Memories of a Star

by Karach

Prologue

Wha...

What happened?

Where am I?

I strain my senses as my consciousness slowly returns to my body.

For that matter... Who am I?

It's mildly uncomfortable, to have forgotten even such an important fact.

I try to scour my memories, salvage any traces of my identity I can find. My mind runs back. Far, far, back, taking me on a trip to the times I thought I had forgotten eons ago.

I close my internal eyes, letting a vision form before them. A vibrant, clear, sparkling-blue sky, with white patches of vapors dotted all over it... Clouds... Was this their name? Yes, clouds... The ground is covered with a carpet of small, green blades. I try to recall the names for them, but at the same time struggle to keep the vision going. I lean down, inspecting the imaginary greenness closer. Grass. The name invades my mind almost breaking the vision altogether. But miraculously, the image before my inner eyes persists.

I look up, noticing the mountain range in the distance. Had it been there before, or had it just appeared? No matter. I spot an outline of a building on top of one of the mountains. No, not just a building. They had their special name, like everything else in this strange world of the past long forgotten. I search the reservoirs of knowledge I once possessed. A castle.

The moment the name appears in my mind, my imagination takes me inside the building. Though the walls are high, and the throne room is fairly large, for some reason I feel cramped. I look out of the hole in the wall—a window. The castle is surrounded with paved streets, dim lamps lit across them, running between neat little buildings. Once again, I'm left wondering whether they had appeared just now or the moment the castle has manifested itself in my mind.

I float through the air, a stream of lone consciousness in the deserted town. Deserted. Why does it sound... inappropriate? Should there be something more in the city? What does the word deserted imply? What does it even mean? A lack of presence of another being, my mind hints. Is this really the meaning of the word? Does it mean other beings should populate the city?

Other than me... Another being... Someone... SomePONY!

As soon as the word appears in my mind, the vision explodes with a torrent of images, swamping my consciousness with memories. In an instant, the castle is populated with ponies of various colors, species, genders, and sizes. They're all anxious, holding their breaths, obviously waiting for an important event to occur. Only now do I notice they all look at me. I inspect my body, realizing it, too, is shaped like a pony. I search the audience for a similar pony, but they all seem smaller than me, and none of them has both a horn and a pair of wings.

The sky is dark, but a hint of violet sparkles in the distance over the horizon. I know what I must do. I raise my horn, feeling the rush of power within it. My wings unfurl, and I beat the air around me with them, my body ascending into the air. Both my bodies! What is happening?

Then realization dawns on me, leaving me speechless, paralyzed. I had been separated from my celestial body back then. The me I'm now... the sun as the ponies called me, was a star my pony self guided through the celestial dome, to complete the cycle of day and night.

The sun rises and the ponies explode in an ecstatic cheer. Long live Princess Celestia! I hear their united voices. So that was my name...

My pony body slowly descends on the platform in the center of the city, while my celestial one drifts above our heads. I notice everypony gathered around me bowing their heads... Out of respect, perhaps?

Everypony but one. She stands next to me, dark as night itself, smiling proudly. She pats me on the back with her wing, her delicate feathers brushing against my flowing mane. "Good job!" she smiles.

"All in the day's work, sister." I reply, grazing through the crowd with my curious eyes. So I had a sister. What has happened to her?

The vision disappears as abruptly as it began. It does, however, pierce the dam blocking my memories, and they trickle through the hole, filling my mind with scenes from the ancient past. As image after image unveils before my inner eyes, each memory brings another one, enlarging the puncture in the metaphorical dam. More and more scenes flash before my mind, until the dam breaks altogether, overflowing my mind with a tsunami of memories.

FLASH