A slight breeze slipped through the open window, lightly ruffling the sleeping pony’s hair.
She slowly opened her eyes, trying to make sense of where she was.
The room was white, very white; it was white to the point that the only two things that weren’t white were the green curtains and her own grey fur. Even the sleeping unicorn in the chair next to the bed was white.
Wait, a sleeping unicorn? She squinted her eyes at the pony trying to make head or tails of the situation at hoof.
Why was she in the hospital?
Who was the sleeping unicorn in the chair?
It was right then that she realized there was a much more important question she had overlooked.
Who was she? She couldn’t even remember her own name. Dread filled her as she felt panic flowing into her.
Along with the feelings of dread and panic came a splitting headache; it felt like her forehead wanted to split open.
Moving her front hooves towards her forehead she felt it wrapped in heavy bandages.
Panic was quickly winning the battle inside of her head for supremacy, and she shakily got out of the bed and tried to take a few steps only to have her vision blur and dizziness take over.
She tried to take a few more steps defying the overwhelming dizziness she felt but it didn’t last very long. She fell to the floor, the entire room swirling above her, going in circles like some crazy pegasus. She felt nauseous but refused to lose yet another battle and swallowed the bile that had been forming in her throat.
Suddenly her view was filled with a face: a white face with worried magenta eyes that looked down at her.
The face shouted something but she couldn’t hear what. Everything felt cloudy and unreal. As the world became less and less focused, she felt two pair of hooves carefully lift her up to the bed.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus again, trying to will the room to stop spinning.
“-tavia? Octavia? Can you hear me Octavia?”
The voice was gentle but sounded frightened, who was that? Was it that unicorn?
She opened her eyes only to see the white unicorn and a white earth pony clad in a nurse’s uniform looking at her.
The unicorn forced a smile and cocked her head, warm eyes looking at her.
“Hey Tavi, how are you feeling?”
She just looked at the strange unicorn, not entirely sure what to say.
After a moment of awkward silence, the unicorn’s smile faltered.
“Octavia? What’s wrong?”
Where should she even start? A better question would be what wasn’t wrong. Ignoring the question she decided to ask what had been on her mind since as far as she could remember, which admittedly wasn’t very long at all. But then again that was the entire problem, wasn’t it?
“Who am I?”
The white unicorn’s face went blank and her pupils shrank until they reached the size of two peas.
“W-w-what do you mean Tavi?”
Feeling frustration taking the place of her earlier panic, her face hardened as she raised her voice.
“I ASKED YOU WHO I AM!” She all but shouted at the poor unicorn.
The earth pony, who she could only guess was one of the nurses at the hospital moved towards her.
“I’m afraid you had an accident earlier, you suffered a rather heavy concussion as the result of…”
The nurse cleared her throat, not really sure how to continue. It wasn’t really an everyday occurrence to say the least.
“A filly crashed her scooter into your head.” The unicorn finished for the nurse.
“What?” It was the only form of reply that really made any sense to the grey pony.
“It’s just as Vinyl Scratch said, a filly crashed her scooter straight into your forehead. Luckily there were no fractures to your skull but you still needed stitches. It seems like the concussions that you suffered during the crash caused some rather severe memory loss. How are you feeling otherwise? Are you feeling dizzy perhaps?”
“Well yes, I’m feeling dizzy and I have splitting headache.” The grey pony sighed, feeling frustrated that her question had gone unanswered.
“But you still haven’t answered my question. Who am I? And where am I for that matter?”
“Your name is Octavia and you’re at the Ponyville General Hospital.” The nurse then pointed a hoof towards Vinyl before she continued.
“And this is Vinyl Scratch. She’s your wife. Does any of this feel familiar to you?”
Octavia felt her eyes getting wider by the second, she was married? To a mare?
“I’m married?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Vinyl.
The white unicorn moved closer to her wife slowly and carefully, the way one might approach an injured animal. When she got close enough she raised a hoof and started to gently brush it against her cheek.
Octavia’s first instinct was to jerk back but she forced herself to relax, slowly starting to enjoy the sensation. It just felt right. She felt safe near the other mare. She felt a slight pull at the edges of her lips and before she knew it, she was smiling for the first time since she woke up.
“So you remember?” Vinyl asked hopeful, a smile mirroring Octavia’s was plastered on her features.
Octavia slowly shook her head, leaning into Vinyl’s hoof.
“No, but I remember...” There was a lengthy pause as she struggled to find the words.
“I remember this feeling, it’s so familiar. I feel safe, like we belong together.”
The grey mare froze as Vinyl lowered her head towards her, but she but she relaxed as she felt the unicorn’s soft lips against her cheek. It felt so very familiar.
“I guess I’ll have to take what I can get right now, won’t I?” Vinyl said with a chuckle as she pulled away from her wife. She turned her head around and looked at the nurse, hoof not leaving Octavia’s cheek.
“So Nurse Red Heart, how do we fix this exactly?”
The white earth pony shook her head before she met Vinyl’s eyes.
“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple Vinyl, there’s no medical cure for memory loss and the only magical ones are simply too risky.” Nurse Red Heart steeled herself for what she was about to say next, it was never easy to inform patients of the worst case scenarios.
“I’m afraid there’s a chance that Octavia may never make a full recovery; quite a few patients never truly recover from memory loss associated with blunt force trauma. The good news is that there’s also patients that make a full recovery and with some hope Octavia might be among them.”
The pair looked at the nurse, shocked,the same thoughts echoing in their heads.
Vinyl was the first one to voice what was on both of their minds.
“So all we can do is to sit down on our flanks and hope? Is that really all we can do?”
At this the nurse smiled gently.
“No, not at all Vinyl, there are plenty of small things that you can do to help her remember. Put up photos of her life on the wall, put up souvenirs, anything that might help her remember. But whatever you do, don’t try to force the memories. Trying to force a person to remember usually does more harm than good. Let her take it in her own pace.”
Vinyl looked towards the bed again and realized that she was still brushing her hoof against Octavia’s cheek; she was doing it without thinking now. Not that her wife seemed to mind it very much, quite the opposite actually. It seemed like it was the only thing in the world that Octavia was able to find comfort in right now.
She nodded to herself, she could do this. She could do this for herself and more importantly, she could do this for Octavia.