Second First Impressions

by Turai

Chapter 2

A slight breeze slipped through the open window, lightly ruffling the sleeping pony’s hair.

She slowly opened her eyes, trying to make sense of where she was.

The room was white, very white; it was white to the point that the only two things that weren’t white were the green curtains and her own grey fur. Even the sleeping unicorn in the chair next to the bed was white.

Wait, a sleeping unicorn? She squinted her eyes at the pony trying to make head or tails of the situation at hoof.

Why was she in the hospital?

Who was the sleeping unicorn in the chair?

It was right then that she realized there was a much more important question she had overlooked.

Who was she? She couldn’t even remember her own name. Dread filled her as she felt panic flowing into her.

Along with the feelings of dread and panic came a splitting headache; it felt like her forehead wanted to split open.

Moving her front hooves towards her forehead she felt it wrapped in heavy bandages.

Panic was quickly winning the battle inside of her head for supremacy, and she shakily got out of the bed and tried to take a few steps only to have her vision blur and dizziness take over.

She tried to take a few more steps defying the overwhelming dizziness she felt but it didn’t last very long. She fell to the floor, the entire room swirling above her, going in circles like some crazy pegasus. She felt nauseous but refused to lose yet another battle and swallowed the bile that had been forming in her throat.

Suddenly her view was filled with a face: a white face with worried magenta eyes that looked down at her.

The face shouted something but she couldn’t hear what. Everything felt cloudy and unreal. As the world became less and less focused, she felt two pair of hooves carefully lift her up to the bed.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus again, trying to will the room to stop spinning.

“-tavia? Octavia? Can you hear me Octavia?”

The voice was gentle but sounded frightened, who was that? Was it that unicorn?

She opened her eyes only to see the white unicorn and a white earth pony clad in a nurse’s uniform looking at her.

The unicorn forced a smile and cocked her head, warm eyes looking at her.

“Hey Tavi, how are you feeling?”

She just looked at the strange unicorn, not entirely sure what to say.

After a moment of awkward silence, the unicorn’s smile faltered.

“Octavia? What’s wrong?”

Where should she even start? A better question would be what wasn’t wrong. Ignoring the question she decided to ask what had been on her mind since as far as she could remember, which admittedly wasn’t very long at all. But then again that was the entire problem, wasn’t it?

“Who am I?”

The white unicorn’s face went blank and her pupils shrank until they reached the size of two peas.

“W-w-what do you mean Tavi?”

Feeling frustration taking the place of her earlier panic, her face hardened as she raised her voice.

“I ASKED YOU WHO I AM!” She all but shouted at the poor unicorn.

The earth pony, who she could only guess was one of the nurses at the hospital moved towards her.

“I’m afraid you had an accident earlier, you suffered a rather heavy concussion as the result of…”
The nurse cleared her throat, not really sure how to continue. It wasn’t really an everyday occurrence to say the least.

“A filly crashed her scooter into your head.” The unicorn finished for the nurse.

“What?” It was the only form of reply that really made any sense to the grey pony.

“It’s just as Vinyl Scratch said, a filly crashed her scooter straight into your forehead. Luckily there were no fractures to your skull but you still needed stitches. It seems like the concussions that you suffered during the crash caused some rather severe memory loss. How are you feeling otherwise? Are you feeling dizzy perhaps?”

“Well yes, I’m feeling dizzy and I have splitting headache.” The grey pony sighed, feeling frustrated that her question had gone unanswered.

“But you still haven’t answered my question. Who am I? And where am I for that matter?”

“Your name is Octavia and you’re at the Ponyville General Hospital.” The nurse then pointed a hoof towards Vinyl before she continued.

“And this is Vinyl Scratch. She’s your wife. Does any of this feel familiar to you?”

Octavia felt her eyes getting wider by the second, she was married? To a mare?

“I’m married?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Vinyl.

The white unicorn moved closer to her wife slowly and carefully, the way one might approach an injured animal. When she got close enough she raised a hoof and started to gently brush it against her cheek.

Octavia’s first instinct was to jerk back but she forced herself to relax, slowly starting to enjoy the sensation. It just felt right. She felt safe near the other mare. She felt a slight pull at the edges of her lips and before she knew it, she was smiling for the first time since she woke up.

“So you remember?” Vinyl asked hopeful, a smile mirroring Octavia’s was plastered on her features.

Octavia slowly shook her head, leaning into Vinyl’s hoof.

“No, but I remember...” There was a lengthy pause as she struggled to find the words.

“I remember this feeling, it’s so familiar. I feel safe, like we belong together.”

The grey mare froze as Vinyl lowered her head towards her, but she but she relaxed as she felt the unicorn’s soft lips against her cheek. It felt so very familiar.

“I guess I’ll have to take what I can get right now, won’t I?” Vinyl said with a chuckle as she pulled away from her wife. She turned her head around and looked at the nurse, hoof not leaving Octavia’s cheek.

“So Nurse Red Heart, how do we fix this exactly?”

The white earth pony shook her head before she met Vinyl’s eyes.

“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple Vinyl, there’s no medical cure for memory loss and the only magical ones are simply too risky.” Nurse Red Heart steeled herself for what she was about to say next, it was never easy to inform patients of the worst case scenarios.

“I’m afraid there’s a chance that Octavia may never make a full recovery; quite a few patients never truly recover from memory loss associated with blunt force trauma. The good news is that there’s also patients that make a full recovery and with some hope Octavia might be among them.”

The pair looked at the nurse, shocked,the same thoughts echoing in their heads.
Vinyl was the first one to voice what was on both of their minds.

