//------------------------------// // Awaken // Story: Surrogate Light // by scootalooftw //------------------------------// My hearing was the first sense that returned to me as I slowly regained consciousness, as the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor confirmed that I was alive. Next was touch, the white-hot pain I had experienced earlier returned instead as a dull throb, as I snuggled deeper under the warm covers. Scent was third, causing my nose to crinkle in disgust at the harsh scent of various cleaners permeating the room. Fourth was taste, nearly causing me to gag at the disgusting flavor that had built up in my mouth from missing what had to be multiple days worth of brushing. Last was sight, the entirely predictable sterile white ceiling above me made me squint my eyes as they attempted to adjust to the light. Now that the pain had receded enough for my mind to work somewhat normally, I took a few moments to try and collect my thoughts. Thinking back as far as I could, I winced in pain as a steady stream of conflicting memories once again began forcing themselves upon me. Try as I might, though, nothing more than a few minute details from each memory would stick before the next one would whiz through my head. Through the dull haze that clouded my mind, I barely registered the sound of a door opening and someone entering the room. I allowed my head to lazily loll to the left, the throb of pain that accompanied the movement cut through the memories. Standing in the doorway was an off-white mare wearing a nurse’s cap upon her head, her light blue eyes glued to a clipboard she held in her forehoof. Sitting on her haunches, she ran a hoof through her light pink mane as she sighed in annoyance. “It’s hard to keep track of time without the sun,” the mare groaned quietly to herself. “Let’s see, we found her last Friday… it should be Thursday now, I think… That means she’s been asleep for…” Looking up from her clipboard, the pony trailed off when she locked eyes with me. “You’re awake,” she said, more to herself than to me. Standing from where she had been sitting she trotted over to my bedside. “You’re awake,” she repeated, slightly louder this time. “How are you feeling?” “Like… like I got run over by a train,” I rasped, pausing momentarily in surprise at the odd yet familiar voice that came from my mouth. I also had to ponder my choice of words, as ‘train’ wasn’t the word that had originally come to mind. My introspection was cut off, however, when the nurse began to speak again. “That’s to be expected,” the nurse responded. Walking around my bed, she approached an IV drip that was hooked up to my foreleg and looked over the bed. “We are currently at the recommended max dose for a pony of your size, but if the pain becomes too much we can talk to the doctor about upping it.” “I-I’m fine,” I muttered. “‘S’long as I don’t move too much.” “While I’m all for putting on a brave face,” the nurse said, giving me a stern look, “you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it if you need it.” Writing a few things down on her clipboard, she circled back around the bed to stand next to me. “Before we go any farther, I’d like to introduce myself,” she said. “My name is Nurse Redheart. Can you tell me your name?” I opened my mouth to respond, but no matter how hard I tried the only name that came to mind just didn’t seem right. Whenever I tried to think of my name, Twilight Sparkle was the first thing that popped into my head. But, I knew that wasn’t my name, right? It couldn’t be. “It’s ok,” Nurse Redheart said, attempting to comfort me when she noticed a look of distress cross my face. “Just relax and take your time.” “T-twilight Sp-sparkle,” I choked out, deciding to go with the name for now. “Excellent,” Redheart responded, scribbling something down on her clipboard. “Do you know where you are?” Again, trying to think back on where I was the only names that came to mind were cities I had never heard of, yet sounded strangely familiar. “Canterlot?” I said, asking more than telling. Nurse Redheart hummed to herself as she wrote something more on her clipboard. “You’re actually in Ponyville,” she said. “Do you remember what you were coming here for, or how you got here?” A dull throb went through my head as more names and memories that didn’t seem like my own flashed through my head. “Canterlot… Princess… Sun Celebration…” I muttered, grabbing my head despite the pain as the images just kept coming. “Thousandth year… carriage… Spike.” The last name struck something deep inside myself, and despite the pain, I found myself sitting up in bed as Nurse Redheart attempted to keep me calm “It’s ok, he’s safe, you're safe,” Redheart comforted me, holding a firm hoof to my chest. “Spike… where’s Spike?” I found myself asking, despite being unable to put a face with the name. “Is Spike the name of the young drake that was with you?” Redheart asked. “I, uhm, maybe?” I said, doing my best to organize the foreign thoughts. “I think… little brother… assistant… dragon. Spike is a dragon, yes.” “You’ll be happy to know that he’s doing fine, then,” Redheart said with a smile. “Besides a few bumps and bruises, his scales helped him escape the crash relatively unscathed.” “Crash?” I asked. “What crash?” “Oh, dear,” Redheart said, cursing herself for her slip of the tongue. “Well, we had wanted to wait until you recovered a bit before we said anything, let you recover from the shock of your incident, but..” Sighing, Redheart took a moment to make herself comfortable before continuing. “About a week ago, on the afternoon before the Summer Sun Celebration, a young drake covered in scrapes and bruises came stumbling into town,” Redheart said. “After scaring a few of the locals, one of the braver towns-ponies finally approached him.” “He was pretty out of it when we found him,” Redheart continued, “but we were able to get enough from him to discover that there was a carriage crash, and the direction we needed to go to find it.” Pausing once more, Redheart glanced out the nearby dark window and sighed. “That’s when everything started going crazy,” Redheart said. “We had been preparing for the Summer Sun Celebration when some dark coated alicorn showed up and claimed the celebration was canceled.” Looking me straight in the eyes, Redheart started trembling as she attempted to keep her emotions in check. “You’re from Canterlot, do you know what happened to the princess?” Redheart