Pain. Blinding, unyielding pain. Pure agony that blocked out all of my thoughts, obliterating my sense of identity and leaving me with nothing but pain where my leg should be. Instead of feeling the constant presence of my right foreleg, there was nothing but agony. Full-on torture.

I began to think about why I was hurting. It would help if I could remember anything but pain. I remembered… magic… maybe? And a door. And an explosion. And then a stabbing sensation in my leg and then nothing.

I dared to open one eye, fearful that it might hurt like my leg. It didn’t. Thank… uh… who do I thank? My thought was interrupted by somepony talking.

“No, no, no… where are the healing supplies?” the pony groaned. “If I don’t do this fast then there’s no hope.”

“Hello?” I called out, wincing at the sudden pain in my throat. I decided to keep my mouth shut from now on.

“What? Oh, thank Celestia, you’re awake.” A light purple-ish mare stuck her head into view, eyes fearful. A horn protruded from their forehead. I tried to turn my head and look at the rest of them, but they placed a hoof below my chin to keep me looking at their face. “Don’t- Don’t look down.”

I heeded their warning, giving the tiniest of nods. They sighed and smiled before trotting out of view again. I waited for a while before they came back into my line of sight, face grim.

“Okay, I have no idea where my medical supplies went, so we’ll just have to make this mission quick.” She told me, levitating something next to her in her magic. She placed next to my agonised right foreleg and I heard some sort of click. “That should keep the blood flowing, without killing you, for maybe just about long enough to finish this. Now, are you coming with me or waiting here?”

Curious as to what was happening, I nodded again. I flinched as she lifted me in her magic and dropped me on my hooves. I wobbled a little, my right foreleg unresponsive, before gaining my balance and trotting after the mare. She wore saddlebags, hiding her back. Two silver blades poked out of one bag, whilst the other was held closed with a star-shaped clip.

“You really had me worried.” The mare admitted as she walked down the hall. It was carved completely of stone with lanterns hung periodically along the walls. “I had to fight through the guards alone whilst you slowly bled to death. Then I had to stop the bleeding, only to start it again so that I could save your leg.”

Confused, I tried to look at my leg, only for a magical aura to surround my head. The mare glared at me over her shoulder and mouthed the words ‘don’t look down’. I nodded a little and she released me.

“Now, it should be just around here…” the mare muttered, holding some piece of paper in her magic and slowing her trot. I came up beside her and stared up at a solid wall.

I stared at her, more confused than ever. I woke up from some torturous nightmare only to be greeted by a stranger who wouldn’t let me look at my foreleg, which felt as if it were on fire. I wanted to ask so many questions, but my throat still hurt too much.

“Oh.” The mare paused next to a jutting piece of rock. She ran a hoof over it, stopping at a small indent. “That was easy.”

I watched in shock as the entire wall opened up, cracking through the middle and crumbling into nothing. The rocks slowly turned to dust, revealing a tunnel that seemed to have been abandoned for years. I did a quick observation and… yep, this part of the tunnel at least hadn’t been used for around three years. Which meant that whatever was further down the tunnel hadn’t been used, either. Unless something was down there.

“I would’ve figured that a castle would have better security measures than some badly-hidden button.” The mare laughed a little as she began to trot into the darkness. I silently cursed her for jinxing us before following her. It’s a little awkward to go down stairs with only three working legs, but I managed.

I walked slowly down the steps after the mare, who paused near the bottom, ears perked. I halted a few stairs above her, wary. A second later her eyes widened and her pupils shrank to pinpricks. She turned to me and yelled, “Run!”

Confused and scared, I listened to her. I turned on the step and fled back up the stairs. Below me I heard rock scraping against rock and a scream. I looked back over my shoulder to see a wall where the mare had once been. Distracted, I forgot to watch my step and ended up falling and smacking my chin against the edge of a step. My ears rang and my head began to ache, but the worst pain was in my unresponsive right foreleg, which had scraped against the rock as I fell.

I panted heavily, vision fading, as blood began to trickle down the steps. I tried to stay conscious, but it was ultimately for naught as I slipped into darkness.

Fluttershy sighed, bored, as she leaned against the stone wall of the Canterlot dungeons. Rarity and one of Celestia’s personal magicians were standing silently beside her, unmoving. Their horns were lit with magic as they scanned the area, but Fluttershy was left with nothing to do but lament over how dumb she’d been to let herself be caught unawares.

Unbeknownst to the yellow pegasus, the imposter had escaped her cell and teleported away without even announcing herself. The only mark she left behind was a half-conscious Fluttershy and some ‘magical signature’ that the two unicorns were now working to find. Fluttershy had eventually recovered from the stun spell and, abandoning her plans of freeing Luna, ran to tell Celestia what had happened. Luckily enough, her friends were already looking for her. Once the princess found out, she had sent one of her personal magicians, a stallion by the name of Skylark, to help Rarity find the magical signature the imposter should’ve left behind.

