“How do you know my name?” Asked Phosphophyllite, laying on the floor and staring back at the strange red-and-yellow-maned unicorn who shared his gaze.

The stranger looked at him with some shock before composing himself. “My name is Rutile. You’re back at the Great Oak. The Princess brought you back after you got ambushed by some Lunarians. Do you remember anything about the events?” ‘Rutile’ asked.

“Some of it yeah… Why am I here again?” He asked, uninterest apparent in his voice.

“Phosphophyllite, I’m sorry to say this… but the Princess didn’t save all of you,” declared Rutile while levitating Phos back to the work table. “After reassembling all that I could, you still missed three of your hooves, one of your eyes and your horn.”

A silence filled the room, as if Rutile left Phos the time to take it all in.

But it was quickly broken by Phos’ remark. “But I can feel that I have hooves, and eyes, I think. Was it always this cloudy here?”

“We were able to rebuild your hooves and eye out of a new material. The Princess had it when she came back with you from the Ocean. We named it “Compact Bones” and it is of a hardness of five.”

Rutile showed a still intact bone in his magic to Phos. “The good news is that your inclusions seem to take the material pretty well. The bad news is that with all you lost you’ve probably forgotten a lot of things.” He said, bitter in his voice. “Like me I guess…” He muttered.

“Wha…? I lost memories…?”

A new voice made itself known in the room. “Yes, inclusions are part of yourself and they have a memory. You’ve lost part of yourself and so the memories stored in that part are lost as well.” A lavender alicorn explained, standing near the door to the workshop. “I see you’ve awakened, Phosphophyllite. Rutile, could you leave us alone for a moment?”

Rutile bowed slightly and left the two in the workshop.

“How do you feel?” Asked the Princess, genuine concern in her voice.

“Okay-ish.” Admitted Phos. “He sounded a little hurt before. Rutile, I mean. Did I really know him?”

“Yes, you two were good friends. Can you tell me all that you remember from the Ocean?”

“Well, there was you and Pearl… and we walked a lot and… Pearl got his cutie mark from a strange ghost or something… and then we found the Admirabilis.” Listed Phos.

“Do you remember the attack?”

“Not really, I remember the party and after that it’s all blurry.”

The alicorn sighed… out of relief? “Okay, it is unfortunate, but I’m glad you’re fine.” She teleported a small pile of paper in front of Phos. “These are the reports you’ve written over the years. I’ll give you the time to go through them so you can remember any details you might have forgotten about the other gems.”

Phos nodded and tried to lift the first sheet towards himself, but found himself unable, somehow. No cyan hue came around the paper and no magic could be channelled by Phos. He tried again yet the magical field was nowhere to be seen. He shot a panicked look to the Princess, who watched over him, saddened.

“Rutile told you, Phosphophyllite; you’ve lost your horn. I’m sorry.”

Phos was back in his room thanks to the help of the Princess, his new hooves not fully working yet. He spent some time alone in silence, reading his own reports. Thankfully, he remembered most of them, even his friends, Morganite, Goshenite, Diamond and Pearl. He learned about Rutile too. The rest of the gems were more of the same; name, occupation and brief summary of their personality.

When he wasn’t reading he would take the time to get used to his new hooves, quickly learning how to walk again. As hard as relearning to use hooves was, not having magic was worse. Phos could still feel the magic in the world like any unicorn, and yet couldn’t channel any of it. He was like a child in a candy store where he couldn’t take or even touch anything. He wasn’t that good at magic, and yet he missed it already.

How can Jade do anything without a horn or wings? He asked himself. I’ll have to ask him someday.

Eventually, Phos decided to go ask the Princess what he should do now. He stood up and looked at all the paper in the room. He tried, and failed, to pick them up with his nonexistent horn. He moved to get them all in a pile and took them with his mouth. He’d seen Jade take papers and maps like that in the past, he’d have to get used to that now.

Leaving his room and closing the door with a hind leg, he was immediately surprised by a white opaque unicorn hugging him. If gems needed to breath, Phos would probably have died from the tightness of the hug. When a crack was heard, Pearl quickly stopped and looked at Phos a little panicked.

“Oh by the Sun, I’m sorry, Phos. Are you okay? I didn’t break you, did I? I’m just so happy to see you, but the Princess told us to not bother you too much,” said the very excited yet worried Pearl.

Phos could feel a small crack around his neck that prevented him from moving his head too far. “Hi Pearl. It’s just my neck, it’s okay, I think I know the spell to mend—” Phos stopped mid-sentence. Oh yeah, right. No horn. He remembered. “It’s okay, I guess I’ll ask Rutile to fix me again,” he dully stated.

