Morning Glory

by archonix


Lost

My first thought on waking comfortably in a nice, soft bed was that I had, once again, woken from a dream. I held on to the fantasy for all of three seconds before reluctantly abandoning the idea. The bed was soft, yes, and gloriously warm, but it stank of mothballs and the sort of cheap detergent, bought in bulk, that an inn or a low-rate hotel might use. Even so, for a while I was happy to wallow in mindless comfort and pretend that I was somewhere else. Not that I was home, but that I wasn't here. Wherever here was.

Eventually, however, my awareness grew to the point that it was impossible to maintain the fantasy, and I reluctantly allowed my eyes to open.

I found myself staring across a bare-boarded floor at an unadorned wall covered with white paper. A door faced me, but it was closed, and an empty chair lurked in a far corner by a plain table. Behind me I could hear rain pelting glass. I turned to face a window that looked out across a short stretch of untended grass, and from there to a windbreak of trees. The sun remained hidden behind a slate-grey sky, granting no clue to the time of day. I felt as if I had slept for several hours.

For a while I let my gaze wander over the scene, ignoring the vague hints of my reflection in the window. If I worked hard enough I could almost convince myself the glass was warped and poorly made, that I wasn't looking at a place I'd never seen before, through the reflection of the donkey that I had become.

Somehow I would have to uncover what had happened to me. Without Spike and my library my options were limited, but if I could find out how far I was from home, if I could send a letter to my friends...

I could imagine their reaction when they found out I was safe. I had no idea of how long I had been in this state, no recollection of when this change had happened. If I could communicate with the outside world, or even find something as simple as a newspaper, I would have somewhere to start.

Despite all my fears the simple pleasure of warmth and shelter, and the persistent hiss of the rain, was restful enough to lull me to a comfortable doze. I awoke some hours later – the sky was darker – to the sound of a key clattering in the lock and the murmur of voices, accompanied by hooves across the spartan floor. At the urging of some instinct I still couldn't name, I lay still and quiet, still facing the window, while my ears strained at the voices that rose around me.

"… still worn out, poor thing," said a first, a mare. A flash of warmth crossed my chest as I recognised Plum Petal. She was answered a moment later by a stallion's voice, one that I could only describe as dark.

"Worn out from bein' a nut, maybe. After how she were up on the ridge—"

"Aye, so I saw, but I met her in the orchard before that an' she were normal enough. Little skittish, little feverish maybe, but normal as you'd think for one of her sort."

"That just tears it then. Nopony'll go from normal to crazed like that for no reason less they was already crazed to begin with."

"It's not unknown for physical issues to create temporary hysteria," another mare answered. Her voice was authoritative and reassuring, with a gravitas that reminding me just a little of Princess Celestia. "Exhaustion, perhaps."

"Exhaustion my croup," said the stallion. "She's loopy as a pegasus on race day."

"Well I'm not a specialist, I can only speak to her physical symptoms." Again the mare – who I could only assume was a doctor – paused. I heard her breathing speed up slightly as she muttered under her breath before speaking again. "She's malnourished, has signs of hypothermia and I suspect a mild case of pneumonia to go along with it. Her general condition is consistent with a prolonged itinerant lifestyle, but there are marks on her legs that seem... well, there are a few other things I'd like to ask her when she wakes."

The voices faded away with the step of their hooves, and were cut off a moment later by the closing door. I didn't hear the lock this time, which I took to be a good sign. I waited a few moments until I was sure they had left, then carefully opened my eyes again. The world beyond the window had lost interest, and now I had become aware of myriad tiny aches and pains throughout my body that I had either ignored or just not noticed before. The recognition sent a chill down my spine and into my gut, as I tried to reconcile my memory with the apparent news that I had been living rough for possibly months. My last memory was of just a few days prior, from my perspective. None of it made sense.

I took a deep breath, willing my lungs to be whole, but the distinct rattle and wheeze I felt at the peak of it left me without any fantasies. I let the air flow out of my lungs, maintaining the breath until it was utterly spent, and then began to breathe in again through my nose. My chest quaked and heaved when I felt the same rattle, and a sob escaped my lips as I wheezed out again.

"I knew you were awake," said Plum Petal's voice behind me.

I would have liked to believe that I turned to the voice with a sort of decorous nobility, but in truth I hiccoughed and squeaked, and turned with such haste that I nearly threw my sheets from the bed. An ear flopped briefly across my eyes, completing the comic scene, but Plum fortunately had enough tact not to laugh. Instead she gave me a warm smile and settled back on her haunches.