asked, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “That mare said she was gone… but she can’t be. She’s the Princess!” My mouth worked in silence as my mind attempted to put together all of the information she had given me. She told me a dark alicorn showed up… The term “alicorn” seemed unfamiliar until I got brief flashes of a pony with both wings and a horn when I thought on it. Digging deeper I was soon assaulted with images of two sisters, one representing the moon and the other the sun, both bearing the magic of all three pony races. Tale of the Two Sisters… Predictions and Prophecies… Mare in the Moon… “Nightmare Moon,” I gasped, feeling a sense of dread grip me at the sound of the unfamiliar name. “How do you know of her?” Redheart gasped, leaning in closer to me. “You were unconscious when she returned... Did you know she was coming? I thought the stories were all just foals tales...” “Everything alright in here?” a strangely familiar voice asked from the doorway. Squeaking in surprise, Nurse Redheart fell back on her haunches and swiveled to face the pony that had just entered. “Everything is fine, just checking on the patient,” Redheart said. “May I ask what you’re doing here, Applejack? You didn’t trip and hurt yourself trying to work in the dark again, did you? You promised to be careful after last time.” “No, Ah didn’t,” Applejack said, flushing slightly. “Ah’m actually here ta check an see how this’n was doin'. She wasn’t lookin’ too good when we brought her in.” “You really should wait until visiting hours,” Redheart said, glancing back at me. “For all you know I could have been in here bathing the poor dear, or changing out her bedpan, and nopony wants to see that.” “But visitin’ hours started more’n half an hour ago,” Applejack said, stepping out of the room and looking at something in the hallway. “Oh, dear, did they really?” Redheart groaned, glancing at a nearby clock before covering her face with a foreleg. “It being dark all the time has really thrown off my sense of time.” “Ah know what ya mean,” Applejack sighed, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s doin’ a number on tha plants, too. Between frettin’ over this’n, n’ all the plants we’re startin’ ta lose, Granny sent me here ta get me outta tha house fer a bit.” “You’ll be glad to know you can stop worrying, then,” Redheart said, stepping aside to give Applejack a clear view of me. “She woke up not too long ago.” “Did she, now?” Applejack asked, stepping fully into the room and giving me a smile. “That’s great ta hear! Y’all were lookin’ pretty rough when we carried ya in.” “Indeed she did,” Redheart said, “but despite some issues remembering things, she seems to be recovering quite nicely.” “Memory issues?” Applejack said, giving me a pitying look, “ya sayin’ the poor mare can’t remember who she is?” “Nothing as extreme as that,” Redheart chuckled. “Her memory recall is a bit slow, but that’s to be expected after an accident like this.” “Well, ain’t that swell,” Applejack said. Walking up to my bedside, she gave me another smile and held out a forehoof. “Mah names Applejack, nice ta meet ya.” “Twilight,” I responded, slowly lifting a forehoof to meet her own. Seeing me grimace in discomfort while I shook hooves with Applejack, Redheart gently separated us. “Alright, Applejack I think that’s enough excitement for her for one day,” Redheart said, corralling her towards the door. “Why don’t we let her get some more rest, and you can come back to visit some more tomorrow.” “But Ah just got here,” Applejack argued. Any further discussion between the two was cut off as the door clicked closed behind them. Alone once more, I snuggled deeper into my covers as I went over everything I had learned since waking up. I’m being cared for by ponies… which I am? Something is telling me I’m the same as them, but different… No horn, no wings… earth ponies? Glancing up, I saw a horn poking through the mess of hair I had atop my head. Squirming around in bed a bit, I noticed a distinct lack of anything on my back. Horn, but no wings, so unicorn? That doesn’t surprise me, though… why? Are alicorns rare? Closing my eyes and scrunching my face in concentration, I attempted to filter through the constant influx of memories flowing through my head for anything relating to alicorns. Alicorns… only two ponies come to mind. Pink, purple wings, tri-colored mane… foalsitter? The other one I see is large, white, flowing mane of multiple hues… teacher… mentor… princess? A sudden shock shoots through me as all the pieces fall into place. The thousandth Summer Sun Celebration! I warned the princess, but she sent me here instead! She sent me here, and… I sank back into bed as the sudden movement caused my entire body to throb. But she didn’t send me here, I don’t think… I was in bed watching TV… maybe? The heart monitor began beeping faster and louder as my breathing quickened. I… can’t remember. Why can’t I remember!? I remember having hay and oats for breakfast, but that wasn’t me! I had, I had… The door to my room burst open as Nurse Redheart and a brown unicorn stallion came charging in. I opened my mouth to call for help, but no matter how much air I sucked in, I couldn’t seem to breath. “She’s having some type of panic attack,” Nurse Redheart said. “What should we do, doctor?” “Get me ten CCs of diazepam,” the unicorn stallion responded. “We need to get her calmed down before she hurts herself.” I grasped at the doctor with a foreleg as Redheart rushed to a medicine cabinet, then to my IV drip with a syringe in hoof. Sticking the needle into the y-connector of my IV drip, it wasn’t long before my breathing and heart rate began to slow. I opened my mouth to speak to them, to ask if either of them knew who I was, and how I got here. I wanted to know, I needed to know. To know why this body, despite feeling so wrong to me, felt so natural. Why I had all these memories of two separate lives. Why I couldn’t tell which were the real memories, and which were someone elses. Despite my need to know, however, whatever they had put into my drip had started to kick in, and my tongue was refusing to cooperate with me. Seeing their lips moving in response, I strained my ears in an attempt to hear them. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make sense of anything they were saying. I fought to keep my eyes open as darkness began creeping in on the edges of my vision, but it wasn’t long before I slipped into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.