A quick visit to Rutile indeed fixed the problem, all the while Pearl assaulted the cyan now-earth-pony with questions about his well being and compliments about how he managed to get the hang of his new hooves.

“We’re similar now, look!” Said Pearl, pointing as his own white opaque hooves. They did look like the new hooves Phos had. The powder he wore over the lustrous parts of his body was nothing like Pearl’s body, whereas the new Compact Bone limbs looked much more like the white unicorn’s. It did put a smile on his face to know he was a little more like his friend now.

“Yes we are indeed.” He said, throwing a quick smile to the younger gem. “Look, I have to go and see the Princess, we’ll do anything you want after that. Maybe we could even visit Cinnabar.” His smile turned a bit sadder as he muttered to himself: “I bet he’s gonna break me…”

“Sure! We’ll wait for you in the main room!” Announced Pearl, once again excited. ‘We’?

Phos knocked on the door to the Princess’ office. “Come in,” she invited.

He tried to push the door with his hooves. Right, pull. He awkwardly tried to grab the handle of the door with his front hooves, then his mouth, before finally a purple hue of magic opened the door on him.

“Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry I thought it was another of Sphene’s pranks. Please come in.” She invited once again from her desk.

Phos took his place in front of the Princess before addressing her. “Princess, now that we are back from the Ocean, what will my next job be? I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything special without my horn.”

“So you think Jade also is useless?” Asked the Princess.

“What? No! He’s like the best at organising stuff, well except maybe you, but he also knows how to fight and learn strategy and all,” quickly responded Phos.

“What about Diamond? Or Bort? They don’t have a horn and yet they also find ways to make themselves useful.” The lavender alicorn trotted up next to Phos and took him in a one-wing hug. “Phosphophyllite, your value does not reside in your horn. I can guarantee you that we’ll find a job that will suit you, horn or no.”

If gems could blush, Phos would have been a bright crimson.

“For now, however,” the Princess continued. “I heard there were some gems that were eager to see you again down in the main room. Why don’t you go and see them? We’ll talk later about finding you another job.”

Phos simply nodded, a small smile on his face. The Princess folded her wing back on herself and showed him the door.

The cyan ex-unicorn trotted down the stare until arriving in the main room and immediately got assaulted with cheers from half a dozen gems.

Rainbow-colored sprinkles flew in the air and Phos noticed a huge banner just above the main entrance that read “Welcome back from the Ocean!” in bold letters. A small addition seemed to have been made just under it with the text: “And congratulations on your recovery!”

Phos stood, truly surprised by the event unfolding in the room. He could see the smiling faces of all his friends. Even Cinnabar was here, in a corner, but here nonetheless. Pearl was in the middle of the group in front of Phos and trotted up to him.

“Do you remember the party at the Admirabilis’? Well, I thought I could do my own party here, just for you!” He hugged Phos again, this time with more restraint.

“Good job on losing your legs,” teased Morga with a grin before getting hit on the back of the head by Goshenite, a sharp twang filling the room.

“Don’t listen to him, Phos,” added the silver gem. “We’re glad you’re back safe and sound.”

“Come on Phos, we’ll play some of the games Pearl taught us from the Ocean!” Declared Dia before dragging Phos to a corner of the room where a “pin the tail on the pony” game was installed.

The evening surely would be full of laughter, only stopped when the other gems complained of the monopolization of the common room.

In the eastern ravine, far inside, there was a strange cave that had existed for millenia. Inside it, crystal statues of ponies laid around a singular tree made of six colors. Two alicorn statues held the tree in place. Twilight looked at the new tree of harmony. It had taken two of the six alicorns to revive it and save as many ponies as they could.

Suddenly, a branch of the tree fell and took the shape of a pony. The alicorn could sense the rebirth of a pony as a gem, but this time, it felt different… Almost as if a power inside of her wanted to escape to be absorbed by the newly born cyan unicorn on the ground.

She managed to hold onto it and started levitating the body to take it up to the Great Oak. “Welcome to this world, Phosphophyllite.” She said warmly to the body who twitched from the magic around it.

Name: Phosphophyllite

Mane color: Cyan

Age: Less than two years

Hardness: 3.5

Cutie mark: None.

Element: Magic.

Notes: Phosphophyllite is a very curious gem who is making quick progress in his education. He seems to find joy spending time with his fellow gems. He has learned to walk quickly and his speech develops at an impressive rate. I have hope to find a suitable job and maybe he’ll reveal the other elements. I can still fix it all, I just need the elements.

Twilight stopped writing, she was rambling on a report, again. She hated doing those but they were necessary; she couldn’t afford to forget about that. She’d already forgotten too much.

The alicorn took the sheet of paper and put it back in her file before hiding that in turn in her study.

Author's Note

Some things are best left hidden.

Alternative title: Bones.