//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Dear Princess Celestia 
// Story: Twilight's Dawn 
// by Dinkledash 
//------------------------------//

Dear Princess Celestia,

This is the first chance I’ve had to write anything down since the cataclysm.  You are dead now, along with most everypony else I love, but I hope you don’t mind if I write to you anyway.  I’ll write every week.  It will remind me of happier times.  It will remind me that there ever was such a thing as happiness, and friendship.  Right now, all I know is grief and fear; that’s all there is any of us now.  If it wasn’t for Owliscious, I believe I would go mad.  

I know I took on some risk with the vision spell, but I had to see what happened to my friends.  Once we were settled in on the ark and underway, I watched what I could of the battle.  Poor Spike, damn him for escaping me, he was so brave at the end.  I could see where his flames had charred battalions of our foes.  In his desperate defense of Rarity, and finally in his rage and grief at her falling, he had grown twice as large and powerful as he ever had due to his greed.  His death was easy to see from the mountainside; he must have drawn the attention of every hell-thrower in the enemy’s host.  He fell beside her, or perhaps atop for when he died he crushed dozens of those things under him, so they are together now as they never could have been in life.  Do good dragons travel to Elysium when they die, like good ponies do?  Will Rarity have a boutique there?  The fabrics she would have access to, woven from the flax of heaven!  I have so many questions that you shall never be able to answer now, but it feels right to ask them.  I cannot say it feels good.  Nothing feels good.

My sisters all went down fighting.  Rarity and Spike were off with the unicorn mages, and Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Fluttershy stayed with the earth pony infantry.  Pinkie Pie's party cannon had been modified by the artificers to shoot burning phosphorous instead of confetti, and it exacted a dreadful toll on the fiendish host at close range.  Applejack stayed with Pinkie in the center, guarding her with a mighty halberd as she reloaded her cannon, while Fluttershy ranged on the flanks and picked off demonic spellcasters on the flanks with her bears, badges, snakes, and eagles.  Some titanic six legged thing rushed the cannon and took a full load of burning white death in the chest, or thorax, but its momentum was such that it carried forward into our ranks and crushed all under it, including Pinkie and AJ.  Fluttershy fought on for several minutes, but all of her animals were slain, down to the last mouse.  I could not bring myself to watch what happened after that and ceased my scrying.

I found Rainbow Dash on the path to the Ark.  She must have been swatted down by one of those flying abominations, the things with too many wings that looked like spheres of light and protoplasm joined together by eyes, mouths and intestines.  She was broken, my brave companion, across the boulder she had been cast down upon.  I could not just leave her there for one of those… things… to consume, so I took her with us as we boarded the Ark.  I have cast a spell of preservation on her.  She will have a resting place of the highest honor in our new home.  I am glad that I found at least one of my friends to bring along with us.  Even after death, she is still loyal to me; I visit her from time to time, and I think of all that we shared since that day we met in Ponyville.  She knocked me into that mud puddle, and then... ah but I've told you all that before.  Except for how my hair looked afterwards.  The patented Rainblow Dry.  

I also saw you and Luna fighting, protecting the wounded in the field hospital the doctors and nurses tried to evacuate once the center collapsed.  Shining was shielding you, and Cadence was reinforcing the morale of the troops as they struggled to reform, while you and Luna burned and froze the ranks of the enemy.  Then the sky opened and those meteors struck and I could see nothing but fire and smoke, and once that cleared away there was nothing but ash where a thousand ponies had been.  I know why you didn't let me die with you, I know the children are all that matter now, but I wish I could have been there.  Maybe I would have been able to warn you, or to strengthen Shining's shield, or I could have blasted some of the meteors from the sky.

Enough sifting through my ashes.  Your ashes.  The needs of the living outweigh those of the dead, and the many the few.  

My little ones, at least the ones who weren't mad, were dismayed when they saw the ship broken and burned at the dock, but that was the decoy you had planned.  The Ark was safe and sound under my invisibility spell.  Now that we are underway the spell could no longer be sustained, and through the grace of destiny no unholy thing has followed us.  It was as you said.  Once they had exterminated the pony race, or so they thought, the hatred that sustained them died and they fled back whence they came, or melted into the ground, poisoning the soil and water, a blight on the cursed land.

Also, as you had said, the sea ponies were helpful, but very strange.  I have studied their odd, bubbling language and I have yet to get beyond the most basic concepts.  Their chief, Clubalubala, has told me, I think, of an uninhabited land with sufficient resources to found a new city about three thousand furlongs to the west.  I’m not certain what to call it.  “New Equestria” makes it sound like the old Equestria is gone forever.  Perhaps I should call it “Celestiana,” after you.  Yes, that’s what I’ll do.  And our cities will be named Luna, Cadenza, Armoria.  Oh Shining, how I miss you…

It will take us four weeks to reach Celestiana, by Clubalubala’s reckoning, given fair weather.  The library is in wonderful shape.  The drying spells within the Ark have kept the books here in excellent condition.  The relics are safe too.  All the Elements, the Crystal Heart, the Alicorn Amulet (to be used only in extremis) and the other magical implements are all safely stowed aboard.

Some of the young ones have rallied and will sometimes play amid the bulkheads and beams.  Several of the pegasi have taken to dive-bombing the sea ponies; they are mystified by the practice, but retaliate with powerful squirts of water from their mouths aimed at their attackers.  The ones with baby brothers and sisters have much to keep them occupied, but most stare out over the railing, back to where we can still see the black columns of smoke reach to Elysium.  Some will stop what they are doing and break down into crying fits.  Many are unable to eat, requiring me to use the voice to ensure they don’t starve.  

There were several suicide attempts, but I was able to use telekinesis to stop them.  I fear though that once I am able to sleep, there may be some successes.  I have been working glamours to calm their minds and cloud their memories, but as you said, it takes a lot of time and work for each case, and some do not respond.  Some do not seem to have anything behind their eyes at all, and I despair that they ever will.

I find that outside of Equestria, the weather is very chaotic, though the sun and moon seem to be able to take care of their orbits well enough without my assistance.  Lacking a trained weather mistress, perhaps this is just the way weather is.  Perhaps there will be a squall today.  Pinkie would have been able to tell me.

I must make my rounds of the ship, to ensure that the children are taken care of, fed, cleaned, watered, and kept from self-harm.  They shall be spoken to softly, persuaded to cry into my shoulder, and enfolded in my wings.  I have so many tears, but still, I cannot cry.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle