random objects to describe, and by the time Shy yawned it was already around nine, while I think we started no later than at two o’clock. It was definitely time to call it a night, so I pretended to fall asleep for a moment and then wrote ‘sleep’ on the paper. Shy wrote the translation down and nodded.
“Yes, it’s ???, ?time? to sleep.”
“Yep, the words would not just stick in my head by themselves, I’ll have to spend time memorizing them. ” I watched as she arranged the paper back into a stack, and I suddenly realized something.
“Um... What you... call?” asked I. “Ugh. I don’t think I got it right. ” I looked at her confused face and tried again. “I call you what?” I looked at her again. “Who could have thought that asking ‘What’s your name?’ would be that difficult. ” Shy seemed to understand now, thankfully.
“My name is Shy.” She smiled at me as I repeated her name a couple times. I could not make anything of it, it was just a sequence of sounds to me, but it sounded nice. She wrote both the word ‘name’ and her name down. As I was adding my translations, she asked me the same question.
“What is your name?” I stopped writing. I thought for a little while, but of course I could not remember it.
“I not know.” said I and tried to smile at her. After a little pause, I asked, “What you call me?”
She sighed and said, “We call you %name%,” and then wrote the name down.
I repeated it slowly, and said “Good!” with a smile. I took the pencil and added ‘Me!’ next to the name. It felt surprisingly good to have a name, even if I had a hard time pronouncing it yet.
Shy smiled at that, said “?Follow? me,” and went upstairs. I followed her, unsure what that was all about. When she opened the door to the right of the staircase, I looked inside. That was, unmistakably, Shy’s bedroom. With a single queen sized bed, and not a single other place to lay down in sight. Can you guess what kind of thoughts were flying through my mind at that moment? As I turned to look at Shy with bewildered face, I felt heat creep up my cheeks despite my best efforts to stay cool.
It took Shy but a moment to realize what I was thinking. Her eyes widened, she tried to hide behind her mane and blushed fiercely, and started slowly backing off, while quietly but frantically stammering semicoherent words, of which I could only really pick out ‘no’, ‘not that’ and ‘didn’t mean’. I put a hoof on her back and took a few exaggerated and loud slow deep breaths. She mirrored me and slowly calmed down. I used the time to calm down myself.
“Explain,” said I. She still was hiding behind her mane and replied rather quietly, but calmly nonetheless.
“You ?? sleep here, I sleep on sofa down ?stairs?.” My face probably acquired the bewildered expression again.
“This pony is way too shy... kind?.. whatever, for her own good. Giving up her bedroom for a sofa, so that a mostly stranger could sleep on a proper bed! ” I shook my head.
“Thanks. No. I sleep sofa. You sleep here.” I smiled at her, turned around and went downstairs. Midway there I turned my head and said, “Good night, Shy!” She was still staring at me with blank expression, but smiled at the words. I continued down the stairs, went to the door to turn off the lights, and then slowly and carefully went to the sofa, barely lifting my hooves so as not to step on an unlucky critter by accident. I laid on the sofa, yawned, and finally closed my eyes.
“That was a good day. And a long one. Feels like it was longer than all the days in hospital together. And for once, I am actually exhausted. ” The storm was still raging outside, rain beating on the window above me. I smiled, and soon drifted off to sleep.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
Author's Note
Warning: Sad much
Scary thoughts
It was a pleasant sunny day. Me and Shy were walking across the town. Ponies of all kinds and colors were greeting us every now and then, and we greeted them back. Everything was perfect.
“I need to do something. I’ll be back!” said Shy at some point, and promptly flew off.
“Ok!” said I, and continued my pleasant stroll.
Soon I realized that I wasn’t sure where exactly I was, or where I was supposed to go. I decided to wait for Shy and sat right where I was.
Time passed, ponies walked by, Shy still was somewhere else. I started feeling hungry.
I looked around and noticed a cafe to my left. As I came closer, my mouth started to water at all the food on display. When I approached the salespony, I realized that I had no money at all. I was feeling very hungry at that point, I was ready to do a lot for something to chew on.
“Hey, take this! It’s on the house.” I raised my head and saw a cupcake that said salespony was pushing towards me over the counter.
“Thank you. Thank you!” I took the cupcake with both hooves and pulled it closer, only for it to slip out of my grip and smash against the dirt. The salespony started laughing. I tried to salvage what remained, but I could not grab anything with my hooves. I only managed to smudge the cupcake all over the ground and my hooves. Laughing intensified.
I looked up. The salespony was hysteric, and some onlookers joined him now. “The next one will cost ya,” said he, barely stifling his laughter to do that.
One of the onlookers threw a coin my way, and it bounced off my head. I found it in the dirt, but I could not pick it up with my hooves. I had to take the dirty coin in my mouth. It was terrible, but I was extremely hungry. I put the coin on the counter and tried to spit the dirt out.
