> Letters to the Sun
>  by Horizon Runner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Honesty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Celestia,

It’s been a long time since I’ve written one of these letters. A span of two hundred years is hardly consequential in the grand scheme of the world, but our small existences are harsh things, and time has most certainly not stood still.

Where should I begin? The technologies and sciences are, of course, my forte, but I know you always preferred the social matters. Perhaps I should begin with the ponies who set things in motion those centuries ago. 

Yes… let’s start with my friends.

Applejack is perhaps the least changed; a sad, but fitting, truth. I’m certain you recall Granny Smith’s funeral with as much terrible clarity as I do, and I’m sure you saw what Applejack was like afterwards. But her brother's fall was far more shocking to us all. Granny was, sadly but truthfully, an amazingly old mare when she passed away in her sleep, but Macintosh was in his golden years when that corrupted dragon stormed out of the Everfree.

I still recall the awful feeling I had when the news reached me in Canterlot. I flashed there as fast as I could, but by then the battle had long since ended. The dragon was slain, surrounded by ash and felled trees, but only Applejack and her sister stood before it. I never discovered what exactly happened to Macintosh, and I have far too much respect for him to speculate, but Applejack and Apple Bloom wouldn’t leave each other’s company for several weeks.

Tragedy. It’s not something we thought about much, was it, Princess? Our lives were uncomplicated, and the only conflicts we faced were either manageable things or events so massive that the Elements were our first—and sometimes only—option. But this happened so suddenly that we could never have prepared for it. I think Apple Bloom blamed me, for a time, but we spoke with one another at the funeral, and amidst her tears as I held her in my arms I believe she forgave me. It had just never left her head that the Princesses were infallible, even after what happened to you.

After Mac’s death, she changed far more than Applejack did. She left the farm behind, refused to visit it when she came back to Ponyville. She’s told me that even the thought of her old home gives her nightmares. I think Applejack may have been the same way at first, but she returned and rebuilt the farm with the help of Braeburn and a good number of his wing of the family, returned from the frontier in the wake of the treaties we signed with the buffalo.

Apple Bloom turned to building things of a more eclectic kind. She opened a tiny shop in Manehattan, and began what has been called “The Equestrian Technological Revolution”, a movement away from magical power and towards the “natural” forces: steam, coal, and the like.  She invented the first steam engine and created a system for utilizing the flow of electrons—or perhaps I should quote the headlines: “Earth-Pony Inventress Harnesses Lightning Bolt!” I scoffed, admittedly, when I first heard, but then I paid a visit to her laboratory and discovered that not only was it Apple Bloom who had created these things, but that they were both credible and far more incredible than even the most sensational stories.

I immediately offered her a position in the government—with all the funding and resources she could possibly desire—but she declined outright. She claimed that she wished to work free from bureaucracy and politics, a sentiment I quietly echoed back to her at the time. We stayed on good terms, and as time progressed I came to greatly respect her. She is brilliant, in a way that surpasses mere skill. There is a childish energy backing her actions that has scarcely faded over the course of two centuries… but I digress.

A good while after Apple Bloom’s “Appletech” had really begun to take off, the daughter of that lovely mailmare from Ponyville—perhaps you would remember her as Ditzy Doo, or more likely by her affectionate nickname, Derpy—started her own business. At the time, Appletech had hired Flim and Flam—they, in the typical irony of the times, being the charlatans who’d tried to take away the Apple’s business—to work on developing a non-magical flying machine. The two brothers did a marvelous job; you have to give them credit for cleaning up their act and putting their engineering skills to a better use than robbing working ponies of their business. They had a craft that glided using air pressure and a thin silk curtain stretched over a wooden frame, but unfortunately they couldn’t fly it far, much less use it for anything practical. Hired pegasi remained the best way to travel by air.

Then Dinky Doo opened up Derpytech and designed a harness that was a hundred times more efficient at utilizing pegasus magic to move airborne objects. An airbus that formerly would have taken four flyers to pull could now be comfortably controlled by a single pony.

Obviously, this put a damper on non-pegasus flight projects, though the brothers did eventually go on to design a few more practical aircraft that went into use by a few small groups. I must say I am extremely proud to have purchased one for myself. The sensation of flight is nothing new, but the raw power of these craft is intoxicating, if occasionally overwhelming.

Apple Bloom took Dinky's design as a personal challenge. For years the two mares smoldered at each other, until both Appletech and Derpytech near-simultaneously unveiled the first “thinking machines.”

I have attended the Equestrian Technology Exposition since it was established one hundred and eighty-two years ago. I have never, in all that time, seen two grown mares become so angry at each other. Their booths were adjacent, and the curtains came off at almost the exact same time. If I had not known he was with Fluttershy in Ponyville at the time, I would have marked it as Discord’s handiwork.

In design the two machines were radically different. Apple Bloom’s machine was sleek and streamlined, and ironically it was the first Appletech device to use magic. The Derpysoft machine was a massive, sluggish beast, but its workings were entirely mundane.

I think it was this reversal that made things boil over. Apple Bloom was jealous of the fact that Dinky had managed to succeed where she had failed in avoiding magical components. I’d spoken to her many times on this subject, actually, and my continued advice had been to give in and allow the arcane sciences to take a place in her workshop. She was almost shockingly resistant, but in the end I suppose she gave in.

The Smith One was her masterpiece, and Derpytech’s device sundered it. Likewise, I think Dinky was immensely offended by the fact that her primary competitor had designed something so similar to her own magnum opus. The fight came to blows before I could intervene, leaving Bloom with a broken nose and poor Dinky with two black eyes and a fractured jaw. The two accused each other of industrial espionage in a series of lawsuits that dragged on for years. It finally petered out after a frankly embarrassing incident in which Appletech sued Derpytech with the petty accusation that the latter had stolen the former’s name.

This, of course, led to Dinky simply changing the name. Derpytech became Derpy Software and Advanced Machinery Development, often shortened to simply Derpysoft. It’s been well over a century since then, and though they do not always see eye to eye, the two mares now deal with one another on far more civilized terms. Just recently, in fact, Apple Bloom announced that she was collaborating with Ditzy on a new project. I have yet to learn the details, but I'm quite hopeful for whatever this new collaboration might bring.

I’m sorry; I just realized that I’ve completely neglected Applejack’s story. I suppose I’ve never shaken my old habits of digression, have I? Some things never change, and that is by far for the best.

But Applejack did change, even though less than the others. The farm is, even now, still much as it was back in our younger days. Applejack and her sister never saw eye to eye about many things, particularly the one time that Apple Bloom tried to convince her sister to accept a gift of several mechanical farming tools, which she made the mistake of telling her sister had been co-designed by the Flim Flam Brothers.

I was present at the time at Apple Bloom’s request (Apparently she thought I would have some luck convincing her sister, thought that predictably was not the case.) so I can give you Applejack’s own words on the matter: “I didn’t let those brothers’ machines take my job back then, and I ain’t rolling over now. Besides, I can buck apples a thousand times better than those hunks of junk can.”

Of course you can guess what happened next. Suffice it to say that yes, Applejack can buck all those apples, and though perhaps a thousand times faster is somewhat hyperbolic, she was absolutely faster than the machines. At the very least, her skills in that regard never changed.

But she gained a new set of skills. Once it became clear to everypony what my, shall we say, ascension meant for Equestria, and the implications it held for my friends, I think she saw it as her duty to become more involved in the affairs of the nation, and eventually the Empire.

She approached me one bright winter day and asked me if I could tell what place there was for Honesty in the government. I think I almost laughed, for at the time the nobility had been running me in circles. “There are no Honest ponies in this government, Applejack,” I told her, “Just one hopeless princess and a thousand sharks nipping at her hooves in hopes of dragging her under and taking her place.”

Soon after that, she brought me her plan for the Equestrian Supreme Court. I’m sure you remember what the Royal Courts were like, and I must admit that at first I struggled greatly to control them. Corruption spread like a virus, and more nobles were realizing it by the day. A pony in Canterlot could rob a store in broad daylight and face no more than a prison sentence of a single night, if they knew who to pass a share of their ill-gotten funds to.

Applejack did away with them altogether, under my authority. She organized a court of seven judges, with her at the head. Each pony on the court was nominated by myself, and approved by her. I was slightly disturbed at her insistence that she have this privilege, considering that I had yet to come to terms with what being an Element Bearer entailed. I asked her who would take her place when she wanted to move on, and she told me she would choose her own replacement.

Thinking back, that conversation haunts me. She knew and understood, even back then. You were both merciful and cruel, Princess, for not telling us what was to come. But that is the nature of this gift. The Elements are beautiful things, but their side effects are cruel in their kindness. Likewise, their generosity is selfish and their loyalty is so firm that it becomes almost suffocating. Their honesty is a thin veil, for being inanimate things they lie eternally by omission, and there is little laughter to be had once you understand what they truly are.

At least they stay true to their final component, but that is a small comfort. After all, what is Magic without the five to give it substance?

I’m sorry. It’s been a long time and I have never confided so much at once. I will bring this letter to an end soon, as it already reads long.

Applejack controls the court magnificently. I do not know if it is a symptom of her Element or just a growing maturity of her own, but she has become almost eerily able to detect deception. Of the first six judges I sent her, she denied one with the accusation that he was a spy loyal to Blueblood’s party, and another with a claim that she took bribes from Canterlot’s criminal underground. Upon investigation, both statements were found to be true, and indeed the latter case was one of the first tried in her court.

Though I believe she does deserve one, Applejack has not cultivated a reputation for fairness. Instead, she has cultivated a reputation for absolute accuracy. Not once has a pony she deemed guilty ever asked for a retrial, and in many cases I have sat in and witnessed ponies begging her—not the plaintiffs—for forgiveness. In the first case she took, the plaintiff—whose entire case Applejack rejected almost casually and answered with alarmingly precise probes about his motivations—called her a “lie-detecting monster” and tried to flee the courtroom before being detained by Canterlot guards. I do not agree with some of her methods, namely her utter reliance on her uncanny skill, but the fact is she’s always right. I suspect the rogue elements of ponykind fear her far more than myself, because at least when dealing with me they have a chance, however slim, of slipping by.

It’s strange, actually knowing her. In the court she is a towering figure on her judge’s stand, watching the proceedings with her eagle’s eyes, but outside of that she is much the same as she has always been; amiable, dedicated, and both able and willing to shoulder her duties and her own personal goals with equal amounts of respect and skill. 

She and Braeburn continued running the farm for many years until eventually he too passed away—peacefully, this time. She took it well, accepted that his life had been as full and wonderful as he claimed on his deathbed, and moved on. I suspect she still fears the day that her sister’s time comes, but I believe she will endure, just as you did for so long, Princess.

Yes, she will outlive her sister. I know this now, just as you must have known when you allowed her—allowed all of us—to take up the Elements of Harmony. You truly did curse us with this mandate, but I understand why you did it. Ours is a crucial duty to Equestria and to the world beyond, even if it is a bitter one. 

No pony truly wants to live forever when they finally get their chance. I can’t say whether you did it for yourself, or for your dear sister, but I understand why it was necessary to pass them on. Someday, perhaps a hundred years from now, perhaps a thousand, they will be given to new bearers, and we too will vanish into history.

But I think that that is simply how it must be. The Elements are represented by a circle, and like a circle, the point of beginnings must come again, and again, and again, until time itself runs to a stop.