"You heard enough, I suppose," she continued. "If Barrow knew you weren't asleep she'd have not said a single word of that, leastways till she was sure you could take it."

Plum's smile turned a little to the side and she looked away. I found myself fixating on her accent, the way she had pronounced 'take' as 'tek', as if it would grant me a clue to my location. When I didn't respond she looked back, brushing at a loose strand of her mane that had fallen across her eyes. Blue hair against gold. Just like my father's eyes.

I shook myself from the sight. Her questioning gaze demanded a response.

"How long have I been here?"

"If you mean Doc Barrow's surgery, well... two days, give or take?"

"Days..." That didn't tally at all – I couldn't quite believe I had been asleep for so long, and I may have said as much to Plum Petal, because she laughed, quietly and without malice, and shook her head.

"Barrow's managed to feed you a few times, but I expect you're hungry even so."

I nodded, more for the sake of form than anything else. If I was hungry, my body wasn't letting me know about it. Another smile accompanied Plum Petal's promise to bring me something to eat momentarily, but she remained still, watching me with an intensity that seemed alien to her cheerful visage.

I let my head flop back and sighed, unable to marshal the questions racing around my mind. It was the perfect opportunity to learn about my predicament, yet here I was, staring at the ceiling, unable to even organise a simple question. Perhaps I was delirious. Perhaps... perhaps I was suffering a very profound hallucination. The skipped time, the caring figures. Fear and isolation working through my mind, mapping bizarre fantasies onto events of which i was only partially aware.

By the end of that thought I was smiling, as if I'd just won some tremendous victory, but the feeling soon passed. No hallucination would be so complete, so all-encompassing as this grey, dreary world.

"How long have I been this way?"

The words escaped me before I even realised I was speaking. Too late to take it back. I turned to Plum Petal, using the motion to hide the quiet shiver that ran through my forebody. She was frowning now, perhaps trying to make sense of my question. Or perhaps just trying to find a plausible way to word her answer.

"How long have you been... living like this, you mean?" Plum pursed her lips before speaking again. "Near as I can tell, you've been in that barn for the better part of two weeks. It ain't checked much this time of year, see? I wouldn't want to guess how long you've been living outdoors before then."

"But that can't be right! I—" My hooves shot to my mouth as I swallowed the rest of my exclamation. This wasn't going how I'd planned it at all.

"It's all right, Twilight." She was frowning again as she said the name, seemingly nervous at the sound of it. Of course, how many donkeys are there in the world with a name like mine? "Time has a habit of losing a pony sometimes, specially when they're, you know, distracted and that. It's nothing to be shamed about."

"But I don't even know where I am," I groaned, flopping back against my fat pillow. I could feel my ears now; long, flexing monstrosities that branched from my head like overgrown grass and flapped around like sheets in a gale. It took all my will to not grab them with my hooves and tug, as if that would free me from this weak, alien body.

"Long way from where you're meant to be, I suppose," replied Plum. She fell silent and watched me, maybe waiting for some sort of blurted response again. I held my tongue and waited in turn, watching to see how she would react to my silence. Eventually, after much fidgeting and tilting of her head, she sighed and smiled. "Sadelby."

The name wasn't familiar in the least, not that I would know every single small town and village in Equestria. I may have said as much, for Plum gave me the most affronted scowl I had seen on a pony and looked away with a sniff.

"I expect I've never heard of your home neither. That hoity accent of yours says you're from a ways down south." She paused for a moment at that, and looked at me again. A moment later she shook her head and turned to stare out of the window. "It's a small place, aye. Don't get many visitors, 'cept barges taking out freight and the odd traveller passing through. Suits me just fine that way."

There again she fell silent and turned to watch me, though I was becoming used to the scrutiny by now. I noted, eventually, the distance between my bed and her seat, and wondered again if she had some issue over personal space, until I remembered her closeness with Slim. I resolved to ignore the behaviour for now. Fortunately, a knock at the door pulled Plum from her observations. The floorboards creaked a peculiar tune as she stumped away to open the door. In the muted conversation that followed I just about recognised the voice of the doctor, Barrow. With the recognition came an urge to run and hide, easily suppressed, though I was unable to prevent my body curling up tight beneath the sheets as the pair approached my bed again.

Barrow, or the mare I assumed was Barrow, slowed as she drew near. After looking me up and down with a careful gaze, she nodded twice, and I had the uncanny feeling she was taking notes on something. Behind her floated a bed tray, and with a start I realised she was the first unicorn I had seen in this place. Almost as soon as I had noticed this, the tray flopped on the bed and her magic winked out. Perhaps it was the way my eyes focused on her horn or the tray, or perhaps I had made some quiet noise or signal, but it seemed she believed that I had reacted badly to the sight of her magic, for a moment later she was maneuvering the tray to toward me with her hooves, while a steady stream of meaningless reassurances billowed from her lips.