The salespony pushed a burger towards me. I greedily grabbed it, and it dropped out of my hooves too, covering the bread with in mud and spreading hay and flowers to the wind.
I sat there, now starving. Everyone around was laughing. Laughing at my misery.
“Catch this!” said some pony, and threw a piece of bread. I ran after it, not even looking where I was going. It flew through an open door and landed on wooden floor. The planks were moderately clean, so I finally started eating, right off the floor.
I heard a click behind me. I turned and saw that the door was now closed. I rushed to it and tried to push and pull, but it did not open. I looked outside through the iron bars of the door’s window.
“Hey, open the door!”
“It’s not locked. Just turn the handle!” They were still laughing.
I turned away and noticed a bear that was sleeping in the far corner of the empty room. Is started to growl and stand up.
“Please! Open the door! There’s a bear here!”
“Just use your hoof! Or your horn even, are you not a unicorn?” The laughter intensified.
I tried to turn the handle with my mouth. It was made of smooth glass, and my teeth just slipped off it. All I could hear was laughter, growing louder and louder.
Then there was a deafening roar from behind.
I turned in panic and saw the giant bear’s maw open right before me.
I screamed, and the jaws closed around me.
When my thoughts became somewhat coherent and my panic subsided, I found myself lying on my back next to the sofa. I was panting heavily. Some birds were watching me from their birdhouses near the ceiling.
Then I heard a quiet growl that sounded like a bear. Panic gripped me again for a moment, I turned towards the sound and almost screamed.
The bear was watching me through a window. Shy was hiding behind a slightly opened door, and was watching me too. Somehow, both she and the bear managed to look extremely worried.
“Are you all right?” asked Shy rather quietly and without leaving her cover.
“I’m good,” said I. “Bad sleep.” I was still panting. “Thanks heavens, that was just a dream! A very bad, scary nightmare. ” I kept laying there on the floor. Shy finally entered the room and slowly approached me.
“I’m good,” said I and stood up. I probably wasn’t very convincing. Shy nodded, still worried, and reluctantly left me be. I flopped onto the sofa and soon was deep in thought.
“That was just a dream, but what happened in it really concerns me. What if I never get my magic back? What can I even do to earn myself a living if I cannot even win against a door? Ponies use magic for everything. I have trouble even holding things. I probably won’t be able to properly wield most tools. Sure, Shy is taking care of me now, but I cannot make her care for me forever. And even if I can, what kind of life would that be? ” I was not feeling very good.
When Shy entered the room the next time, I really wanted to ask her something.
“Shy?”
“What is it?” said she and came closer.
I left the sofa and approached the table. I sat on my haunches, tapped my horn a few times, then done a few abstract gestures, and finally picked up the pencil with both hooves and moved it randomly in the air for a bit. Then I put it in my mouth and wrote ‘magic’ on one of the sheets of paper.
“You mean magic?” asked Shy. She picked up the pencil when I dropped it, and wrote the word down.
“I have no magic?” asked I.
“You have no magic,” answered Shy as she looked at her own hooves.
“When I have magic?”
“I don’t know. You don’t have it ?at all?. All ?creatures? have magic. Ponies get ??? when they have ?little?, and ??? when none left. Somehow, you are not ???.” I could see it was hard for her to say that. The last two words I didn’t recognize were the same, and I had a suspicion on what they meant.
“What word ‘???’ mean?” asked I after writing down that word.
Shy looked like she was on the verge of tears, but took the pencil anyway. She drew a frowning face with crossed out eyes.
“Yep. I thought so. And it raises about as many questions as it answers. ”
“I’m sorry. Was all my fault. Should have ??? you ??? ?faster?. You were ???. I was ???. I thought... too ???... Though you die... I...” I had to hug her at that point, and she started crying her eyes out onto my back.
“Not your fault. I’m not dead. Thank you for that.” My vocabulary did not let me say much more, so I just kept stroking her back with my hoof and waited. “All will be good.”
We stood like that for a few minutes. Animals gathered around us and were watching. As soon as we parted, a white rabbit jumped onto and tried to hug her the best it could with its paws. She hugged it back.
“Thank you,” she said to me. Then she started walking away and talking to the bunny. “And thank you too, ???. ... No, ??? he’s not bad. ... Why do you think so? Ponies don’t eat ???.” If there was more, I didn’t hear it.
“Ponies don’t eat what? Wait... Wasn’t it the same bunny from yesterday? And it seems Shy was actually talking to it. Interesting... It’s hard to believe how different his attitude was right now compared to yesterday. Maybe I should not have scared him like that. ” I returned to the sofa and switched my thoughts from the bunny and to what I learned.
“So. Apparently, Shy saved my life. Something happened to me, which left me with the scars and without magic, and then Shy found me and brought me to the hospital. Moreover, she’s somehow blaming herself for not doing it fast enough, and thinks that I may have lost my magic due to that. With what I’ve seen of her, I can now understand why she would fuss about me so much.