I’m sorry. I didn’t intend my first letter in two centuries to be quite so grim.

But then I never expected to live forever, either.

—Princess Twilight Sparkle

> Generosity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Celestia,
 
I’m sorry for the tone of my last letter. For your entire reign you were loved by your subjects, and you never allowed any harm to come to your domain. Perhaps the methodology you used to accomplish this bothers me, but you were far more successful in your reign for a millennium than I was for even a single century.
 
The truth is that Equestria could easily have fallen apart in those first few decades. You were gone, Luna was aging and soon to follow you, and I was lost. Your sister guided me well for many years, but she too lacked your experience. I think your passing hit her hardest; barely two decades after her return, the sister she loved so much passed away without so much as a goodbye. If there is anything I truly blame you for, it is that last injustice. I hope that wherever you are now she is with you, for she loved you more than all of your subjects combined, and the Nightmare’s Curse hurt her far more than I think you ever realized.

But the fact remains: You were the greatest leader Equestria has ever known, and in all likelihood I will never surpass you even if my reign lasts a hundred times as long. You raised me as if you were a second mother, and you treated me like the willing student that I was, never like the precocious yet unready child I would have been seen as in any other pony’s care. I loved you then, Celestia, and I love you still as I write this to your soul. You were a brilliant leader and a great mare, and I will miss you. Equestria, no, the entire world will miss you forever. 

I don’t know if you could watch your funeral from the great beyond, but there were so many people there. Gryphons by the hundreds, zebras by the thousands. Dragons circled overhead, dancing in a tradition as old as the stars while diamond dogs placed claw-carved statues on your casket. The minotaur king attended, and made a speech the likes of which I had never before heard, and Discord himself donned a dark suit and remained silent throughout the ceremonies. Even the Queen of the Changelings paid her respects in secret, leaving behind nothing save a tiny block of frozen ichor, which a careful study revealed to be some of her own blood (it is sealed, with all of your other gifts, in your tomb within Canterlot Mountain, as I discovered that, contrary to so much of the changelings’ nature, the tiny cube was inert and harmless).

And the ponies who attended were enough to necessitate that we moved the ceremonies out of Canterlot. The city would have fallen into the valley if we had stayed there. You were adored, Princess, and you will continue to be so long as history refrains from being rewritten.

And yes, as you would probably imagine, I have created enchantments to prevent that. It never hurts to be careful.

But I shouldn’t dwell on things such as this. You never did approve of fanfare over yourself after all, no matter the fact that there was never a more deserving being on this planet of ours, or on any other.

I should perhaps continue telling you of what has happened these past few centuries. It seems strange to so much as write this letter, but at the least I should remain consistent.

I have told you of Applejack’s current life, so let me move on to Rarity’s.

Out of all of us, Rarity was the most stricken with your loss (save myself, but considering our relationship, I think it is fair to say the situation was somewhat different. My, grief is a strange thing to consider after the fact, is it not? Here am I, quantifying the feelings of loss felt two centuries before to the mare for whom they were based. Somehow, I almost feel like I can see you smiling and shaking your head. Sorry, it seems this parenthetical got away from me.) 

I think Rarity, like many ponies, had come to revere you in an almost religious light, and when you were proven to be as mortal as anypony it hurt her vastly more than any of us could ever have anticipated. For six months she vanished into seclusion, closing down her shop and refusing all visitors save her sister. Sweetie Belle told me of her, and there was little good in her stories. She talked of how Rarity became obsessed with your image for a time, then one day tore down all of your pictures and set them ablaze. She told me how she briefly toyed with an almost romantic devotion to your sister, then began cursing herself and chopped off her mane.

Then she vanished into the zebra lands with Zecora.

For another six months, no word came. I spoke to the Zebrican ruling council, but they claimed that they had no knowledge of her whereabouts, no understanding of her situation, and “no worries about her safety.” I would have pushed the matter, but something in their eyes told me they knew exactly what was happening to Rarity, and that I should stay out of it for her sake. I can’t say why I was so certain, but in the end I placed my trust in Zecora, and sure enough Rarity reappeared as suddenly as she had left.

I spoke briefly with Zecora, before I went to Rarity. She told me, cryptically as always, that Rarity had “Asked for a spiritual guide,” and that Zecora had “Little choice but to provide.” She refused to disclose more than this, however, citing what I believe to be the zebra shaman equivalent of doctor-patient confidentiality.

When Rarity finally returned to us, she was profoundly and deeply changed. It’s hard to say how, precisely, but she was… more stable, perhaps. Some of the irrepressible whimsy within her had gone, though by no means all of it, and it seemed to return on its own after some time. Still, a gap remained, only slight, but always there. I’m not sure it will ever be filled, or even that it should be.

Her dresses were all the evidence I needed that she had truly become something else while she was gone. I have watched her work many times since then, not only because she is my friend and I enjoy her company, but also because she’s incredible. She’s cast away her sewing machine, and opted instead to use some kind of elaborate magical needle-dance that far surpasses anything that I have ever seen in any nation I have visited. I asked her once where she had been, and she told me she was looking for something. When I asked if she’d found it, she told me with great gusto that she had not, and that she had found herself instead. I still have no idea what that means.

Her business, as you probably remember, was already booming. After that year of absence, she became the dressmaker of Equestria. 

Fashion as Canterlot knew it simply was not equipped to comprehend her work at first. The first dress I ever saw her make following her sojourn apparently repulsed its recipient so much on first sight that she immediately tried to burn it, only to find that it resurrected itself like a phoenix. Apparently, once she’d actually tried it on, she sent a letter of explanation and apology, along with a promise that she would show the dress to everypony she knew at the next opportunity.

I have no idea how she enchanted that dress, and I am almost afraid to ask. I’ve seen similar things happen to other works of hers, including a garment I myself wore that had wine spilled all over it at a Grand Galloping Gala. The stallion in possession of the wine glass apologized profusely—and drunkenly—but before both our eyes the dress not only wrung itself completely dry, but spawned a ghostly silhouette of shimmering silk to guide the inebriated stallion to his room. Once its duty was complete, the silk returned to the lining of the dress without the slightest bit of fuss.

That, I think, was when I realized what I have told you about her, how she had changed. Her dresses became more beautiful, of course, but that was merely the progression of her art and the aggregation of skill. No, the enchantments were something else, something more beautiful, and they have continued to grow more amazing over the years. 

She gave Rainbow Dash a dress that not only did not hamper her mobility, but also sent fireworks flying from between folds of cloth to dance like fireflies as she flew. She gave Fluttershy a dress with actual vines woven into the fabric, which I watched save my friend from a falling chandelier by growing up around her and catching it in the branches of a tree that had not existed before that night. She gave Applejack a dress which has endured two centuries of wear, which I have seen her wear to the fields and bring back covered in mud and dust, and yet which becomes perfectly clean in seconds whenever she decides she wants it that way. She gave Pinkie a dress that appears to be completely indestructible, and which contains an indeterminate number of pockets that seem to augment Pinkie’s incredible ability to bring entire parties with her wherever she goes.

And for me, that dress I have already mentioned. The pony of silk has become almost as much my assistant as Spike used to be. It can be summoned by a simple request for help, knows the location of anything it is asked to find, and it can write fluently in hoofwriting that appears to be identical to Rarity’s. I think it goes without saying that I was terrified of the thing at first, but through testing I discovered something strange, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

The dresses—all five of ours, at the least—contain a tiny piece of Rarity herself. I don’t know if I can realistically call this a “soul”, but it is most certainly a fragment of her being, fixed forever within her fabrics. I do not know for certain if she has given these things to her other clients, but I believe that she has, a fact which still frightens me.

I asked her once, after finding this out, what it meant for her, if what she was giving up was hurting her. Her answer made me weep in her arms.

“Darling, nothing I could keep for myself is worth as much as what I can give to all of you.”

She still makes her dresses, but in the years following her vanishment she has moved on to other things as well. She’s become something of an activist, aiming to mitigate the class conflict which has defined Equestria for so long. I know for a fact that the nobles despise her, and I also know that some have sent assassins for her. Whether the Elements have protected her, or whether it is some skill of her own I cannot say, as the subject rarely comes up unless one of the assassins is caught in the act, at which point she calmly but firmly demands that the culprit go free.

The movements she has started have done marvelous things to Canterlot. That city has resisted change for hundreds of years, but it seems that Rarity has finally broken that pattern. The gentry has fallen out of power, and the mountainside districts have become as beautiful as the hanging city itself.

Beyond Canterlot, her influence is far greater. She was the force that built the golden age, and her actions wiped away so many decades of corruption that you and I could never touch. There are no poor in Equestria now. There are those with more, and those with less, but no foal must live on the street, and no mare must beat another in a dark alley simply to feed their children. This is true wherever my rule holds, but though she has used her connection with me to make it so, this was her dream. Not a classless society, but a society where no one is forced to grovel before another for the simple necessities of life. A place where, if one wishes to be an artist, they need not kneel to the whims of a wealthy sponsor. A society where one can pursue an education without being mired in endless cycles of increasing debt.

And how? A single tax, on those who make more bits in a year than an average pony sees in a lifetime. And then a program to redistribute this capital to everypony in need. It is quite incredible how far you can stretch a trillion bits every year, if you are careful.

Oh, the outrage. The accusations of tyranny were thick and strong. Especially in the still-fresh wake of your passing. But in the end, little changed. The gradient between have and have-not evened out. The world spun on, a great stripe of injustice wiped away.

It is little compared to the social contributions of Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie, perhaps, but their stories are ones of far different circumstances and greatly vaster scales.

Sweetie Belle aides Rarity greatly in these endeavors. Strange though it may sound, knowing her as you did, Rarity often allows her sister to steal the spotlight while she works in the shadows. Sweetie Belle’s status as a minor celebrity did little to harm her or her sister’s success. (Were any of us truly surprised when she became a songstress? Her voice is a miracle all on its own.)

I suppose what most surprises me about Rarity is how much she has become like you. She would never ask for a throne, nor would I curse her with one, but if there is anypony among my friends who could do this sort of thankless work, it is her. I speak of Sweetie Belle because she can mold the emotions and opinions in a room like a work of clay, but Rarity can command in a way I had previously only ascribed to Fluttershy—and indeed the two of them are much closer now than they were previously. (If I were to compare Rarity to you, I must then compare Fluttershy to Luna… but I am digressing again. Fluttershy’s story deserves a letter all of its own.)

Though I have hardly done her tale justice, I must close this letter with a confession. I once confided you in you that I was uncertain whether Rarity truly represented the Element of Generosity. I need not repeat for you that conversation, but I remember what you said to me.

You were right, as always. It just took me a while to see it. Any doubts I ever had about Rarity’s right to the Element of Generosity were dispelled long ago. It seems absolutely disgusting to me now to even admit to entertaining such feelings, but the fact is I simply did not know her as well as I believed I did. That, itself, is a tragedy, one I feel I have yet to fully repent for.

Alas, I can not go on here. There is much to tell, but only so much time to tell it. I do not know when I will next be able to send another letter (nor, frankly, whether there is any point in sending them beyond my own conceit), but I will do so as soon as I can. I wish that you receive these messages, and know that I still love you as I always have.

