Secrets of the Heart

by Quick Fix

A Link to the Truth

January 6th

---

Another cold morning had risen over Ponyville, a full cloud cover accentuating the chill in the air. Many ponies had elected to stay indoors and keep warm after last night's snowfall. For the Sweet Apple Acres team, that wasn't an option. Preparations had to be made for upcoming shipments of their products across Equestria and beyond, plus they had to do so without the commanding presence of Applejack. She was still an element of harmony and still had to head out on missions of friendship, no matter her personal circumstances. As such, she was currently en route to the Crystal Empire and everypony else was following Big Mac's lead for the next few days.

The news had come as a major surprise to Windhover. He knew Applejack was a pony committed to her duties but heading halfway across the continent at the drop of a hat had caught him out. More frustratingly though, it meant that he had to wait a little longer to get everything off his chest that he had planned to say the night before. On the other hoof, Bounty was more used to it happening but the timing was even more inopportune. By this point, without Applejack present, many of the other ponies around him were silently wondering if it wasn't a case of if his next outburst would occur, but when. It didn't help that having Bounty and Arboreal in the same space was creating a massive sense of tension throughout the farm.

"You know, it's probably a good thing Applejack's not here." Little Hayseed said to Windhover as the two of them packed apples into a crate.

"How'd you figure that?"

"Well, much as I'd rather be outside freezing my flanks off instead of sitting in this nest of bad vibes, stuff's getting done. Applejack's a good mare but she'd be trying to straighten things out and we'd lose a lot of time just trying to get Bounty and Arboreal to talk to each other again."

Windhover tilted his head slightly and looked back in thought. Even as he watched, Bounty asked Arboreal to pass a hammer to him only for the mare to throw it over her shoulder and embed the handle in a haybale several feet away from him. The real kicker was that she flinched slightly when she heard the impact. For all the effort she put up into keeping that air of distain, she was obviously still shaken up from their previous encounter.

"Yeah, that'd take a lot of work." Windhover shook his head and focused back on his own work. As bad as it felt to think about, he couldn't see anything about Bounty's situation improving until the true cause of his instability was discovered.

The two of them remained silent after that, focusing on getting everything fitted into the crate. As they were finishing up and fitting the lid on for Bounty to secure it, a flash of realisation crossed Hayseed's face and she looked down at Windhover.

"You know, now I've had a chance to properly hear it, your voice is really familiar..." She said, watching in surprise as he tensed momentarily before looking back at her.

"How so?"

"Well, I spent a few years on the Baltimare farms and I heard a good number of accents from the area during that time. Based on yours, you're from the Marebourne district, no?"

"Y-yes, well deducted." Windhover shifted slightly in place, his voice going slightly tense.

"You don't hear that accent outside of Baltimare very often," Hayseed continued, getting the lid of the crate into place. "Last time I heard it was from a pony living in Manehatten. A quite successful musician."

Windhover didn't reply. She looked over at him again to see he was sweating bullets around his goggles before glancing back to the others. Bounty and Arboreal were still engaged in their own tasks and didn't seem to have overheard, while Big Mac was outside the barn dealing with something else.

"Wait..." Little Hayseed looked at him in surprise before her eyes widened and her voice dropped to a conspiratal whisper. "Oh shoot. I'm sorry, I had no idea. Does explain a lot about your outfit though."

"Yeah, I was trying to keep it quiet," Windhover replied quietly. "I'm gonna tell Applejack when I can, but until then...Please keep this quiet."

"Of course, but I'm asking for an autograph after you do."

Windhover chuckled and nodded in thanks. Hayseed simply smiled before looking round at the sound of hoofsteps behind them.

"You two done with that crate?" Bounty asked as he came over.

"Yep, all ready for you." Windhover replied as he stepped back to let the unicorn check it before taking his hammer in his magic and starting on nailing the lid into place.

"So, what were you two chatting about so quietly?"