“Now to the matter of my magic. She said that I don’t have it, and that she does not know when, and if, I’ll get it back. Apparently, I’m an anomaly. Ponies die if they loose all their magic, and she probably meant they get sick when little is left. I don’t have any magic at all, yet I am alive and kinda well, somehow. Most likely that's what freaked the nurse out when the unicorn doctor checked me for the first time on my memory. How is that even possible, anyway? Maybe it’s because I wasn’t a pony before? The idea starts to feel a little absurd, though... And even if I wasn’t a pony, she said that all the creatures have magic here. That would mean that if I had no magic in the first place, I’d probably have to be from another world... Which is consistent with me being surprised by this world from time to time, hmm...
“Anyway, right now it’s not really important if I am from this world or not. Or if I was a pony before the incident. The important things right now are, first, that I have no magic at all, second, that I may well not be getting any, and third, that I need to make a living here regardless. Shy won’t take it well if I’ll be just moping around, worse if I... do something stupid... Brr! Honestly, I’m better than that! I WILL make a good living here. If not by magic or muscle, then by my brains! I’ve managed to learn to understand and produce some pony speech in just half a day of studying, after all! Those brains have to be worth something. ”
And on that cheerful note, I stood up, approached the table, and started shuffling through the stack of paper, refreshing my memory of the stuff I already learned.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
Weird ponies and some books
Me being in high spirits seemed to have improved Shy’s mood too. We had a breakfast, and she was preparing to go somewhere, to do some shopping in the town I presumed. I wanted to tag along, and maybe explore the town on my own later.
As I finally gathered my thoughts, I approached her and pointed at her bags that she just finished packing.
“What that called?”
“It’s called bags.”
“You have more bags?”
“Um... Yes.”
“Give me please,” I finally got to the point.
She went upstairs and to the left. While she was away, I wrote the new word down, and realized that I didn’t have much more clean paper. Also, the pencil was getting quite blunt.
“More paper and pencil, please?” said I when Shy returned with a pair of bags. She sighed, and went back upstairs.
“Hmm. These bags seem identical to the other pair, except they don’t have Shy’s mark on them. They also look a bit worn, which means I won’t have to worry too much about keeping them in their original condition. Good. ”
When Shy returned with more paper and two pencils, I put everything into one of the bags, threw them over my back... And they just flopped onto the floor on the other side. Shy chuckled at that, and I snorted in amusement. “Guess what, those straps weren’t just for decoration, after all! ” I could not exactly handle them with my hooves, though, so I had to rebalance the bags instead. I lifted them over my head, dropped them onto my back, and I was ready to go.
Before we departed, I took one last glance at the clock. It was just a little past six in the morning. I was slightly surprised that it was that early, but that just meant we had all day ahead of us!
We left the house and crossed the small bridge. It was quite wet outside after after the thunderstorm, but the packed dirt road wasn’t affected all that much. It certainly wasn’t a mud bath that one could expect it to become. As we walked away from the cottage, I noticed something that, somehow, failed to catch my attention the day before.
“Why!? Why would anyone in their right mind build a clock tower here, almost at the edge of the forest? Probably as far from the town center as possible! ” I decided that I didn’t need a headache, so I just looked away and towards where we were heading.
As we crossed the bridge to the town square, some interesting architecture caught my attention.
“Nice design, huh! It feels weird to me, but those purple flowing tent-shaped rooftops really make that building look grand. And the building to the left of it... Is it supposed to look like a pony? The ponies who designed it sure were creative! And that other building... Yeah, they definitely love unconventional architecture here. I wonder how I missed all those buildings the last time? Maybe they were behind my back when I entered the square? ”
We turned left and started walking along a street that led to some tents, probably the local market. As we got closer, one of the buildings grabbed my attention.
“Weird, it looks almost like it’s... Wait, is that a giant cupcake at the top? ” As we passed the building and entered the market square, I was looking at the marvel of architecture with my mouth agape and slightly watering. “An actual gingerbread house! With frosting and a cupcake tower! It’s just... Wow! It simply has to be inedible, though, otherwise I’d bet it would be missing quite a few bites. ”
While I was still staring, the door to the gingerbread house opened, and Pinkie stepped out and enthusiastically inhaled the fresh morning air. As she noticed me, she became all shocked-surprised and jumped up, gasped, turned in mid-air and shot back inside without even landing.
“Gah! The pink one is freaking me out! I think I almost heard the appropriate sound effect as she darted away, and I don’t have a faintest idea where I heard it before, or even why I think that it’s appropriate! ” My head was starting to hurt already, after seeing Pinkie for just a few seconds.
“Are you all right?” asked Shy, who definitely noticed I was not.