With the greatest sincerity,

—Princess Twilight Sparkle.
> Loyalty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Celestia,

I must apologize. The end of my last letter was rushed, and I did not give a proper explanation why. Alas, I don’t think I adequately can. Times have moved more than you may realize, and the problems facing this new Equestria are stranger than ever.

Equestria has changed in two hundred years. A nation under your rule, but now an interstellar empire under mine. I suppose it is symbolically fitting; you and Luna represented celestial bodies that only had their great relevance from the surface of Epona, but my mark, the stars, are universal—no pun intended.

Yes, your humble little kingdom now stretches beyond Epona. Half a dozen planets fall under our banner now, along with close to a hundred hoofholds on moons, asteroids, and the like. It was the result of a great shift in attitudes and ideals that took place some time after you left us, a great alteration in the way ponies viewed the world.

The story of how  this all started is a strange one, and it begins and ends with Rainbow Dash.

In the wake of your passing, she was far angrier than the rest of us. She was the one who blamed you most for leaving us without warning as you did. Given her Element, it is perhaps not that great a surprise, but it colored her actions ever since. Even though she has repeatedly and vehemently refused a government position, everything she has accomplished has been in the name of Equestria or myself, even when they were things I could never have asked her to do.

But, though it is perhaps not fair to her, I must explain not her personal story, but the story of her actions.

You remember her dream, of course. The Wonderbolts were her passion, and when she’d joined their ranks she stood atop the world. Once Spitfire retired and handed her the reins, her victory was complete. I think she realized then that she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Rainbow is not the sort of mare who can simply settle down and enjoy her victories. She craved more.

So she started the space race.

She already had a good deal of leverage, through her position in the Wonderbolts, her friendship with myself, and her status as bearer of the Element of Loyalty. She accomplished her goal through the most cunning and dangerous stunt she’d ever pulled; revealing her completely fabricated plans to send a pony into space in the presence of a gryphon ambassador. Needless to say, I was absolutely livid, but she simply laughed at my outrage. She knew what would happen next. In fact, I’m all but certain it was exactly what she’d planned.

Inevitably, the gryphons revealed their own plans a month later, and the gauntlet was thrown down. We were pushed inexorably towards the stars, all because Rainbow Dash was bored. At first, I was furious with her, but gradually I began to see the truth. We needed this competition. Just as Rainbow Dash had reached the top of a mountain when she took command of the Wonderbolts, Equestria as a nation had reached a peak. There was no driving force to push us upward. We had a stagnant little utopia, and sooner or later the gryphons were going to pass us up anyhow.

In all honesty, I was silently cheering her on by the time the ensuing crisis erupted. It was always a quiet dream of mine to accomplish space travel, but until Rainbow’s actions I simply couldn’t find a way to spare the funds. With the gryphons dead set on getting there first and the public stirred into a frenzy, I had all the funding I required.

Rainbow, of course, didn’t understand the technical aspects at all, which is where Apple Bloom once again makes her appearance. She needed a new project in the wake of the “thinking machine” scandal, and there wasn’t one more impressive or difficult than this. Still, it took her scarcely two years before Equestria had rockets that could reach past the atmosphere. I must say I am still impressed with that feat. I know I said this in my first letter, but Apple Bloom’s genius cannot be understated. Even now, she is constantly pushing the boundaries of the sciences.

But as much as we needed an inventress, we also needed a pioneer. We needed a pony whose face could be broadcasted across the world, who would be the first to touch the outer edges of the atmosphere, to fly higher than ever before. There were thousands of volunteers, but Rainbow overrode everyone else, as she is wont to do, and elected a familiar face.

I’m sure you remember Scootaloo, Princess. She was a tragic little filly, her parents gone before she ever knew them, her wings shriveled by a congenital disease. I know Luna watched over her for many years, and loved her dearly enough to give her a place in her will. Even before then, Rainbow Dash adopted her in all but name, as a sister if not as a daughter.

Luna once told me that Scootaloo’s dreams danced with the clouds. It was Rainbow Dash who lifted them to the stars. The filly wanted to fly more than anything in the world, and even though her friendship with Apple Bloom meant that she was one of the first ponies to own an airplane, she still clearly wasn’t satisfied. With this bold new step, she finally had her calling.

Of course, the whole affair reeked of cronyism. Images of Dash and Luna's little favorite did battle with images of the crippled filly who was getting a chance to fly higher than anypony. For both my own reasons and for the sake of winning the space race, I backed Scootaloo every step of the way, but the road was a tough one. The launch was delayed twice, and the gryphons managed to send a radio-equipped object into space before we were ready.

Still, their launch of Begleiter I was a wake-up call to many of those who opposed Scootaloo’s placement. We needed to one-up the gryphons, and fast. The date is remembered as a holiday now, but at the time it was the most stressful night of my life. I watched from a cloud-platform as the rocket ascended through the sky, ready at any moment to fly out and catch it should something go wrong. The entire event was televised, and all of Equestria held their breath as Scootaloo shot towards the sky.

Her first words to us upon reaching orbit? “Mission Control… I’m sending pictures. Lots of pictures.”

The craft descended into the ocean soon afterwards, but by then we’d already won. She was one of four ponies in the next capsule, which managed to enter true orbit before engaging in a controlled descent.

Those craft are in the Canterlot Aerospace Museum now, along with many of those images she brought back to us. It wasn’t long before we’d begun lifting clouds into orbit, constructing scaffolding and living spaces held together by magic. Equestria’s greatest scientists came together, and soon the Celestia Pillar was born, rising from the top of Canterlot Mountain all the way into a geostationary orbit.  At its peak, a metal ring still spins, providing false gravity without the aid of magic.

It was the greatest achievement of the century, and we made the mistake of assuming the gryphons would never surpass it. Soon after that, however, they succeeded in the most bizarre of fashions by declaring that their entire empire would be uprooted and moved to an uninhabited world around a distant star. I didn’t believe the news when I heard it, but fifty years later the gryphon capital stood abandoned, its streets untended and its great skyscrapers crumbling. 

As to what happened to them next, and how they became the first of several nations that formed with us what we now call the Federation of Allied Empires, that is a far stranger story. But, I’ll leave it for another letter, as it involves Fluttershy as much as it involves Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow and Scootaloo did not stop at mere orbital tethers. The moon was colonized shortly thereafter, an effort which its present inhabitants welcomed with open arms. By this time, there are frequent shuttle flights to and from the moon, and a “bridge” is in construction; a structure that would be used in conjunction with lunar manipulation magic to physically link the two worlds for a brief time.

Next was the greatest achievement, and the greatest challenge: easy faster-than-light travel.

Teleportation magic has existed for millennia, but the concept of transporting an entire spaceship across interstellar distances was much more than any unicorn—even myself—could handle. I’d all but given up on studying the problem myself, when all of a sudden the solution came from a source I had foolishly underestimated.

You may remember Trixie Lulamoon. She was known to me first as a boisterous troublemaker, then as a serious threat when she reemerged with the Alicorn Amulet in her possession. I lost track of her for a time afterwards, but shortly after Luna’s death I received a correspondence from her in which she asked that I take her on as a student. I would have politely declined under most circumstances, but something about her tone caught my attention, and I agreed to become her mentor in the magical arts. As you can probably guess from the context of this letter, that was no mistake.

It was as I was preparing my morning coffee two years to the month after she began studying under me that Trixie presented to me a perfectly ordinary looking gemstone. When I asked what it was, she told me to direct a small amount of spark magic into it. Not knowing what it was, but noting the strange grin on her face and the bags under her eyes, I did so with some trepidation, and found myself two hundred miles from Canterlot, sitting on top of somepony’s cloud-house.

You see, Trixie had invented what is now known as a “talisman”. The concept of binding spells to objects was by this point nothing new, but with Trixie’s method, massive amounts of formerly untapped magic could be drawn from the magical gemstones native to our world. Gem-reactors were the first invention created with this method. Tele-drives were the second. It was her first masterpiece, but not her last. In time, she has grown to become the most celebrated sorceress of this era, and now holds the title of Archmage. She remains second to myself, but she once told me sarcastically that she would settle for being the greatest and most powerful unicorn in Equestria.

She and I, along with the help of Apple Bloom, Dinky Doo, and many, many others would eventually find better methods of faster-than-light travel. Our current methods rely on artificial wormholes, as they require little power to sustain and can be kept open indefinitely. Tele-drives, however, remain the best tool for exploration vessels, as well as those ships seeking to establish a wormhole, as creation of such a path requires a spell crew at each end.

These inventions opened the road to the stars, and all the infinite troubles that came with them. We knew we would encounter the gryphons again, but we weren’t wholly prepared for everything else out there.

There is so much beyond Equestria, Princess. I wish you could see it all. I hope you can see it all.

But I’m rambling again. I need to do Rainbow Dash justice.

She couldn’t sit still. She was on the first ship to travel to another star (I joined her on the second), and she was the third pony to set hoof on an extrasolar planet, behind Scootaloo and a mare named Comet Dust. She named the first Equestrian colony world “Prism”, which I reluctantly agreed to.

Then, we found ourselves suddenly and brutally at war, and everything changed.

The enemy were an alien race we had never encountered before, and one we have not seen since. They arrived at the edge of our solar system and started blowing apart sensor outposts at the far rim. They moved in, slowly eradicating any traces of our presence that they discovered. We had little time to react, less time to prepare. Rainbow Dash found herself at the tip of the spear as the hastily christened Equestrian Royal Space Fleet headed off the alien armada. We won by the skin of our teeth, but Rainbow came back changed. She never discussed the battle with me, only responding to my queries with the simple statement that “War is Tartarus”, said in a tone that haunts me to this day.

She’d never known true battle before, I think. We’d fought against many foes, but more often than not the fights were small, or took the form of non-lethal combat. Weapons were almost never in the field. Even in the Wonderbolts, she flew for show. There had never been a war to fight.

From the recordings that survive, I know the First Battle of Epona was nothing like anything she’d seen. It was a blizzard of lasers, magic, and kinetic projectiles, as alien drone-fighters ripped at our shields, and we wiped out entire swathes of their fleet in single shots. I know that Rainbow’s ship was hit, that her command bridge was all but blown off. I don’t know the details, but a great many ponies did not survive that battle.

We never discovered why the aliens had attacked us. We never found where they’d come from, nor did we ever recover any true information from the destroyed ships. In the end, the One Night War remained exactly as strange as it sounds.

But it opened our eyes. We were not alone in the universe, and we had precedent for hostile first-contact scenarios. The laughable Equestrian Royal Space Fleet evolved into the Royal Navy of Epona, which is now the greatest military force in known space. Even those few civilizations we’ve made contact with have nothing that can compare to our battleships.

It was not my idea, but the greatest of these, constructed above Equestria at the Hoofington Orbital Yards, is named in your honor. I know that you would not have appreciated your signature adorning the side of a vessel of war, and I made my moves to block it, but in the end even I could not go against such a popular measure. You are loved, Princess. So much so that the people would allow the flagship of the fleet to carry no other name.

Thankfully, we have seen little need to use the guns of the fleet. In most cases they serve merely as escorts or, in the worst cases that have so far occurred, intimidation. The Celestia itself remains in orbit over Epona most of the time, a symbol, more than anything else, of the heights to which our humble little kingdom ascended.