Should’ve. But they didn’t. Which Fluttershy knew from the fact that she had been standing in the same spot, bored out of her mind, for an hour. She wasn’t an expert on magic, but she knew that no spell should take an hour to find. Even so, the pegasus was prepared to wait.

At least until she remembered that she was technically still supposed to be in the medical wing recovering. Fluttershy groaned and facehoofed before trotting away from the unicorns, towards the stairs leading out of the dungeon. She left hastily and began the walk back to her room.

As she trotted through the halls, she couldn’t help but think about the imposter. She had acted so much like Twilight at first that Fluttershy had actually been convinced it was her, just… corrupted. But then she was attacked, twice, and realised that it couldn’t be Twilight. Corrupted or not, Twilight would never hurt her friends. Although they had seemed hesitant to attack her, and even outright refused to kill Fluttershy after the first attack.

Before she could think more on it, she had reached her room. The pegasus trotted in and stared, surprised, at the restored bed. Fluttershy distinctly remembered her bed being torn apart by a laser. Although, the large butterfly gem at the head of the bed had remained undamaged, and overall the bed had actually just been sliced in half. Somepony must’ve glued it back together. With magic.

Too tired to care about the structural integrity of her bed, Fluttershy flopped onto the sheets and groaned loudly into feather-stuffed blankets. The pegasus sighed and rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. She busied herself with trying to find where the swirling pattern on the tiles ended, and within moments she was asleep.

When she opened her eyes, she was floating in some dark space. Small dots of light, almost like stars, were strewn across the black world. Fluttershy frowned as her hooves touched against solid ground with a soft clopping sound similar to that of hoof against stone. She began to trot forwards, looking from side to side and searching for any sort of irregularity in the pattern of the stars. They were about as patterned as the night sky, so it was pretty easy.

Fluttershy paused at one point and tried to turn and step in a different direction. To her surprise, the invisible path continued in that direction, as it did with all others. After fixing the ‘ground’ below her with a scrutinising gaze, she sighed and tried to fly instead. She met no resistance and was able to fly up for a few minutes before becoming bored. At this point she folded her wings and dipped into a dive, only for her hooves to collide with the invisible platform seconds later, as if it had followed her upwards.

Thoroughly confused and bored, the pegasus groaned and simply lay down upon the see-through floor. She fixed her teal eyes on a single speck of light and watched to see if it would move. It didn’t. Fluttershy sighed and buried her face in her hooves. Her ear twitched as a soft sound echoed through the dark space, causing her to jump to her hooves and reach for her- The pegasus blinked in surprise when her hoof landed upon her flank instead of the sheath of her sword. A moment later she facehoofed. She had not gone to bed with her armour on.

Shaking her head to clear it, Fluttershy turned to where the sound had emanated from, squinting to see anything but black and white. Due to them being translucent, the pegasus didn’t see the approaching pony at first. But when they drew close enough to stand out, Fluttershy couldn’t help but gawk. Trotting towards her was a light yellow pegasus with a long, flowing pink mane, similar to that of Fluttershy’s before it was cut. Their teal eyes shone with empathy and three pink butterflies gleamed upon their flank.

“Hello there.” The mirror smiled pleasantly as they slowed to a halt.

“Wh-wha… who?” Fluttershy stuttered, looking at the four-years-younger version of herself.

“Oh, sorry.” The mirror giggled behind one hoof. “I must’ve scared you a little. My name is Kindness.”

Fluttershy blinked in confusion. “You mean… kindness, as in, my Element, kindness?”

“Got it in one!” Kindness congratulated, clapping their front hooves together. “Speaking of Elements, I need to talk to you about something.”

“First, why do you look like a younger me?” Fluttershy asked, more than a little suspicious.

“Because this is what you looked like when you first claimed me.” Kindness explained.

“So… Rainbow’s Element-”

“Loyalty.”

“Uh… So, Loyalty wouldn’t have Rainbow’s scar?”

“That’s right.”

“So Twi- I mean, Magic, would be a unicorn?”

“Actually, no.” Kindness paused for a moment, musing. “You see, when you returned us to the Tree of Harmony, we were split between bearers: the pony and the tree. Twilight reconnected the two halves of her Element, so hers would appear to her as an alicorn.”

“So how do I… update you?”

“You would simply have to visit the Tree of Harmony and allow me, the spirit of Kindness, to reconnect with the Element of Kindness.” The Element explained, before frowning. “Now, I really do have to talk to you.”

“Okay…”

“Good.” Kindness smiled before becoming deadly serious. “Magic is in deep trouble. Not only are they split between Twilight and Midnight-”

“Who now?”

“The imposter! Anyway, not only are they split between the two, something has greatly harmed Midnight. The Elements and I are unsure as to what it as, as we cannot properly connect with Magic right now. All we know is that Midnight is currently suffering intense mental and physical damage.” Kindness proclaimed, setting an unblinking gaze directly upon Fluttershy, who shivered and hopped backwards.

