Clean Slate

By Alaborn

Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc. I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein.

Chapter 1: Awakening

My eyes fluttered open. It was dark. A beeping sound matched the pulse of the throbbing in my head. Make it stop. I shut my eyes again.

I opened my eyes. I shut them reflexively as the bright sunlight stunned me. I tried opening them again, just slightly. In time, I got used to the light, and shapes came into focus. Two ponies stood over me. One, an earth pony mare with a white coat, held my foreleg in her hooves. I felt something icy slither into it. I felt the pinching sensation before feeling the syringe gently slide out of my foreleg.

The other pony, an older unicorn stallion with a tan coat, constantly shifted his attention among my form, the machines, and the clipboard held in his telekinetic grasp. “Can you understand me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. At least that’s what I tried to say. What came out of my parched throat was some unholy cross between a hiss and a croak. The younger mare hurried away, and returned with a small paper cup filled with water. I tried to lift my forelegs, but they wouldn’t move. She held the cup to my mouth and tipped it, a little bit of water caressing my dry tongue. I swallowed eagerly.

I tried to move my forelegs again. They flopped over; I felt little beyond the sensation of dead weight. The mare placed a reassuring hoof on my shoulder, holding my foreleg in place.

“Please, don’t try to move right now. Do you know where you are?” the stallion asked.

I looked around. Nothing looked familiar. “No,” I replied. My voice was still weak, but at least the word was clear.

“You are in the Ponyville General Hospital. You’ve been in a coma for five months, and just came out of it last night.”

Ponyville. A small earth pony community in the shadow of Canterlot. The place held no meaning for me. Why was I there?

“It looks like the worst has passed, young filly. We expect you’ll recover in time. It will be hard work, with some grueling physical therapy, but you should be able to live… a normal life.”

The stallion… doctor… had paused. A normal life. Was that supposed to be a lowering of expectations? I fought against this limitation, trying to move my hind legs. The mare… nurse… pressed against my foreleg.

“Your family has been visiting all the time you’ve been unconscious. I’m going to let them know you’ve woken up, but for now, you need your rest,” the doctor ordered. “Nurse?”

The nurse again trotted away, coming back with another syringe. Another pinch, and warmth spread from my limb into my body. I closed my eyes again.

I felt two forms watching me as I slept, a dreamless sleep.

It was light again when I opened my eyes. The same nurse was there, along with two other earth pony mares. Both of these mares were quite physically impressive. The light blue mare with a pink and red mane was one solid slab of muscle. Her cutie mark was a dumbbell. The orange mare was even taller. While not as solidly built, those legs looked incredibly powerful. She kept her yellow mane tied off, and wore a cowpony hat. Three red apples marked her flank.

The top sheet had been removed from my bed. I turned to look at my own side. Nothing. A blank flank.

“My name is Muscle Memory, and I’m your physical therapist,” the blue mare said. “We’re going to make sure you will be able to walk and care for yourself again.”

“Okay,” I uttered meekly.

The huge mare enveloped me in her forelegs. I felt tiny compared to her bulk. She righted me and lowered me gently to the ground. I couldn’t feel much, but I could feel my legs shaking. Muscle Memory loosened her grip on me. Gravity pulled me to the ground. I was only stopped from falling flat by the mare’s hooves grabbing me by the barrel.

“I need you to stand,” she said.

“I can’t!” I complained.

“You can,” she emphasized. “Applejack?”

The orange mare trotted over to me. She mussed my mane. It felt like something was missing there. She looked me in the eye. “Don’t worry, sugarcube. I won’t let you fall.” Her strong legs also held me.

“Now, I’m going to slowly let go,” Muscle Memory said. “You can stand. You will stand.”

Again, I felt my weight pull me to the ground. But something about the encouragement of both mares, particularly the honest support from the orange mare at my side, strengthened me. I felt the shaking in my elbows and knees. By the time the shaking calmed, I realized I was standing.

“That’s good,” Muscle Memory said encouragingly. “Now, I’m going to move each of your legs. Applejack, would you hold her?”

The orange mare nodded, and supported me. Starting with my left foreleg, Muscle Memory moved each of my legs in a circular pattern. My joints and muscles protested as they moved in ways they hadn’t moved in months.

“Can you remember that movement?” the physical therapist said. “Start with your left foreleg.”

I tried to repeat the movement, but all that happened is my leg moving like a pendulum.

“Try again. Bend, lift, and then move.”

I quickly became frustrated as my body just wouldn’t react like I wanted it to. Muscle Memory was patient but firm, having me repeat these movements until I felt I had control again. My movements were still jerky, but I felt happy every time she said “Well done.”

“I think we can take a break now,” Muscle Memory said. I tried to walk back to the bed. I moved one leg, but lost my balance.

“Whoa there, sugarcube,” Applejack said as she picked me up.

“Be careful. You’re not ready to walk yet,” Muscle Memory cautioned.

The two mares helped me to the bed. Soon, the nurse came in with lunch. Was it lunch? I didn’t know what time it was. The plain oatmeal didn’t offer much of a clarification. I really wanted to feed myself, but I couldn’t hold the spoon in my pastern. It kept falling out. I grudgingly let the nurse feed me.

After lunch, the nurse placed me in a wheelchair and pushed me into another room. Muscle Memory and Applejack were waiting, standing by a treadmill. The blue mare picked me up and placed me on it.

“I am impressed by your eagerness, but before you try to walk, I want you to watch the movements involved,” Muscle Memory said. “Applejack?”

