//------------------------------// // Princess Celestia's Letter // Story: Shadows of Friendship // by Codex //------------------------------// It was a relief when they got back to the tree that the library rested within and she could apologise to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, reassuring the latter that she had had a good day and she just needed a brief rest to write up her report and send it before the celebration. “But Twilight...” She could see Spike was not happy with her as they stepped into the library and shut the door behind them, leaving them in pitch darkness. However Twilight had just about had enough of other ponies and really did need time with her books, away from the crowds before she faced them again. “I’ve been making friends all day Spike.” Twilight was firm, “I really just want to read the letter the Princess gave me and settle down to look into the Elements of Harmony for a couple of hours. I’m not a party pony and that’s what will be going on all...” She flicked the light switch, waking up the glowworms in the light in the ceiling. “Surprise!” Twilight jumped out of her skin at the cacophony that greeted her the moment she could see and she turned to look at the crowd with dread. Every pony was there and it really was, practically every pony. Some of whom she had met during the day, including all five of the organisers, suggesting that they had finished their work at least, most of whom she had not. “Bet you’re surprised huh?” Pinkie asked, bounding over, “Are you surprised?” “I’m surprised alright,” Twilight admitted a little unhappily, not used to her private space being invaded like this, “When did you have time to organise this?” “That’s a secret.” Pinkie giggled at her, pleased that Twilight had not guessed over the course of the day. Pinkie had been throwing the party together with help from various citizens of Ponyville ever since she had seen the unicorn arrive in town and was actually glad that Twilight had not noticed that she had slipped away from the spa to put the finishing touches on it. “But you have to have a housewarming party, so here it is.” Twilight did not have the heart to remind her that she was not staying in Ponyville after the Summer Sun Celebration. Instead she wandered over to the drinks table which was laden with apple juice from Sweet Apple Acres, along with several other beverages and cupcakes. Using her magic she poured herself a drink from the nearest available bottle and downed it in one swift movement only to feel her mouth start painfully burning up and tears start pouring down her cheeks, making a fool of herself as she whinnied and backed up from the table with her tongue hanging out, not thinking for a moment to drink something else. Finally it occurred to her and she guzzled down a bottle of apple juice, cooling her mouth down enough for her to think clearly. She was just starting a second drink when she saw it, the bottle she had drunk from was for hot sauce, not a beverage. Some pony had left the bottle on the table and watching Pinkie Pie smiling and the other ponies smirking or laughing at her, she was pretty sure she knew who it was who had set her up. Pinkie Pie, who had been so nice to her today, who had helped her out and even, though she had not wanted it, gone out of her way to put together a party, had set her up to look like a fool in front of all the ponies in Ponyville. Twilight could not deal with it. She fled to her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her, only not barricading it behind her so Spike could get in. After everything she had done to try and fit in, to try and make friends with the local ponies, the one she had dared let in the most had been the one to prank her and make her look like an idiot and it hurt. Worse, if she had not made friends, if she had been used all day to set up some elaborate prank, then she had failed the Princess’s test and she had no idea what would happen in the morning. Dismissal from Celestia’s service was the most terrifying thing Twilight could think of and if she failed a test, any test, it was a possibility. Now, thanks to Pinkie, it could happen. The Princess could consider her unworthy of training and dismiss her, she could even send her back to Magic Kindergarten if she considered the failure bad enough… The purple unicorn stumbled over to her bag, not really thinking clearly and used her magic to try and yank a book out of it, sending the contents tumbling everywhere including a certain golden box. It skidded across the ground, its lid going one way while the nearly finished artefact within went the other, shedding pieces as it went and the letter she had been storing with it slid in yet another. “No, no, no!” Twilight moaned collecting up the scattered pieces, the rest of the artefact and the letter and went and slumped on her bed, laying everything out carefully. It did not look too bad. The pieces were not damaged and they slipped back into place with a little careful work and a lot of luck considering how badly her control on her magic was faltering after the nasty surprise just as badly as her emotional control. When it was done she relaxed a little and stared at the letter from