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// Chapter 4: Modern Medicine 
// Story: I Don't Remember 
// by nitelight 
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The place they had gone to was inside the castle walls. Though a relatively small area, it had everything needed for a check-in. Again, the feel of the room was entirely alien to her. It was clean, too clean, almost. She was almost afraid to touch anything. But Luna wasn't able to look around for long, the presence of a nurse in front of her welcoming her and the two guards by her side, informing them to wait there for a doctor. 
She gave a short bow before turning away. There wasn't anyone else in the room. It most likely reserved for either the royal family or emergencies on the castle grounds. While over the city yesterday, she thought she had seen the cross that was displayed on the doors on a much larger building. No way everything in that large of a place could fit into a small wing of the castle. But who knew. While medical knowledge was not her strong suit, magic had undoubtedly changed drastically in a millennium as well.
The sterile smell of the room was off-putting, making Luna almost want to cover her nose to block it out. Everything she had experienced so far was... artificial. Nothing felt natural. Was that because of how long she'd been gone? Or were most things now man-made? She could ask her guards, but asking questions like that she feared would give her strange looks. 
Just before Luna went to sit down to wait for the doctor to return, as walking over here had again made her tired, a man dressed in medical scrubs came in from the doors the nurse had left through earlier. 
"A pleasure to meet you, Princess. My name is Doctor Oolong and I'll be taking care of you today. If you wouldn't mind, follow me back to the room where we'll examine you further."
Again with such formalities. All she hoped was to make this quick, no need for small talk. Though then again, if he started asking her about herself, how would she respond? It wasn't as if she knew very much more than the obvious. Going over what she knew would probably help in preparing her. Okay, her name was Luna, she was half of the diarchy of Equestria and one of its princesses. She had magic and could fly, though she couldn't exactly use either at the moment. She had control over the moon (though that was still partially speculation and not complete fact). She had an elder sister, Celestia, the other half of the kingdom's diarchy. She had turned into Nightmare Moon a millennium ago after a fit of jealousy and anger towards her sister, and was banished to the moon for a thousand years. And thanks to Celestia's student and her friends using the Elements of Harmony, she was freed and reunited with her sister just yesterday. 
...Was that it?
She hoped now that he didn't ask too many personal questions even more now. 
Taking a deep breath to steal her shaky nerves, she and Nightingale followed Oolong back to a small room with a bed, counter, and a few other tools spread across the floor. It smelt even worse than the entrance, and the only colors were various shades of white. Oh, and the lights were awful. They were just as white as everything else in the room, and were constantly buzzing in her ears. 
Her discomfort was apparently ignored, however, as the doctor motioned that she sit on the bed that was raised up on the far end of the room, he himself pulling up a chair and sitting in front of it, clipboard in hand. It was not the most comfortable mattress, but it was by far not the worst thing in the room. It felt as though the doctor was judging her every move, writing a few things down as she sat. What could he have possibly figured out by her sitting down?
"So, Princess, I'm going to start off by asking you a few questions about your health." 
Oh great.
"First off, have you been in any pain since your return?"
"Nay. We haven't. Simply drain'd of our en'rgy." 
"Did you sleep well last night?"
"Yes. We slept fine."
This went on for some time. She was short with her answers, straight to the point, ignoring much of his attempts at small talk. Was she truthful? Mostly. With every answer she gave, something was written down. 
Did you get sick when you ate? No, she ate slowly to avoid that. Any allergies? Not that she knew of. Are you able to read and write? Yes, and she hadn't tried yet.  And, of course, there were a few more personal questions asked: Was she active intimately? No, and besides, she'd only been back for hours. Her last menstrual cycle? A thousand years ago. She knew they were necessary to be asked, but were they not common sense? 
But it did not get any more in depth than that, luckily. No questions of her memory. No mentions of her different speech. No questions of her age. They were to move on to the more physical part of the examination now. 
With the help of Nightingale extending a hand, Luna made her way across the room against a marked wall. Told to stand against it straight, she did so, Oolong reaching above her head to mark her height, and record it down on his paper. Next was her weight, where she stood on a small black platform that somehow recorded the numbers digitally. 
Did Luna know exactly what he was doing with this information? No, but apparently it wasn't very good, going by the dejected look off his face. 
"Excuse me," he cleared his throat, straightening out his features, "I am simply worried, your highness. From these results, it indicates that you are very underweight for your current height. Likely malnourished. While something I would like to monitor, the only thing you need to worry about is eating a balanced diet and not overexerting your physical capabilities."
"Of course," she replied amidst a sigh. Anyone could have put that together after looking at her appearance for more than a moment. Sure, her baggy clothes were likely hiding the worst of her form, but it wasn't the hardest thing to discern. Was he stating the obvious because he had to? Or was it because she practically looked like a child? It was also possible he thought her knowledge of medicine from a thousand years ago was so outdated that she didn't know that not eating was unhealthy. 
Like he had before, the doctor took her reaction for opposite of what she meant it to, trying to reassure her that she'd be 'back to her old self' in no time. She doubted that would happen. Her body may, but her mind was unlikely at the pace she was going. 
From then on, they went on to check her blood pressure, whatever that meant. But apparently it was in a positive range. Next was her heart rate. Luna wasn't entirely fond of how close he had to get to listen to it, much less the cold metal against her skin. Whether it was due to her uneasiness, or something else entirely, Oolong mumbled something under his breath, eyes furrowed while writing another thing down on his paper. She could deduct that meant there had to be something abnormal, but he said nothing of it. 
