The sunrise over the distant silhouette of Celestia’s castle is my favorite part of Canterlot. It’s rays peeking over the spires to gently touch the city below with a heavenly glow. It’s warm today and my dark grey coat shivers comfortably in the light of the window.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until a light knocking at my door makes me frown. A mare with frizzy pink hair and a nurse’s white smock nudges the door open to peek inside.
“Oh good, you’re awake!” she smiles heartily and invites herself the rest of the way in. The nurse’s horn glows a light pink as she hovers a square, metal tray in front of me. Instead of holding my usual routine of herbal supplements and breakfast, there is a single piece of paper and a quill. “Discharge Form” is in bold letters at the top.
“Ready to make your way back into society?” the nurse asks, a bit too chipper for how nervous I’m suddenly feeling.
I knew this time would eventually come. I can’t stay in the hospital forever, even if my memory never returns in full. I’ve only been here a week, but it feels like an eternity, like I’ve never lived past these sterile walls and iodine smell. It is the only thing familiar, and now I have to leave and face the real world. No one to help me.
“Don’t fret, little one.” comes a voice from the still open doorway. Princess Celestia steps through with a soft smile. “You are not alone.”
It’s like she can read my mind.
The nurse bows, “Good morning, Princess!”
“Princess Celestia,” I all but gasp. “W-what are you doing here?” With me, of all ponies?
The alicorn fills the small room with a natural glow that is both warm and pleasant, a comforting aura that serves to calm my nerves.
“If we might have a moment alone?” The princess asks politely. The nurse quickly leaves, placing the discharge form on the window sill.
There’s silence for a moment, and I feel the need to break it before it becomes awkward, but what can I say? Why is she here? Does she have me confused with somepony else, a pony more important? Is she here because of a past that I can’t remember?
Am I in trouble??
“I can see the gears working overtime in your head,” Princess Celestia chuckles. It’s a soft and perfect sound. “I’m sure you must have a million questions as to why I am here, visiting with you. Please.” She gestures with a hoof to the padded seats on either side of a small coffee table.
I often use the table to eat barley chips I coerce from the snack machines down the hall while working on remastering my horn magic. There is still a bit of a crumb mess from where I stacked last night’s chip tower using telekinesis, reaching my highest goal yet.
And now the Princess of the Sun is resting a hoof there. Goddess, my room is a mess. It didn’t seem like such a problem before since I never received any visitors apart from the working nurses.
“Princess Celestia-”
“Please, just ‘Celestia’ is fine.”
“Celestia.” I give a bow, remembering my manners. It makes the princess chuckle again. My cheeks burn and I quickly sit down. “I’ll admit, I really only have one question.”
“Of course.”
“Why are you here? Talking to me, I mean.” I pause. “Have I done something wrong? I can’t remember anything.”
“Oh, my little pony,” Celestia regards me with a small frown. “There is nothing you should fear from my visit with you today. I regard all of my subjects as members of a large family, and as such, I have a deep love for each and every pony. My source of happiness comes from making all of you happy.
“I know of your condition.”
My ears perk up from where they were laying back, flat against my mane. I ask, “Really? Can you cure me?”
She shakes her head, “I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.”
My heart sinks. I know it’s too good to be true. If even the Great Celestia can’t heal me then how can I ever hope to be whole again?
A hoof lifts my chin and I look up to see Celestia’s pink eyes gazing down at me. An intense wave of emotion rolls through me, threatening to overflow my eyes with tears. I hold back the sob as best as I can, with minimal success. My throat aches, my chest pounding with a nervous, heavy heart. All my fears since awakening to a mind blank of who I am resurfaces with a vengeance.
“Don’t despair, little one.” She speaks softly, like what I imagine an angel would sound like. That’s kind of what she is, right? “I think that I may have a solution to your ailment yet. Please, tell me what you can about what you remember.”
I swallow and take a deep breath. I start:
It’s soft. And warm. Wherever I am, it’s a pleasant place. I could probably stay here forever, in this dark cocoon of comfort and sleep. I don’t want to wake up, but I can feel a restlessness beginning to stir my body into awareness. Thoughts stream themselves into coherency and questions begin to pop up in my consciousness.
Where am I?
My eyelids flutter open to a room dim with natural light. I’m in a bed, nothing fancy, with a soft, cotton blanket pulled over the rest of my body. My hands, no . . . my hooves are resting atop the blanket over a round lump that I assume is my belly.
It is strange, this awakening in what feels to be an alien body. I am covered in a light dusting of dark fur all over, providing a natural coat of protection and warmth. I have large ears that swivel independently as new sounds greet me.
