Midnight Star sat in silence, watching the sun rise at a painfully slow speed. It had been about a week since that day. As hard as he tried, he couldn't keep his mind from wandering back to that night.The night he looked into the mirror.
One week ago
What Star saw confused and disturbed him. He had light green almost silver eyes, and a white coat. Though neither of these were the cause for his shock. The first of two things that shocked him was, reaching from the top of his right eye down to the bottom of his left in a slash, was a large scar.
The second was that he was a unicorn.Being a unicorn didn’t scare him, what scared him was that his horn was shattered. It looked as if it had been smashed by a rock, in place of what he assumed was a normal horn was a small, jagged, 2 inch long stub.
The part that disturbed him about this were the implications. No normal pony had scars such as these, these were the marks of a criminal. His mind frantically traveled from one theory to another, trying to figure out what had happened. Or better yet, who he was, so he would know why he looked the way he did. Regardless of how much he tried to remember, he could only remember the silhouette of a pony with a pointed hat.
He hadn't had any sleep that night and had a feeling that he wouldn't for a long while.‘What if I do have something to do with Discord?’ Star wondered.
A chill quickly spread through his body ‘I really hope not.’
Present day
That memory had haunted him ever since. When he asked Fluttershy about Discord, her eyes widened and she squeaked out something about bad memories before making an excuse and rushing home. With a new resolve, he decided that he was going to find his identity and find out what happened to him once, he got the cast off of his leg. Finally resolving the problem, Star thought that he might as well start walking on his leg, to help it regain its strength.
Star decided that he was going to leave a note for Zecora and go walking around the forest for an hour or so. After locating a quill and a piece of unused paper, he started writing. About halfway down the page, Star realized that he didn't know how to write. Looking over what he had just written, he found a bunch of squiggles.
Because he had no way of letting Zecora know that he was going to leave at the moment, he was forced to wait for her return. After about an hour, he started to get impatient and decided to find something to keep himself occupied. After walking around the room and searching for about 10 minutes, he found a book to read, or more so, to see if he could read.
The title of the book read “Basic pony healthcare and diagnosis” ‘I guess that Zecora didn't know what she was going to do with me when she found me.’ Opening the book, Star found it to be an easily understood book and it extensively described different injuries and illnesses and how to treat them.
Thinking of something to search up and read about, he decided to look up how to take care of broken limbs, like his leg. After a minute of searching the book index he found the page he was looking for and turned to the page about broken legs, it read "The patient's leg will be incapacitated for at least 2 weeks, so make sure that they stay off their legs or it will take longer. It can take less than 2 weeks for unicorns however, because their magic is stronger and acts as an immune system, finding the problem and trying to fix it. The stronger the unicorn's magic, the faster it heals but the more a unicorn uses his/her magic, the slower it heals. After the patients leg is no longer incapacitated, give them the appropriate equipment to help them begin to walk again until fully healed, i.e. crutches, wheelchair etc…"
‘Well I guess that explains why I'm healing so fast.’ Star thought happily. Not being able to think of anything else to search up, he closed the book and thought of what he ways to regain his memories. He mulled over the possibilities for about 30 minutes when the door to Zecora's room opened and out walked the zebra, with large bags under her eyes.
For the past few nights, she had been out almost all night searching for and researching herbs that were unknown of. Apparently, that’s why she lived in the Everfree forest. Nopony would dare go into the Everfree forest and as such there were probably hundreds of unknown types of herbs there, such as the Poison Joke.
Deciding to give her a little while to wake up, he limped over to the window and took in the scenery. The sun was still below the middle of the sky, so he determined that it was still middle to late morning. He turned his attention to the forest itself, which seemingly had more wildlife than it had for the past week.
Finally, he turned his attention back to Zecora, who was sipping from a mug filled with coffee. "Good morning to you, would you like some of this brew?" Zecora asked noticing him looking at her coffee.
"Thank you that sounds nice right now," Star answered gratefully.
