"Twily!" Shining called out in joy, his eyes opening as wide as they could. Another cough reached his ears and he began frantically searching around the room. "Don't try to talk just yet, you've been out of it for a few days." His eyes settled on a pitcher of water and some cups laying on a nearby tray and quickly filled one up.
Holding the cup to Twilight's mouth, she greedily drank it all; the cool water soothing her sore throat. Now empty, Shining pulled the cup back and set it back down to the pitcher and refocused his attention on Twilight.
She looked around her surroundings, confusion evident in her eyes. After a few sweeps of the room, she settled back on Shining and spoke, her voice scratchy and timid. "Shiny, did I have another magic surge?" She began to examine herself, noting the copious amounts of bandages all over her and moved her hooves to her forehead, feeling her horn.
"Twily, wait right here, I'm going to go get the doctor, okay?" Shining did his best to keep his shock from showing as he removed his hooves from the bedside and left the room. The moment the door shut, he took off for the reception area. Does Twily not remember what happened?! A stallion exited from a room a few doors down, and Shining skidded to a halt, stopping mere inches from collision.
"Whoa there, young stallion. You're the brother of... Twilight, was it? What's the rush?" The doctor asked as he began to quickly walk towards her room, fearing the worst.
Shining caught a glimpse of the stallion's name on the coat he wore and began to speak in a rush. "Doctor Stable, Twilight just woke up," at this the doctor slowed his pace, "but she thinks she had another magic surge!"
"Amnesia, huh?" Stable muttered to himself, stopping in front of Twilight's closed door. "I need you to calm down, son. If your sister really doesn't recall what happened, she doesn't need to see you panicking. Now, unless you're going to relax, I'm going to have to ask you to stay out here or go to the lobby and wait." Stable waited a few moments for his words to sink in. "Now, are you going to calm down?" Shining took a deep breath, slowly nodding his head. "Good. Let's see how your sister is doing then."
Stable opened the door and entered, Shining trailing behind him. In the few minutes left alone, Twilight had located the controls for the bed and was now sitting up. When she saw them, she waved one bandaged-covered hoof and Stable let out a chuckle.
Shining took a seat in the corner of the room as Stable walked up the the bedside, claiming the chair there. "Hello, Twilight. I'm Doctor Stable, and I'm very glad to see that you're awake. You gave us quite the scare, can you tell me how you're feeling?"
"I'm a bit sore and I feel kinda dizzy. Did I have another magic surge? Shiny ran out before answering me." Twilight replied, tracing circles on the bed with her hoof.
"That's good, it means the medicine is dulling the majority of your pain then. The dizziness is either from just waking up or a side effect, little one." The doctor put on his most disarming smile as he began to jot notes down on a form with a quill; both objects grasped by his magic. "Now, another magic surge? Do you have them often?"
Twilight shook her head back and forth. "Not anymore. Mommy and Daddy told me I had them all the time as a filly though." she paused, an odd look entering her eyes. "Where are Mommy and Daddy? All the other times I surged, they were there when I woke up." Her voice began to race near the end, confusion set in her tone.
Shining went to get up, but Stable glared at him for a moment, causing him to stop moving. "Twilight, can you tell me what you last remember, first?" The doctor's tone was very friendly, and Twilight raised a hoof to her chin and scrunched her eyes.
"Well... Shiny left for a camp in the morning. He finally got accepted into a summer guard prep one that he wouldn't stop talking about." Twilight hummed a bit, working on connecting events together. "Then Mommy and Daddy got a visitor, something about... oh, a visit to some gryphons!" her eyes lit up as she continued on, "They're really cool, their culture is so much different from Equestria's! I also got to play with this chick one time I went with my parents, her name was Gilda..." Twilight trailed off, her face flushing red with embarrassment as Stable and Shining both laughed a little.
"I'm so sorry, Twilight, I didn't mean to interrupt you," Stable began, adjusting his glasses, "please continued with what you remember."
"Well, after that, Mommy and Daddy mentioned something about finding a foal-sitter since Shiny was off at camp, but nopony they knew was home, so... I made them take me!" Twilight said triumphantly, pumping a hoof up and down in the air, earning yet more chuckles from the two stallions. "After that, though, I don't really remember..."