A blue jay tweets at the window where an impressive cityscape can be seen. Muffled voices pass behind a door on the other side of the room until:
“Knock knock!” a blue pegasus opens the door and comes inside. A part of my brain supplies that his white jacket and the stethoscope hanging around his neck means he’s a doctor. Somepony who can help me.
“How are we feeling?” He asks and I honestly don’t know how to answer. I must stare at him blankly for too long as he says, “Hmm, I was afraid this might be the case. Young mare, can you tell me your name?”
He procured a clipboard and quill from his jacket pocket, ready to begin taking notes. I didn’t have anything for him to write down. Slowly, I shake my head, carefully watching him.
He frowned, “Can you speak?”
I open my mouth, but end up coughing, realizing that my throat is very dry. I’m given a glass of water, which I try balancing in my hoof as I drink. It’s very difficult and feels anything but natural.
“Dear me,” the doctor mutters. “This is worse than I imagined.”
Finally, I croak out a few hoarse words, “Where am I?”
“St. MercyHoof Hospital,” is the answer. For some reason this makes sense to me, given that I’m speaking to a doctor, after all. An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me think that I’ve never been to a hospital before.
“I’m not entirely sure what has happened to put you in this condition - as you just appeared at our doorstep early this morning with no external injuries - but magical inspection shows signs of acute mental trauma. The kind associated with memory loss.”
Memory loss? Is that why nothing comes forth when I try to conjure my name? My image? My past?
Something cold and suffocating runs through my body and I shiver. It hurts. My breaths come quick and short but I’m not getting any air, my lungs are burning. My head swims and I can’t focus on a single thing in front of me.
You’re having a panic attack, my brain tells me.
Suddenly, another pony is obscuring my vision. She’s wearing a white uniform as well but also has a hat on with a red cross in the center. She braces my head with one hoof and places a hot mug of an herbal-smelling liquid under my nose. I breath in the steam and it helps. It helps a lot.
When I am calm, they ask me questions. I don’t have answers. I don’t know where I came from, who I am, or what I was meant to do.
The mare I see in the mirror every morning is a stranger to me. She has a maroon mane with yellow and orange highlights. Her tail is bobbed and grows upward, like a flame. Orange freckles scatter across the bridge of her muzzle like stars in the night that is her dark grey coat. The cutie mark of a heart in the flame of a white candle sits proudly on her flank.
How did I get it? What does it mean?
WHO AM I?
They say that my memories should start coming back slowly as time goes on. Almost a week has passed. I still do not know my name.
Celestia listens intently with an unreadable expression. When I finish, she is silent for a moment longer.
I sheepishly hoof at the edge of the table, where the polish is wearing off from years of use. I say, "I can't remember anything. I feel like a ghost in my own body; like I'm possessing a vessel that's not really mine. Everything is strange and they keep telling me that it will get better, but it's not. I feel lost."
“Your past is an integral part of who you are, and without such, I am not surprised that it’s inhibited your ability to move forward and become who you are supposed to be. Memories dictate our personality, or rather, how we remember things does. What we like, dislike. The ponies who’ve left their mark, good and bad. The choices you’ve made that you are proud of and the ones that keep you up at night with regret. Our past will always direct our future.”
For the first time since I woke, I felt like somepony truly understands the mess of emotions I’m drowning in.
Celestia stands up and rests a hoof on the windowsill, gazing over the modest view of Canterlot. It’s nothing compared to what she must see every time she looks out her own windows.
She picks out each scrambled bit of thought and feeling that is tangled together in my mind and pieces them together with the words, “You have no past and so you feel as though you have no future either.”
Her gaze turns to me, as if I am more spectacular than the midmorning sun.
I shrug lamely, eyes dropping to the floor at her hooves, “I don’t know who I am supposed to be.”
“You will find out in time, of this, I am sure,” I can hear the smile in her voice. I wish I had her confidence. “The mind is a very tricky trap - you’ll find that it is much better at holding onto things than you think. Sometimes, it just locks them away until we are ready.”
The doctor had said something similar, that my brain was possibly protecting me from painful memories. Ponies are not emotionally equipped to deal with some of the more traumatic events that sometimes befall them - many cases of selective memory loss has been reported in the past - but what would cause a pony to lose their entire self?
Celestia’s light pink magic glows as she picks up the quill left by the nurse. She scratches something on the top of the discharge form.
