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// 26: Left on a cluttered desk. 
// Story: Strange Letters from a Queen Bug Horse 
// by Roadie 
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Dear Princess Celestia,

I had a moment of vertigo today. I was looking at the snow, and I thought—the first snow of the season, already? Can the year have passed by that quickly? The last Hearth's Warming felt like it was only yesterday, and now it's sneaking up again night by night. And I thought, faintly: for the common creature, they run out. Eventually there's a last Hearth's Warming Eve, a last Hearts and Hooves Day, a last Summer Sun Celebration—and if a creature is wise or lucky, it might be a peaceful, happy one.

But for the rarefied sort, you and I... what if there isn't? I saw that, I think, just for a moment, that infinite regression. What's a thousand years? Barely anything. But a thousand thousand? Are we striding forward at a snail's crawl into geologic time? Picture yourself, Princess, one day when the continents have shifted, when mountains have fallen and risen, when even the exceptionally static pony society you prefer has changed so far that if you saw it now you wouldn't recognize it.

I thought of the archeologists and antiquarians. Will I be able to walk among them one day, in long ages when rivers have changed their courses and mountains have fallen, and watch them excavate places I once lived? How much will I even remember of these days, when a thousand generations have passed? I might find myself looking at the ancient ruin of a thing that was once my own royal chamber and find myself knowing less about it than the mortal scholars specialized in my own history.

Of course, in your case it's a bit easier. Maintaining a consistent chronology into those endless ages will, at least, be simple: you'll just have to keep track of how the newly-built doorways get wider over time to let you fit.

Yours in overthinking it,  
Queen Chrysalis




P.S. Do give my laudations to Princess Luna for the success of her little surprise appearance at Ponyville's Nightmare Night festivities. From what I understand, the townsfolk quite enjoyed the shock of 'Nightmare Moon' showing up near the end of the night.