Dear Twilight Sparkle,
Thanks again for saving my life and believing that I could really have a new life. I hope you are not hurt to hear that I am now apparently an outlaw. You’re not my student anymore, but as my friend I thought you deserved an explanation.
What you have heard is true. I did take the book, but you probably aren’t surprised. You already knew that the book had taken me, and it will not let go. You of all ponies know something about destiny, and I could not bear to see mine locked away in the vault forever. It has already waited--it was meant to come to light now, not a thousand years from now or even next year.
I didn’t do it for power, I did it for love. And the more I find out, the more I realize that this love is not only for me but for everypony. I’m not trying to pay you back, but there is something I want to tell you, to share what I hold most dear with you, because it is about your destiny as well.
Some things you already know, and we spoke openly about it in courtrooms, castles and cathedrals. You were the first to figure it out when we found that page in the cave, that the author of it had already sacrificed himself for me. You understood that it was of harmony and love, and you trusted it. Even though you don’t know him, it was him more than me that you trusted.
Since you already trust him I figure you’re ready to know him. I’m not talking about the past. He is alive. I know that sounds impossible. But he is more than you might have realized. You know that what we saw in the book actually happens, whether it is in the past or the future. He writes our history, our very lives. I could walk inside the book because the world is in the book. While I pretended to be a god because of the power that was given to me, he is the one who forms our world. All the stars are his, including the sun, including me. He is such a great king that to lay myself at his hooves is a greater honor than to sit on my own throne.
You might wonder how, if we are both alive, it was a just substitution. I guess it is more complicated, but equally just. We both really died, and are really alive. He is like a phoenix. When we burned together, our ashes were mixed, and we were rekindled into one fire. There are not really two lives anymore, only one. He died for me and all I can do is live for him. I can’t live the life I lived before; I still remember the days of my evil, I am still me, but now that he is in me we are a new thing that has never been. I may seem ancient to your eyes, but I feel like a foal, as if I was born that day.
But as I now understand, it was not just about me. Me and the alicorns you know of were born as ordinary unicorns, though royal. We were raised to become what we are now when Equestria was first formed. We were made to represent all of the races, so that we would never be as divided as we were when the world was almost destroyed by ice. Our powerful magic comes by the way we are tied to the spirits of the ponies we rule. He made himself into a form like mine, so that by giving my body and spirit new life, he could give new life to the spirits of all ponies.
However, this is a very intimate thing, and he does not do it to the ponies who do not want it, or rather, don’t want him. That is why many of my former subjects no longer accept my heart. I have changed, but many of them did not wish to change. All along, he has given us a choice.
But you know, you can sense, that this world is not like it should be. You can almost feel how things should have been, a bright world, living in love and harmony, where all ponies know they are loved by their creator and have a destiny of their own. It hurts to see what it has become, and hurts even more to remember how I contributed to that. We must have pushed him away so long and so far, but he still has not given up on us. I think you know by now that every pony here is truly a part of this darkened world. You and even your friends have gotten to know your dark sides. That is why we must be renewed with him so that we can live in harmony with him.
The alternative makes me shudder. To be away from him is to be away from life and goodness, and to be with death and evil. But as you can see in me, no one is truly doomed unless they refuse the hope that is offered to them. I mourn for those who stumble like I used to, farther into the darkness that we’ve chosen for our world.
Your friends aren’t your friends because they’re the best. They’re your friends because you know and love each other. It’s the same with him. Unfortunately for a long time I have taught that life is about doing more good than bad, and I often called good ‘bad’ and vice-versa. But it isn’t about that, it’s about knowing him. Of course, if you do know him, want him, follow him, who he is—characteristics like you find in the Elements of Harmony—it will begin to show in your life.
You already trusted him and do know him, in a way. You’ve felt him when you use the Elements that he gave us to protect our world. You, like me, came to the place where you realized your own darkness, and I know you have been burdened by guilt for what you did to ponies while researching dark magic. You wanted what I wanted, forgiveness and life, and to be reconciled with harmony and your friends.
You were forgiven that day, and I am confident that your spirit will one day live with him. I want you to know that it was because of his death that you are forgiven, just as it is for me. Since you accepted and trusted what little you have been shown of him, it is time that you knew him for who he is. Since you have been tormented by dark spirits, I am burdened to see you get to know a pure and loving spirit who will heal what they have broken. I don’t want you to wait until you die for your spirit go to him, when you could live right now knowing your destiny in person.
Though his bodily form lives far away for now, his spirit is very close, and I think I’m realizing as I’m writing this that I’m thinking of you because he is. So… I guess I should introduce you. He is known by many names. He could be called creator, but now I also know him as my savior. He is the Author of Harmony, the Prince of Peace. Some have known him as Jesus, Isa, or Cha’tan. If you can find any syllables to express what you have seen of his heart, I think he would gladly answer to that.
If you say yes to him, and tell him that you accept his gift and want to know him, I promise you that—no, he promises that his spirit will come to you. He will know if anyone calls for him.
Although I know you don’t want to be known as associating with an outlaw like me, don’t be afraid to share what I have told you with your friends or even anypony at all. Even if you could read this to someone in another time and another world, it would be just as true for them as it is for us now.
If your brother ever wakes up, he will need this. I am sorry that I could not wake him from his coma. He is not in a true coma, I have given him a way to wake up and to do so without any of the darkness that I put in him, although of course he still has his own dark side. He simply has so far decided not to wake up, because he is terrified to have it stripped away from him, afraid to live in light of harmony. When he does choose to wake up, I hope that you will show him the forgiveness and love that you have received.
I never told you this, but I have thought for a long time that you have the capacity to be a princess one day, perhaps a much better one than I ever was. But I do not think that you belong to this dark world, to inherit power here. If you will be his princess, then perhaps one day you can be a princess of a better place… a new world.
Sincerely, Celestia