“Your life will begin anew as you make new memories. Friends, lovers, ex-boyfriends,” she chuckles and I blush. “Happiness is not hard found when you go searching for it. I am confident that you are ready to start again.”
With a bow and a final smile, Princess Celestia leaves and I am alone in my room again. I look at the paper in the light of the window and a rush of warmth, confusion, and excitement consumes me as I see the name the princess wrote.
Amber Glow.
This is me.
Chapter Two
I bounce from hoof to hoof at the front door, my gaze a laser pointing straight at the mail slot. It’s still way too early for any delivery pony to arrive yet, but maybe if I just waited harder with even more patience.
“Mrrow,” came the judgement from behind. I don’t have to turn around to see that Lazy Bum is sitting on his cat bed at the top of the living room bookshelf. The snub-nosed, cock-eyed beast looks down at me with his regular blank expression, this time changed only slightly by a hint of confusion. I often imagine hearing elevator music playing behind such a gaze.
“Hey, if your future was on the line this morning, you’d be antsy too,” I stick my bottom lip out. He blinks and nearly falls off the bed when he lays down for his morning nap.
I bounce my hind leg with anticipation like some ADD wreck. It has nothing to do with the two coffees I’ve already had this morning. In the entryway mirror I catch a glimpse of myself. With an exasperated sigh, I hang my head down and stand up. The mail wasn’t coming anytime soon, I might as well go upstairs and get ready for the day.
The wooden brush only wobbles slightly as I use telekinesis to lift it up and comb through my mane first and then my tail. The magic aura is a striking orange, just like my eyes. Since leaving the hospital - or ALM (After Losing Memory) I liked to call it - my ability to control magic has increased, slowly but steadily. I don’t think I’ll ever be “great” at magic, but I’m getting to the point where I can almost consider myself a regular unicorn.
Unicorn. The term sounds strange, but it shouldn’t be, right? Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies - why do I feel like such a stranger here among my own kind? And it’s not just about losing my memory. For some reason, this insecurity seems to run deeper than that.
I remember the basic things: language, writing (although my penmanship skills are a bit lackluster), reading. I found out that I knew how to cook for myself shortly after moving into an apartment. I know I like savory snacks like chips and crackers, but I’m not too big a fan of sweet, especially richly sweet, treats.
I feel like I am a whole pony - I just don’t know if I am the same pony I was before. Was I as shy then as I am now, or is that the result of my condition? Did I have a problem with making friends? Was my apparent fear of making a fool of myself so strong then, that it would sometimes keep me indoor for days?
Without my past, without knowing who I was - there is nopony for me to compare myself to. How am I supposed to know if I am progressing at all if I don’t even know where I started from? Am I a nice pony? Did I treat others well? Or was I such a scourge that nopony has wanted to come forward and claim me yet? Do I have a family? Am I all alone?
Visiting the genealogy section of the Canterlot Library was the first thing that I did after I was discharged from the hospital. What if somepony was looking for me, and just hasn’t found me yet? I was determined to find them, no matter how long it took. My fear upon starting my search was that there wouldn’t be any records to match me at all, that I truly would be a mysterious nopony who just appeared one day. Once I began, I was horrified to discover that the reality was much worse. There were too many records. So many!
All at once it made much more sense why everypony in this section looked ancient. It would take a lifetime to go through all these!
I won’t give up, though. I have a name, and Amber Glow came from somewhere.
I’m broken from my reflection when I hear Lazy Bum having a hissy fit downstairs. I know that can mean only one thing.
It's here!
I’m not a pegasus, but I fly down the stairs. It feels like I’m floating with how high my heart is soaring out of my chest. Waiting for me at the bottom of the door is a pile of freshly delivered letters.
Lazy Bum is a round ball of black and white mottled fur standing on end. He hisses at the mail again like it just insulted his mighty ancestors. I squeal when I get to the door and my horn fizzles and pops with excitement, sendings the letters flying into the air like bits on Flim Flam's fortune guessing game show.
The cat jumps and disappears behind the sofa.
"Oh, sorry, Lazy Bum," I say a bit sheepishly. I rub the base of my short horn with a hoof, feeling the small pull of my magic, not unlike the sensation of static electricity. "It’s never done that before."
As the mail rains down around me I spot the large brown envelope remaining on the floor. It was thick and too heavy to have been tossed up with the rest. Keeping it closed is a purple wax seal with the emblem of the Princess of Friendship.
My hooves click together with glee but I suppress the urge to let my excitement get the better of me, lest another burst of magic hit something a little more fragile.
