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