“I’m good,” answered I, trying hard not to think about how Pinkie broke the physics, again. I pointed my hoof across the square and added, “I look what there.” Then I quickly started moving, eager to put some distance between myself and the threat to my sanity. When I looked back, I saw Shy talking to an orange yellow-maned mare who was selling apples. “Good. She’ll finish her shopping while I do a little exploring here, away from Pinkie. ”
I walked slowly across the emptier end of the square and looked at the buildings surrounding it. “Looks like quite a few ponies are selling stuff right from their homes. I wonder what that confectioner is all grumpy about... Hmm, the sign on this shop is kinda weird. A quill and a sofa? I wonder what they sell... ”
I decided to take a look inside. Thankfully, the door handle was not of the round kind, it was long instead and was facing down. I just pushed it to the right and pulled with my hoof, and the door opened. “Maybe doors won’t be my arch-nemesis after all. Now let’s see... They sell sofas, beds, pillows, et cetera... And over there are quills, inkwells and parchment. Those ponies really are weird. I get it that quills and parchment are more fancy than practical, compared to pencils and plain white paper, but no amount of fanciness will justify selling them alongside sofas, I think. ”
“Good day! How can I help?” The salespony startled me a bit when he approached me from behind and said that. I quickly turned to face him, and suddenly felt kinda shy at the prospect of talking to him.
“The heck? Is Shy rubbing off on me? ” I quickly composed myself and answered him, “I new here. Only looking.”
The salespony looked at me weird, said “Okay” slowly, and went to another customer.
“Or maybe I just knew that I could not speak properly yet. ” You see, those translations from pony language I use here, they are just approximations. I’m not even sure I got all of them right. Worse still, I’m writing them from memory, and of course I cannot remember things that I didn’t understand well enough, even if novelty of everything kept my memories of the first weeks quite sharp. Anyway, at that point in time I still had serious trouble understanding what ponies said, and my speech was... It probably sounded much worse than the worst sounding translations I used to represent it here, and my vocabulary was very limited. The salespony probably thought that I hardly knew the language, which, incidentally, was true.
I left the shop and continued my exploration. I didn’t get far before I realized that the tree on the far end of the square was...
“It has windows? And a balcony? ” I trotted closer to have a better look. “They carved a house inside a tree! Forget the gingerbread house, THIS is amazing! I wonder if trees naturally grow that large here, or maybe they used magic to make this one do so? ” I walked around the house, marveling at the seamless blend of nature and architecture. “The tree is even alive still! This is so awesome! I have to ask the owner how they did that! ”
I trotted to the door and knocked excitedly. And then...
“Oh sh... Dammit, I can hardly speak, and even if I ask I won’t understand half the answer! It would be so awkward! And embarrassing! What do I do!? Maybe I should run? Or... ”
As I was panicking, I suddenly realized that I did not hear any hoofsteps from the inside. No pony was going to get the door. I plopped onto my rump and breathed deeply, calming myself down.
“Huh, I’m really afraid of making a fool of myself, it seems. I guess Shy’s... shyness overrode that before. Anyway, this building... Does no one really live here? ” I looked around and noticed a sign nearby. I stood up to look at what was on it.
It had two words written on it, “Pony??? book???,” and an image of a book beneath them.
“So it’s either a book store, or a library. But I saw a tent that was selling books before, and hardly anyone seems to come close to here, so it probably is a library. And I loudly knocked on the door just now, how considerate of me. ” I was ashamed. “Still, a library! It would be of great help to my studies. I certainly won’t get far in short time if I learn new words and facts from Shy alone. ”
I gathered my wits and opened the door. It had two long down-facing handles, and pushing one to the center indeed unlatched the door, but I thought it was pretty weird that it opened as a whole, despite looking like it consisted of three parts, one for the top and two adjacent for the bottom.
As I entered, I found the library deserted. “No one seems to be here. A little messy, and there’s dust everywhere. Not much dust, though. It does not look abandoned to me, just poorly taken care of. They don’t even seem to have a librarian, so likely anyone is allowed to just come in and help themselves. I hope so, at least, won’t be good for me to trespass somewhere on my first day out in town. ”
In the center there was a round table with a life-sized wooden pony bust in its middle. I dropped my bags off beside that table, and took a better look around the room.
“Fascinating! It seems that everything here was carved from the tree itself. The ladder, the bookshelves, the tables, that pony head... ” I snickered. “Would not that be funny if the books were made of the insides if this tree, too! ” I took a look at the adjacent room, which turned out to be a small kitchen of sorts, and then went to check what was upstairs.
As I climbed the last few steps, I found myself in a smaller room. There were some more bookshelves, a desk with a bookshelf on top, stairs up lined with more bookshelves, a cupboard, drawers...
“Huh, there’s a bed up there. I guess the librarian was supposed to live here? This book-filled bedroom feels kinda cozy. But there’s much more dust here than downstairs, I can even clearly see my hoofprints on the floor! No one came here in a really long time, it seems. ” There was a door, which led to the balcony, as it turned out, and another, smaller door, that led to a small bathroom. The place was nice, yet somehow unoccupied.