"Would you believe I was asking him out?" Hayseed replied. Windhover looked up at her with a mix of shock and incredulity, Bounty's jaw dropped slightly and even Arboreal looked round at them in surprise.

"We were ah err bh...bh bh." Windhover stammered, struggling to find words. Hayseed looked down at him before trying and failing to stifle a laugh.

"Pfffhahaha! S-sorry..." She said as she covered her mouth with a hoof. "Couldn't resist. The look on your faces, plus it lightened the mood. Worth it."

"Yeah, I guess it did." Arboreal commented.

"You're crazy, you know," Windhover added, though even as he shook his head he was wearing a small smile. "The fun kind though, like Pinkie Pie crazy."

Little Hayseed smiled more and stepped back to let Bounty finish up with his work. The unicorn quickly managed to secure the lid in place and spun round as he gripped the whole box in his magic. After a moment of focus he managed to lift the entire box and carry it to the other side of the barn to place it down next to the first crate. Windhover couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the sight. That crate had to weight at least a hundred kilos, enough that a regular unicorn would have struggled to carry it that distance. Yet he made it look so easy.

"Damn. I don't have the most experience with it but I've never seen magic used like this." Hayseed said.

Windhover nodded slightly before looking over to Arboreal. Instead of her usual air of detachment, she was staring straight at Bounty with an odd mix of surprise, fear and concern running across her features. Then he realised that the unicorn hadn't moved at all since he'd placed the crate down. Windhover and Hayseed both moved round to his front slowly and took in the sight. Bounty was stood firmly in place, the only movement coming from his eyes as they occasionally shifted their position slightly. It looked like he was halfway between thoughtful and catatonic.

"Bounty? Buddy? You ok?" Hayseed said quietly as she waved a hoof in front of his eyes. Windhover and Arboreal looked on in concern.

None of them had any idea what was going through his mind.

---

"-I've never seen magic used like this."

Bounty's breaths were quick as he looked up. It wasn't his movement though, he hadn't chosen to do that. This was...A memory. A vivid one though, even if he could hardly feel anything around him. He was in a white room, modestly but very finely decorated. It almost looked like a lounge of some kind. It did raise a significant question though. If this was a memory, why didn't he ever remember seeing this place before? For that matter, where was he?

A quick glimpse of a window to his right showed sun coming in and the view outside. It was, Canterlot. But, he'd never been to Canterlot in his life. Even more strangely, all the pictures he'd seen indicated that there was no way the city could be seen from this angle unless he was inside the castle.

Wait, why was he inside the castle?

He looked forward again and recoiled, or he would have if he had any control right now. His mind caught up with his ears at that point and he realised just who had been speaking to him before. None other than Princess Celestia herself was standing before him, looking down at him with a look of concern.

'Princess? What's going on? How'd I get here?'

That was what he wanted to say. Though the voice that came out of his mouth was his own, the words were not.

"I-I don't understand any of this..." The Bounty of this 'memory' actually said, rubbing his forehead. That was when he noticed something else strange about this whole situation. He couldn't feel anything, no indications of how 'he' was, or had been, feeling.

"I'm afraid even I don't fully understand either," Celestia continued as Bounty sat back on his flanks and shook his head quickly. "What Sunset Shimmer did was previously considered impossible."

Sunset Shimmer? The now missing student of the princess? What did she have to do with this?

"So...What happens to me now?"

"Hmm...It is a most difficult situation. You are, if you don't mind me saying, something of a magical anomaly."

Wait, what?!

"While there is so much you could teach us, just handing you over to the Institute may not be best. Chief Moondancer may be moral but she knows how to run a pony ragged. Something that you don't need until your mind learns to cope with who you are."

"I..." Bounty sighed and looked down, pressing a hoof against his right temple. It seemed like neither version of him knew what was going on right now. "But, what am I supposed to do then?"

"There is no clear solution to something like this, anything I might do would likely to temporary at best," Celestia admitted, slowly walking round Bounty and taking in everything about him. Her gaze was focused but still unable to hide her concern. "However, the best I feel we can do would be to let you be free to live. To learn on your own terms without having to go through anything that would restrict you. I will give you an identity for that time, until you need to return."

