Luna's Interrogations

by charredenay

Chapter One: An Underdog

"Let us begin with something simple, shall we?" Calm, collected, but twinged with intrigue, Luna's voice practically strutted through the empty black void, as if daring somepony to challenge its authority. Normally, this spell would begin by producing an image of the target's face in the center of the void, a reflection of their personal identity and current emotions but Luna chalked the deviation up to the 'unique' nature of this particular target.

"What is your name?"

"My name?" A second voice, definitively masculine in nature, cut back through the darkness easily, but this voice was immediately followed by echoed whispers. The clear voice would answer her questions truthfully in a conversational manner, while the whispers declared her target's deeper thoughts aloud, granting Luna further insight into her target's thought processes, intentions and possibly their subconscious as well.

"I can't --"

"--remember."

She was afraid something like this might happen. While her spell drew the truth from its targets, it could do nothing if that truth was hidden from them.

So somepony not only cast some manner of amnesia spell on this poor soul but also went through extreme efforts to teleport them past all the magical wards of the royal palace and into our private quarters. This is starting to feel like an elaborate prank. Perhaps we should have a talk with Discord about inappropriate----

What?

“I know I…”

The target's voice and the echoed whispers began to sound strained and agitated.

"Knives... "

“Everywhere…"

"Why...?”

Luna had heard that victims of amnesia sometimes suffered migraines when they tried to remember their past, but this disturbed her deeply.

An amnesia spell that causes physical pain as the target tries to remember? Even Discord would find such torture to be in poor taste...

“--had one. Actually --”

“--had three, but I--”

“--can't remember. Why can't I--”

“-- remember? No. I have to--”

“-- gotta remember--”

“-- at least --”

"STOP..."

“-- one.”

The target's inner thoughts gradually grew louder and more pained and Luna briefly considered ordering it to stop, to save the poor soul the pain. However, seeing (or hearing, as it were) him fight so valiantly for his own memories against some unknown foe sparked empathy in her heart for such an underdog.

"TOO MUCH..."

“My first name is? No? My middle? No?”

"STOP..."

“Must remember… at least one--”

"ARGH..."

“No… I won’t… lose this.”

"PAIN AHHH..."

The inner thoughts reached their peak, sounding through the blackness of Luna's spell so loudly they nearly drowned out the sound of her target's actual voice.

"I WILL remember my name."

“MY… NAME... IS..."

Suddenly, silence. The dark felt as if it was empty. Fearing that she had accidentally allowed him to exert himself to the point of death, Luna pushed more mana into the spell, in the hopes of finding her target's thoughts, but before she could probe further, his voice finally answered.

"My name… is Wilson."

The declaration was made with confidence, quiet dignity, and, Luna noted with a bit of a smile, no small amount of defiance.

Hmmmmm. Yes, well done. We suppose given your circumstances a little pride isn't unwarranted. We would imagine any pony might --

As if in retort to her thoughts, the void bulged as though it was fabric stretched across a tensing leg muscle and suddenly a stable image of her target's face flashed into existence in its center. For a brief moment, Luna was terrified that perhaps it had stolen her magic from her, much like Tirek, but just as quickly as the sensation came, it was gone again, the spell entirely under her jurisdiction once more.

Luna snorted in annoyance but elected to evaluate the situation logically.

It makes sense, we suppose. Ponies’ names are often intrinsically entwined with their identities. Robbed of its name, it had no identity to project.

However, Luna had reservations about applying pony logic to a face that was most certainly not a pony.

It was too flat and its nose was too small and pointy and its eyes were too small. The entirety of its face was furless apart from a short cropped brown mane atop its head and some stubble around its chin and cheeks. Put simply, it was unlike anything Luna had ever seen before. Indeed, immediately after putting it into a magically induced coma and prior to beginning her spell, Luna had scoured the royal library for any reference to this strange bipedal creature, real or fictitious, and had come up empty hooved.

Admittedly Luna should have probably informed the royal guard of the intrusion first, or perhaps sent a short missive to her sister, or told literally anypony really, but this was such a unique opportunity. A specimen of an entirely new species, alive, perfectly healthy, yet unconscious, dropped right into the hooves of the one pony whose mastery over the realm of the unconscious mind was unparalleled in all of Equus.

Hmph. Fie on anypony who would deny us this moment. If anypony takes issue with our decisions later, they can shout their woes from beyond the gates of Tartarus.

Refocusing on the task at hand, Luna was now taken aback to discover tears flowing from her target's eyes. Inwardly, the princess winced. She had chosen this particular spell because it didn't use pain to extract the information she required from its target.

Clearly whatever magic is clouding its memory causes far more pain than we had thought.

However, the face in the void didn't seem to hold her mistake against her. Indeed, it was smiling from ear to ear in an expression that Luna could only describe as “jubilant relief”.

Ah, we should correct ourselves before we form a bad habit. Not “it”. He, and his name is Wilson.

"Ahem. Wilson, what is the colloquial term for your species?” While there might have been more pertinent questions to ask, Luna’s curiosity got the better of her.

“Human,” he answered cheerfully, clearly still riding the upswing in his mood from triumphing over his amnesia.

Interesting that his first thought in relation to his species is of its scientific name. Perhaps we have been lucky enough to be gifted with a scholar of his species.

In short order, a new image appeared in the void behind him, half of a large tome, opened to a page with an illustration of another human, but with more arms and legs. Clearly this was the image that came to Wilson’s mind when he thought of the word “human”.

At least that part of the spell is working properly.

Luna analyzed the drawing closely.

Another scholarly thought, I see. Hmmmmm, unless his kind are typically born with awkwardly placed vestigial appendages and Wilson has lost his, or is the result of some manner of mutation, this must depict their range of motion.

Suddenly realizing that she had allowed her mind to wander, the princess shook her head and pressed onward to more important issues.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“I… don't know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and bending his neck to the side.

Luna hummed aloud at that.

A different tact, then.

“What is the last thing you can remember?”

“Well… I was… ah…” Wilson tried to reply but began to grimace and clutch his sides.

”The knives again? How? Why?”

Luna frowned in annoyance. As much as she wanted the information, Luna didn't believe she had it in her to actually watch Wilson go through the pain of remembering, “Stop. You don't have to answer that question.”

Wilson's features softened back into a neutral expression.

Personal information is lost to him, but memorized facts are not. If one disregarded the cutting sensations on his skin, one might think this were just a typical case of amnesia. Hmmmm, memorized facts...

“Where do you hail from?” she asked.

“Kalispell,”

Wilson's subconscious helpfully provided three maps behind him in rapid succession. First, what Luna had to assume was a city map, then a country map, and finally a continental one, all of which were being represented on different pages of large tomes in the same way the diagram of the human was.

Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, the maps proved to be worse than useless. Even taking into account the many countries that had been discovered while she had been banished to the moon, the maps she now saw matched nothing on Equus. Luna's eyes widened with a sudden realization.

“What is the name of the planet you live on?” she asked.

“Earth,”

The map that his subconscious provided next confirmed her suspicions, in that it did not match Equus’s home system at all.

We knew it! Wilson is from another planet. Another solar system even! Add in his predisposition toward scholarly thought and Wilson must be some manner of interstellar explorer! How exciting! Oh, we must tell Twilight immediately! Sister too, of course, but I'm sure Twilight will be much more excited. Just wait until she hears --

“Um… excuse me, but I have a quick question."

The spell Luna used shouldn't have allowed its targets to speak unbidden so she was understandably shocked into silence to hear Wilson say anything out of turn. Wilson, for his part, continued, apparently not noticing Luna's shocked silence.

“Who is Twilight Sparkle?"