I pop the seal carefully and keep as much of the wax intact as I can for future display purposes. Oh yeah, this baby is definitely going up on the mantel.
Inside is a scroll of parchment and a spiral-bound handbook. I read the letter first, naturally:
Dear Amber Glow,
On behalf of all of us at Princess Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship, I am pleased to officially welcome you as our newest faculty member! Accompanying this letter is a counselor's manual, written by Twilight Sparkle and co-written by Starlight Glimmer, as well as your staff ID badge that will give you access to all the facilities at the school.
Your positional duties and what we expect of you will be discussed during your orientation.
The School of Friendship's goal is to bring friendship to all ponies and creatures by means of the elements of harmony. We look forward to your contribution.
Concordia ad omnes.
Sincerely,
Princess Twilight Sparkle
It's so formal, and exactly what I expect a letter from the princess to read like. I’ve never met her in person - yet, anyways - but from everything I hear about her, she is a real stickler for the rules.
I pull out the manual next, flipping through its pages. It’s not very long, perhaps only an afternoon of reading, but full of teachings and advice to help me help others with problems they can’t solve by themselves.
The last object in the package is my I.D. badge with my name and picture hanging on a purple lanyard:
Amber Glow
Counselor
A strange feeling tugs at the back of my mind, like something trying to come forward, but the more I try to dig for it, the deeper it sinks back down into nothingness.
A memory!
Or a part of one, anyway. I try grasping at it again and again but I can't seem to find it. Tears of frustration fill my eyes as that strange feeling slips away, seemingly forever.
I stamp a hoof on the ground and angrily wipe my eyes. My horn glows and a potted succulent is thrown off the countertop to my left. The resounding crash of shattered clay on wood shocks me out of my tantrum.
From behind me, in the entryway, I hear a clear soprano voice, “What is troubling you, Little One?”
Princess Celestia stands in my home with the same, deep, caring expression that she always wears. Although the door is right beside her, I somehow know that she did not use it to get in. Sometimes it is so easy to forget how powerful she really is.
Why she was using that power to teleport into my apartment, I will never understand.
“You remembered something.”
I sniff and rub my nose with a fetlock. My eyes are cast down in a bashful avoidance of Celestia’s pink gaze, “I almost did, but … it got away. I’m still just a nopony.”
Celestia’s face lightens as she steps into the modest (tiny, really) kitchen and sees my job acceptance letter. From the pleased look on her face, I wonder if she had anything to do with it.
“Twilight wouldn’t accept ‘just a nopony’ into her school. I know that her and her fellow teachers saw something special in you. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“That’s another thing,” I wonder aloud. “What are you doing here? Why are you helping me? And don’t give me that ‘we’re all one big happy family’ nonsense.”
Celestia laughs, actually laughs, at that. It is a bright and comforting sound. The colors in her mane shine brilliantly in the kitchen light as she moves closer to me, and I can see that her hair truly does sparkle up close. She shakes her head fondly at me, “If I told you otherwise, then I would be lying. You are my family, Amber Glow, though perhaps I have been misleading in just how you are my family.”
“What do you mean?” My anxieties almost all but disappear in the princess’s presence, but my curiosity burns brighter, hotter, with every word she says. We’ve only seen each other a handful of times, but with each meeting I’ve grown more and more to realize that there is actually very little I understand about this world. Hopefully, this visit will reward me with some answers instead of more questions.
"I'm going to tell you something that some ponies tend to find a little upsetting," the princess says cautiously with an earnest expression. "It isn't a secret, exactly, but not all ponies know, or fully understand. You, Amber Glow, deserve to know:
"I don’t like to call myself a goddess, it is in every sense of the word what I am to you and all ponies in this world. I breathed life into ponykind and created this land of Equestria and the lands beyond that they may prosper. I cannot see the future insomuch as I create guidelines for it to follow - all according to my design.”
As she speaks, her long, spiraling horn glows, light radiating from its core. Above her head is a cloud of swirling light and in the center is a vision. I can see Celestia visiting other ponies, just like she has with me. Speaking with them, sometimes sharing tea, sometimes offering a shoulder to cry on. I watch in wonder.
Celestia’s gaze turns distant as she continues, “I am a force that was created with only one purpose to fulfill, and all the powers of the universe to fulfill it.”
The vision stops.
She looks down at me again, her warmth returning, “I will bring only happiness to you with friendship and ponies.
"But sometimes, the cost of happiness is that you must endure a little hardship."