"U-until I return?" Bounty asked nervously. "You make it sound like I'll lose whatever you give me."

"The truth cannot be hidden forever," Celestia admitted as she moved back in front of him. "But it will be years before it surfaces again. When it does, you will be ready to face the truth again."

"W...Will it hurt when my memories come back?"

"I hope not. The thought of directly harming one of my little ponies through my actions..." Celestia looked away sadly for a moment before focusing on him again, her eyes glancing down at his cutie mark. "When that time comes, find your way back to the castle and let somepony know that...That Bounty, has need of me. I will do my best from there."

Though his body nodded, Bounty's mind was racing. This, whatever it was now, was lacking a lot of context but it both answered and asked so many questions. Most importantly, just who was he? The implication was that Bounty was just a persona and the truth, as the princess had put it, was resurfacing. It was lucky that he couldn't feel anything right now because it almost certainly would have been overwhelming him. He had learned something important though. All his unfocused desperation whenever he thought about finding something the past few weeks had been stymied by the fact he didn't know what to find. Now he knew exactly what, or who.

There wasn't enough time to think it through though, his body had bowed his head. He felt Princess Celestia gently place the tip of her horn against his and his world went white.

---

Bounty's vision was hazy as his eyes opened again. He was on his back now, that was about all he could figure out right now. His muscles ached and his eyes burned like he'd been holding them open far longer than he should. He could hear voices above him, two mares and one stallion. His eyes started to focus and he could make out the figures behind the voices. A blue earth...No, a crystal pony stallion, a purple crystal mare and a pink unicorn. Actually, with a little more focus he could see it was an alicorn. Queen Cadance, again? Above them stood a crystal roof adorned in pale blue and pink. In his current state of mind, it didn't even occur to him that this might be another hallucination.

"Uhhh, not in Ponyville...Not in Canterlot." He groaned before blinking again.

The whole world shifted in the space of that blink. The cold of the floor beneath him was gone and replaced with the gentle plush of cushions. Instead of crystal ceilings stood regular wood ones. The three ponies above him now more familiar. Windhover and Little Hayseed where both looking down at him with concern, though also with dawning relief. The third was a silver coated, blond maned unicorn stallion in a doctor's coat. Bounty couldn't remember the name right now but his recovering mind realised it must have been bad for him to be called out.

"Wh...What happened to me?" He asked quietly, rolling his head to the side to try and see what time it was outside. The sun was already starting to set

"You just completely locked down on us, standing there in the barn all day," Hayseed explained, shifting back to give him some space. "Then half an hour ago you muttered something about Princess Celestia and collapsed. We brought you in here and-"

Bounty had tuned out by that point, his eyes widening as it all came back to him. Things made so much more sense now. All his instabilities, the blackouts, the need to find something that eluded him. It was the truth about himself fighting to come back out, just as Princess Celestia had said. He still didn't know who this 'anomaly' that she said he had been before becoming Bounty was, but he was starting to get ideas about that too. Right now, the one thing that actually mattered was that he had a way to fix most of his problems. Both with himself and with Applejack and Windhover.

"Everypony, this might sound crazy, but I have to ge-" Bounty started as he got up quickly. That burning in his muscles became even more prominent as he did though and the pain silenced him as he nearly overbalanced off the couch he'd been resting on.

"Easy mate, easy," Windhover said as he caught Bounty and carefully lifted him back into his seat with Hayseed's help. "You're in no fit state to go anywhere right now.

"No food or water for a whole day'll do that to you." Arboreal's voice came from nearby. Bounty looked up to see her watching from by the door. Her expression was softer than usual, showing actual concern for his wellbeing.

"Besides, what could be so important that you'd be willing to trudge through the cold in your current state?" Windhover asked, stepping back as the doctor got to checking Bounty over. The unicorn took a few breaths before looking up at his friends.

"Finding out the truth to my existence, that's what."