I went back downstairs and started looking through the numerous bookshelves. I was looking for thinner and more colorful books, expecting them to be the ones intended for foals. They should be easier to read, after all. I soon found a smaller bookshelf that was filled almost exclusively with books of that kind, the rest probably being in the same place on account of there being no librarian to keep the books organized.
I picked a few of the foals’ books that caught my fancy. I had to grab them with my mouth, but so long as I didn’t salivate on them, nothing bad should have happened, the hardbacks seemed to be sturdy enough. One of those books was a real treat, an illustrated encyclopedia! As I leafed through it with my hoof, I saw numerous colorful illustrations alongside moderate amounts of text. Just what I needed! There also was a frighteningly fat dictionary on the same shelf, which I took too. I could hardly imagine what could make a foal read the dictionary, but here it was, on the bottommost shelf, right next to the encyclopedia and some short stories.
“Would be funny to hear some long and fancy exotic words from a cute little filly, huh? ” I chuckled at the thought.
Just when I was about to dive into the books, I realized that I only told Shy that I will be exploring this side of the square, not that I’ll stay in the library. Knowing her, she might just get worried enough to start searching for me all over the town. I trotted out of the door, and guess what? She was talking to the salespony from the quill and sofa shop, with whom she hardly had any business that day. Unless she was going to purchase a bed for me, which I’d prefer her not to do by the way, but then she’d probably be looking at the beds inside and not standing at the door. The salespony noticed me, and pointed for Shy to have a look. She immediately brightened, probably thanked him, and cantered over to me.
“You made me ???! Please don’t ??? like that.”
“Sorry. I stay here. Read books.”
“Oh. Good! I’ll go and ??? my ???. Please don’t ???.” She smiled and went towards the tents at the other end of the square. I smiled too and went back inside.
I sat at the round table that had the bust on it, opened one of the books and started reading. It was a story about three fillies, who each used their special abilities to overcome the obstacles they faced in their little adventure. The unicorn used her magic, really just some levitation and the light spell, the pegasus could fly, and the earth pony was quite strong physically. I kinda liked the story, for it was simple and sweet. Not sure I’d admit that to anyone face to face, though.
And oh, was that a tough book to read!
First of all, I didn’t know most of the words. Second, it turned out that ponies used ideograms in their writing. There weren’t too many in that foals’ book, thankfully, and the dictionary had an index for them in the end. I spent much more time leafing through the dictionary and the encyclopedia and writing stuff down than actually reading the book, especially since I had to at least partially translate many encyclopedia entries. I had to read the book for the second time to get the whole story, and even then the pictures were of great help.
When I was done with that first book, after around three to four hours I think, I realized that my back got a bit stiff. An idea came to me.
“Well, It’s not like anyone lives here, or even comes upstairs really. I suppose there’d be no one to mind if I occupied the bed... ” I hesitated a little, and decided to go for it. I put all my stuff into the bags, crawled under them to get them onto my back, and went upstairs.
The air was a bit stale, so I opened the window next to the bed. It wasn’t latched, so I could just slide it open with my hoof. I carefully folded the covers of the bed with my mouth and slowly carried them onto the balcony. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and finally let the covers unfold and shook them hard. I felt some dust settle on my coat, but that was nothing. After waiting for a few more moments, I exhaled, inhaled some fresh air, and sneezed loudly.
“Oh no. ” That was the moment I realized that I was on the balcony that was clearly visible from the market square. “Oh no, they heard me! ” Quite a few ponies were looking my way. “Now I’ve done and messed up. A complete stranger, rummaging through the private area of the library. What would they think? ” One by one, the ponies lost interest and continued about their day. “Huh. Nothing, apparently. Or that I simply decided to tidy it a little up here. Works for me in any case, I guess. ” Still dumbfounded a little, I picked up the covers that I dropped upon sneezing, and brought them back inside. I put the covers on the bed and carefully pulled by each corner to cover it whole.
I wasn’t going to clean the whole room, I had better things to do. I pulled a new book out of my bags, together with the dictionary, the encyclopedia, my papers and a pencil. Then I crawled onto the bed, found a comfortable position, and started reading. The second book felt easier. There were less words that I needed to look up, even if I had to find quite a few in my notes to make sure that I didn’t mix them up. Then there was another book, and another.
The next book was not quite a story, more like a textbook I think. Among its pages it had the alphabet, the numbers, a little bit of primitive math, colors...
“Hmm. That word for color white seems familiar... ” I started rummaging through my stack of notes, searching for the word. I didn’t find it at first, but on the second pass I noticed the word next to ‘Me!’. “Huh. It seems that the name that Shy gave me starts with ‘white’. I wonder if the second part is meaningful. ” A little searching later, I found it in the encyclopedia. I didn’t understand half the description, but it certainly was about clothing, and there was a picture of a pony looking like a mad scientist.