After receiving an answer, she grabbed another mug and filled it with the dark brown liquid.
"You seem a little askew, is something bothering you?" Zecora asked.
"It is nothing that you need to worry about," Star dismissed.
"Well if I possibly knew, I might be able to help you."
"Well….. alright I guess I will tell you."
So Star told her what had happened the week before, from his appearance, to his fears on how other ponies might react to his appearance. He did not tell her what he looked like, partly because he still feared her reaction, and partly because he felt she already knew.
After he told her all of his thoughts, she remained silent. After about 5 minutes of silence, she decided to speak. "Of their reactions you will not know, until your face you do show," Zecora said carefully.
"I guess you are right, but for now I feel more comfortable wearing my cloak. Until the ponies in Ponyville get used to me, I am going to keep my cloak on." ‘I really need to do something to thank her…’
Zecora simply nodded her approval and finished her coffee. After some time ofmaking small talk Zecora looked outside. "I must leave, I have herbs to study, seeing as the weather today is not muddy." Saying goodbye she walked out the door leaving Star all alone.
While they were talking, Zecora mentioned that it might be a good idea that he went into town and talked to Twilight Sparkle, because she was a librarian and also very intelligent, she might be able to help with his memory problems. Seeing as he didn't own anything but the cloak on his back, he walked out the door, closing it behind him.
For the first time since he had woken up on the forest floor, he was outside. He had never imagined it to be so amazing, well not where he was in particular because there were dead trees and shrubs all around, but because there were flowers growing on the sides of the path, he heard birds chirping and felt a light breeze, he was completely at peace.
Walking down the path with as much as a spring in his step as he could muster, he allowed his mind and eyes to wander over the scenery as he walked. Along the way he saw many strange creatures and plants, both beautiful and intimidating.
As he was nearing the end of the path he came upon a patch of beautiful blue flowers right on top of the path. He would have happily gone over and sniffed at the flowers, maybe even picked one up, but he vaguely remembered Zecora warning him about blue flowers so he decided to go around them.
Star had finally reached the end of the path, his breath taken away at what he found. In the distance, he saw beautiful lush green hills and birds singing overhead. Even farther over the horizon in one direction he saw the town and in the other he saw a lone cottage, which he assumed was Fluttershy’s.
He decided to stop in and ask Fluttershy for directions because she was one of the only two ponies he actually knew and he was too shy to ask for directions from other ponies in ponyville. Over the week that he was incapacitated Fluttershy stopped in almost every day to check on his healing progress. During the time they had gotten to know each other better and had become good friends.
After Star arrived at Fluttershy's house he walked up to the door and knocked, after a moment he heard a quiet voice from behind the door. "Just one moment please."
When Fluttershy answered the door she let out a squeak of surprise when she saw a scary looking pony in a torn cloak standing in her doorway and was about to flee into her house when she noticed that the pony had a cast over its back left leg. A concerned look quickly grew on her face. "Star! What are you doing here? You shouldn't be on your leg walking around just yet."
"Well, I had nothing planned today and Zecora thought it would be a good idea to go and talk to your friend Twilight Sparkle because she may be able to help me with my memory problems," Star mumbled shifting the his weight from his casted leg.
Her concerned look turned to a beaming smile. "That’s a wonderful idea, I’m sure that if anyone will be able to help you, it’ll be Twilight. She’s one of the smartest ponies I know,"
"Alright then that brings me to the matter at hoof, I came here to ask you for directions to her home because I have never been to ponyville and I forgot to ask Zecora before she left," He explained.
"Twilight lives in the library, it’s a big hollowed out tree. I'm not doing anything today, I could show you. That is, if it's okay with you…"
"I would appreciate that."
"Alright, just let me tell Angel bunny." She said closing the door to her cottage.
After a few minutes of waiting Fluttershy reemerged from her cottage. "Alright thanks for waiting, let's go."
The walk to ponyville was peaceful; neither of the ponies talked much on the way besides the occasional comment on something around them.
