Twilight, whom I love more than the stars,
Forgive me for being maudlin. It’s nine years my time, and one hundred and fifty for you. We’re getting better at these engines, so they tell me. I notice we make less stops, at least.
I haven’t been back home in eight months, and I crave you more than words can express. The brief trip we took together, before duty dragged me out to the edge of civilized space, was bittersweet. Blissful, yes, but short. Too short.
I want to kiss your lips, I long to feel your warmth. I want to stare into those eyes like galaxies again, and tease you about how your hair is becoming a literal twilight in motion. I want to read books in our study on my ratty old chaise lounge I can’t quite seem to get rid of—I want you to fail at cooking for me at least once, even though you know the staff will not be used to your attempts and have a fit. I want to hear you reading to me again. I look out the window into the swirling chaos that we make of space at full speed and I think, Rarity, what you would not give for Twilight to be here now reading to you to be “unbeaten by the rain, unbeaten by the wind, bested by neither cold nor summer heat” while you pour her tea with a bit of honey, the way she likes it on rainy nights.
Oh Rarity, lost Rarity, cursed to move. To move forever and never to stop, to hunger forever for a new sunrise. Joy is exhausting, Twilight. Joy is so exhausting. It wrings out every ounce of love from me, or it tries, every ounce of passion. It hollows me out of fire. Or it tries. And I feel like it succeeds. It has not—I am writing you, aren’t?—but it feels so.
I cannot regret my choice to be your hoof amongst the stars. From world to world, I bring the light of Equestria’s princess and the grace of her blessing. I have forgiven the indolent, encouraged the defeated, humbled the proud. I want so badly to keep doing this. I admit that vanity moves me as much as duty or faith in the cause of expansion. But above all other motivations, even above vanity, which I know must shock you, is curiosity.
Have we talked about how terrible I was with secrets as a foal? Not just at keeping them, because I discovered how perversely delicious gossip was to share early on, but the knowledge that someone else was keeping secrets… It was like a sickness in me. I had to know. I had to know everything. My mind and heart would burn, I would do terrible things, hurt feelings and defy every rule, to find out some tasty and ultimately completely meaningless detail. It took years for me to control. It almost lost me the chance for the Boutique! The mare I rented from originally had set up the shop, and I was just one of her apprentices. The others gossiped and shared designs, but they did not like that our mistress paid me more attention. They kept secrets of their designs and their personal news and everything else. To them, it was a solace, a way of withholding from someone who had everything. But for me it was unbearable. It ate me up.
Even now that I am better, a part of me will never be free of the need to know. I need to see everything with my own eyes, to see it from every angle I can find. The universe is keeping a secret.
But I hate being this way. Sometimes. I do hate it now. Because it has been so long, and you are so, so far away.
Rarity,
I miss you. I miss everything. I wanted this letter to be better but it will not be because today I am a raw, exposed nerve. Coffee doesn’t help. Books won’t help. Work won’t help. I tried convincing Spike to accompany me on an expedition, I set up things while I was away, I even convinced Fluttershy to show up! And she’s been so reluctant to get out of the house these days! Rainbow and Applejack too, age and time be damned.
And I just thought about you. Every night. Every day. In every conversation.
Celestia and Luna are gone.
They left this morning, right after midnight. They kissed my cheek and left, and I felt imbued with something and I’m not sure if that’s just emotions welling up in me or… I don’t know! I don’t know. But they will be back. One day. They said they would return. But now I am truly alone. Please come home.