“So that second part would be... a lab coat. They called me ‘White Coat’. What in the world... What does that even mean? Those ponies are weird. I think I had that thought one too many times today. ” I looked at the paper again, and added a proper translation under ‘Me!’. Then I switched my attention to Shy’s name. “I wonder if it means something too... ”
It took me quite a bit longer to decipher Shy’s name. There were a few possible variants of where the first part ended, just a couple possibilities where the second part was an actual word, and in the end it turned out that only one made some sense. The first part wasn’t in the illustrated encyclopedia, so I had to translate the description from the dictionary, same as with one other possible variant. The second part was in the encyclopedia, and even the image sort of hinted that I was on the right path.
By ‘made some sense’ above, I meant in general. It was so much more logical in the context of being Shy’s name. If you took into account that she was a weird magical pony, at least.
“So her name means... ‘Flutter Shy’, if I pick the closest association I have for the first word’s description. Fluttershy does sound nice. But heavens above, those ponies are weird! They show off what they do right on their flanks, they have the names that tell what they are like. Bad enough if it’s their mass obsession with tattoos and pseudonyms, but what if it naturally happens here? Like, the mark appearing when you discover what you are good at, or the name given by parents foreshadowing your future... ” I laid there on the bed, now simply looking at the ceiling. “Yeah, I know what then. Pinkie’s antics would be kinda tame by comparison, that’s what. ” I was tired of thinking. “Maybe it’s not the ponies that are weird. It’s the world they live in... ”
I can’t really remember anything past that point, I probably dozed off around then. The bed was so much more comfortable than the sofa back at Shy’s. When I woke up, the sky was already pretty dim.
“Oh my, I’ve slept through the whole afternoon! Or maybe not whole... How many hours did I spend on the books, again? Anyway, I better hurry back home, no need to worry Shy. Plus I’m hungry, I ate nothing since morning. ” As if on cue, my belly produced a deep rumble. “Seriously? ” As I said that, I remembered about my earlier musings on the weird nature of magical ponies.
Still, I needed to get going, and the sooner the better. I packed everything back into my saddlebags and crawled under them to get them onto my back. By the way, that weird word, ‘saddlebags’, is the only way I could translate what those bags are literally called by ponies. ‘Bag’ is actually just the first part, and the second is an article of clothing that I could not really describe any other way than ‘saddle’. So it is more like ‘bag saddle’, but ‘saddlebags’ sounds so much nicer. The very word ‘saddle’ is weird, though. The name would imply that someone was supposed to be riding a pony, yet I could not imagine that. Nor could I imagine any kind of saddle being used for what the name implied, yet I knew the word somehow? My memories from before the incident were pretty messed up, I guess.
Anyway, being done with the bags, I smoothed the bed covers the best I could without too much effort, and went downstairs.
“Huh, where’s the light? I thought there were windows here, and it’s not nearly that dark outside yet... ” I carefully descended the stairs and started heading towards where I thought the exit was.
“SURPRISE!!!”
“Gah! ”
“Surprise!” Pinkie was right in my face, confetti were still falling from the earlier boom , and a crowd of ponies that filled the whole room was cheering. “Hi, I’m Pink?~ie? ?Pie?, and I threw this ?party? just for you! Were you surprised? Were ya? Were ya? Huh huh huh?”
“Very. Library supposed to be quiet!”
“That’s not your line, silly! ”
I was flabbergasted. “Did she just... What was that even supposed to mean? And I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in pony language! ” I looked around. Not a single pony seemed to notice anything. I took a deep breath to calm down.
“... saw you ?around? before! And if you weren’t ?around? before, that meant you haven’t met anypony yet, and if you haven’t... Are you all right?”
“You said, ‘That’s not your line, silly!’ earlier?”
“Of course not, silly! What was that even supposed to mean? Are you really ?feeling? all right? Nurse Red ?Heart? is here if you need help.” Pinkie was looking at me with a worried face and a slightly raised eyebrow.
“I’m fine. Only going a little crazy. ” I didn’t say the last part out loud, of course. I was pretty sure of that, at least.
“Okie-dokie-lokie! All Pinkie ?parties? are crazy! There is ?punch?, ?cup cakes?, games, ???, did I mention ?cup cakes?? More fun games, and of course you can make lots. Of. FRIENDS!” She jumped with her forelegs up, and another burst of confetti shot into the air at the last word. She hung like that in mid-air for a bit more, and then abruptly landed on all four.
I sighed. “All right. Why not have fun,” said I. Then I remembered something. “I need tell Fluttershy, she will worry.”
“I’m here,” said Shy from somewhere on my right. I turned and saw her smiling face.
“Let’s ?PAR-TAY?!!!” shouted Pinkie. Shy cowered a little at another burst of confetti. Music started, and everyone began having fun. I went towards a table with refreshments, choose a random cup, and mused some while drinking from it through a straw.