Celestia. She was not sure she wanted to read it. Not when it was clear that even if she understood the meaning of this test, which she thought she did, she was still going to fail it. Still it was from the Princess and she could not bring herself to ignore her instructions. The alicorn Princess of the Sun had told her to read the letter this evening, not doing so could only make the situation worse. “Guess I don’t have a choice.” Twilight sighed as she cut the seal and let the scroll unfurl. She was shocked to see the missing piece of the puzzle fall out of the roll and barely managed to prevent it from bouncing off of the bed in time. She stared at it for a while, holding the piece in front of her to examine properly. It was the same shape as the biggest of the stars on her cutie mark, while the wadjet eye was prominent on it as a raised shape. It was a surprisingly detailed piece and she was glad to have it back again. However she did not understand why it had been wrapped in the Princess’s letter. She put it down gently and picked up the letter, hoping that Celestia would explain within it what had happened that meant she had had it to give to Twilight now. “My dearest Twilight Sparkle,” The unicorn read out loud, casting a basic ‘flicker’ spell to light the nearby candle, giving her enough light to see the words properly, “By now you will probably be needing the piece I contain in this letter and I apologise for withholding it from you for such a long time.” Which meant that the Princess had to have had it for a while, though Twilight was not sure when she had taken it. The unicorn was not entirely sure how she felt about the fact that the Sun Goddess had effectively stolen a piece from a treasure that her dam-sire had given her, though she was sure that Celestia had had a good reason for it. “I have had it since you first showed it to me, back when you first moved into your rooms in the school and I know you will probably be angry with me for not returning it to you sooner.” Celestia’s letter continued, “However, before you put this letter down and refuse to listen to me any longer, please read through why I thought, at one point, that it would be better for you never to complete the puzzle.” Twilight grimaced, trying to work out why she felt like that was not the Sun alicorn’s decision to make. She was the Ruler of all of Equestria after all. What she said was law. If she had thought it for the best that Twilight did not complete the puzzle, then really the young unicorn should have had no say in that matter. That did not make her feel any better. “It all starts in a country known as Equigypt, where your puzzle comes from. A country that ceased to exist long before Equestria was ever thought of.” Twilight knew this, Treasure Trove had told her all the tales surrounding the puzzle as a kid. She had committed them to memory, hoping that they would help her solve the secrets of the artefact that she had been working on for going on eight years. “A dark magic destroyed the land thousands of years before even I was born and was sealed away by a powerful alicorn who gave her life to do so.” That she had not known. Her dam-sire had not told her that part, though it was quite possible that he had not known as nothing she had read on Equigypt had ever informed her of what had happened to ruin the once proud country, only that it had disappeared overnight and become part of Saddle Arabia. “My sister, Princess Luna, went to Saddle Arabia in order to work her diplomatic magic and came back with reams and reams of notes on the magic belonging to a vizier she had met while there. I allowed her to explore that magic, hoping that it would distract her from me while I dealt with my ever increasing duties, not noticing that slowly and surely Luna was losing more and more face with the nobles as they looked upon the ‘Night Queen’ as a necessary evil rather than understanding the true balance of day and night.” This was more honesty from her tutor on these matters than Twilight had ever experienced and she was not quite sure how to take it. Celestia had obviously needed to get off of her chest and in revealing her theft to Twilight she had obviously felt that now was the time for the truth. About everything. It was probably easier to do it on paper than it would have been to tell her all of this to her face. “I did not see Luna’s decent from studying the dark magic that she had discovered, to using it, but I was the cause for her final fall into Nightmare Moon, for I pushed her away and when the nobles came to me, asking why we even needed the night, I did not scold them and defend Luna’s night as I should have done. Instead I allowed them to turn against her and drive her further into the darkness. It was that darkness that finally controlled her and turned her into the demon sorceress, Nightmare Moon.” Who was due to return tomorrow during the Summer Sun Celebration if the legends were true. “I had no choice but to banish her to the moon for a thousand years for her own protection and for that of the mares and stallions in our care. I lost my last student, Sunset Shimmer, to that same magic after she discovered my sister’s notes locked away deep within the