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// The pegasus with a blank face 
// Story: Changeling Amnesia 
// by CrutioAstarothChaos 
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	Ugh, a diary. Like I’ll ever need one. What am I supposed to write in this? I know who I am, and if I write down everything, it’ll still only be the story through my own eyes. Or maybe not, since I can write down the memories of anypony I become! Still, it’s strange, how the good doctor agreed to help me. Oh well, must be my irresistible charm. Since I figured out through that stupid accident back in the hive (Poor Fizzler always knew too much), that I can steal memories, I think I became more confident. Maybe ponies like confident creatures.
And maybe that’s why this particular pony is less popular than others. I immediately knew he lacked self confidence, at the moment when he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Oh, right, I’m spying on him now. Migraine told him that I would find him, and told me where to find him. So now, he’s going to take a stroll in the city, and I’m going to stalk him. Or to be correct; I am already stalking him.
Amnesia closed the notebook that Migraine gave her, and put it in a saddlebag. She still thought it was a stupid idea, but Migraine insisted that he would only help her if she wrote everything down. He told her that it was to ‘satiate his curiosity’; that unicorn was still way too excited to know more about Amnesia’s special talent. Like she herself wasn’t. Ever since she ‘accidentally’ erased the mind of a fellow changeling, she herself was trying to find out the extents of her new ability.
She watched the pony leave his comfy Canterlot flat, and suspected she had about two minutes, before the pegasus leaves the building. She recollected what Migraine told her about her first real client; a pony who wished his memories completely erased. His name was Buddy, he was a bluish-green pegasus, with gray mane and tail and blue eyes. On his flank was three clovers, which didn’t really make sense to Amnesia, but to her, ponies were weirder than birds. Seriously, how does something that makes that much noise survive?
She spotted her target exiting the building. She stood up, already wearing the disguise of an average light-blue pegasus mare, and followed the path Buddy took, but traversing on the rooftops. The stallion was looking around nervously, and Amnesia suppressed a giggle. He was told he’d be found by whomever he was supposed to meet, but still he was acting paranoid. It was just funny for the changeling.
After a couple of turns, Amnesia noted a pattern: her client was taking a right turn first, then a left at the second chance. Right, left, right, left, right left. It was easy to figure out, and easier to calculate where he will be crossing in two minutes. Amnesia hurried forward, and landed in a casual street, observing the display of a jewelry shop. In less than two minutes Buddy turned into the small street. Amnesia stared at him, until he noticed her, then gave him a wink, and left directly in the opposite way than where the pegasus would’ve went according to his pattern. She heard the hasty hoofsteps of the stallion catching up to her, and she stopped for a second.
“I suppose it is you I should be meeting,” Buddy said.
“I suppose it is,” Amnesia replied, and started walking. “Where do you think we should go for a private chat?”
“I suppose the nearby park would do nicely,” Buddy replied. “Take the next street on the right.”
The changeling nodded, and let the pegasus lead the way to the park. Once the two were there, Amnesia found a comfortable spot, and lay down.
“I suppose we get down to business now,” Amnesia said. “So why would a pony ask for his life to be undone?”
“Well... I feel like I’m not even here.”
“I don’t think I get it,” the shifter replied. “You’ll have to explain it better than that.”
“I’m constantly ignored,” Buddy said. “My coworkers don’t listen to me, because I’m a terrible flyer, my ‘friends’ always forget to invite me to parties, or they always forget when my birthday is, and my parents barely write me any letters. I constantly try to keep in contact with everypony around me, and I see it slowly falling apart!”
“You lack self confidence, that’s all! You need to be more confident!” Amnesia tried to talk Buddy out of it, because it seemed that his life wasn’t filled with too much love.
“I can’t be confident!” Buddy replied. “I can’t even fly straight thanks to the fact that my wing broke once, and I don’t have anything exceptional to show up to impress the ladies! I’m a failure, and I need to forget it all!”
“All right, all right, calm down!” Amnesia hushed the pegasus. “Look, I’ll have to think about it for a few days too. Making somepony disappear isn't as easy as one might think. I’ll have to replace you, so you’ll have time to disappear.”
“But how will you replace me?”
“That’s my problem, not yours. Hence why I need time to think. I’ll find you again in a couple of days, and then we’ll talk, all right?”
Buddy slowly nodded, his face filled with sorrow. Whatever confidence he had left, he looked as though he was losing whatever confidence he had left. There was something terrible in his past that made him this withdrawn. The shifter didn’t care about it; it was useless to ask, she'd find out anyways in time.
The two parted ways, and Buddy left the park, his head hanging low. Amnesia truly felt pity for the pegasus, but her own emotions would never keep her fed. She decided she’d stalk the pony for a few days, but she couldn't tell him she planned on following him, as he'd most likely be on his guard. Amnesia took out her diary from her saddlebag, and made a note to stalk her clients next time before she confronted them.