Stable finished jotting down some more notes on his paper, letting out an inaudible sigh. "So, where's Mommy and Daddy? Did they go to the gryphons without me?" Shining got up and went to the bedside; this time Stable didn't stop him.
I really hate this part of my job... Stable thought to himself before clearing his throat. "Yes, Twilight, they went on to the Highmount Aerie to handle diplomatic things. You know what diplomats do, right?"
Twilight recited the definition as if she were reading from a book. "A diplomat is an envoy of one group to another who tries to improve relations between both groups."
"Very good, you seem to be a very smart pony, Twilight." Stable spoke, admiration shining through his tone for a moment. "However, you weren't injured in a magical surge. You went with your parents, and three days ago you were all attacked on your return home."
Shining hugged Twilight as best as he could, trying to steel her for what was coming next as Stable continued. "I'm afraid that there's no easy way to say this, little one. Both of your parents were killed on your trip home, and that's also when you were hurt."
"No... you're wrong! They're not dead, they can't–" Twilight was cut off by Shining's hoof on her shoulder as her head was moved by his other to meet his gaze. She saw the nothing but pain in his eyes, and tears began streaming down her face. "They can't be, Shiny, they can't..." she weakly said, her volume trailing off to nothing.
Shining simply hugged his sister tightly as she began to cry into his shoulder. "There there, Twily... I'm here and not going anywhere, I promise."
Stable got Shining's attention with a gently placed hoof on his shoulder. He spoke very quietly so as to not disturb Twilight. "Come and find me once she's asleep, and I'll give you some information for later." Shining replied with a subtle nod of his head, and Stable made his way out of the room.
"They can't be telling the truth, can they, Shiny?" Twilight said between sobs, still not believing that her parents were gone. Shining carefully tightened his hug and pulled the covers up around them both, moving his head to plant a soft kiss at the base of her horn. He didn't let go until her cries had long since died, replaced with the gentle snores of a young filly, asleep.
"It's amnesia induced by trauma. There's not a lot of... ponies who've gone through traumatic events, luckily, but from the ones that have, one thing is apparent. The younger a pony is, the more likely they are to develop this or something similar as a defense mechanism. Your sister knows what happens, but her mind has decided to lock it away and throw away the key." Stable was sitting down with Shining in the cafeteria, both ponies eating a late lunch together.
"So, will she ever remember what happened then?" Shining curiously asked, a glum expression on his face. His mood was through the ground after having spent the last few hours with Twilight; she had occasionally shuddered and cried out in her sleep. Shining felt absolutely useless, not even his comforting brotherly touch had kept her nightmares at bay.
"Honestly, it's unknown. Some patients have, some haven't. For those who have, sometimes it was days later, other times it was years later." He let out a long sigh and played with his salad. "All I can say is that you should be with her as much as you can these next few days, although something tells me that you were already planning to be so."
"Yeah, I don't plan to leave her side; not until I have to go off to school anyways. But that's still a month or so out." Shining was the one who sighed this time, the weight of the situation finally settling heavily on his shoulders. "So, what happens next, then?"
"She'll be kept for a few more days, the worst of her injuries should be mostly mended by then. I've heard a little of your situation, and that Celestia has taken an interest in you two. It's nice to see our princess get involved with such a tragedy personally. It sounds like your fillyfriend will be around Twilight a lot in the future, it would be a good idea to get them acquainted as soon as you can. Plus, you need to be the one to tell her what's going to happen.
"Also, and this goes for you too, I'll be contacting a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma and loss to add you and your sister to his patient list. Don't look at me with an eyebrow raised, young stallion. It may sound silly, but it will help in the long run. I ask that you keep an open mind when you go for your first meeting; you're not fooling me with the tough big brother routine. I see how much you're hurting from this too." The doctor swept up his dishes within his magic and stood up.
"I see... Thank you, Doctor Stable." Shining remained seated, hooves swirling in circles on the tabletop.
"No problem at all, Shining Armor. It's what I'm here for after all. I suggest you go ahead and spend as much time as possible with those you care about though. Words can only do so much. Good luck, and hopefully in a few days we won't be seeing much of each other." Stable left with a smile, slightly bringing up Shining's mood. Giving up on his meal, he tossed the container and what remained into the nearest bin and walked back to Twilight's room.