The other mare nodded, and slowly walked around the room. My eyes tracked her deliberate movement, watching her legs move in tandem. In my first attempt to walk on the treadmill, I failed to move my opposite legs at the right time. I stumbled, but Muscle Memory caught me. I tried several more times before getting it right. On the treadmill, I repeated these painful steps for what felt like hours. I envied the ease with which everypony else walked.

When the physical therapy session ended, the nurse returned with the wheelchair. I protested, walking to the door by myself, but I couldn’t even make it half the distance before feeling ready to collapse. Together, the nurse and physical therapist lifted me into the chair. Again, they moved me back to my room.

The nurse checked my vital signs and gave me some medicine as Applejack watched. “Visiting hours end in thirty minutes, Miss Applejack,” she said. Applejack nodded.

After the nurse left, I looked at Applejack. “So you’re not a nurse or doctor?” I asked.

“Nope,” she replied.

“Then why are you here?”

She sighed. “Because I’m family, and that’s what family does.”

My heart sank. “I was afraid of that. Applejack, I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anything from before I woke up here.”

I sighed. “I don’t even know my name.”

Applejack walked over and hugged me, an awkward gesture with the IV lines now attached to me. “The doctors said something like this might happen. Don’t you worry, sugarcube. I’m not going to forget you.”

She turned around, but before she left, she said she would talk to the doctors. At least I think that’s what she said, because the medicine had already sent me into a deep sleep.

The next day, I spoke with two different doctors. They asked several questions and mentioned several names. Nothing triggered a memory. I don’t think there was anything wrong with my current memory, since I recognized a dozen repeat questions between the two doctors. But from the time before I woke up? I remembered nothing.

I had two sessions of physical therapy that day, again led by Muscle Memory. Applejack wasn’t there today. I spent more time on the treadmill in the morning, and after lunch, I practiced fine motor skills. I must have dropped that wooden mug a hundred times. I didn’t feel like I improved at all.

A mulberry mare came by late that afternoon. She brought several schoolbooks and papers. I guessed she was a teacher, although the three flowers on her flank didn’t suggest that. She gave me several oral quizzes. I did okay on them. If that was information I learned in the past, I remembered it, but there was no context. I couldn’t recall ever consciously studying the subjects. The books she brought didn’t look familiar. I could remember facts about the town of Ponyville, but I couldn’t picture the town in my mind.

The first doctor I spoke to that day returned in the evening. He said an expert from Canterlot would be talking to me tomorrow. Great, the same questions, asked for a third time. I thought about Canterlot. Capital city. Home of the princesses. I could at least picture the town, but it was a flat image, like a picture printed in a book. Had I ever traveled there? I couldn’t remember.

I fought my own locked mind until I again fell asleep.

Doctor Mind Spring was an elderly unicorn stallion. Whatever color his mane had been, it was gray now, and it fell in all directions, as if he had just woken up. I sat in a comfortable chair in a small interior room of the hospital, along with Mind Spring, Applejack, and that first doctor I had seen when I came to.

“Amnesia is a difficult condition to treat,” Mind Spring explained. “The pony mind is an incredible thing, capable of building neural pathways around damaged areas. You can train yourself to use your mind in a different way. But part of this healing process can mean closing off access to memories trapped in damaged brain tissue.

“There is no spell that can help you recover lost memories. Such magic would be far too dangerous to employ. But there are several techniques that often help a pony recover lost memories. Similar to the process I described previously, we can hope that interaction with your past, familiar faces and places, can rebuild the paths that connect your memories. But sometimes, the only treatment is to build memories anew.

“I’ve asked Applejack to collect pictures, images of Ponyville and its residents.” The doctor looked directly at me. “Young filly, I want you to understand that not all of these images would be familiar to you, were your memories intact. These are control images. I want you to look at all of them, and see if anything feels familiar. Even if there’s the slightest sensation, please tell us.”

Applejack placed a thick folder in my hooves. Opening it, I found a large number of photographs, along with pictures clipped from magazines and newspapers. The first one, showing a building that looked something like a cake, was unfamiliar. I shook my head.

I tried moving the picture aside, but almost knocked over the whole folder. Applejack steadied it. “I’ll help you with that,” she said. She stood protectively next to me, cycling the pictures in the folders.

Tears welled in my eyes as all I saw was unfamiliar picture after unfamiliar picture. They were as meaningful to me as pictures from a foreign history book. The only pony I recognized was Applejack, and all I remembered was somepony I met in the hospital. “Nothing,” I finally said.

Mind Spring observed silently, making notes on a scroll held in his telekinetic grasp. I looked again at the pictures. There were many ponies appearing in multiple photographs. One filly in particular made me study the picture in greater detail. I still didn’t recognize her, but her coat color was familiar. It was my own.

I looked up at Applejack. “Is that me?” I asked. The mare nodded in response.

I buried my head in my forelegs. “I don’t even recognize myself!” I cried. With that, the tears flowed, dampening my fetlocks.

I don’t know how long I was lost in my own sobs. Eventually, I came to recognize Applejack’s foreleg draped comfortingly over me. I looked up, and the mare embraced me, patting me on the back.

“Sugarcube, I can’t say I know what you’re going through. But no matter what, I’ll be here for you,” Applejack said. “I’ll do anything I can to help you recover. Are you ready?”

I nodded, sniffling, trying to dry my tears.

“Good,” Applejack said. “So, let’s start from the beginning.

“Your name is Diamond Tiara.”

Author's Notes:

I've chosen to avoid the written representation of Applejack's and Apple Bloom's speech pattern in this story, but they're still speaking like they normally do.