“So all we can do is to sit down on our flanks and hope? Is that really all we can do?”

At this the nurse smiled gently.

“No, not at all Vinyl, there are plenty of small things that you can do to help her remember. Put up photos of her life on the wall, put up souvenirs, anything that might help her remember. But whatever you do, don’t try to force the memories. Trying to force a person to remember usually does more harm than good. Let her take it in her own pace.”

Vinyl looked towards the bed again and realized that she was still brushing her hoof against Octavia’s cheek; she was doing it without thinking now. Not that her wife seemed to mind it very much, quite the opposite actually. It seemed like it was the only thing in the world that Octavia was able to find comfort in right now.

She nodded to herself, she could do this. She could do this for herself and more importantly, she could do this for Octavia.

Comments

[Turai]

Second chapter done!
Shorter than I thought it would be but it just felt like a good place to end the chapter. I'll try to make the third chapter longer than these two.

I did edit in another part in the first chapter, for those of you that read it before the edit and don't wanna look through it again, I'll just post it here, it's just after Vinyl leaves the house:

Octavia sighed, she knew she shouldn’t have snapped at the DJ, it wasn’t her fault.
It was just that the pink pony dragged with her so many bad memories from the gala, not to mention how furious Prince Blueblood had been afterwards. He had yelled at her and her ensemble for what felt for an eternity and if it wasn't for Princess Luna it might as well had lasted an eternity. Not that Luna had saved their jobs; she had just saved them from further harassment from the prince. They were all fired right there on the spot. Octavia shook her head to try and get rid of the painful memories.

I thought I'd explain her dislike for Pinkie instead of making Octavia out to be too much of a bitch.

I do hope that you enjoy, please leave a comment so I know what I did right and what I did wrong.

[DaMagiks]

Well damn this went from 'meh it's cool' to 'Totally need to know what happens next'

You asked for some feedback so I won't hold back
While the old head injury memory loss is a common trope, I think the way you wrote about it (especially the first conversation between the two) is not stale and seems quite believable for the characters in question. Vinyl's caressing of Octavia's cheek and the way she sensed that Vinyl was someone special to her was a perfect manipulation of the reader's emotions (And all good writers even if they try to sugarcoat it have to do this. Connecting with the readers emotionally is a critical point. Grab them by the throat and don't let go ). That scene was very good so remember you need to make sure that you keep in mind what exactly you can put in to show that the bond between them is still there but only obscured and buried under the mental trauma. But of course also you need to have things that break the reader's heart .i.e classic misunderstandings but then they later realize it. As you mentioned in text, you will need to set up different things to trigger (and also attempts to trigger memories that fail breaking both Vinyl and the reader's hearts).
And this is important, a writer always need to closely monitor the level of angst and anguish so that the reader is more 'they're so courageous to keep trying like that against all odds' instead of 'stop whining and deal with it!'. (Luckily you don't have this problem so far but it is very easy to slip into this trap. It takes a lot more effort to avoid it however it is avoidable if you're aware of this ahead of time.)

So I say keep going the way you're going just remember to plan out what will make the reader's heart bleed which will make the heart warming ending all the more triumphant. (You don't even need an extensive synopsis/outline for every last detail but just key points that can help you choose what to put in as you want to have some breathing room for change. Also things really will grow and flow organically if you set the pieces right which is mostly knowing exactly who your characters are down to what they eat for breakfast. Know your characters and any scene will be be more natural seeming but you are definitely on the right track here! )
Of course it's your story and this is just my experiences with writing but I hope it's somewhat useful to you
(Wow this is long )

[Turai]

717273
WoW, that comment got about 1/3rd the words of my entire chapter!
First let me thank you for both your kind words and for the feedback.
I really don't know what to say, I'm honestly blown away,
You sir/madame/tree just made my night.

[infinite scratch]

Memory loss...well oddly enough this is the 1st time I've read a story involving that! Yay!

[SuperPinkBrony12]

716739 Um you do realize that said Prince was a total jerk towards his guest Miss. Rarity Belle (If she IS Sweetie Belle's sister) of Ponyvillie and one of the elements of harmony?

Also I'm guessing that Scootaloo's scooter is a lot heavier than you might think (I think I did that already) and I guess that explains the title of this fic Octavia suffers memory loss after moving to Ponyvillie and as she tries to regain her memories she meets up with Pinkie Pie who must now make another 'first impression' on the cellesit pony.

[Turai]

718647
Yes I realize that but HE doesn't. The prince most likely belive he made no transgression at all.
And no matter how much of an total asshole he is he still hold a bit of authority due to his title.

[SuperPinkBrony12]

719968 I would think that Celestia would've granted them a pardon, or does she not hold that kind of power?

[GAPDashie]

Excellent chapter! I like where this plot is headed.

No, not that plot, you little Dashie you.

Also, much better on the sentence structure this time around, especially near the beginning.

[User_Name555]

Interesting..... *watch*

[Turai]

730058
It's okay Dash, everypony likes Octavias plot

[Turai]

1203700

Currently working on it, I hit a major writers block that looked more like a brick wall than anything else.
Five different versions later of the third chapter and I felt more than a little annoyed and needed a break.
My new job that I'm still unused to leaving me exausted every day didn't really help either.

The break is over now though and I think I know how to progress, written quite a bit and hopefully it will be up soon.

I thank everyone for their patience and I hope you will feel it was worth the wait.

Sadly the next chapter will probably be a rather short one as well, about 1k-1.5k word chapter, mostly becuse I don't want to drag out the wait any more than neccesairy at this point.

[Cold Spike]

Scootaloo should be grounded