Dearest Twilight,
I am happy you’ve had time to look over the texts I sent you. I’ve been pondering your reaction—I am ready to come home more than ever.
What you said in your last letter a week ago is still ringing with me. If we, like these new alien friends, had told our stories not in straight lines but in sort of “clusters” of ideas, how might we have developed? It’s hard to even get your mind around, isn’t it? That you could tell stories not simply out of mere chronological order, but also in some sort of, I don’t know, thematic order? But I don’t think it would have really changed us. And I don’t think we could have done so.
The more time I spend out here, love, the more I think we are the way we are, ponies I mean, because of how we are. I mean our physical forms. Not that we cannot transcend these things! Our technology and the advancement of magic are in a way expanding and possibly transcending those limits here and there. But think about it.
We are ponies. You are an alicorn, and I am a unicorn. We are physical creatures, and we are imbued with magic—and magic is borne out of our living processes. Physical creatures, in linear time, in three dimensions, physically built to walk on four legs and to breathe oxygen, with eyes meant to see in a certain narrow band of colors, with tongues and teeth and stomach meant mostly for vegetation but capable of standing meat if needs or taste must. Herd animals, adapted to close communal social living.
How else could our stories have been but linear or didactic? Herds of ponies used narrative to explain to each other what was dangerous or not, what was delicious or not, etc. We did not need or want complexities until later.
At least, that’s how I feel.
I envy, in certain moments, primitive ponykind. To live in the warmth of the herd, to experience every moment as a kind of mute, stupid joy. I think that what I actually want when I look at a painting is really to feel that feeling. And I cannot! It is very frustrating. Do you know what I mean?
I miss you. I have no duties before we leave. I originally scheduled a few days for leisure before the month long voyage home but now I am dying of boredom and ennui. As soon as I am not stealing moments away from important diplomatic business to decipher new alien works, as soon as I actually have time, I am here, writing you this letter on a beach under a new sun.
Perhaps I should bring a cat with me, if I go out again.
Dearest Rarity,
I am not so sure that we’re bound by physical bodies in exactly the way you describe. For one, ponies have been altering their bodies for a long time. It’s true! Think about it. When we say “altering” we usually think of prosthetics (older than you think!) but whenever we pierce our ears, that is modifying the body. Horseshoes, clothes, hats! Fashion is body modification. You told me once that we could change ourselves in changing our appearance. Do you still think that? I think so! I know you’ve seen a lot and felt a lot and I suppose know a lot by now, but surely you still think that we can become fully ourselves and more with or without the body to match us.
I have a few hundred books in my personal library at this point. I have access to thousands upon thousands more counting what's left in Celestia's old palace, in the university library, and in the endless public libraries I find myself being invited to open or dedicate or do signings at. I asked Spike once to see if he could use some of my old notes to guess how many I've read and how many I still have to read. He gave up after his notes on my notes spilled out of the room.
What I guess I mean to say is that I've seen more books than I know what to do with, and some of them are experimental. Did you read that Fresh Leaves novel I snuck into your travel pack? He's always impressed me with how hard he's worked to take advantage of the fact that what he's writing is "a book". You ask me how our stories could have developed in a way that isn't linear or didactic, and I wonder if we've even explored the limits of those two forms - and here you are, finding new friends who will teach us new ways to speak!
I'm almost jealous. But my jealousy is tempered by loneliness. I miss you too, Rarity. Maybe if you take a cat on your next journey, I can magic us up something to make communicating across the void a bit easier. Or maybe I'll just convince Starlight to take my place for a few years while disguised and work a quick shapeshift on myself.
Or maybe soon, when we're both less busy, you can take me along to speak to all our new friends yourself.
All my love and more.
Dearest Twilight,
You know, it doesn’t feel like nineteen years of traveling back and forth. It feels like it’s only been two or maybe three at best. My subjective chronometer says it will be three years next week, actually. I just checked.
I’m in transit now. I’ll post this at the next stop. I felt oddly inspired.
When I came home, you were radiant. Your new golden armor shone as it caught the sunlight on the promenade. Your eyes seemed so much deeper, so much darker. Your mane is longer now. Sometimes I think I see the night sky overcoming the day—or maybe the other way around?—and maybe that is not some optical illusion. Maybe you’ll have a starry mane like Luna did, one day. I would love to see that. And perhaps I will, now.
You had changed, but you hadn’t really changed.
You were the same. For a moment, I think it terrified me. As the doors opened and the ramp led down I swallowed such terror! What if you had changed! What if you were distant, distracted? What if the bubbly silly bookworm I met so long ago was gone? I am beginning to come to terms with my own extended life span. I knew intellectually what it would mean. But now I must also contend with change, and now I actually understand what it means. No being born to die in five score years understands what change actually means. Trapped in the amber of a single age’s ideology and historicity. But I am going to feel true change if I keep doing this.
Maybe in my fear I am also excited.
You were the sun, and I was a rogue comet captured in your orbit. You towered over me, more than you already did, and I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in your regal fur. Beneath your eyes like nebulae was the same goofy, guileless grin I have loved for two scores (subjective time) of years.
I was quite a shocking sight, wasn’t I? You were so taken with my mane! How can you never change and yet still not be predictable at the strangest times? I had expected my new augmetics to be the interesting bit, but no, it's the mane! Have no fear, I’m sure the coiffed mane will return. I had wanted to try something different. Maybe I’ll keep doing it!
I was thinking about your letter. You are right. I would hide my true thoughts, were I younger and less bold, by saying worrying about cutting my mane had weighed on my mind but in truth… I do believe that, emotionally. About the Body, I mean. That our bodies do not confine us. We are modifying ourselves, in body and mind, all the time. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I begin to think that I’ve ignored the Realness of the body. Does that make sense? Sometimes, in Canterlot, I would see a model wear a new piece and just feel… not repulsed, that’s not the word. It’s too harsh. I would feel repelled. Passively, lightly. Incongruence not out of purpose and will but out of ignorance, I suppose I would call the phenomenon. Some designs felt… I was about to write “unnatural” but the word unnatural is a bit useless, anyway. What is natural? It’s such a charged word, it has more to do with delusions of hierarchy than art or beauty or any of the things in this world I care about—Let me suggest a word instead. When I think of one. Accidental will work for now. The lack of intention, the wasting of such an opportunity! It would offend me quietly. We can move beyond our body, but we cannot escape it yet! We should change and move by bringing it along with us. To be embodied is not a burden but a joy! To change ourselves and our bodies with impunity and boldness is good! But I want to do this, I want us all to do this, out of an abundance of joy. I want it to matter to us, each and every one. To be an opportunity not just for expression but for becoming. I think I am talking myself in circles, Twilight. Maybe I’ll get it right at some point.
We have not spoken about appointing a new diplomat. I think we both know that… that I cannot be still forever. I was starting to grow mad in our perfect palace on a perfect world. As I told you once, a lifetime ago almost in “real” time: I crave drama! Action! Intrigue! To move and move and move forever, to find something new every day and to throw everything I can at a wall and find the things that stick and work them to death. I’m even making clothes again! It’s been a decade. I’m delighted. I feel alive.
I was so worried we would be distant, and yet I felt closer to you than I had in years.
May I suggest a toast, then?
Rarity