You see, after the gryphons made their exodus from Epona, we had no opponents. The zebras gladly joined with us, as did the many other species which share our world. We formed a great coalition, combining our varied strengths and reaching heights we’d never even imagined. Even still, the Alliance of Eponan Peoples was nothing compared to the Federation of Allied Empires… but I will leave that for Fluttershy’s story.

Rainbow Dash never stopped moving. I do not believe she even can, at this point. Now she owns her own ship, the Bifrost, and sails it across the stars with a crew of her choosing. She goes, to quote the mare herself, “wherever she’s needed,” carrying the Equestrian banner with her on a continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where… well, you know the rest (I’m not apologizing for making you read that series; it was great, and you know it). 

Though she no longer brags the way she once did, stories of her exploits have become legends of their own. She is a beacon of peace and prosperity, bringing young struggling species access to our wormhole network and placing them on equal ground with us, expanding the Federation through trade and technology. Yet even then, she finds her fair share of trouble. I’ve heard tales of her stopping wars with just her little, unarmed ship, of her discovering ancient mechanisms that rivaled Discord in power and defeating them to end their threat to those she loves. She’s managed to be an adventurer in this new age, a living homage to the Daring Do books that inspired her in her younger years.

I’ve asked her to keep in touch, and she’s never forgotten to send a letter, but we have grown somewhat distant in recent years. I will need to make a note to fix that someday, perhaps accompany her on one of her adventures. It will be a welcome change, to be sure, to travel about unfettered by political chains, going towards the closest unmarked star in the sky and damning the consequences.

I suppose this is why you made sure I didn’t spend my young life buried in stacks of notes and tomes. To live life the way she does is an exhilarating thing, and sometimes I wish I could throw off my crown and live in the wilds for a time, even if that wish is but a mad dream.

But that’s just what so much of this is; a mad dream. The idea that you’ll receive these letters, the idea that I’m doing more than wasting precious time, it truly is my own conceit, isn’t it? In the end, I may never know if you can hear me.

But that’s all right. If Rainbow has taught me anything over these many years, it’s that sometimes we need a little madness in our lives.

I hope that you have a little share of crazy wherever you are, Celestia. I know how bored you'd be otherwise.

-Princess Twilight Sparkle

> Bonus: Humility
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I fear that you must remember me. If we’d only met once, I would assume you’d forgotten my name and face, but after our second meeting I cannot hold onto that hope. You know who I am, and you remember me as the crazed, power-hungry mare who tried to enslave all of Ponyville, who tossed you out into the Everfree and sealed your friends away beneath a magical shield.

That isn’t how I wanted to be remembered.

I’m not a bad pony, or at least that’s what I want to believe. I’m not ‘just misunderstood’, either. That would be easy enough to say, but it’s not exactly true. I’m just desperate, pathetically, deplorably desperate, and that’s what everypony rightfully remembers. The attention grabbing, the empty threats, the reckless boasts… mistakes, made on the wrong path to greatness.

You should understand where I started, for I believe you may find it familiar. I was a young filly living in Manehattan who displayed a great deal of magical talent in her youth. However, I never had the fortune to meet Celestia, nor the opportunity to apply to her school. Instead, for reasons I won't elaborate upon, I was forced to leave my home when I was very young. All I had to my name were a pair of saddle bags, a few dusty old spellbooks, a two-bit cape my mother had bought me at a fair, and a tiny sliver of hope that I'd be able to find a place in the world. I left Manehattan without a bit to my name, living on whatever morsels I could scavenge or steal. This is why I hold myself so highly, Twilight Sparkle. Because while you studied under Celestia herself, I was marching for miles under the sun. While you slept beneath her wing, I was learning to pick pockets and shift cards.

It took five years just to get my own trailer and my own show. I built my way up there by working almost any job there was. I had enough pride to avoid the truly malodorous lines of work that a mare can find herself in, and eventually, though later than I'd like to admit, I managed to give up petty crime altogether. Once I got the trailer and a few special effects, I got to work.

My first show was probably the greatest I ever put on. The effects were pathetic, the tricks were ill-performed and mediocre, but for some reason that sleepy small-town crowd didn’t care. They loved every minute of my awkward, stumbling performance.

It took me a long, long time to figure out why. I guess, in hindsight, it’s because that was the only show I enjoyed putting on. It was the only show where I really smiled. It was the only show that was sincere.

After that first test of the water, it became about the fame. I improved my craft a thousandfold. I began to practice real magic, as well as tricks. I expanded my repertoire to the display you saw in Ponyville. I even developed that ridiculous accent, along with the title.

It’s funny. I should have noticed back then that “The Magician” was much more popular than “The Great and Powerful.” Perhaps if I had come to understand things then, I would have taken a different road.

I became fairly well-known, and not always in a good way. At my shows, I’d call up “powerful” unicorns from the crowd and make a mockery of their gifts. I’d always known I had a lot of raw talent, but I’d never realized how much until I started proving myself constantly like that. I received a few letters from powerful ponies because of it, ponies who needed powerful magic, ponies who just wanted to show me off to their wealthy friends.

I turned them all down, of course. I wasn’t going to be a souvenir, no matter how great the pay. I was the Great and Powerful Trixie. I had to keep moving up until Celestia herself bowed before me.

At least, that was what I believed.

Then came Ponyville, where you turned my act against me. It was my own fault, as I now see, but it was the first time I’d experienced failure in a great span of time. Everything collapsed after that. Word spread to the neighboring towns. My boasts were laughed off, my acts jeered back onto the open road.

If this had just happened without a catalyst, I would be long dead by now. As it was, my focus shifted to you. You became my obsession for almost a year. I scraped by, working whatever job I could find—sometimes even those I swore I’d never touch—and I trained. I trained harder than I ever had before, striving each day to lift a little more, to make myself invisible for a few more seconds. I burned out five times, but each time I just rested for a day and kept going.

And then, as you’ve probably guessed, I found the Amulet.

But do you know how it came to that? How does a mare become so broken inside that she seeks out something as infamous and dangerous as the Alicorn Amulet?

Simple. She has her fortune told.

I’d become so desperate at this point that it sickens me to even remember. My training was wearing me to the bone, and I could tell I wasn’t improving as much as I had in the past. I thought I’d hit my limit, though I later learned that I was just so exhausted that my magic refused to work at its full potential.

I panicked, and called upon one of the only favors I had saved up. There was a stallion working with a traveling carnival which I’d journeyed with before I truly started my career. He was a fellow magician, and we’d become friends before I’d gone off to seek my own path. I found him, making a happy little living in that same carnival, and I asked him if there was a good fortune teller in the troupe.

It might sound ridiculous, I suppose, but have you ever had your fortune told by a professional, Twilight Sparkle? It is not a matter of gazing into a crystal ball and reading invisible currents. The stallion I met was a strange, wiry old zebra. He took me into his tent, and started lightning dozens of incense burners. Then he sat down, motioned for me to sit opposite him, crossed his legs, and meditated for two hours.

At any other point in my life, I would simply have left him there. But that day was my darkest hour, and I thought if I could just have something, some kind of guidance, then I might be able to make it through another night.

So, I did the same. I meditated, though I honestly couldn’t concentrate at all. My thoughts kept drifting back to Ponyville. I thought about you, the most powerful unicorn I’d ever met. I didn’t yet know about your connection to Celestia, or that you were destined to be her heir. If I had, perhaps I would have followed the fortune teller’s advice.

When he stirred, he told me that my future was an open plain. He explained that I was not constrained, that I could make my way anywhere at all, that my destiny was of my own choosing. He told me that this was a rare thing, that most ponies had but two or three great paths they could take.

Then, he told me what I should do if I wanted to fulfill my dream to become the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. He said I should study under you.

It took the last of my composure to pay him before I left. I felt cheated. Surely, the first part of his fortune was something he told everypony. Surely, the latter was because he’d heard of you, knew of your skill. In my mind, fraud was the only explanation.

I couldn’t bear to consider the idea that he was right, that I’d only surpass you by becoming your student.

But I failed to catch a small bit of meaning hidden in the words he used. “Most powerful unicorn.”

A bit ironic, isn’t it? I never could have guessed Celestia would… well, I suppose that’s a separate issue. Congratulations, by the way. I suppose it’s easier to say that now, knowing that you were destined to fly higher (heh) than I ever could.

The Amulet was a mistake. It was rumored that a certain dealer had it in his possession, and after the fortune telling I was so lost that I dived right in. I found it, and… well, you saw what happened next. Thank you for stopping me. When I remember the end that cursed bauble compelled me towards, it makes me sick to my stomach. I hope you disposed of that vile thing safely. It’s worse than you saw, Twilight. It wants more than just power. At the end of its path, there lie only ashes and charred bones.

That’s all in the past, at least for me. I’ve improved even since then, dropped the accent, gone back to my old stage name. Trixie the Magician smiles as she weaves her spellwork, and the crowds that aren’t warded off by her reputation seem most pleased with the result.

I have a request, one so selfish and callous that I can hardly bear to put it into words.

Please, Twilight Sparkle. Could you teach me?

I understand that, as a Princess, you’re more busy than you’ve ever been, but I’ve been studying magic my whole life, and you’re still head and shoulders above me. You’re simply superior, and I’ve accepted that, but I want to do my best to keep climbing. There are still unicorns who outclass me, even though they are few and far between. Perhaps, if you’d take me as your humble student, I’d be able to match the point you were at when we first met. Perhaps I’d someday reach the point you were at when you bested me that second time.

I don’t expect you to accept me, but please, please consider my request. Let me follow this path, even if it’s too late to reach the heights the fortune teller foretold.

With my sincerest congratulations and apologies,

—Trixie Lulamoon.

> Bonus: Valor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Excerpt from Memoirs from the Spear’s Tip by Zone Lock.

I know that I said earlier I didn’t care much for the Fleet's brass, and I know I said I wouldn’t go into much detail about any of that. Well, there’s a single exception to both counts, and her name is Rainbow Dash.

Yeah, the Element Bearer. Big damn hero. Immortal. Looks like she popped right out of a foal’s cartoon. Same mare.

See, there’s a part of her long and illustrious career she doesn’t brag about. Everypony’s heard of the Wonderbolts—they made a damn movie out of that story—and everypony knows about all the stuff the Element Bearers have ended up doing, all the one-shot KO’s that they’re famous for, blah blah blah. She played it all up so much that it’s hard to tell fact from fiction anymore, and I’m guessing that’s exactly how she likes it. Under most circumstances, she’s everything I don’t like. Flashy, arrogant, reckless… the kind of pony who turns a perfectly planned OP into a grade-A Charlie Fox just by being on the field.

But I’m not here to talk about what she’s like most of the time—or I guess was like, but I’ll get back to that in a moment. I’m here to talk about what she was like one very specific day.

You all know the one. First contact. Zero hour. The First—and Celestia being merciful, Last—Battle of Epona. Bet you didn’t know she was there. Like I said, it’s one of the things she doesn’t talk about. If I had to guess, I'd say she'd beat me senseless for telling this story.

Well, screw that. I think this story deserves to be told. I think it’s one of the few stories about her that really paints her like she is. She can beat the crap out of me later.

I was a gunnery officer on the bridge of the Solaire. She was the captain. There was a lot of grumbling about it through the lower ranks, like there always is when the Elements get involved. Even when they’re doing the right things, they’re so damned perfect, you can’t help but feel jealous. It's like being on the crew with a freaking superhero. I’m still not sure exactly how she landed that post, but in this one case I just don’t care. She earned that damned chair well enough.

