A Letter Home

by Starlight Phoenix

Epilogue

Princess Celestia waited until the others had gone before opening the envelope Twilight had given her. The front of the envelope read simply Princess Celestia. Opening it, she found a few sheets of paper with a note on top. She sat down on some cushions and began to read. Dear Princess Celestia, it began.

I have given this letter to Twilight to bring to you. This is a letter for my brother, and I ask that, once you have read it, you please bring it to his grave, as I cannot. I have decided to stay behind, in this world, in order to help repair the wrongs I have done. I know that I have done awful things, but I hope that you can still forgive me. In reading this letter, perhaps you can understand the reasons behind my actions and my feelings. I know that these cannot excuse me or my actions, but I want you to know why I did what I did. I am truly sorry for what I have done, and I pledge to make it up to you and everyone else. Until that time, please remember me with kindness and friendship. -Sunset Shimmer

Celestia put the note aside and began to read the letter. She had to stop several times to wipe the tears from her eyes. At last, when she was finished reading, she folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. Standing, she walked over to the window and looked out into the night sky. She had of course known about Sunset Shimmer's brother, but she had known neither the seriousness of his illness nor the attachment Sunset Shimmer had had for him. Sunset had never been very talkative; even when her brother had been well, she had kept to herself and to her books more than being around other ponies. Even Celestia, her teacher, had never grown very close to her.

"So, Twilight found a way to bring peace to you as well, my pupil," she whispered. "Of course I forgive you. We have all made our mistakes, even myself." She glanced towards the tower where Princess Luna kept watch over the night. "I hope that you will return one day soon. Until then, let your friends guide you and help you on your journey." Out the window, a new day was dawning, and once again, all was right.

Comments

[Honeytongue]

Wonderful short story. This is certainly a nice perspective of Sunset Shimmer that is not explored enough. Great job.
Also, first comment!

[Starlight Phoenix]

4142735
Thanks for your feedback. I understand your concerns with the narrative sequence I used (i.e. not chronological), but I think that the feeling and tone the introduction paragraph provides really lends itself to the piece as a whole, and that rearranging it to move this paragraph into the middle would require me to sacrifice this setup, and I don't think that that's worth it. I believe that it is easy enough to understand that I don't need to change the progression of the story.
As far as why I chose to relate it in letter format, it's pretty simple. I wanted Sunset Shimmer to try to communicate with the ponies she knew back in Equestria, but since she didn't return through the portal with Twilight, a letter was the best way to do it. And in writing a letter, it draws a parallel to the letters Twilight writes to Celestia. This story wasn't just Sunset Shimmer telling her side of the story to the reader, it was her giving an explanation for her actions to some of those she'd hurt.
And I don't think that it's really blocky; I mean, unless I had a new paragraph every other sentence, I couldn't really add more spaces, and it doesn't make sense to have things split up that much.
Anyways, thank you for your feedback, I am glad that people are at least reading my story and thinking about it. I hope you enjoyed it.

[Strythio]

4152859

Fair enough, all of your points. Aye, I did enjoy the first chapter, though coming back and reading the epilogue... Well, the epilogue seems kind of short imho.

What I mean is, it doesn't really have that "the end" effect on me. I mean, Celetia IS going to follow through with the rather simple request... right? Not to mention the last chapter had been the letter itself; this epilogue starts off abruptly with Celestia using no transition at all. Nothing to ease the reader into a shift in scenery.

That kind of makes it feel like the epilogue was written separately, tacked on even, just for the sake of having an epilogue when the first chapter pretty much wrapped up most everything.

In short, the epilogue kind of misses what the first chapter nailed in the eye. That's my take on it.

[Starlight Phoenix]

4246562
I won't lie, I did write the epilogue after I wrote the main story. And it is short, as I actually handwrote all this out, so I could only figure a rough estimate of how many words I had used. Since this was for a contest, we had a 3,000 word limit. And I don't really mean for it to add too much to the story, I feel that it just kinda gives a sense of closure.

[Strythio]

4253962

If I may further comment, closure beyond the first chapter was rather unnecessary in my opinion. Under the circumstances that you wrote it, I can understand the length, but the way you tried to include that Celestia bit really failed to hit the mark you were going for imho.

If you really wanted to hit it home, and right, then, in my opinion, you should have put the entire first chapter (the letter) into the epilogue's reference of the letter.

Thus, the epilogue's beginning would have been the beginning of the story (and served perhaps as an introduction of sorts) while the epilogue's end would have been the end of the story as it is now.

I feel that that would have made the epilogue's content a bit more impactful (in comparison with the first chapter). My two cents on the matter.

On an unrelated note, I miss handwriting my stuff first. It meant I could work on my stories almost anywhere.

[Starlight Phoenix]

4254247
That's actually a great idea. I'll keep that in mind the next time I write something like this. I'm currently working on a different story though, and I can't say when that'll be done.

[Strythio]

4259252

Happy to maybe have helped.

[Csquared08]

Yeah, for the same reasons as before, this epilogue just isn't doing it for me.