Opening the door, Shining saw that Twilight was still shifting about in her sleep every so often, as the sheets were strewn about rather impressively for a five year old filly. Feeling emotionally drained, he carefully climbed back into the bed and hugged his sister once more. Replacing the covers, he closed his eyes and let sleep claim him; hoping to dream of happy things.
Eyup ;]
Twilight's reaction when she woke up innocent for the last time gave me a sad. Also, baby Gilda playing with baby Twilight omg!
Are you going to do the events of the show with this Twilight?
because if you are I can see one of two things happening during Griffon the Brush off...
Shun, shun him for using amnesia... You better make it work.
Yay, this story continues to stay good and high quality! A nice chapter and poor Twilight for getting amnesia... oh well, if nothing else I look forward to how it will effect Celestia when she gets them back
The Gilda bit is a cute idea. But as to how you will use the amnesia I am interested.
Great chapter!
One thing though. I noticed something right here:
Most of the time when someone is thinking something, people put those thoughts in italics. Now if you don't want to do it like that, it's fine. But it annoyed me the first time I saw it.
I once attempted a TF'd Amnesia'd Human in alternate universe fic just to see the level of Gary Stu I could get away with.
The character was the most popular one despite achieving a "Kill it dead" on the Gary Stu Litmus Test. It actually scored 10 points BEYOND kill it dead by Chapter 8 when I kept adding to see what I could get away with. Currently he's at 20 points beyond, and the fic isn't done yet because I'm out of ways to make it even worse XD
3077438
Thoughts should go in italics unless you've got some latent psychic speech thing going on, then it'd be `single quotes` to differentiate thoughts out loud from thoughts.
So... is this 'The Chapter Before Saints Row IV' then?
I still think the reveal to him could have been a touch more softer, but otherwise, this was good.
~Skeeter The Lurker
The amnesia plot didn't feel off at all to me, it's fairly believable for a kid Twilight's age who went through what she did.
I bet the memories are going to come back at the worst possible moment. Can you say diplomatic dinner with some gryphons plus crazed, magic surging Twily? Then again, Celestia would probably be more careful than that.
Great chapter. Twilight getting amnesia didn't feel off to me. I usually hate it when I read a fic where one of the main characters gets amnesia, but usually the fics where I have read this happening, only use it to create needless drama. In your story, you use it for a good, believable, and natural reason. You didn't use it from a spell backfiring or something like that, so to me it works.
I also agree with the way you handled the doctor telling her about her parents. Get it over with quick and now, rather than stringing her along and giving her false hope. In most stories the stringing them along method only makes things worse. Besides his name being Doctor Stable tells me he cares more about stabilizing and healing his patients in every manner instead of only making them feel better.
I look forward to how you handle Twilight's remembering of that night in the future. I also hope you make something of filly Twilight and chick Gilda meeting and playing together as well. I have to say it was hard not to go all 'dawww' at the little picture the mentioning of this brought to mind.
You continue to draw me in and keep a good pace.
3077500 Erm... I looked real hard on your page. can't find story for lols.
I'm going to go ahead and predict that Celestia becomes more synonymous with the word "parent(s)" than her original family was after a time, if only due to her living with her for much longer than she had her original family. Since she's, what, six? And most predictions I've seen of her age around the beginning of the show is around 18-ish. So by my reckoning she'd have about 12 years of memory with Celestia; and only 6 years of memories with her first family, maybe less since all kids make memories differently.
But anyways, going on to say she comes to see Celestia as more of a family than her biological family and grows detached to their memory.
Probably wrong, but I try.
Wouldn't
Either 'something about' or 'mentioned finding,' I think.
as much time as possible, maybe?
3078039
it's not a fimfic, which would be why it's not on fimfiction. It's called The Trials of Team Twilight (named years before the book series of a similar name, do not get me started on it), it's residing on DeviantArt at the moment until I can find a better spot. It need about 6 rewrites xD
3076916
Setting that up for future potential. : ) And as for her first reaction, yeah. I know amnesia is a typically loathed plot device, but I've got big things in mind for it. They'll come crashing down soon enough.
3076990
I still haven't decided where I want to end this. I'm thinking that post alicorn would be the best place to do so, but I've also contemplated where the show starts. However, if I do go through the show itself, expect very few, and infrequent, uses of the episodes. I'm not a fan of rehashing, even if the character or events are radically different.
3076993
I plan to. If I screw up amnesia, I fully expect to be shunned, as my self-respect levels would go through the floor.