Everypony knows about the Battle of Epona—which I’m just gonna call “The Frag,” like we did at the time. They don't always know just how screwed we were. Everything on those ships was kludged together from stuff that had been mothballed back when the Gryphon Empire was still planetside. Honestly? It’s a miracle the stuff even worked, much less won us the day.

But it goes beyond just the tech stuff. See there weren't any veterans in that battle, not a single one. All rooks, as far as the field was concerned. Guard, Long Patrol, REF, didn't matter. I was a Seargeant in the 22nd Spellcaster Battalion, and I had no idea what I was doing ninety percent of the time. You'll find guys like that damned General Stormfeather who claim that it was all some grand plan, but you know what? Stormfeather was crapping himself along with the rest of us. I knew guys that served on his ship, and that son of a flank was not “bravely leading the charge” like he claims in his autobiography (and if the honorably retired general finds himself offended by any such allegations, he can kiss my damn cutie mark).

The point is, we were all confused, fumbling, and utterly terrified through the whole thing, including Rainbow Dash. Especially Rainbow Dash. I remember it in the way she freaking stood, how damn tense she looked. I also know a bit about why, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

So the Fraggers (I refuse to call them “Unknown Alien Aggressors;” it doesn’t even form a good acronym) flew straight at us. Swarm tactics, just like the textbooks say not to use. First wave hit us hard, but we lived. I don't think even one of our ships went down. Second wave wasn’t so generous.

Everypony knows how the battle played out, but there’s one point that’s crucial to my story today. I can still picture it on the back of my eyelids. Right as the second wave smashes into us, this big wave of green light hits the bridge. There was this one colt, named Babble Brook, manning the helm. He used to deal Appleoosa Hold’em every Friday night. Didn’t talk much, but always dealt fair and brought cider to share. He was one of those guys who never seemed to stop smiling, even when things were rough. He’d just say a quiet little prayer and look out towards the sky—sun, moon, even the stars seemed to be enough to give him peace.

The beam blasted through the bridge armor and hit him square on. Nothing left of the poor bastard but a hole in the deck. We probably would have reacted stupidly with a bunch of crying and screaming, except the beam also blew a giant hole in the bridge. The air rapidly began the process of leaving the room, and we didn’t have much choice but to follow.

There were six of us still alive, including me and Rainbow Dash. All of us were outside the ship without suits. If you only know spaceflight from movies, you’d probably assume we’d die instantly, but that’s not quite how it works. Lots of nasty things happen to the body in zero-pressure, but exploding and freezing aren’t two of them. Long story short: You’re out of the ship, you’ve got one minute before you start really dying.

But see, there’s something most ponies don’t know about pegasi, and it’s that they can fly without air. Being a cornhead myself (and proud) I never gave the idea of pegasus magic much thought, but it turns out that when you’ve got wings and the kind of ridiculous magical power that comes with being Rainbow Dash, you can move with a pretty damn good pace, even if you don't have air to push against. I was made aware of this fact when she slammed into me, shoving me back into the bridge and through the still-closing bulkhead. She got four of us through like that, making sure we were holding onto something sturdy and grabbing as much air as she could each time. (Don’t ask me why the air pressure didn’t do anything to her lungs. Either her organs are indestructible, or she just tanked the pain.)

When it got to the last guy, though, she came back to a closed bulkhead. The four of us crowded around the little window. The guy in her hooves was passed out. Could have been dead. No way to tell. I made eye contact with her for a split second, and the way her eyes looked still makes me shake every time I think about it. Absolute terror, compressed to a critical point. Knowing what I know about her now, knowing what she probably thought was going to happen to her, I can’t blame her. She took off after that, and I lost her. The next time I saw her, she was refusing a medal at the reward ceremonies, right before giving that speech everypony remembers about how she wasn't gonna be serving in the navy anymore.

I don’t know what happened exactly, but from the reports of a few other ponies the best I can figure is that she supermared her way through some part of the ship's hull and got that colt to the medbay by carrying him on her back. Just to be completely damn clear: Poor Brook aside, she didn’t let a single one of us die. In fact, I’m pretty sure the rest of the ponies from that bridge crew are still kicking today.

But remember how I said I knew why she was scared? Well, let me explain something about the Rainbow Dash. See, there was an incident way, way back that I heard of through a friend of a friend. Apparently, back when those six fillies were still finding out about the Elements’ abilities, Rainbow Dash ended up caught in a wild hurricane and tossed into the ocean. Total fluke, and, again, something she doesn’t talk about, but there’s more to it than just a dunk in the big lake.  She stayed under for two days, and when she washed up she apparently looked so much like a corpse that they almost sent her to the coroner before she started talking.

What this friend told me was that apparently Element Bearers still need to breathe, and they need it just as bad as the rest of us. Oh sure, asphyxiation doesn’t kill them, and it doesn’t cause brain damage or any of that other nasty stuff, but in some ways I’d say it’s worse. Dying’s one thing, but the Element Bearers just aren’t going to get  that luxury. They suffer, and it just never stops.

Try not breathing for ten damn minutes sometime. Now imagine that burning in your lungs, getting worse and worse for forty-eight hours.

I don’t think she’d forgotten that. I mean, really, who the hell could? When she was looking out at space like, I bet she was imagining what it would be like to be stuck in vacuum, gasping for air that didn’t exist. If we’d lost that battle? She could have been stuck out there for years. Or, you know, assuming she didn’t get too exhausted (which the Element Bearers can still have happen, the last time I checked) she could have tried to do re-entry… bare-skinned. I’ll let your imagination do that one for you, since we also know that they can still feel pain.

And to top it all off, she willingly spent her precious time grabbing me and tossing my dumb flank to safety, then did it again. Four times. And when her luck finally ran out and the doors were closed, she made sure the guy in her arms made it straight to the medical bay. She did all of this while a battle was raging just outside—a battle, mind you, which was threatening everything she'd ever known. She spent her time saving five ponies who didn't count for squat, just because they were part of her crew.

If that doesn't count as Loyalty, then I'm a five-tongued rattlesnake.

And you know what? She never even gave me the chance to thank her. We’ve never had a single conversation.

So let me just say this: Rainbow Dash, on the off-chance you end up reading this…

Thank you. I know that the battle changed you, that you’ve stopped with the speeches and the bragging, and that you’re out there somewhere among the stars doing things that matter. I respect that. Hell, I respect you more than ninety percent of the admirals running the navy nowadays, and I’d gladly get back on a ship to serve under you. You’re one of the bravest damn mares I’ve ever met, and you deserve that damned Element. I hope your travels are as grand as the stories you told, Rainbow Dash.

…

Well, now that that’s over with, let me tell you about the time I stopped every train in Equestria…
> Kindness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Celestia,

In my previous letters, I have covered only history. I don’t suppose you’d find that particularly fascinating wherever you now reside, but it has eased my mind to talk of the past in this way. Maybe some day I’ll get around to writing history books myself, after I’ve handed over my Element and begin to grow old. 

But I’ve started something, and I’ve always felt that a project, so long as it is not hopeless, should be seen through to its conclusion. It is only fair that I treat this silly venture with the same respect. You may or may not be reading this, but you remain my most beloved teacher. There is nothing I would not do for you, and a few short letters are certainly worth the sacrifice if they give you even the smallest comfort or joy.

In a previous correspondence, I said that if I were to compare Rarity to you, I must compare Fluttershy to Luna. That might seem somewhat incongruous, if one looks only at the Fluttershy and Luna whom were known before your death and my ascension, but there were similarities even then. Both mares were insecure in their positions, afraid of the reactions of others, and yet, when the need arose, ready to commit their entire beings to a worthy cause. Following your passing, the two of them ended up growing very close, and I must credit this fact with some of the changes that overtook Fluttershy.

But first, I should tell you of your sister.

In the wake of your passing, she shut herself out from the rest of the world. During that time, she later told me, she spent much of her waking life dreamwalking. I believe she was trying to find comfort in the purpose to which she had appointed herself, as custodian of the sleeping minds of her subjects. She continued to tend to the raising of the moon, whilst I took to the raising of the sun in your stead. It was strange, in a way, but I began to see her as more approachable than even yourself, not as a parent or mentor, but as a powerful and honored friend. That is not to say that I never considered you my friend, especially in the final years we spent together, but Luna and I were never separated by the inevitable gulf between teacher and student, between a precocious little filly and the ruler of the realm. By the time we got to know one another, we were all but equals.

Eventually, she did come out of her self-imposed isolation, and she did so with gusto. I first became aware of this change on Nightmare Night, some one hundred and eighty years ago, when the sky suddenly lit up with the most glorious meteor shower that has ever crossed Eponan sky. Standing on the palace balcony, I can still remember the shock with which I stared up at the heavens, now ablaze with glorious fire, and I still remember what she said to me as she came up from behind, tears falling like shooting stars across her nightly face.

“From now on, this night will be a celebration of the glory of the sky.”

It was at that moment that she pulled the sun up over the horizon, bringing it up to soar across the heavens for a brief moment, a great wave of meteors following its grand passage. Through her magic, she banished the sun’s blinding influence, and the stars shared its place in the heavens. Then, it was gone, and the stars seemed all the more glorious. It was an event witnessed all across the Epona, by every creature on the planet with eyes to see. It was beyond mere words.

It was the first time I truly, truly comprehended the raw power of magic. It might seem bizarre to hear me of all ponies say that, but it is true. What she did that night went beyond teleportation, beyond transformation, beyond even manipulation of the celestial bodies. What she did that night was more than any illusion or trick. She united the sky as one—in harmony, not in chaos. It was, as I’ve come to believe, the starting signal for the golden age that would soon rush upon us.

I later learned that she’d planned her display meticulously, that she’d been dreamwalking all across the world, placing prophetic words in the minds of millions upon billions of creatures, telling them to look up at the sky and behold its wonder. Her notes on the subject could have filled many books, and some dated back to before the Nightmare Curse. She wanted us all to see it, even if only once: her greatest masterpiece—and to behold it not in fear, but in wonder. It was never recorded on film, as far as I am aware, but in a way that makes it all the more spectacular. It lasted only as long as a summer night does, and yet it was the most beautiful work of art I have ever seen.

I hope you could see it, Celestia. I hope that my descriptions serve only to rekindle your own memory of the event, seen through eyes truly immortal. I hope that, at least, the cosmos was kind enough to allow you to see your sisters most brilliant moment.

I digress again. I’m sorry.

Luna grew bold after that. She cowed the nobility in Canterlot, backing Applejack’s courts and paving the way for Rarity to work her reform farther down the line. She stood behind Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo as they reached for the stars. She stood behind me when my trials were the worst, teaching me every political trick and tactic she knew—and she did know many, for if there is one thing Luna excelled at when she wished to, it was subtlety.

She was ultimately the reason I took Trixie under my wing (for if I am to be you, then it is not unfair to call Trixie my Luna), and, indirectly, she was the reason I established the Academy of Arcane Science, the reason I began the Hearthstar Initiative. Following that Nightmare Night—or as it has come to be known, the Night of Luna—the world truly began to change. Rainbow Dash’s adventures into spaceflight were mere weeks afterwards, and, ironically, it is in no small part because of that display of equnity’s power that the Gryphons chose to leave Epona.