As they reached Ponyville, Star stopped Fluttershy along the path in front of Ponyville. "Why are we stopping right in front of town?" she asked cocking her head to one side.
"I didn't really think of it until now but I am kind of scared to walk into town. What if people think that I am some kind of monster or freak or something?" he asked.
"Don't worry about that, nopony will think that you are a monster or a freak unless you give them reason to believe so." Fluttershy reassured.
The scene was very opposite, Fluttershy, the very shy pony was giving another pony tips on how to deal with what other ponies thought of him when she herself was usually scared at the thought of such a thing.
"Alright I guess we can head into town now, thank you for the reassurance, I needed that," he said gratefully while walking back onto the path heading into ponyville.
Walking through town went better than Star had expected, besides the occasional strange look or whisper as he passed by, it went really well.
After walking for about 10 minutes he began wondering where Twilight’s library was and, not paying attention to his surroundings, didn't notice the three fillies approaching at breakneck pace until they tackled him, yelling "Cutiemark Crusaders Private investigators!" the next thing he knew he was on the ground.
They were about to tear his hood off to get a look at his face when a very concerned Fluttershy apprehended them. "What do you girls think you’re doing? Don’t you know it’s impolite to go around tackling ponies?”
"But Fluttershy! We were just gonna find out what he looked like!" One of them interjected in a pleading tone.
"Then you should just ask him," Fluttershy pointed out.
"Fine," they all groaned while getting off of Star.
After getting up, he got a good look at the three fillies. One of them was a yellow earth pony with a red mane and a bow in it. The second one was white unicorn with a curly mane that was a very light purple with pink stripes in it. The third one was an orange pegasus with a short purple mane.
“What was that all about?” Star asked the three fillies.
"Well, we overheard you telling Rarity that there was an injured pony staying with Miss Zecora in the Everfree forest and that you didn't know what he actually looked like. Then we overheard Rarity earlier saying that she wondered what he looked like and we wanted to see what he looked like too. We woulda’ went to Zecora’s hut and seen him but we aren't allowed to go into the forest anymore since the Cockatrice incident. When we saw you walk into town with a mysterious pony we figured it was him and decided to see what he looked like." The yellow filly with a bow in her hair finished.
"If he wanted people to see what he looked like don’t you think he would take off his hood?" Fluttershy asked.
Both the yellow and the white fillies responded with "We're sorry" while the orange one only responded with a grunt.
"It's alright, I would be a little curious about a pony walking around wearing a cloak too. By the way it's nice to meet you fillies my name is Midnight Star,"
"Nice to meet ya my name is Applebloom," responded the earth pony.
"My name is Sweetie Belle," responded the unicorn.
"Scootaloo," responded the pegasus.
"Well now that we’re all acquainted, what are the Cutiemark Crusaders and why private investigators?" Star inquired.
"The Cutiemark Crusaders is our club and we were private investigators to find out what you look like!" responded Sweetie belle who promptly looked at her flank and sighed "and it didn't work!"
"I know!” Applebloom shouted with one hoof raised in the air “Y’all saw how easy we took Mister Star here down, maybe we can be Cutiemark Crusader wrestlers!"
"Yeah!" they all agreed as they ran off to go on another one of their crusades.
"Well those three certainly are interesting," Star commented watching them leave.
Fluttershy giggled at the comment, "Alright let's get going to the library."
After walking for another few minutes they arrived at their destination. Fluttershy knocked on the door very softly as if she were trying not to hurt the door. Deciding that this would get them nowhere, Star walked up to the door himself and promptly knocked louder and harder. This yielded the result of a small purple dragon answering the door "Hey Fluttershy, hey…. Gaahhhhh!" he jumped into the air, turned around and ran.
A voice was heard from upstairs “Spike? Who’s at the door?”
A few moments passed in silence before the voice was heard again “Spike!”
A few more moments passed before a lavender unicorn walked down the stairs. “Spike couldn’t you hear me shouting?”