“So, the day is coming to a close. I found out that ponies have names as weird as their butt marks, that they build things in weird places, weird shapes, and by weird means like carving a living tree. They also do weird things like ignoring complete strangers doing who knows what, selling quills and sofas in the same shop, or being Pinkie. I also found out that either Pinkie is psychic, or I am going insane, not sure which is more likely. Oh, and there’s probably a cute little walking dictionary somewhere around here. Did I mention that ponies were weird?
“At least I learned a bit more about my situation and how I got into it, and made considerable progress towards learning the language. And I get to have some good fun in the end, too! ”
“You like hot ?sauce? too!?” asked Pinkie excitedly from my left. She didn’t even startle me that time, I was done with being surprised or startled for the day. And with really thinking, too. Pinkie took one of the bottles and drank right from it. “Mm! Yummy!”
I looked at the bottle that Pinkie just emptied. “They call this ‘hot sauce’? Yes, it is a little spicy... Okay, more than a little spicy. Maybe I drank too much, better wash it down with something else before it gets worse. Still, it’s tolerable as a drink, which it isn’t supposed to be... ”
“Lightweights, ” muttered I under my breath.
Pinkie just started humming and bounced away like a very springy ball.
“Physics don’t care, so why should I? ” I sipped some from another cup, ate a cupcake and some kind of sandwich from an adjacent table, and went towards the dance floor.
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
Author's Note
Disclaimer:
After the party
The last night was a blur. I was pretty sure that I had lots and lots of fun, and kinda sure that I didn’t do anything I would regret later, but I could not recall much more. “Well, except how I ignored Pinkie breaking physics on a couple occasions, try to forget that! I wonder how long my relative immunity to her antics would last... Ah, how wonderful it is that you don’t need to use hooves to swing at a pinata, or to pin the tail on the pony. Or to “dance”, for that matter... Phah! I feel like I actually avoided using my hooves for that, trampling others’ hooves and tails notwithstanding. Okay, there could have been one thing that I have a slight chance of regretting, my dancing was terrible. I stepped on quite a few hooves, Shy’s included. I danced with her, there was that slow dance... Ow, I should probably count myself very lucky that I didn’t do something I could well regret a lot. What did Pinkie put in her punch? Or was that the apple cider? I feel like I was as drunk as never! ”
My head didn’t hurt much, but my throat was dry and I really needed to visit a bathroom. I opened my eyes, and found myself in the library’s bedroom. I was alone, thankfully. I got up and went to the bathroom, without stopping my thoughts.
“They probably dragged me in there after deciding that I was in no condition to continue partying, or to be transported to Shy’s cottage. Or maybe they were worried for Shy... Ugh. I really hope they won’t hold on to the last night’s impression of me. I’m not willingly drinking any more alcohol, ever. ”
“Still, it’s weird. I don’t think anypony else got nearly as drunk as me. Or at all, really, if my memory is to be trusted. Maybe my physiology is different... I might not have been a pony at all not so long ago, after all. ”
After washing up and deciding that I looked presentable enough, I tried to make the bed the best I could, not really able to use hooves for it and all. I looked at the clock next to the window.
“What? It’s almost six o’clock? But the sun is... Oh, never mind, this clock is powered by weights and obviously isn't working right now. Maybe I'll get it ticking again if I'm going to spend much time here... ” The sun indicated that it was somewhere around noon, anyway. I went downstairs.
Surprisingly, the library looked like the party never happened at all. My saddlebags were propped against one of the bookshelves, as if I just dropped them there the previous day.
“Maybe all that was just a dream? ” Something colorful in the periphery vision caught my attention. “Or maybe it was Pinkie. She has party residue instant cleanup ability, if I’m not mistaken. ”
I walked closer to the colorful thing, which turned out to be some cupcakes on the kitchen table, covered by a giant transparent punch bowl from the party. There also was a folded pink note “For White Coat” under the glass. It took me a little time after the fact to figure out some remaining words, and I didn’t quite get the ‘Pinkie Promise’ bit, but I got the gist of it all immediately.
”I’m soooooo sorry for the hot sauce!
I bring that special hot sauce for myself mostly. I keep it far from food, and nopony else ever takes more than a couple sips since it’s hot sauce! It makes a good prank, and they have a little more fun after that!
You, though... You drank, like, the whole cup! That’s waaaaaay too much for most ponies. I’m reeeeeeally sorry that I didn’t stop you in time. I had to drink the rest immediately so that you could not have more, but suspected nothing and enjoyed your party! Don’t worry, this stuff does not affect me nearly as much! Also, you didn’t actually do anything too out of the ordinary, so don’t worry about what the others could see or think, too!
Now I understand how dangerous it was to bring it to parties. It won’t repeat again, and this is a Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! Please, pleeeease don’t tell anypony about it!