I don't think I heard a single one of them. By then I was fixated on the food: a bowl of watery soup and a hunk of freshly baked bread, still steaming from the oven and slathered with butter. The smell of it was overwhelming, and I took a deep breath as it came within reach.

Barrow stepped back on all fours and smiled at me. "I heard conversation, and I had some soup on the go, so I thought you might like some. I expect you're quite hungry."

"Thank you," I murmured, my attention fixed on the feast before me that would have been a mere snack on any other day. I looked at the spoon, but as soon as any thought of levitation came to mind I was again overcome by a wave of lethargy. I just managed to catch my head bobbing forward before I found myself snout-first in the soup.

"Well now, I'm surprised you're awake if you're still so exhausted as all that," Barrow observed. I nodded, unable to reply as a yawn shook my body.

I glanced at the spoon again, then at my outstretched hoof. I was used to occasionally manipulating books and the odd handle or button with my hooves, but for nearly everything in my day-to-day life I had used my magic from a very early age. Matters weren't helped much by the two ponies now watching me intently as I tried to remember the etiquette for holding a soup spoon. I gave up, and turned my attention to the bread, grasping it between both hooves and lifting it to my snout. The moment it touched my lips I felt a hollow open within me, and before I could even think on the matter I tore a great hunk of the bread out with my teeth and swallowed it down almost whole, barely pausing to chew.

In no time at all, my bread was gone. I couldn't even remember the taste of it, nor the texture; only the fact that it had been food. This time I didn't even bother with the spoon as I returned to the soup, but instead lifted the bowl to my mouth to guzzle at it like a newborn with her first cup. Half way to the bottom I remembered I was still being watched, and beneath the warmth of the soup I felt a cold chill rise in my gut.

The bowl rattled as I set it down. My hooves were shaking, though whether from fear of their reaction, or disgust at my behaviour, I had no idea.

"You must be half-starved," Barrow said. The half-smile on her face when I looked at her did little to assuage my worry, but it was at least better than the alternatives. I murmured thanks and apologies but she dismissed them with a wave of her hoof. "Just enjoy your meal."

"I should probably get back an' make sure Slim hasn't burned the place down while I was away. Stallions." Plum Petal shook her head as she rose. She smiled at me, but it seemed forced, though I couldn't place why. "Dumb as... well, y'can't leave em alone for five minutes, right?"

The room echoed with Plum's laughter as she turned, though I couldn't laugh with her. When she had left I returned to my soup, this time poking at it ineffectually with a spoon, while Barrow sat at the end of the bed and watched with the same inspecting gaze, as if she were measuring me for something. She only spoke when I had managed to raise a spoonful of the – admittedly delicious – soup to my mouth.

"I heard Pet guess you were awake while I was in before." After another derisory mouthful of soup I nodded, but couldn't bring myself to reply. Barrow let out a breath, then a quiet huff, and shook her head. "Well I suppose that relieves me of the burden of breaking the news to you gently."

I nodded again. What else could I do? If I were to be frank, the realisation that I was a diseased wreck was just a detail, a minor addition to the madness that my life had suddenly become. I took another spoonful of the soup, refusing to think about anything beyond the simple experience of eating, lest I do something ridiculous or embarrassing, like cry into the bowl. Nor would I sit and watch the patterns my tears left in the remnants of my meal as they splashed down like the rain beyond my window.

I left the spoon in my mouth and let my hoof flop to the sheets as tears rolled down my muzzle. What was the point in pretending any longer? I was trapped, I would never go home, I could see that now. And as if turning me into a Celestia-blessed donkey wasn't bad enough, now the world felt it necessary to do this to me as well! Everything. My magic, my health, my friends, my home. All of it was gone.

"Twilight."

The voice... for a moment it sounded exactly like Celestia, but I knew it couldn't be here. For all I knew Celestia had abandoned me as well. No... that wouldn't be true. She'd be looking for me. Even if everyone else gave up, she would keep searching. She was my Princess.

I spat the spoon into the bowl and turned to Barrow as I scrubbed a wrist across my cheek. She gave me a most tender smile and held out a handkerchief on the tip of her hoof.

"I realise this is a lot for you to take in," she said as I noisily blew my nose. Barrow didn't even wince. As I rubbed my eyes clear, I nodded at the sentiment. If only she knew. "If you like, I can leave you alone for a while."