The small purple dragon peered out from under a nearby table “Twilight! There’s a really scary pony at the door, hide!” He hissed.
“Spike, haven’t you learned anything since that incident with Zecora?” She asked, before turning towards the still open door. “Nice to meet you, my name is Twilight Sparkle,” she held out a hoof.
Star took her hoof and shook it “Please, come in,” Twilight offered.
As they walked into the library Star took a moment take in his surroundings, the inside was as to be expected from the outside, it looked like it had been carved from the inside of the tree. It was relatively big and had furniture scattered around the room. What he noticed first though was how many books were on the book shelves in the library, he had taken a liking to reading while he had been incapacitated.
He was still standing and staring at the books when Twilight used her magic to grab the dragon from under the table. “This is my assistant Spike, sorry for how he reacted, he does that sometimes."
Twilight was a lavender unicorn with a dark purple mane that had a pink stripe running through it. Spike was a baby dragon, his scales were purple and the ones on top of his head were green.
"Hello my name is Midnight Star and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," He said with a wave of his hoof.
"Well nice to meet you Midnight Star what can I do for you?" Twilight asked.
"Please just call me Star, and I was wondering if you could help me with a problem I have" he said getting right to the point.
"I will help if I can but first I have to know what the problem is."
At that moment the silent until now pegasus decided to interject. "Star has no memory of who he is or anything that happened before a week ago."
Twilights eyes widened as she came to a conclusion. "You were the pony that Zecora found in the forest the same night that Discord appeared!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, I've been told that." Star answered in a less than enthusiastic tone.
"Before I help you I have to scan your magic to see if there are any traces of Discord's magic." She stated more than asked.
"Alright, I'm fine with that, I don't have anything to hide." Star said confidently. "I don't think I do anyway." He added as an afterthought.
"Alright this will be over in a moment." Twilight assured, her horn glowing in concentration.
Star had an itchy feeling in his head as he was engulfed by the purple aura, it wasn't completely unbearable but it was a nuisance. After about 2 minutes, Twilight's horn stopped glowing and she gave Star a curious look. "Well to be honest, there is a small trace of Discords magic in there, not enough to do anything but it’s there. Also your magic is stronger than a regular pony's, would you happen to be a unicorn?" Twilight asked after telling him the results of her scan.
"Technically yes I am a unicorn." the irony of it made Star stifle a laugh ‘Is a unicorn without a horn really a unicorn or just an earth pony?’ He wondered.
"What do you mean, technically?" Twilight asked.
"I would rather not talk about that yet." Star stated flatly.
"Alright," Twilight said deciding to drop the matter "now, is there anything at all that you remember? It will be harder to help you if I don't have a trail to follow."
"Well, all I can remember is a hazy picture of a pony with a pointed hat," Star answered.
"That won't help all that much, I guess you can read some books on Equestrian history and see if you remember any of the events from them," Twilight suggested.
"Alright, if you think that’s the best thing to do let's get started."
Twilight then levitated over 4 books on Equestrian history, they were Early Equestrian History, Celestia's rule, Recent Equestrian History and Founding of Equestria.
Staring at these with a curious look Star asked "Who is this "Celestia"? Is she some kind of queen or something?" he vaguely recognized the name but he couldn't put his hoof on it.
Twilights eyes grew wide in surprise "You don’t know who Princess Celestia is?" she exclaimed.
Shrinking away Star half mumbled half whimpered. "I'm sorry, I kinda can't remember anything."
"Sorry about that, I kind of over reacted" Twilight admitted guiltily.
"It's fine, but whoever she is, she must be important," Star replied with regained confidence.
Opening one of the books for him to read, Twilight pointed to a picture in the book and said "This is Princess Celestia, she is the ruler of Equestria."
Looking down he saw a picture that made something in his mind stir, his eyes widened as images ran through his head. He saw a kingdom surrounded by a beautiful forest, he saw a strange cave, and the last thing he saw in his mind was Princess Celestia sitting on her throne smiling at him before he blacked out.