 
On a rooftop, across the building the pegasus lived in, Amnesia was watching Buddy, go on with his daily activities. The changeling wore another disguise, in case the pegasus were to somehow recognize her previous one. Buddy first read a book, which the changeling found boring, then he cooked some lunch, and after that he finally left his house, with a saddlebag on his back.
Amnesia followed him in the sky, noticing that Buddy never really opened his wings. She heard of pegasi, who were afraid of heights, but then again she watched him stare out his window on the fifth floor. She then remembered, that he mentioned his wing being broken, and suddenly knew a reason why the pegasus wished to forget everything. Aside from a few cases, pegasi barely ever stick to the ground; they preferred flying everywhere; in some rare occasions, if flying was denied to a pegasus, she or he became physically sick.
Since he couldn’t fly straight, it was likely that flying in general was not an option for Buddy. Which made his case even more sad.
Amnesia shook her head; she couldn’t possibly make a decision based on her emotions. No matter how much she pitied the pegasus, her life depended more on whether Buddy had enough ponies loving him in his life.
After a few turns, it seemed obvious, that Buddy was heading towards another park. This one seemed to be the less crowded, since it was more of a public garden, than an actual park. Less ponies visited the place, and those who did, were obviously dressed as the ‘fancy’ type.
Unlike Buddy, who wore a simple saddlebag, and a baseball hat. He was so out of place in that garden, and he managed to become even weirder, when he sat down at the base of a tree, took a book out of his bag, and started reading it. Amnesia was now sitting on a nearby tree’s branch, trying to remain somewhat undetected. Some ponies noticed her, but Buddy was too busy reading to notice her, or to notice the green unicorn mare approaching him.
Even the changeling noticed her too late, and she couldn’t get close enough undetected, to perfectly hear what the two were talking about. What she managed to see despite the distance was that the mare was acting way too sweet; while all Buddy did was hide deeper and deeper behind his book. Soon the mare smiled at Buddy again, and then turned around to leave. Amnesia took flight, and flew between the mare and Buddy, just in time to catch the sweet smell of something.
Leftover love, the changeling thought, landing behind a small bush. Might have some chance of doing this after all.
She trotted to Buddy in the image of a pale-brown pegasus stallion. The other was now again absorbed in his book, and didn’t notice the shifter standing right next to him. Amnesia let out a small cough, and that made the pegasus jump.
“Sweet Celestia, you scared me!” Buddy said, and even in his frustration, he sounded way too polite and shy. “Do I know you, sir?”
“We met this morning,” Amnesia stated. “Mind if I sit down for another small chat?”
Buddy shook his head, and put his saddlebag on his other side, so Amnesia could sit down next to him.
“I’ve been watching you Buddy, and I can tell that you are exceptionally withdrawn,” the changeling said. “Like now; when you were talking to that sweet mare. Who was she?”
“She’s... she’s called Spring Fresh. She tends to the flowers around here. That’s why I usually come here. Because of her.”
“So? Go on, ask her out or something!” Amnesia suggested. “She is obviously interested in you!”
“You think I’m not interested in her?” Buddy snapped in a way much unlike his previous self. “But every time I think about asking her out I remember what almost everypony I ever talked to did!”
“Why, Buddy? What did they do?”
“They never noticed me!” the pegasus cried out. “I work in the Canterlot stadium as part of the cleanup crew. Once I took a one week vacation, and my colleagues completely forgot about me! My boss told me they kept asking who the new guy was! I worked there for eight years now, and everytime I take a small break this regularly happens! The mare in the grocery store? I went to the same store for six years now, and she still can’t remember me! We once talked for almost an hour about what I do for a living, and then the next week she asked me what I do for a living!”
“But she remembers you!” Amnesia retorted. “There still is a chance!”
“But what if I’d wish to take her to a restaurant?” Buddy asked. “What if I’d ask the waiter to make reservations for two, and they would forget, just like everypony forgets what I ever say! Imagine her introducing me to her friends, and imagine her doing this for the rest of her life!”
“So, you can’t fly, and you can’t be remembered,” the changeling concluded. “Therefore you wish to forget it all?”
“Yes,” the pony said, with tears in his eyes. “I wish to forget what it felt like, soaring through the vast open skies, rather than be cursed to not relive it.”
 
It’s been months now, but whenever I remember, I know: I had nothing more to ask of him. After that day, somewhere in the next week two Buddies traveled to Fillydelhia; one checked in under a fake name in a small hotel, and on the first evening, I became the one and only Buddy, leaving the drooling shell of the once sad pegasus in the caring hooves of the Fillydelphian nurses. I became friends with the colleagues Buddy never could befriend, dated the mare he was scared to ask out, and lived an average life he never could. Migraine and I kept exchanging letters, and I heard from him that a pegasus wielding the name Blue Clover was recovering well from his amnesia.