castle, but unlike my sister, she banished herself to a place from which she could never return and where I could never reach her. I could not lose you the same way.” Twilight blinked at those words. She had heard only brief rumours of Sunset Shimmer, who had been Celestia’s student before she had. The rumours spoke of an arrogant unicorn who had delved too deep into the darker side of magic and had lost her place at Celestia’s side. This was new information about that too. However she had never found the notes of Princess Luna and she did not understand how her puzzle linked to any of this. “I know you’re probably wondering what this has to do with your puzzle.” Celestia’s letter continued, causing the unicorn to smile slightly at how well the Princess knew her, “Well, your puzzle is an artefact that was once worn by the same alicorn who sealed the darkness away in the first place and since her seal had quite clearly started to fail, I was worried for your safety. After all, the darkness quite clearly held grudges and I was frightened that either you would be lost to the same power when your curiosity drove you to investigate it’s properties, just as my sister had, or you would be attacked as the holder of the artefact belonging to that long lost Princess.” That made a worrying amount of sense. Twilight had trouble bringing herself to be angry when Celestia had stolen the piece from her out of concern for her wellbeing. “My concerns were not alleviated any when a zebra by the name of Zecora, who held two more of the seven golden relics, a Key and a pair of Scale and came to me not long after I took you on as a student and hid the piece away. She told me that the puzzle granted one wish, but it also gave the wielder power over the darkness and granted them the title ‘Guardian of Shadows.’ Then she warned me of dark days ahead and vanished from my castle. I have had ponies searching ever since but no one has managed to locate her.” She knew about the wish. Her dam-sire had told her all about it when he had first given her the puzzle, claiming it was the prize for passing the test of completing it. A test she now knew that the Princess had been preventing her from completing. She had not known, however, about the ‘Guardian of Shadows’ part and she could not help but wonder if Treasure Trove had when he had given it to her. She doubted it. He loved her and she was certain that he would not have willingly put her in any danger, but the part about ‘dark days ahead’ was worrying and Twilight was sure they probably related to what was due to happen tomorrow. “I believed that I could make the choice for you. That if I took away a piece of the puzzle that you would be safe and I could find some other way of understanding the darkness. However, I was wrong. I have spent the last one thousand years trying to find a way to break through the darkness and free someone from them to no avail and now I have run out of time. Tomorrow the demon controlling my sister will be free once more and I had to make a choice. Allow you to complete the puzzle and claim your place as the Guardian of Shadows, as is your right and risk losing you forever but chancing that if I fall, you will be able to bring Luna back to her senses. Or keep this piece from you and send you far from the danger. I was thinking over those choices when you sent me your letter about Nightmare Moon’s return.” Which was why it had taken so long to get her reply, Twilight now understood. “It was actually your letter that helped me decide. That and the tale of an old stallion I once met who I believe is related to you, a Treasure Trove. He knew the Shadows better than any pony alive when I met him and we searched together for a while. He was supposedly studying it to protect his family. Now I know he meant protecting you. We turned up dead end after dead end until finally he reminded me that Unity, the power that we discovered the alicorn Princess had used to seal away the darkness, was another name for Harmony and that maybe the answers I sought were not that far away from home. The Elements, however, are no longer mine to control. A single pony, even an alicorn like myself, cannot harness the power evoked by those working together.” The Elements of Harmony. That was what Celestia was clearly talking about when she mentioned Harmony and Elements. Twilight did not know what she meant by the Equigyptian Princess’s Unity, but she understood that her dam-sire had meant the Elements when he had spoken to Celestia. “Time grows short and you will be pacing your library or perhaps working on your puzzle, waiting impatiently for my reply, but I ask you to think carefully before you make your choice. Do not rush into what seems right for Equestria, do what seems right for you. If you choose not to complete the puzzle and stay out of whatever happens when my sister returns, I will understand. However, if you do choose to stand and fight, I beg that you find the Elements of Harmony. They allowed me to seal her away and may give you, in your role as Guardian, the chance to free Luna where I cannot. Whatever you choose, I will always be your teacher and support you through any choices you make, Princess Celestia.”