Before I can put the words together to form the millions of questions in my head, Celestia sits me down in front of her and her horn glows with magical pink hues. The pot that shattered a couple of minutes ago is levitated before me along with the dirt and poor succulent now sans a home. I lift my hooves to cradle the pieces as Celestia gives them to me.
“Concentrate your magic on this pot,” she instructs. “Don’t think about a specific spell, just channel your magic from your mind through your horn and into your hooves.”
I close my eyes and I try. The princess’s voice is a soft tone, like a lullaby, as she guides me.
“Think about the feeling you almost remembered. Think of your letter, of what you have accomplished so far. Try to relive the events that stirred the memories locked away in your mind.”
I do as she asks. The jittery excitement that had me bouncing earlier returns, albeit now muted with the princess present. I feel impatient to begin my newfound plans, and a welcome anticipation to the parts of my future that are still unknown, no longer frightening in its obscurity.
That strange tug in my mind starts to resurface again, but instead of chasing it down this time, I follow Celestia’s lead. I ponder about everything I’ll be doing in my new job as a counselor for the school; how I’ll meet and help new ponies everyday, what my office will look like, and how good I’ll be at solving the challenges thrown at me.
I think and think until the tug grows stronger, too strong to ignore. It takes over my mind until-
I sit in a classroom with twenty or so other schoolmates. It’s a colorful room with bright learning charts across the walls and crayon drawings hung up by the two large windows. The letters of the alphabet circle the entire classroom in a banner and behind a partition I know are the cubbies holding our backpacks and lunches.
I am near the front at a square table, two ponies sitting at the other side, but nopony is next to me. In fact, that appears to be the topic of discussion.
My teacher, a short blue pony with black hair and glasses, is standing at the front of the classroom with a filly at her side. The filly is yellow, with a robin’s egg blue mane and tail that is cropped short. Her cutie mark is shaped like a mountain bike.
“Everypony, I’d like to introduce our newest classmate who just moved from Ponizona: Sunny Day! Now, raise of hoof if you’d like Sunny Day to sit next to you.”
I am shy, easily the shyest in the class - probably the whole school - and am always wary of never calling attention to myself. I’m a wallflower, but content to stay as one my entire school experience. Being one of the few ponies who still hasn’t found her cutie mark has already put a target on my back for bullies, and I am determined not to give them anything more to single me out with. My social skills are lacking and the only way I make friends is if somepony else decides they like me.
However, my hoof shoots into the air with abandon, only one thing on my mind: there is a pony who needs a friend and I have an empty seat next to me.
I don’t think about myself when the teacher calls on me to stand up and say my name to the newcomer, and I don’t think about how Orchid Opal scoffs and whispers “blank flank” in a way that only I can hear it.
It would be incredibly rude not to raise my hoof, for one thing, but more importantly, Sunny Day’s feelings would be hurt. I realize, with my hoof in the air, that this is the reason I raised it:
I will be Sunny Day’s new friend.
Sunny Day sits down in the seat next to mine, bright smile upon her face, and I feel an incredible warmth. It radiates through my entire body and then focuses in a single spot.
"Wow, look!" Sunny Day hoofs my shoulder in a playful manner and I look to where she is pointing.
It’s . . . My cutie mark!
I awake from the memory with a blink of my eyes.
"What did you see?" Celestia asks, even though I know that she already knows.
"I remember how I made my first friend - it's how I got my cutie mark." I can't help the smile that spreads across my face.
"Do you remember what your cutie mark means?"
I do. I know it instantly, like I always have and always will. It is the core of my personality, a spiritual trait to strive perfection in.
It's like I can feel the same tingling from when I first got it. A white candle with an orange flame. A bringer of warmth and comfort. A red heart in the center of the fire. A great capacity for loving others.
"Empathy. I perceive in others their needs and emotions. It helps me to be a friend to all."
Celestia is beaming radiantly and I know that she is proud of me. A tear rolls off my freckled cheek before I realize I am crying. I sniff, this time with joy.
In my hooves, the pot and plant have become whole again. It's cracks are still visible, outlined by a beautiful gold filling that holds it all together.
"I did this?" I can hardly believe it. My ability usually only goes as far as lifting things up and manipulating small objects.
Celestia nods, "Your magic has the power to heal. As you remember, you will heal the scars of your mind. It will all happen in time, as you are ready, more and more of your memories will surface and you will continue to find your happiness here in this world - with friendship and with ponies."
Celestia is gone soon after that, but her encouragement stays with me for the rest of the day. I prepare for my new job and even feel confident enough to actually stop and talk to a few ponies while on an errand trip to the market.
I feel that I am finally starting to move forward.