She was amazing, almost… no, every bit as amazing as you. More amazing than I could ever hope to be. When she died, the whole planet mourned as they had when you left us, but though the attendees were fewer and the ceremonies far quieter, for many of those ponies who had lived their lives under your rule, it was a far more sobering time. With her funeral, we saw the final passing of the legendary alicorn sisters, the two ponies who time and time again transcended their status as beings of flesh and blood and became legends. Cadance and I were alicorns, yes, but we were your shadows, nothing more. An era had passed, and I think all of us knew that whatever was to come would be irreconcilable with the beloved past. It is with great relief I find that I can accept what has finally come, for back then I could hardly stand to face the future.

But, once again, Luna’s is a different story from the one I wished to tell. I seem to have habit of prefacing my friends’ tales with those of the ones who influenced them, don’t I? In a way, I suppose I am trying to chronicle the time that has transpired since your passing, and in that endeavor focusing solely on five ponies would never do these two centuries justice.

I said that Fluttershy became like Luna, and thus I must also say that she is by far the most changed over these two centuries. The Elements have many side-effects—immortality being the most obvious—but I do not believe they are to blame for her transformation. It was something inevitable, something that was started long before I first met her, a certain dissonance between who she was and who she wanted to be.

The first clue I received to this change was something I did not witness personally, and something that, to this day, I scarcely believe to be true, despite all the documentation and evidence.

It was just months after your passing, scarce weeks before Rarity would suddenly vanish with Zecora. Fluttershy was in Manehattan, though I do not know why. I heard the news in my chamber, when a guard burst in to inform me that there had been an attack on the city.

At this time, there was a small group of ponies opposed to my rule. They were, shall I say, holdovers. Ponies who rejected the new and revered the past beyond all reason. They could not let go of what once was, and they turned their frustration with the changing world into violence.

There were six of them in total. I still remember all their names. Though there is little point in giving them here, I will say that they were ponies of some stature, hardly the type which you might expect to commit such an act. They walked into the Clydesdale building one cold winter day and took it hostage, using several admittedly ingenious magical charms that were designed to eat away at the building’s support structures. They barricaded themselves in the lobby, trapping close to three hundred ponies on the floors above them. They demanded my abdication, along with other things that were simply impossible. I remember those words, written in the crooked writing of a professor of arcane studies. I cannot bring myself to recite their demands here, for they were things I too wished for, but things which could never be again.

This was the situation when Fluttershy arrived. She did not speak to the police ponies surrounding the building. Instead, she flew right over their barricade, completely ignoring the warnings from all sides. She landed at the front doors and strode through before walking right up to the first terrorist and telling him calmly that she was exchanging her life for those of the ponies trapped in the floors above. 

I do not know how she got him to agree, but it was only minutes later that the first of the hostages began running out of the building. She stood there with a repeating crossbow pressed to her temple as the terrorists allowed those ponies to flee, and then, the moment the last colt was out the door, she calmly turned to leave as well.

This was when we learned the extent of the Elements’ hold over our lives. Fluttershy had walked five steps when the sentry opened fire. As I understand, the terrorist in question was a former guardspony, an expert with the repeating crossbow she wielded. Five bolts were loosed, and five found the nape of Fluttershy’s. neck. 

She never stopped walking. After those five bolts, no more shots were fired. The terrorists surrendered five minutes later, with not a single hostage in their grasp.

When I heard the story, I was speechless. Dozens of ponies witnessed it all, and there was in fact a news camera’s film, showing Fluttershy leaving the building. Though the footage was blurry—the camera itself a primitive model—I can recall with terrible clarity watching her stagger as she was hit, and the thin trail of scarlet that marked where she walked after. I saw to it that the footage was destroyed, but the images haunt my nightmares still. The look in her eyes cannot be described in words.

It is a darker story than I have typically related, but that is why I must tell it. The other bearers all had their whimsy, but Fluttershy’s tale was one of constant struggle and determination. For that alone, I must call her changed. Though in the past she always fled from conflict, in these two centuries trouble has always found her, and she has always faced it.

She grew steadily in influence as time passed, always mediating conflict wherever she could. She became synonymous with peace, and it was she who convinced the majority of the Eponan races to ally themselves with Equestria. In the wake of the One Night War, she was the voice of reason, calming us and demanding that we judge things carefully and reasonably. By the time of the founding of the Federation, she was a figure nearly as powerful as myself.

It was she who drafted the charter by which the Federation’s members now abide, and it was she in great part who convinced the other signatories to come together with us. She visited them all personally, first the new home of the Gryphons, then the great caves of the Grom, the drifting cities of the Haarkin, the brilliant fleet that is home to the Kahri, the ring-world of the Nivenn, and the dozen and a half worlds claimed by the Empire of the Hand. I have spoken little of these beings, for frankly I encounter them little in my day-to-day dealings, but you must understand that what she did was more than a diplomatic visit. These were alien creatures with alien cultures, and aside from the Gryphons they hardly knew what we were. Some feared her, some thought she was mad, and some laughed in her face when the first saw her, and yet, in the end, she convinced all of them to join with us, forming the first foundations of the Federation that now unites more than a hundred races in relative harmony.

This was her doing, and it is her signature that rests at the very bottom of that charter, written out in careful strokes of black ink alongside those of empresses and kings, and preserved with the most powerful magic available to me. Hers is the final name on that document, as if her penstroke was the one that gave it life.

If she did not look as she did all those years ago, she would be all but unrecognizable as the mare who was so frightened of me that she couldn’t even tell me her name when we first met. She is powerful, not in the way that you or I execute our power, but in the way that Luna so often did. Her voice, soft as it remains, can move mountains, and her eyes can compel any warlord to bow before her. I believe fully that if she ever wished to see my rule fall, she could do it with a single word. I do not believe she would, but I believe with all the certainty I have that it is within her power, and that were I to somehow become a tyrant, she would do so. That is the extent of the change, and I believe, in the end, it is a good change. As much as I have cast her in a serious light, she is far happier now than she ever was before. The look on her face when she speaks to someone new for the first time is incredible, a pure, lovely, quiet joy. She’s become her antithesis, perhaps, but in transcending so many of the flaws that once made me roll my eyes at her she has become the pony she wanted to be.

But there is darkness here. I must confess that I am not certain that this change was willing at the onset. Discord had his claws in the pie the entire way. I suspect that even if he did not use his magic to shape Fluttershy in any way (for such he has taken great pains to claim to me) he certainly had a claw in helping her overcome her fears once and for all.

Ah, Discord. Now there is a subject which deserves its own letter. Even with Fluttershy as his ward, he continues to wreak all kinds of chaos, in Equestria and beyond. Thankfully, however, he fervently claims to detest war and bloodshed, and thus his madness remains restricted to the “harmless” and “fun” varieties (and I do mean those words with all the sarcasm I can imbue).

He and Fluttershy are very close, closer than she and I ever were, and I suspect that they work together more often than not, with Fluttershy presenting her face and her words, while Discord backs her up with his formidable powers. Discord does, I think, love her. Not in a romantic sense (I have reason to suspect that he is incapable of romantic attraction as ponies understand it) but he does love her. As family, as a deep friend, maybe even as something of a rival. As he is a being of chaos, she is a beacon of harmony. As he is capricious and sometimes unintentionally (or so he claims) cruel, she is thoughtful and kind. She is the yin to his yang, so to speak, and he rarely leaves her side these days. When he does, he is never far away. 

I suspect that had Fluttershy seen the end of the road, she would have turned away from this path somehow, but regardless I believe wholeheartedly that this change has been for the better in the end. As I said before, she is happy now, confident with her new self.

She remains one of my closest friends, of course, but out of all of them she is the one who remains closest in contact with me. We share monthly dinners at her house in ponyville, along with Discord and whomever else among my friends can make it back—generally Rarity and Applejack, with Rainbow and Pinkie being so tragically busy that they only appear once or twice a year these days. If I’ve made it seem like she’s become in any way harsh or cold, let me stress that her home is the proof to the contrary. It remains much as it was, though she’s made several additions to accommodate the immense population of animals that now resides there, far more than there ever were before. I’d initially feared that immortality would take the hardest toll on her, given the fleeting lives of her closest companions, but she seems to have handled such things incredibly well. I never really realized it before, but she has an intuitive understanding of the circle of life, such that death does not frighten her or even overly sadden her. 

In this way, she is much like Luna, for as the latter explained to me once long ago “We were all born from the blood of the stars, and to them again we will someday go.” Fluttershy would perhaps phrase it differently (I suspect she’d use a metaphor involving rabbits and grass, consumption, decomposition, et cetera) but I believe her philosophy is essentially the same. If I had to guess, I suspect she will be the first to relinquish her element, if we do not give them up all at once as you did.

There is more to her story, as there to all these stories, for life is very long these days. But, for better or worse, it is my habit to write these letters in a single sitting, and I must depart soon on an urgent matter. Perhaps I will be able to revisit Fluttershy's tale someday, but this is all I can give you tonight. Thank you, for reading this far into my strange ramblings, my dearest teacher. I hope you receive this, as I hope you receive all of these.

—Princess Twilight Sparkle

> Laughter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I must apologize for the abrupt end to my last letter. I was interrupted in its creation by a matter of urgent importance, and I sent it off more quickly than I should. Perhaps that is a better indication of the state of affairs than anything I could say—things have progressed so far that even I have difficulty remaining in control. These are strange and exciting times; even as I write of what has already become ancient history, the future's history is being created.

But matters of the present can wait, for now. I've established a pattern, it seems, and to deviate too harshly from it would be to lose my train of thought. For the most part my stories have been in roughly chronological order, and though their events mingled across the timeline, the "climax" of each has been later than that of the previous. Thus, it is only fair that in detailing the lives of my five closest friends, I must bring up Pinkie Pie last. It is her influence, after all, which is the source of the turmoil that currently rocks my world.

You see, as I’ve alluded to before, the actions of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy vastly opened the world. For the first time, we became aware of the true size of the universe—and simultaneously of our strangeness within it.

My, how shocked we were to rediscover the laws of gravity! We’d known that the planets were supposed to orbit the stars—and indeed, it was an unhidden secret that your magic turned the planet, not the sun—but we were unprepared for the true reality of it. In having control over the day and night, we are unique. No other planet turns as ours does—or rather, as ours does not. Epona was born tidally locked. Stillborn, in essence, until a great impact spun it around and established the magical conduits through which we learned to control it. But that is all ancient prehistory, and a story you lived to know.

The first event I must reference happened just over a hundred years ago, scarcely two months after the chartering of the Federation and only weeks after I used the Elements of Harmony to give the planet and moon a stable cycle—for doing so was far more safe and efficient than interchanging the sun and moon each day, even if the latter is tradition. (I hope you are not offended by my doing so, but the fact simply is that this saves a great deal of time and energy.)

The story I tell here begins with a visit by an ambassador from the Empire of the Hand. 

We hadn't had many visitors to Epona. Since the One Night War, many were distrustful of those from beyond our sun's reach, and indeed I was not so different. When the Hand ambassador contacted me with a request for an audience, I forced myself to be cautiously optimistic. The Hands were the most powerful of our new friends, and they were also the most like us in many ways. They breathe roughly the same kind of air, eat similar kinds of foods, and in many nontrivial ways are biologically and socially similar to us, though they do ascribe a much greater significance to religion than most denizens of Epona.