"No. No... I'd like to—I heard you say you wanted to talk to me about a few things when I was awake." I gestured at the bed, and then wiped my face again just in case. "I guess that would be now."

"Of course."

The smile had slipped from her face. Barrow picked up my discarded tray and trundled it awkwardly to the table, then returned to me again. Her demeanor was entirely professional now, still personable, but somehow distant. I could almost see the metaphorical white coat hanging around her shoulders.

"There's a few personal details I'll want to ask you about afterwards for my own records, but the first thing I would like to know is... well." She lowered her gaze to my foreleg. Again I felt the sensation of being examined. "You've been living rough for some time, judging by your physical condition. You've apparently sustained a few minor injuries in that process, a few scars here and there, some old bone fractures in your left forearm and a couple of your ribs. There are one or two... lets call them anomalies. For instance."

She reached for my wrist and held it up. It was probably the first time I'd taken a close look at it. All I saw was unkempt grey hair where my own sleek coat should have been. But then something stood out at me, and I peered closer.

"What—what is that?"

Barrow's grip on my hoof loosened as I tugged it back. I brushed at my coat with my other hoof, brushing back the hair behind the fetlock to reveal a thick weal of rough, leathery skin.

"You have the same on all four limbs." Barrow's voice was low when she spoke. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the welt to confirm what she said, but I had no reason not to believe it.

"I don't..."

"You also have signs of track marks on both sides of your neck, and what appears to be a partially recovered case of phlebitis. And this," she added, poking at my ear. I finally managed to pull my gaze from my wrist and looked up at her. Barrow tugged my ear forward, just barely bringing it into view, but enough that I could see the ragged edge of a torn notch. "If it were just that alone I'd believe you'd had an accident with piercing, which is common enough amongst donkeys of your age."

"What are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything." She belatedly let go of my ear, while I went back to probing at my wrists for something, though I wasn't sure what it would be. "You've spent several months in fetters, Twilight. You also have all the signs of a prolonged period under heavy medication, quite possibly against your will, and you have apparently managed to 'remove', in the loosest sense of the word, a medical ear tag. It must have hurt."

This wasn't right. Then again, what was? "I don't remember."

"You don't remember the tag?"

"No, I don't remember!"

I dropped my hooves to the bed and glared at the interrogator this doctor had become. She stared back, heartless and cold and—but no, her gaze wasn't the calculating emptiness I had first perceived. She just looked sad, and tired.

"I don't remember fetters, I don't remember living rough. I don't even know how I got into that barn! I just—I just want to go home. That's all I've wanted since I woke up."

"And where is home, Twilight?"

The question seemed simple enough, the answer flew to the front of my mind the instant she asked, but my body refused to give it. Instead I shook my head and closed my eyes as I turned from Barrow. After a few moments I heard her sigh, and then heard the chair creak as she leaned back in it.

"Well I can't argue with that. You wouldn't be the first pony with tight lips and a bad past to turn up around here." The tone of her voice sat uneasy on her tongue, as if ... as if what? I couldn't know. Nevertheless, when I looked at Barrow, she was smiling once more. "Don't you worry, Twilight. You haven't show any sign of being trouble as far as I'm concerned, just a little... fragility. Given your physical state I'd like to keep you indoors for a few more days, mostly to rule out or treat that pneumonia, and it should give me time to evaluate whether you're up to being with other ponies as well.

"In the meantime..." Barrow hopped from her chair and sidled across the room to the door. "If there's anything you'd like, just let me know. Okay?"

I thanked her, and then watched her as she tidied up my dinner from the table. She was using her magic again. I couldn't help but stare at the pale yellow aura; it matched the bobbin of thread on her cutie mark. Needle and thread. I mentioned that it seemed to be an odd cutie mark for a doctor. The question seemed to trouble Barrow, for she spent some time staring at her side until she said "I patch things up". With the tray floating ahead, Barrow was almost through to the corridor beyond when I called out to her again.

"You said anything I'd like?"

"Within reason," she replied, with another grin. "This isn't exactly Manehattan."

But she turned to wait for my request, the tray hovering just out of sight in the hallway, which was good. I might have stared at it until my eyes fell out otherwise.

"I'd like something to read," I said quietly. "Whatever books you have. And a newspaper."

"Of course." She nodded and backed away through the door. "Though I'm afraid they're mostly medical textbooks. Last newspaper we had was a month ago. The barge will bring a few in at the end of the week. I'll see if I can get you one then."

"As long as I can read," I replied, but she had already closed the door. I heard the lock rattle shortly after, and the stump of hooves as two ponies departed down the corridor. One significantly heavier than the other. So much for trust.