Hi, Twilight. It’s me.
Fluttershy, that is.
I guess you’re probably wondering why I took so long to write this letter, when everyone else did theirs so fast. Well, maybe it wasn’t really that much longer. But still. I guess I just feel like I have a lot to say to you. Not that the others didn’t, of course.
I remember that I was the first one of us to meet you, at least in a friendly way. I’d been getting bullied a lot at school, and no one ever really stood up for me, especially not around then. So it meant a lot that, when you saw me, the first thing you did was put yourself in the way. That was at a point when it felt like I was just going to be afraid and lonely forever, so seeing you do that for me really felt special, and gave me some hope.
Out of all of our friends, I was the only one who really got to know you one on one during that first visit. You were very strange, and not like anyone I’d ever met before. Obviously I know why that was now, but back then I just thought I was helping out the new girl at school. I couldn’t not try to show you the ropes after what you did, especially since I was kinda afraid you were going to get yourself killed. You once told me you weren’t sure you’d have made it through that first day without me, so I guess I did my job there.
But what was really amazing to me was when we found out what you are. Not because it changed my idea of who you were (even if it did make a few things about you make more sense), but because of the way it actually didn’t. It wasn’t as though you pulled off a mask and revealed that you were someone completely different. It was just a detail, and you’d been showing us your true nature all along. Your kindness, your spirit, your heart.
It wasn’t your magic powers that brought my friends and I back together after so long apart. It was you, stirring a magic of our own inside us. And it’s a magic that’s only grown as I’ve made new friends, like Sunset and Twilight, and learned to be more confident in myself over these amazing few years.
If there was ever a thing that made me feel… odd, I guess, about you, it was when I learned that we weren’t the only ones of ourselves that you’d met. That you knew us, from another world, and those versions of us are your best friends. It made me a little upset, at first, and then I felt upset for feeling upset about it.
After all, none of that changes what you did for us. None of it makes the way our lives are different any less real or important. And of course you have friends in your world; otherwise, how could you be the Princess of Friendship?
Still, though, it made me a little distressed. I couldn’t help but wonder what you really thought of us when there’s other versions of us you're already friends with. Were we just substitute friends? Would you have helped me if I hadn’t looked like this other Fluttershy? Would you have thought to bring us back together if these other us-es weren’t also friends? Was I only special because a different me is special?
But I was always too afraid to ask you. Not because I didn’t think that you’d have an answer, but because I knew I’d feel terrible asking a question like that to someone who’d done so much for us.
Meeting our world’s Twilight helped me understand things a little better. She’s a lot like you, in so many ways, but also quite a bit different. And that made me think that maybe there’s more things separating us from these other us-es than I assumed. And I remembered that you hadn’t realized who I was when you first stood up for me that day. With a little more understanding, I eventually worked up the courage to ask you about your world’s Fluttershy.
I remember being really surprised when you told me she’s a grown-up, at least by your world’s standards. After all, I only just graduated high school. But it was an important detail, because it put all of our other differences into perspective. Like the fact that she lives by herself and supports herself. That she’s an instructor at a school for friendship. That she runs a beautiful animal refuge that she designed herself. That she’s been on all sorts of amazing adventures with you, and that she's changed a lot in all the time you’ve known her.
And that was when I really started to understand that you don’t think of us as replacements for your other friends. After all, if that was true, why would you have started visiting us when we didn’t have an emergency? Maybe you did find us at first because we were familiar to you, even if we didn’t know it. But I don’t think you stuck with us because we just happened to be like friends you already had. I think you saw — and still see — potential for amazing things in us, the way you did with those friends, and you want to be there to watch it blossom.
I’m sorry I never told you how I felt, but if it means anything, I don’t feel that way about you at all anymore.
And I’m sorry you might not be around to see us keep growing now that we’ve started to hit our own adulthood. I hope so much that there’ll be a breakthrough, and we can be with you once again. After all, we’ve noticed you make some changes of your own over the years, especially once you learned you were going to become a ruler one day. And now it’s happened, and that’s so wonderful for you! I want to see you and congratulate you in person!
And maybe, just maybe, I’d also like to come to your world and meet the other me. It’s always possible I could learn a thing or two. (And I just have to visit that animal sanctuary!)
But if the day never comes, and these books are the only way I can talk to you from now on, know that I’m thankful for every moment we spent together, for everything you’ve done for us, and I’m glad that we could be your friends in our own unique little human way. And I hope you can tell other me that I said hi.
Sincerely,
Fluttershy