I’d learned the language spoken by his people before he arrived, which was obviously a huge boon to our interactions. He was an amiable fellow, and despite the fact that he had to crane his neck to meet my eyes we shared a pleasant, even jovial conversation upon our meeting. Even our ideas of humor match. Truly, it is a remarkable thing.

But, unfortunately, this visit was soon to be cut short. Part of this ambassador's mission was to conduct a cultural and technological exchange. In doing so, he showed me a device he carried in his pocket.

At first I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but he explained to me that it was a computing device. I was incredulous; it was the size of my hoof, and he claimed that it could store within it anything, from books to images to songs to films. I asked for a demonstration, and he showed me footage of a symphony, recorded in his home city.

It was at this point that I assumed the device was powered by magic, and asked him several questions about how it was enchanted to perform so many functions at once. His was quite disturbed by the nature of my questioning, and he seemed somewhat surprised that I would even consider it. Magic, he claimed to me, did not exist.

Obviously, I found this hilarious at the time. I assumed—in this case rightly—that my grasp of his language was faulty. I did not realize, however, that he had absolutely no idea what magic was. 

I casually picked up the object with my telekinesis, sarcastically stating that he was of course right and that magic did not exist at all. The look on his face immediately crushed my humor, however. He stepped away from me, terrified, and demanded to know how I was holding his device. It took an hour of conversation to convince him that he was not dreaming, and longer still to convince him that I wasn’t going to use my magic to harm him. 

He did not stay the night, as I offered, but immediately returned to his ship, visibly shaken. Before leaving, however, he gave me a piece of advice: “Do not be so quick to demonstrate your power before others.”

I later came to understand that he never even told his superiors about my abilities, and with good reason. According to what I later learned of the Hand's dominant culture, “magic” (or the word closest to it in his tongue) is synonymous with evil, with calling upon dark spirits and higher powers which care not for mortal life. It is considered by most to be a superstition, but one that their religious rulership do not take lightly.

Had I visited them instead, I might very easily have been imprisoned, and I suspect my immortality would have only caused further alarm. I am thankful that the emissary they sent was as dedicated to peace as I was, for otherwise my casual actions could have led to Epona's first interstellar war.

I learned through other sources that the other species we’d come into contact with were as uninformed of magic as the Empire of the Hand had been—and as a consequence they all outstripped Eponan technology by perhaps hundreds of years. They all sailed between the stars, and they did so without the natural gifts possessed by equinity. (There is one exception, but I will approach them in due time.)

I was posed with a problem. As much as I knew that eventually they would have to come to terms with our use of magic, we were not in a strategically feasible position at that time. We could not simply say “this is the way we are” and stand our ground. The Hand ambassador stressed this, in fact—for their religion is not just a faith, but a major means of choosing their leaders. Some of the other races proved to have similar dispositions, and seeing as how our magic was the only thing that put us on equal footing with they who could so easily come to see us as the incarnation of evil, I chose to hide this fact of our biology from them.

Thus, when it came time to form an ambassadorial corps, I was left in a difficult position. Unicorns were straight out—there was too much chance that their magic would slip out somehow. Pegasi, likewise, would raise too many questions. Though Fluttershy’s was a face they all knew, I decided to minimize the chance that someone would question how pegasi could fly when their wings were so obviously too small to lift their mass.

The solution, then, was earth ponies and members of the non-pony races. 

(Though it seems biased to phrase it in such a manner, you must understand that by and large the other races simply didn’t care. Equestria was always the face of our world. The zebras stood at our side, and the dragons made use of our technology, but the others? After the many treaties and collaborations that stabilized things with the changelings, they wanted for nothing. The minotaurs and diamond dogs were plenty content with their ancient cities, and those who weren’t kept away from politics outside of Epona.)

Thus, by and large, the early ambassadors of Epona were earth ponies, with myself as the notable exception. Given the greater size of my wings, I did not seem so improbable, and I kept my horn well under control while I was in the presence of guests. Still, I stayed out of the way as much as possible, leaving the diplomacy to my ambassadors for the most part.

Who else was there to choose as their leader but Pinkie Pie? She was outgoing, open-minded, optimistic, and most of all, a veritable sponge for information. Plus, she was absolutely ecstatic at the opportunity. She became the face associated with Epona—and that was perhaps our saving grace. Though it sounds borderline evil to say it, I absolutely wanted us to appear as nonthreatening as possible, all while steadily increasing our power until we could no longer be opposed by any of our allies. It sounds conniving and unerhooved simply because it was. I was facing the very real prospect of a holy war against my home, and I refused to take chances. This is why the Celestia was constructed, if not why it was given your name. The Fleet was the crowning jewel, the proof that we could and would defend ourselves, should any of our allies take issue with our nature.

It struck me many times that I was probably being paranoid, and Pinkie herself told me as much on more than one occasion. However, I’ve never forgotten the lesson learned upon our first meeting with Zecora. Looks can be deceiving, book, cover, et cetera—but one’s appearance can also be a danger to oneself. Had the Hands or the Kahri seen us as an aberration at that time, they would have attacked us, and they would have won, with consequences too awful to contemplate. Having studied their cultures and seen the precedents set within their histories, I am certain of this. And unlike Zecora, we could not simply explain ourselves, for what they were taking issue with was the basic nature of our bodies. It would have been as if, back then, we had attacked Zecora simply for being a Zebra. After all, it’s not as if she could have taken off her stripes.

So I hid behind Pinkie… and, as is typical, she did something remarkable.

The first word I had of her actions came from the Nivenn. They are strange creatures, living in the relics of a far greater race which has long-since vanished from our realm. They are tight-lipped about the nature of their home, which is a terrestrial, ring-shaped megastructure—spun for gravity—surrounding a star that too small to theoretically exist without some kind of artifice. What little I knew of them then indicated that they were a relatively peaceful race, using their borrowed technology to protect their limited numbers from those outside. In a way, they as much like us in spirit as the Hand were like us in form. Pinkie was, as I understand things, the second outsider—after Fluttershy—to be allowed to set hoof upon their ring-world in at least two thousand of our years.

One should fully understand: This is an entire species which has lived in all but isolation for the better part of two millennia, and which was so fearful of outsiders that they would not allow their bodies to be photographed or their voices to be directly heard.

Before Pinkie Pie returned to Equestria, I received a notice cordially inviting me to attend a meeting with the Nivenni governing body. I traveled to their ring-world, and found it even more incredible than I’d imagined. I could fill—and perhaps will fill—books with the knowledge I obtained merely from studying the structure, but I will not bore you with it all here. Suffice it to say, even a modest glance was enough to spark the imagination to a white-hot burn.

The Nivenn were welcoming, even excited to see me. I was taken to meet with their council of elders, all of whom introduced themselves with an apology in common Equish. (When we signed the treaty codifying the Federation, the Nivenn provided their mark without actually being present, something the other signatories accepted out of necessity. Apparently, they’d become convinced this was an unforgivable affront, and wished to make amends.) It took some time to cause them to cease apologizing, at which point I finally discovered the reason for my visit; they wanted to begin a cultural exchange program with us.

The ensuing dialogues eventually led to the Federation Artistic-Cultural Trade System, the Interplanetary Student Exchange Drive, and the United Federation Research Institution. Before, even with the Federation’s charter, we were still distant and distrustful of one another. We were all aliens, after all. These initiatives would, over the course of the following century, bring us closer together, promoting understanding and co-operation on levels I’d never even imagined to be possible.

I don’t know what Pinkie did to convince the Nivenn to spearhead this initiative. She’s never told me, instead meeting my questions with a cheeky grin. 

But that wasn’t where she stopped. She visited the Gryphons next, and convinced them to re-establish their embassy in Canterlot. She came back with fantastic stories of colossal buildings of jagged steel, of an empress with an eye that glowed like fire, of feats of technology that, had I been a few decades younger, would have seemed impossible to me. She convinced them to share their medical technology with us—considering that our biologies were similar enough that the same medicines would work—and in that one action completely changed how Equestria dealt with everything from illness to the aging process. You might have noticed me make casual mention of ponies living upwards of two hundred years. The average life expectancy in Equestria is now close to four hundred, thanks to Pinkie Pie. This has caused some problems, true, but in the end it has proved to be a powerful motive force. Even now, the technology the Gryphons trade with us often leaves me stunned. They did more than just leave the planet behind—they left us behind as well.

Pinkie next travelled to speak with the Grom. I didn’t see Pinkie for almost a year, but when she returned she had changed. Her mane was cut short, her ears were pierced with several gold ornaments, and her voice had deepened considerably. Even though these changes gradually wore off as she re-acclimated to Equestrian society, they gave me a hint as to how she had become so effective. Strange as it might seem, Pinkie is quite good at fitting in when the need arises. 

The Grom are not the sort to learn our language, no were they the sort to open dialogues. My first impression of their ambassadors was that they were a surly, indifferent lot, but Pinkie brought back a vastly more intriguing account.

For the Grom are the only alien species we yet know of with magical abilities.

I cannot say whether they deliberately hid this from us or simply didn’t think to mention it, but I suspect the latter. They are a strange, clumsy race, their ships and cave cities constructed so haphazardly that it is difficult to believe them to be more than junk from a simple glance. Despite this, the Grom possess a unique ability which makes them theoretically the most dangerous of our allies. You see, an individual Grom generates a weak magical field. Whenever a large collection of Grom are in one place, these fields mesh and unify. When a population of Grom reaches a certain threshold—current clandestine research suggests around ten thousand, give or take a few hundred—this magic field becomes powerful enough to significantly warp the world around them. In short—their technology works solely because most of them believe it can.

When Pinkie returned, she was fluent in their language and exhibited an amazing understanding of their culture. She explained to me that she’d met and learned from one of their “smart boys.” (I’m not certain what role to assign they exactly. They seem to be somewhat like scientists, but far more influential to their society at large.) He’d given her a document, written in their language, to pass on to me. Within, this document was a  lengthy explanation of their species’ ability, and a proposal for a mutual alliance should the more superstitious of our allies ever turn against one of us. It turned out Pinkie had not only spilled our secret, but become heavily involved in their society. I don’t know what she did, but they built statues in her honor. She still visits their capitol fairly often.

I suppose I should next speak of the Haarkin, whose flying cities hover above the clouds of gas giants. Pinkie visited them as well, a few years later, and though I know even less of her actions there than I know of her dealings with the Grom, I know that she somehow managed to convince their high king to grant her a city-seed. She showed it to me, a round sphere of pearly-white, and told me that if it was dropped into a gas giant’s cloud that it would do exactly what its name suggested, and that the ensuing growth would be specifically adapted to replicate the Eponan climate. The importance of this gesture cannot be understated—a Haarkin city is essentially a minor deity to them, and giving us one of these seeds was a symbolic gesture with the implication that we would be included in their eternal paradise. I found myself incredibly moved, but when I tried to compose a return gift, Pinkie stopped me, explaining that to offer another gift was, to the Haarkin, the same as rejecting the one previously given. This was neither the first nor the last time that Pinkie's advice saved me from embarrassment or worse. This trait is something I am extremely thankful for, especially in how it affects what happened next.

For now I come to the most fantastic of all Pinkie’s adventures: her visit with the Kahri. It was then that she truly saved not just the my honor or stability of the newborn Federation, but Epona itself.