They then went on to a more physical exam of her body, more specifically, her wings. He was gentle with his touch, only doing so when needed. For the most part, he asked her to control her wings on her own. It took her a few tries at first, the muscles unfamiliar and stiff from unuse. For a brief moment Luna was afraid she was unable to move them, but after a few subtle crunches, they were able to unfold from their resting position. Extending them was uncomfortable, a feeling she wasn't used to, but that could be another side effect of her not remembering anything from before her banishment. Flying was not an action she remembered doing, or knew how to do to the full extent. 
Oolong had given her a few comments about it, noticing how uncomfortable the action was for her. This small talk she could handle. She did, after all, need to know how to care for her wings properly. But like most of her body, they were weak, and to put it simply, they needed to be used more to build up the muscle. Flying would be slow going, but since the bones were strong and flight feathers were healthy, they would go back to full health with the rest of her body. 
With most of what Luna was dreading out of the way, they had moved along to what she had been looking forward to all morning: checking her magic. Not that she wasn't worrying at all, though. She didn't know how to cast a spell and had been too afraid to try earlier in case something blew up on accident. Oolong had taken out another machine, crystal would be more accurate, and told her to place her hand atop it. Multiple strings of numbers and symbols appeared both on the crystal and around it. Again, nothing she understood. 
"I have some good news and some bad news about this," he said after taking a pause to look it over. "First off, your magical ability is extensive. Very close to the abilities of your sister, and after time with what I saw, they would be even closer. Though, this is speculation, as I don't have any records of your abilities from before when you were at full strength."
It wasn't as if she knew for sure either. It was all speculation on her part as well, more of a gut feeling, but what he was saying did make sense. Other than her physical body being very weak, something else felt like it was missing. Something more ethereal. And the energy of the crystal had felt similar. Her magical energy had been stripped from her alongside the Nightmare, leaving her in a less powerful form physically. No wonder her reflection seemed so alien to her. It wasn't what she used to look like. 
"As for the bad, it seems that it's weaker than it should be. While your potential is substantial, what you're physically able to use is limited. This early on, even simple spells may seem like they're very complicated. I'd like to test out some basic spells, if you wouldn't mind, something easy?"
Oh no. She had been worrying about that, but better to test it out here than in public and need something cleaned up or she hurt herself or someone else. Taking another breath and giving the doctor a nod, she readied herself. 
"Perfect. We'll start with telekinesis. Try to lift this pen. Even if it's just a little, that's good," he said while placing an extra pen he had on the counter next to where she was sitting.
Channeling the energy was an intensive process, pulling the force out of the deepest parts of her body. She had to focus, pushing said energy outside was an unfamiliar feeling. Luna almost shuddered, feeling it almost course through her veins, down to her hands. While she had closed her eyes to focus, there was an unmistakable light coming from her hands where she had channeled the energy to. That illumination had gone slowly and subtly over to the pen Oolong had set down earlier. 
Opening her eyes, she now focused on that object, pouring more into it and envisioning it lifting up. Though as much effort as she was putting into lifting such a small object, the glow around it was dim, and she was already starting to strain in how much she was pushing. While getting moderately painful, she was able to lift it a few centimeters off the surface it was on. It wasn't heavy, necessarily, but it was difficult to keep afloat in her aura. And soon enough, she had to let go, the light in her hands fizzling out and letting out an exhale before straining herself too far. 
Luna refused to meet the gazes of the two men in the room. It was almost humiliating. She was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the land; she had been powerful before, as herself and as the Nightmare. Now she could hardly lift a simple pen. Although Doctor Oolong was probably used to seeing things like this, and knew this was bound to happen, she still felt like his eyes were on her, judging. Nightingale, who she'd mostly forgotten about up until this point other than that time he'd helped her, was also closely watching her. That was his job, of course, to watch her every move and make sure she was alright, but his constant gaze was bearing down into her now. 
Oolong had made sure to tell her that her apparent failure was nothing to be ashamed of, but it did nothing to soothe her emotions. He had no doubt made a few conclusions from her actions, likely thinking of a path to go down in the coming weeks on a path to recovery. 
As the final act of operation for the day, he had wanted to do a blood test and do a wide range of scans to see if there was anything else lying underneath that they were unable to see. What he could figure out from taking some of her blood, she had no idea, but she went along with it. The needle he'd pulled out hurt less than she thought it would when he went to prick it into a vein in her arm. She'd been hurt worse before.
After that, though, she was free to leave for the rest of the day. As far as she knew, nothing else had been scheduled for her to do, so she was free to do whatever she felt until dinner. 
Thanking Oolong for his time, Nightingale opened the door for her to exit through, and they soon went back to the entrance to the medical wing where Datura was standing in post. The three of them then set off to another part of the castle. There was no particular destination set, and she was still tired from the past days events, so simply wandering around was good enough for her. 
It was a slow trek, Luna taking her time admiring the sights of the castle. It truly was magnificent architecture, the gold and marble blending in with each other in a way to not make them clash against the decoration or the people within. As they were on a lower level, however, she was finally able to see greenery, other than the occasional flower hanging on the pillars or a potted plant placed around to give color. Were there gardens around the castle? Possibly. There was a lovely garden at her old home where she used to love stargazing. 
Making her way around the hallways, she was lucky to avoid interactions with many of the staff she'd come across. A simple bow from the employee, a nod of acknowledgment from her, and they were on their way with whatever work they had. Luckily, she hadn't come across any of the city's nobility or other politicians. She was not ready for any of that quite yet. Let her enjoy the positive parts of being a princess for now. And soon enough, she came across a door leading to the outside. 
The summer sun was shining high above the terrace she stepped onto, a cool breeze rustling the leaves in nearby trees. It was more organized than the forest she had been to yesterday, and far more luxurious. While it was bright enough to hurt her eyes, there were plenty of places for her to hide under the shade. If these were the views she would get to see everyday, she'd never get tired of it.