And if you enjoyed it, I’m so glad for you! Just please, please promise me you’ll never ever do it again. You were sooooo hard to keep in check that night! I could hardly have any fun myself, and you still almost kissed Fluttershy during that slow dance, see how serious it is!? I had to tell her that you cannot be held responsible and why you weren’t quite yourself. Please don’t tell anypony else!
I hope we are still friends! Please don’t tell anypony!
P.S. More food and drinks in the fridge! Please don’t tell anypony!”
“So... Hot sauce. That’s... ” I snorted. “Dammit, Pinkie, it actually makes too much sense for you! And you really were somewhere around me awful lot that night, huh. ” I tried to remember more from the party. “Yeah, I think I liked it. No, not a chance I’d even dream of ever repeating it. In a nightmare, maybe, where it goes all wrong as it should. ” I munched on a cupcake. “I do remember the moment with Shy. Pinkie switched the music just in time. She probably overreacted after that, though. I don’t even think Shy noticed anything herself, she’d at the very least blush like a madmare if she did. I hope she didn’t take Pinkie’s ramblings too seriously.
“Mm, these cupcakes are so good! Especially when you can enjoy the taste properly. ” I chewed some more. “Okay, if I was the only one really affected, except Pinkie herself and Shy not really, I guess I have the right to let it slide. Now then, to translate the rest of the note! ”
It took me a little bit to figure out that Pinkie stretched some words for emphasis, and a few minutes after that to figure out a few words that I didn’t know and to verify those I knew. The last one, ‘fridge’, got my brains in a knot for a bit.
“Those pony fridges use freezing and preservation spells in runic form, if I got the dictionary’s description right. I was a bit surprised that they existed here, but I knew they existed somewhere. My language has a name for them, I definitely know it and am familiar with the concept. However, I was sure they weren’t magical, that they worked on a different principle. But for the life of me, I cannot recall what it was! And the power? There sure wasn’t a steam engine or anything as big, and whatever the power source was it feels important! ” My memory was killing me. For once, something else was giving me much more headache than Pinkie, even if she technically was responsible for mentioning the fridge at all.
“Ugh. Enough! It does not matter. Fridges that are really important right now work on magic and that’s all there is to it. ” I breathed deeply a few times. “Whew. I should not get so worked up about things like that. Why does it bother me that much, anyway? ” I reflected on my latest thoughts, trying to just observe them and avoid touching their subject. “It feels like I know a lot from before the incident, yet I forgot some important things. And I didn’t even forget them completely, or, rather, I didn’t forget about them. The links are here, they just end abruptly. I seem to have a lot of vague ideas about my earlier life, yet no specifics whatsoever. Like how I think that I wasn’t a pony, yet have no idea what I was. It’s like... Everything that could clue me on to my my earlier life was erased or locked away, but not much else was touched? Like it was not random... ”
I just sat there, stunned by the realization. “Someone selectively erased some of my memories? Maybe the same one who’s responsible for my magic loss? Yet they bothered to keep my ‘safe’ memories. What even was the point of those injuries I sustained then... ” I tossed these ideas a bit more and came to a conclusion.
“Okay, then. Someone might have deliberately put me where I am. There might be a conspiracy. If there is something big, I cannot really take it on all alone, especially in my current state. I need to get used to living here, to gather as much information as I can, and to make friends who I’d be able to confide in and who’d be willing to help me. Maybe restore my magic somewhere along the way. It’s going to take time, probably months or even years. And then we might just be able to figure this out and do something.
“And if I’ve just dreamed that ‘other world’ up, well, it only really replaces the last bit with ‘live a life’. So, on to the fridge! ” Pinkie wrote that she left more for me there, so I started opening cupboards to figure out which one was the fridge.
“Oh my! That looks like enough food to last me for weeks! If this magical ice box can keep it from spoiling for that long, that is. And apparently, I can stay here at the library, for now at least. Just what I needed to get myself going without imposing on Shy’s kindness any more, huh? ” That was weird.
“Pinkie throws a welcoming party for me, but maybe she just does that for everyone. I accidentally drink a lot of Pinkie’s special hot sauce, because it’s too weak for hot sauce. Somehow, nothing like that happened on any of her previous parties, while I'm sure she throws a lot of them. Then absolutely nothing goes wrong, Pinkie makes sure of it. And finally, she tries to bribe me with absurd amounts of food, which just so happens to be exactly what I need now. So basically, after some Pinkie and coincidences, the overall effect is that she gave me what I needed for nothing in return, and I’m not supposed to think that it was charity. Calling that incident a cover up would be absurd in general, but Pinkie is just crazy enough. ”
I facehoofed. “I’m pretty sure I’m overthinking it. What’s it with me and seeing conspiracies everywhere? In any case, I should not look a gift horse in the mouth. ” I paused. “Wait, did I just... ”
The amnesiac stranger who knows too much
Do you know who I am, Princess?
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.
This way I at least have motivation to write when I have time and not "tomorrow".