For you see, the Kahri were the most volatile of our allies. The Empire of the Hand is ruled by a theocracy, yes, but it is also mired in beuracracy, and it is as slow to act as it is massive. The Kahri have no such qualms. Their entire world was ruined by a great war, and their surviving people subsist on a space fleet, which travels from star system to star system, scavenging dead planets and asteroids for the resources they need. For them, religion is the air they breathe, and any deviation is heresy with a penalty of death. As it so happened, our magic constituted a deviation.

It is important to understand that as a consequence of having lived in space for so long that they no longer remember the name of their homeworld, they are quite good at interstellar war. The abridged history of the Empire of the Hand—given to me by their ambassador—contains this passage in regards to a long-ago war fought between them and the Kahri.

“Though the armies of the Holy Empress fought their bravest, the conflict did last some ten and twenty Central Years before it finally met its end. In that time, the worlds Lightgrove, Shimmer, and Fallwind were torn asunder by the accursed weapons of the foe. The losses on these three were complete, and though they were but fledgeling colonies the three million who the foe sent to paradise shall not be forgotten. In the end, the enemy had to be forced down with words, not with the sword, though the souls of those three worlds cried for blood. The Empire of the Hand did not falter, but the Holy Empress in Her wisdom knew that should the armies of the foe reach our glorious Holy Gaia, the cost would be far too great to bear.”

I must stress, again, that the Empire of the Hand is an interstellar presence with eighteen declared colony worlds—ignoring asteroids, moons, dwarf planets, and several planets which the Hands describe as “Outlander settlements.” They have a garrison fleet for each one of these worlds, and seven more besides of even larger size. The Kahri have but a single fleet. The Empire of the Hand was afraid of them.

So when the Kahri discovered our magic, I knew we were in trouble.

It occurred fifty years ago now. We’d begun trading with the Kahri—for despite how I’ve made them out, they’re not that hard to deal with when you respect their customs—and a unicorn freighter captain accidentally used telekinesis to help load a crate off his shuttle.

He was seized immediately. The Kahri fleet was suddenly in orbit over Epona. I literally woke up in the middle of the night to find starships hovering visibly in low orbit over Ponyville. They demanded an explanation. 

They threatened to rip our planet in half if they didn't get one they liked. 

I tried to gather the Elements of Harmony, but Fluttershy and Rarity were both visiting distant colonies, and Discord was with the former. Aside from myself and Cadance, I had no access to any kind of power in Equestria or elsewhere that could oppose them. I had to cease construction of the Celestia and have it break free from its orbital construction yard. Even then, its weapons were pitifully incomplete. My entire plan hinged on its sheer size scaring them off.

And then Pinkie landed a shuttle outside my castle. She calmly invited me to get in. Dumbfounded, I discovered that she’d already picked up Trixie and Rainbow Dash.

She took her shuttle to the Kahri capital ship, a vessel with a name that translates roughly to “House of God.” She landed us in their hangar, and was unafraid as a swarm of armed guards surrounded us. She led us forward into the ship, strange, alien weapons pointed at us all the while, until we were face to face with the Kahri clergy.

And then, she explained everything.

She was concise, she was polite, she was completely and unerringly honest. She had Trixie and I demonstrate a few of our spells, and had Rainbow Dash demonstrate her flight. Through the entire ordeal, the Kahri never spoke once. Through the entire ordeal, Pinkie Pie she was absolutely calm.

I don’t think it ever even crossed her mind that our entire species could have gone extinct that day. She just showed them the truth, and trusted them not to kill us for it.

How did she convince them to leave us alone and release the crew of that freighter unharmed? I don’t know.

How did she then convince them to strengthen their alliance with us, twelve years later? I have no idea.

How did she convince the Kahri—who had lived solely on that fleet of ships for more than a thousand recorded years—to accept an unoccupied garden-world as a gift, and establish their first planetary colony?

I wish she’d tell me. By the heavens, she’d make a better ruler than I ever could.

I learned something from that day, and I suppose that makes this letter more like the ones I used to send you all those years ago. I learned that even when it seems like the world may literally be about to come apart, people are still people. Be they pony, dragon, zebra, gryphon, minotaur, diamond dog, changeling, Hand, Nivenn, Grom, Haarkin, or even Kahri… they all have their reasons for being how they are, and for the most part they are not inherently evil. Nightmare Moon was a lost sister begging for affection, Discord was a bored child craving stimulation, Chrysalis was a hungry queen seeking to feed her children, Sombra was a desperate magician in search of immortality, Tirek was an ancient god chasing his former glory, and the Kahri were a desperate race on the edge of extinction, clinging tight to the last thing they had which promised them any kind of salvation or forgiveness. Even the unnamed aliens who first opened our eyes to this interstellar community, though they never spoke to us nor tried any attempt at communication, had to have possessed some reasoning behind their violent actions, whether logical or otherwise.

None can be called truly ‘evil’ with the benefit of hindsight, and perhaps that is why our world is worth living and laughing in. It is not hopeless. It is not drowned in darkness or cynicism.

There is light, and its shining is beautiful. This is why I still send these letters, because despite my claims of rationality and pragmatism, I can still bring myself to hope.

I must close off now, but I find myself optimistic. Perhaps you really are reading these letters. Who can say? The world truly is a strange and wonderful place.

~Princess Twilight Sparkle
> Magic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Dear Princess Celestia,

You'll no doubt be terribly amused to learn that many of my old habits have remained intact over the course of these two centuries. In undertaking this strange little project, I never really considered what form my letters would finally take. Structuring them around my closest friends and their Elements came naturally, and a strange sort of narrative even started to form, but I never truly considered that the final letter would be mine.

I imagine you would laugh such things away, but when it finally came time to compose this letter I drove myself into something of a panic. I wrote draft after draft, perfecting each paragraph before erasing it all and starting anew. In the end, I found myself drifting away from this strange little project.

For how do I talk about myself? In one draft, I spoke of my mistakes. In the second, I spoke of the wonders my rule wrought upon the world. Many more followed, all torn up or tossed in my fireplace now. It seemed to me that I simply couldn't get it right. This is to be the capstone of my conceit, my last missive to the mare who raised me practically as her own daughter, who taught me in the ways of magic and led me to my calling, to a life full of friendships and beauty the likes of which I could only have dreamt of had we never crossed paths. 

Everything I am, I owe to you.

So I worried over it, as I've worried over many things in my life. I worried for months and months, simultaneously dealing with all the sundry duties and crises inherent to my station. The fact that this missive might never reach you crossed my mind many times, and at times I even thought "That's it, then. Five letters. That's enough."

But, if there's one thing I abhor, it's an unfinished project.

Last night, I spoke to a friend of mine, a mare whose path in life could not be more different than mine. You might have met her, I think, and although I'm certain you knew her name I doubt you thought much more of her than a particularly skilled cellist. I could go on and on about her, about the strange, tragic story which enveloped her in the wake of your passing or the two centuries of time which have encroached upon her since—mitigated by medicine and magic, yes, but etched so very deep in the rings around her tired old eyes. But her story is her own, and, in fact, she asked me not to include it here. While I'm not sure I agree particularly with her reasons, I respect her more than enough to honor such a request.

Last night, this mare visited me to say goodbye—for she and several of her friends are going traveling, out to the colonies and possibly beyond. In the somber setting of my reading room I revealed my project to her, and my difficulty with this final letter, and she gave me a beautifully simple observation:

"You're stuck on the bloody thing because you can't bear to let her go.

And you know what? She was right. As long as this letter lay unfinished, you were never truly gone. Six elements. Six friends. Sixes, all the way down, but as long as there were only five, with the ending forever out of reach, then it wasn't over. I could look at my writing desk, and think of you, and for a moment you weren't gone.

But you are, aren't you? You're gone, and you will never be again. There can be nopony like you ever again. Nor like your sister. Nor like Cadence, or my brother. Nor like myself, nor like my friends, when we give up our elements at last and pass into the last good night.

Endings must come, one way or another. I decided, after my friend left, that I had to finish this letter today, or else say to myself "that's it, that's the end," and never write it at all. There are some projects for which the latter choice is acceptable. I have chosen that path before, when constraints time or effort or basic reason forbid me continue. But, for this project, for one final letter?

I can do better than to leave this unfinished.

Ah, but what to say? As you've no doubt gathered from my letters, these are terrifically exciting times. Every day it seems a new discovery is changing how we understand the world, a new invention providing a better life for all the united peoples in this galaxy. Alongside, there is always a crisis to solve, a battle to wage, just like the old days when Discord turned the clouds to cotton candy. While there are some days that seem to drag on and on (you won't be surprised to find that many of them involve meetings and debates, I'm sure) there are just as many where it seems that each blinked-away moment is a treasure lost to time. It has not been like this always, of course—we had some incredibly boring years a century back or so, and I'm sure we'll have them again—but of late things have been moving so fast that I suspect even Rainbow would have trouble keeping up!

But of myself? I am Twilight Sparkle, daughter of Twilight Velvet and Night Light, now passed, brother of Shining Armor, retired captain of the Canterlot Guard, sister-in-law of Princess Cadance, Alicorn of Love. Princess Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn of Friendship, presiding over the Sun and Moon of Epona after the passing of Princesses Celestia and Luna. President Twilight Sparkle of the Alliance of Eponan Peoples. Representative Twilight Sparkle, senior member the of the High Council presiding over the Federation of Allied Empires, located in the Orion Spiral Arm of this great galaxy. I have no single story, for I have touched so many. I cannot summarize myself, for I have experienced centuries in perfect clarity.

I suspect it's a feeling with which you'd be familiar.

I have watched a nation grow, bond with its neighbors, and ascend to the stars. I guided my people to other worlds and watched them sow the seeds of an incredible and unimaginable future. I have seen golden ages come and go, marched the streets with protesters, traveled to war zones and forced both sides to their knees through nothing more than my own magical might, wept as I held my newborn niece in my hooves, smiled as I held her son, climbed to the tops of mountains, walked the deepest reaches of the sea, read more books than I can count, fretted over a million consequences for my mistakes, marveled at the world into which I was so very lucky to be born, cursed that world for its unfairness and cruelty, and laughed at both over tall drinks with my friends.

I am the Element of Friendship. I am two hundred and forty-seven years old, and I know that I have seen only the tiniest fraction of the living, breathing world. I have all these titles, all these deeds, and all this power, and I still am very small.

And that's okay, because it's that very smallness that lets me love this great big ridiculous world. The knowledge that the sky I see above me is just a mote of dust to the rest of the universe excites me beyond words.	

For as long as there is more to see, I don't think I'll ever grow tired of this life. Someday I will have to give up my Element and pass slowly out of the mortal frame, but not soon. There are worlds yet to discover, unpenned books yet to read, and I want to be there for each one.

In my first letter, I treated the Elements as a curse. That was not fair.

They are not a curse. They are a burden, a responsibility, a job, a duty, a role. But they are also an opportunity to shape the world in incredible ways, and to learn and see and love so very much of this great universe.

So thank you, Princess Celestia. Thank you for seeing something in a little filly from Canterlot and granting her this life she lives.

I love you, and I miss you every day, but the world spins madly on. 

As I gallop on into the future, I hope I make you proud.

~Princess Twilight Sparkle