//------------------------------// // Starting to Recover // Story: The Mask of Despair and the Face of Hope // by Wings of Black Glass //------------------------------// The next few days passed slowly. I invited Sable to stay in one of the many empty rooms the castle possessed until he recovered his memories, at the very least until he could rebuild his house, and he accepted. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie spent some of those days spending time with Sable, mostly just talking about the town in an effort to jog something loose. Fluttershy and Applejack helped him get used to life again, with the simple things like making meals and cleaning. Starlight Glimmer, and to a lesser extent Rarity, helped him recover some of his magical spells. I buried my nose in my books, my first recourse to any predicament. This time, however, I had somewhere to start, memory spells. Loss of memory was a well-researched phenomenon, and numerous spells were suggested to restore them. Unfortunately, those spells are focused on physical damage to the brain, and for some reason when I tried them on Sable, they outright failed. The other spells I found, those based on magical causation of memory loss, were significantly rarer and always functioned only as a response to the specific magic used to manipulate the mind in the first place. I wasn’t even sure what actually happened in front of me that caused Sable’s memory to be removed, Starlight Glimmer was equally lost on this front, and the two of us couldn’t agree on which spells might help him most or at all. Sable Stardust, for his part, managed his lost life with surprising resilience. Aside from the breakdown at his old hovel, he handled himself rather well. At one point Pinkie asked him why he didn’t seem more upset, and he responded that he could mope about the castle and weep loudly, but that it wouldn’t solve anything, so why bother. I admit that did seem to be in keeping with Sable’s old personality, so at least he wasn’t entirely reset. In fact, he still knew how to talk and perform many simple tasks. From my reading, it seemed as though what happened to him was not the usual form of amnesia. Not really memory loss so much as I would call it a loss of personal history. What little he did remember didn’t seem to be particularly selective either, it was as though something tore random selections of his mind and threw them to the wind. Somepony knocked on the library door, and I looked up to see Sable standing there. He cast his gaze around the large room, every wall covered in bookshelves, in stark amazement. I waved him in with a smile. “So many books. Have you read them all?” “Most. If you want you can always come here to read anything you want. Be warned, most of them are stuffy academic texts, rather than novels if that is what you are looking for.” “Somehow, I get the feeling I should stay away from fiction at the moment. I wouldn’t want to confuse fantasy for reality.” “That's… surprisingly wise of you.” “Oh, really?” He frowned slightly, and I realized that he used to always be just at the edge of frowning. At this moment he was indistinguishable from his old self. “Why surprising?” “I just meant that most ponies who lose their memory wouldn’t have thought about it that way. That's all. So what can I help you with?” “Well, mostly I was just wondering what you’ve been up to. I haven’t seen much of you, and your friends… our friends.” He corrected himself in a way I approved of. “They have been keeping me distracted with what feels like mindless busywork.” “I didn’t realize I was being distant. I’m sorry.” I dipped my head; he nodded in response. “I was researching your condition.” “Is luck on my side today?” “I don’t know for sure. The form of damage is often specific to the incident which caused it, so few cases share many similarities. There are some spells which might help, but I don’t want to promise a quick solution.” He raised an eyebrow. “These spells are very specialized, based primarily on what magic was used to cause the damage.” “Ah, and because we don’t know what did it in the first place…” He’s a quick learner, or maybe latent knowledge seeping to the surface. “If you would like I could try one.” He paced across the room, and I saw his gaze wander across the shelves of books aimlessly, he must have been considering my offer. “I appreciate the offer.” I opened the book on the table again, searching for one of the proper spells. “However, I would feel better if Starlight were here as well.” This stung a bit, as if he doubted my abilities. “I have watched her as she casts spells, and she appears to be very skilled. And frankly, I don’t know enough about you to be sure if you know what you are doing.” That's very cautious of him, if misinformed. “She is outstanding, that’s a fact. But I’m just as much a master spellcaster as she is, probably even better.” He affixed his eyes on me, and I got the feeling he was judging my truthfulness. “In that case, let me re-qualify my earlier statement. I would like another pair of eyes to watch, in case something else goes wrong.” This was the proper caution. I nodded and lifted the book with the memory spells from the table. “Let us go find Starlight Glimmer then.” We set out, hoping to find Starlight still in the castle. I sifted through what Starlight last told me about her plans; she had intended to go to the Crystal Empire today to meet with Sunburst, although she might still be here. We searched the castle, heading to Starlight’s room and knocking, she did not respond. We went to the kitchen, and then the map room. It was here we found Spike, reading a comic. “Spike! Have you seen Starlight?” The dragon marked his spot with a finger and looked up and around. “Not since earlier, she said she would be back in a few days. Is it important?” “Depends on the given value of important.” Sable spoke before I could. “It can wait until she returns.” Now he turned to me as Spike returned to his comic. “I hope you don’t mind, but I really would prefer to have somepony else here while you go rummaging through my head, who has some idea of what you are doing.” “That is perfectly reasonable.” “Besides, it's not like my head is going anywhere.” Spike chuckled, I wasn’t sure if he was laughing at Sable’s joke or something in his book. Sable sighed, familiarly, and turned away. “Sable?” He looked back at me. “How about we go walk through town? I can show you around.” He hesitated, and I guessed at his reasoning. “You might be stuck this way for a while. You’ll have to re-learn where everything in town is eventually.” He seemed surprised but did not correct me. “You are right.” He looked up at the chandelier. “I am getting a little tired of being cooped up in here anyway.” “Spike, do you want to join us?” I set my spellbook on the table for later. He waved a dismissive claw at us. “Nah, I’m good. You two have fun.” So together Sable and I headed out, Sable blinked in the bright sunlight of midday as we left the Castle. He hesitated slightly but kept up with me. I escorted him into the town proper, pointing out the various landmarks and shops. As we walked, I noticed something odd about the way he looked at the other ponies in town. It was as though he wasn’t looking at their faces, unwilling to meet them face to face. “Why are they all looking at me like that?” He suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, backing away from several ponies going the other direction. “Like what?” I looked around and realized what he meant. Each of the other ponies were staring at Sable as they passed us, some whispering to each other and murmuring, others with strange sad expressions. With a start I followed their gaze, Sable wasn’t wearing his coat anymore, having forgotten it even existed. His blank flank was free for everypony to see. I could see Sable realize this as well. “It has to do with those symbols, doesn’t it?” He gestured to the star marks on my flank. “Everpony else has one, except for me.” Then he looked back at where his own should be. “Why is that?” I felt my pulse rising, how had I forgotten he didn’t have a cutie-mark? I looked around; there had to be somewhere… “You honestly forgot he didn’t have a mark?” “I was so focused on his loss of personal history and his memory that I just didn’t think about it.” “Not your best moment.” “It really wasn’t. Fortunately, I know a pony with just the right skillset to help right then.”