A pony races down the hallway, almost tearing down the ponies in her path. Screaming, "Lemon! Lemon!" She is stopped in the hallway outside of the mess hall by a shorter, yellow unicorn with blue hair, cloaked in black. "Yes, apprentice?" she responds, obviously upset for missing breakfast.
The apprentice seems stunned, even frightened. "Y-your experiment... it's... it's..."
"Yes? What with my experiment?"
"It's... it's been animated. And... and..."
The pony named Lemon widened her eyes. "Excellent! It wasn't a waste of time after all, then? The council has to know immediately!"
"But..."
"Yes?"
"I'm not sure the council should know quite yet, Master... it's showing signs of sentience."
And suddenly... I wake up.
I try not to open my eyes just yet. Trying to sort out the memories going through my head. There are several of them- sad and painful, most of them. But there are several happy thoughts mixed in with the bad. A bountiful harvest. The joy of a foal on her first day of school. The sheer exhilaration of a pegasus, taking off and soaring through the clouds at a top speed.
I decide to sort all of this out later.
I stretch and hear a murmur nearby. Suddenly, I wonder where I am. Perhaps a house? Perhaps a jail cell? I cannot tell. But what I can tell is that there is only one way to find out.
I open my eyes and take my first look at a new world. It's large and dark. There are several places where the wall has obviously been repainted. Several workbenches with various tools are stacked around the table. Needles and thread on one, a saw on another. I am alone.
Once again, I wonder where I am.
Then I hear a door open nearby, and a pony, dressed in a black robe, enters the room. She stops- surprised, perhaps?- and looks at me. Wondering the extent of my body, I tilt my head like she tilts hers. She blinks. I parrot her again. She smiles, slowly. Warmly. I wonder who this pony is. She feels... familiar. Like a mother, perhaps. I don't know. I am confused.
She whispers to me. A reassurance. A welcome. A, "hello." I try to whisper back. Perhaps to return the greetings? I don't know. It seems right. I get out something, but I cannot tell what it is. It definitely is not what it needed to be. Not at all. Remembering what ponies often did when greeted- these confusing memories telling me so- I hold out my hoof. Forgetting what it is called. A hoofshake, perhaps? That's what one did, anyways.
She inspects the hoof warily, then slowly takes hold of it and shakes it gently. It feels warm and somewhat soft. I smile at her like she smiles at me. She whispers that she would be back in a few minutes, and I nod. She seems slightly taken aback at this, but the smile returns and she steps up and leaves.
I decide to take this time to examine myself and determine what I am. There seems to be a mirror on the other side of the room. I slow get up and try to trot over to it. I don't do well the first few times. I feel like I have too many legs. Eventually, I stumble over to in front of the mirror and take my first good look at myself.
The first notable thing that I notice is my body in general. Scar-covered and bleeding in a few places. Finding a nearby cloth, I clean off the blood to reveal that my coat is a patchwork of various colors- one spot blue, one spot pink, yet another spot white. I decide that I must have had some kind of accident, although I can't remember it. I can't remember anything about myself. All that I remember is of other ponies.
The second thing I notice is that I have a horn. Three, to be exact. I wish that I knew how I got the other two. It seems like my entire body's a mess. I wonder how to fix this. So that I can look like the others. Somehow, I know that ponies don't trust things that are unfamiliar to them. Like the Everfree Forest. Or the caves of Manehattan. I wonder how I know this, and decide to think about it later.
I see that I have a pair of wings. They are large wings, and quite fluffy. I flap them a few times, and then turn to my side to examine them. Then I realize that I have two wings on that side. And four legs on that side as well. No wonder I had problems moving. I turn around to ensure that they were even, and sure enough, I do. I have two pairs of wings and four pairs of legs. Odd. I spend some time feeling along the scarlines, trying to figure out how I got them. But no matter how hard i try, I can't remember.
I look at my tail and mane. At least they appear normal. I run a hoof along my tail and feel a ticklish sensation. Making me giggle. That felt good. I do it again. And again. Then I look at my mane. It appears to be a plethora of colors, always shifting and changing. And tangled. I find what appears to be a comb nearby and drag it through my mane slowly. It hurts the first few times, but then the brush glides smoothly through. My mane now floats freely at my side, Multicolored and changing.
Now that I've figured out what I look like, I try to figure out who I am. I can't be a pegasus, because I have a horn. I can't be a unicorn, because I have wings. And an earth pony is out of the question. I can't be a non-pony species, because, no matter how messed up my appearance is, I am an equine of some sort. I decide that I am an alicorn. A mockery of one, perhaps.
Just then, the black-robed pony comes in with her hood down. She is yellow with a blue mane. She smiles at me, taking in the brush on the table, my position in front of the mirror. She nods her head. "Hello again... my little mockingbird."
So, perhaps, that is my name.
Mockingbird.