3077080
Hopefully you enjoy it. : )
3077259
Potential future plot devices, ho! Figured since I was handling with Gryphons in general, I'd go ahead and toss in that bit for later.
3077438
Yeah, somehow I missed going back and putting in the italic tags... I write in Google Docs, and the import feature royally fucks up the tabs, so I've taken to putting them in manually. Seems that I missed them this time around, they're fixed now.
3077500
I kinda want to see this Gary Stu story, yet it's not on your page. I am disappoint, son.
3077614
Nah, sadly I was at work. If you follow my crack-story, A [Fe]Male Perspective of Equestria, you'll see that is what held me over till the end of my work shift. I'm quite happy, as I pulled 6,554 words out during that work shift, per GDocs. I did play about an hour of it before going to sleep, and it's everything I was hoping for.
3077622
I know Skeets, I know... Went with the craptastic band-aid analogy though, and the doctor does care... Spoiler. With them being Wards of the Crown now, Stable is going to be their attending doctor anytime they need one. So, he'll be filling out as a character down the road.
3077684
When they come back is going to be fun to write, primarily because of what they'll spark. And yeah, I know it's believable, but I've always been very vocal against amnesia, period, so to use it without saying something is very hypocritical of me.
3077731
Check the reply right above yours for the amnesia bit. As for the rest, it's mostly plot devices to be potentially utilized later, if I reference any episodes I want to barely touch over them and instead focus on what I want it to be, if that makes sense. Gilda is one such possibility. xD
3078055
We shall see! And, one thing to note, (I haven't really done a lot of research into this, but I have had a friend or two in this situation, kinda) children, even when grown up and with a loving and caring environment, never forget their first parents. Even once they get to the point where they really can't remember anything anymore, and they are over it and healed, they'll never forget them. Been thinking of how to basically make a montage to her parents, and now I'm going to have to do something, as it's stuck in my mind.
3078136
Thanks, Eakin! Proofing at 7:30 am after a night shift and being up for some time... maybe not the best time to do so. Hope you're enjoying it so far.
Maintaining a steady pace, I see. I wonder where you'll be taking this amnesia plot point?
Gilda's mention was intriguing, and also adorable.
3078630
Ahhh. Ok then. That can work.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I don't think a 5 year old would respond like that. I am not even sure if they really can contemplate death at that age.
fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/159/4/5/baby_gilda_by_beavernator-d52svjg.png
Now on to the other chapters that need reading!
3078630 I'll trust you as you have not let me down yet.
3078630
Honestly, the only thing that could probably make me not enjoy this fic is if you moved the focus away from the Twilight/Celestia angle and started introducing the other mane six at a young age... completely ruined the last fic like this I read... But I have confidence in you
3078732 ADORABLE pic a gryphon in a show about ponies really had some possibilities and they use all of them to show her as a bitch this could go somewhere meaningful here in this story, so that's one thing to look forward to, see how her character fleshes out
nice chapter, looking forward to more
3078630
Yeah, i follow it. I got up early today to play with CDR before he went into work at like 1PM. Six+ hour gaming session. That game is a TON of fun. In Co-op mode, if one player picks up a collectible, like a cluster, both players get one. Its a welcome feature that wasn't in Saints Row the Third.
Possible spoilers ahead, so will be spoiler tagged, just in case. By the way, don't worry about collecting *all* the clusters early on, you don't need more than two hundred or so for the first six to twelve power upgrades so you can easily move about the city. CDR spent like half his time running around collecting them, and I've got like two hundred extras by now. These upgrades also slightly invalidate the need for a car. Ever. 'Kay, spoilers done. Tanks are still fun to play with, but their control schemes still suck major ass, and are 'look to drive' like in SR3, Borderlands and BL2. 'Advanced' flight mode was removed in SR4, and while i could outfly most anything in a VTOL, Specter/Ultor Interceptor or Condor with that setup in SR3, i'm now stuck with 'Basic' and the inability to give a damn about flying anymore.
3078630
I would post it here if it was ponies, however my only pony story is stalled in paragraph 4 at the moment
3078674
Somewhere, over the rainbow...
Okay, now that for whatever silly reason I decided to toss out that line, it should be taken in a good direction. I have the end of it in mind, and time wise it's only a handful of years away. It's going to really hammer home some things and get a few devices rolling as well.