“Well, what does this have to do with me?” the pegasus asked, eager to wake up.

“Before we lost contact, Magic told us of Midnight’s plan.” Kindness told her, seeming almost hesitant to share the information.

“Which is…”

Instead of answering, Kindness fixed Fluttershy with a gaze reminiscent of The Stare, causing the pegasus to freeze as information flooded her mind. She saw visions of blood and battle, gore and glory, death and destruction. Mixed within these images were snippets of somepony’s speech, the voice unrecognisable through the distortion. Fluttershy groaned in pain as the information was forced into her head, allowing her to see naught but what she was shown. Even once the visions faded, the images continued to flash in her mind. The pegasus remained hunched over for a moment more before she struggled to her hooves. By time she could stand, Kindness had vanished.

Fluttershy woke with a gasp, sweat beading on her fur and running through her coat. Her teal eyes were wide and panicked, the images of what she had just witnessed still present in her mind. She gulped and took a deep breath before slipping from her bed and trotting into her en suite.

Making sure the door was locked, the pegasus climbed into the cubicle and started a cool, yet not too cold, shower. For a few minutes she just leaned against the wall, letting the cold, refreshing water cascade across her form, washing away the perspiration. Once she had finally gained her bearings, she washed away the dirt she had allowed to accumulate in her fur, as well as the small scorch mark the stun spell had left upon her flank.

After cleaning thoroughly, she left the shower and patted herself dry with one of the plush towels the maids left on the rack, despite them rarely being used. Thinking about it, this was the first time Fluttershy had allowed herself luxuries in much too long. She had forgotten what it felt like to be a mare allowed her vanity. A tiny smile gracing her lips, she towelled herself completely dry, but left her mane a little damp. She donned the fluffy white bathrobe left for her to avoid her mane wetting her coat and allowed her hair to air dry for a moment. She then used the hairdryer hung on the wall to gently blow her short mane and tail dry, before brushing them through to remove the tangles. She kept the bathrobe on as she trotted back into her room, and slid onto the bed, content for the first time in years.

Deep in her satisfaction, it was hard for Fluttershy to remember why she had been upset in the first place. It was much easier to just curl up on her bed and slip into darkness.

Darkness was nice. It was calm, often warm, compressing, claustrophobic, restricting and made it impossible to see if anypony was trying to kill you!

Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open. Images of Celestia entered her mind, horn alight with powerful golden energy. Standing beside her was Luna, Cadence, Flurry Heart and the impo- Midnight. They were all following the sun princess’ example, lighting their horns for some sort of powerful spell. She saw the five alicorns began to run forward, drawing swords as they charged something Fluttershy could not see. In the distance, ponies, griffons and changelings ran forwards, armed to the teeth with weapons. Standing amid the large army was Spike, rearing onto his hind legs and loosing a stream of fire over their heads.

Just as quickly as the image appeared, it vanished, leaving Fluttershy gasping for breath and panicking. Throwing her bathrobe carelessly to the floor, the pegasus leapt from her bed and fled her room. Pausing only to close the door behind her, she began to gallop down the hallways towards the throne room, images of sorrow and victory flashing behind her eyes as she ran.

I was starting to remember something. It wasn’t clear, but it was there. It involved my unresponsive right foreleg and why it didn’t work. There was a lot of blood and fear and pain and loss of limbs that amounted to a door cleaving my leg from my body.

It explained a lot but also caused me to ask many more questions. Why did the door explode? Where did the door lead to? What was I doing there in the first place? Before I could think of it more, a stabbing pain entered the hole of my right foreleg.

I think I screamed, but I can’t really remember much of that time. It was dark and scary and painful, one of those things you forget to protect yourself. However, I do remember waking up to see the purple-ish mare standing over me, fear and determination in her eyes as she drove something into my torso. I’m almost certain I yelled at her to stop, but my complaints fell upon deaf ears.

Before long, the pain dulled to an ache, but the mare was far from done. Bandages, thread, needles and a whole host of other medical supplies flew about the space as she worked to do something with my missing leg. And after an unknown amount of time that felt like an eternity, the pain stopped, only reappearing if I tried to move my leg. Which made sense, because it was missing.

I was now aware of why the mare hadn’t wanted me to look. But now, I wanted to see the mess that was left of my precious limb. I wanted to see it more than anything. And so I looked. The mare didn’t stop me.

I had expected to see a mangled mess of blood and flesh. Instead, my gaze fell upon a foreleg connected by bandages and, beneath those, a whole lot of stitches. I stared at it in surprise. When the bandages and stitches were removed, the wound healed, there would be nothing but a jagged scar left behind. Nothing but a scar to separate the two lengths of purple fur that belonged to a purple pony with messy dark blue hair and a pair of large, powerful wings upon her back.

Somepony sighed with relief. About time you remembered yourself.