And I thought I was being sporadic with this, yet... It has been somewhat consistent, hasn't it? Didn't even notice that.
3078810
Why would I move the focus away from the four awesome characters? I say four cause of Cadance and Shining Armor playing a role. We'll meet the Main 6 come Ponyville, I don't foresee any instances of seeing them except the rainboom reference come test day.
3080794
Mind elaborating what exactly it is you mean by so-close? After Ch 1, don't really have any outside input, and I get some minor grammar/structure errors pointed out to me, but that's the extent of any editing that occurs to the story.
3079697
Yeah, the flight in the game is a bit meh, but it does make a great way to get around when sandboxing it up. The mayhem with the flying vehicles is a bit rough, but so far I haven't had any issues. Think the hardest one I've had to do was getting Gold with the miniature black hole gun. Fun game though, I think I got about 3 hours of play, mostly just roaming around. Storyline is boring when you can just run around, right? Especially once you steal an alien's aircraft.
3080865
That was the reaction I had when I saw where the other story was going, but anyways, great story and keep it up man!
3078732 You would be surprised at the reactions children can have involving death of a family member.
3081973
This is true, but we also need to think about their cogitive level at that age as well.
Maybe she DID have a magic surge... From what I inferred she didn't remember much after her others either. Perhaps there's more than meets the eye.
3080865
Yeah, that black hole gun mission's an absolute bitch to gold. Best i've managed is silver and half-way to gold before time ran out. If only the black hole that the gun shoots didn't have a 'max' range until it went off. If it went until it hit something, like a normal gun, it would be much better.
On a side note, the 'Merica weapon is awesome as hell. Take a minigun, strap on two or three AKs/Assault Rifles, a pair of shotguns, a flamethrower, missile launcher, a grenade launcher, and a knife. Rig them all to fire when the minigun's trigger is pulled. Then point that lead wall at a group of enemies and 'you win!'. The only thing it does is consume extreme amounts of ammo. Good thing that's relatively cheap and picking up AR ammo does refil its own.
3082002 Let's just say the show shows twilight was smart for her age we can assume from that, that she would understand the basis of death meaning she would probably react like that or in some similar fashion as to the way the author described.
3084729
Space also said in Skype something along the lines of, "That is the way I am treating it, you can go cry in a corner." And cry in a corner I did.
Now that you've emphasized that Twilight's amnesia is a major plot point the idea suddenly strikes me that one or both of the other gryphon aeries attacked the diplomatic convoy as a false flag operation to get rid of Highmount Aerie and at some point Twilight is going to recognize a gryphon (either one of the ambassadors or a gryphon associated with them) who was part of the attack, which will trigger her memories.
has nothing to do with the quality of this fic bit.... I really dont like the word "fillyfriend" It just sounds wrong to me.
I agree with KibaWR, it sounds... weird, why not say something along the lines of "Marefriend"?
Wow. If this really was unedited and written in two hours I am sincerely impressed. Good chapter.
poor twi
I still do this… even though I'm not Twilight's age at that particular moment. Anyone else do this too?
4251982 Is there anyone that doesn't do this?
With concussions, there is usually a few minutes to a few hours beforehand that are unrecoverable (basically, the memories just weren't processed & stored). You are right, though. Basically, the mind just decides things are too horrible to remember & blocks them out.
Interesting what things are blocked & which are not. For instance, if she can read & write, that wouldn't be lost or any foreign languages. IRL, you would still remember how to type or drive a car, for instance
hm hearing about gryphons i was wondering if gildas name would pop up some time
This story is beyond amazing, wonderfully well-written, and thoroughly engaging. Kudos~ =3
The whole amnesia thing does make sense, especially if you look at, say.....rape victims. Sometimes its so traumatic that yes: their minds do exactly what Twilight's mind did--seal off those memories and throw the key away.
Honestly I kinda hate Shining Armor is featured in this story, or featured early into this story, I was hoping that Twilight be in the hospital, Celestia would adopt Twilight, after a few years Shining Armor finds out Twilight is alive, Ce!estia and Cadance take care of Twilight and things takeoff after that.
But nope, instead now I get to watch Shining Armor be overprotective as possible, honestly things like this make me happy I'm an only child, don't have to worry about others invaded MY PERSONAL SPACE!
April 4