Friendly Correspondence
Princess Celestia looked up from her stationery as she heard the familiar rumble of approaching flame.
And as always, she went through a quick series of mental calculations. She had no urgent business awaiting her, at least not for the next few hours. No social appointments, no mealtimes, no touring school groups. Plenty of time, then, both to deal with the incoming message and get a little friendly assistance with it.
Mail was a simple spell. Twilight Sparkle could cast it easily, if she wished, but she preferred to have Spike take care of it, because it let him contribute and because it was something they could do together. A trick Celestia had taught her, but one Celestia herself forgot far too often.
“Would you like to handle this one, Philomena?” The phoenix clicked her beak together and sidled along her perch. Then her feathers flared a bright crimson, and she cupped her wings around a growing fireball. At last, it burst into a red mist, and a single scroll floated onto the rug.
“Ah,” Celestia said. “An answer from the griffon ambassador.” Without opening it, she slid the scroll over by her inkwell and scooped up a small stack of pages. She glanced back up at her companion. “Ready for another batch?”
Philomena cocked her head and let out an inquisitive grunt.
One by one, Celestia rolled up each page, sealed it with wax, and tied it neatly with a ribbon. When she’d added the last one to the pile, she shoved them to the side. “That should do it. If you will…”
Philomena clapped her wings together, and fire engulfed the stack of paper. In quick order, they disintegrated into brittle cinders. The wisps of ash swirled into gray tendrils in the air, shot up the chimney, and split apart, heading toward their scattered destinations.
“Thank you,” Celestia said as she reached up with a hoof and rubbed beneath Philomena’s chin. “You always do such a good job.”
And then came that same rumble again. By reflex, she lit her horn and concentrated to intercept the energy, to channel and focus it into the air in front of her. But for the second time, she held back.
“Would you mind?”
Before Celestia had even finished asking, Philomena’s feathers glowed. A ball of carmine flame coalesced in front of her, floated there a moment, then drifted toward Celestia. And halfway to her, it turned—
Green.
Celestia’s heart leapt. Green! A-a letter from Spike, from—yes, sent by Spike, but from Twilight Sparkle!
As soon as it dropped into her waiting hooves, she yanked the string off with her teeth and tore the seal away, then flattened it on her rug. Just last week, she’d instructed her prized student to report on any lessons in friendship she’d learned. Another social correspondence? Or maybe the first of many realizations on the power in her relationships.
“I hope she enjoys those Gala tickets I sent her.” A push, yes, but only a little one. “What do you think?”
“Awk.” A small tuft of down floated away from the growing bare patch on Philomena’s breast. She watched it drop, even poked at it with her beak, then lost interest.
“Time for that again already? Didn’t you just molt a few centuries ago?” Celestia asked with a smirk. Philomena chirped a reply, a kind of verbal shrug, if Celestia recognized the tone.
She looked back down at the page. Celestia had simply told Twilight to make some friends. Off to a good start, no doubt. Perhaps she’d shared some tea with one of them or had a nice conversation and wanted to tell her about it. A bit early to expect much progress, but maybe Twilight would surprise her.
Which one of those mares would Twilight want to invite with the extra ticket? Which one might spark the beginnings of a real friendship in her? The Gala was still months off, over the next hill, so to speak, but never too early to start preparing.
Celestia took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds. She savored the anticipation of such moments almost more than seeing them through. With one last glance at Philomena, she read out loud.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I've learned that one of the joys of friendship is sharing your blessings, but when there's not enough blessings to go around, having more than your friends can make you feel pretty awful. So, though I appreciate the invitation, I will be returning both tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala.
Celestia frowned. Twilight didn’t want to attend? Of course, Celestia couldn’t make her. But why would she decline?
Before she’d dispatched her student to Ponyville, she’d seen Twilight run away—
No. If she were afraid, she would have said so. Twilight wouldn’t lie, not to her. Had she failed to make a friend, had a falling out? Too embarrassed to admit it? Frankly, that was the only scenario in which Celestia could envision her being less than truthful. She had such a desire to please, even to a fault, and might well try to hide anything she considered inadequate.
Celestia smiled. For Twilight to think that being unable to make a good enough friend to invite was worth concealing, she at least attached some value to it. Quite a bit of value, in fact, to risk getting caught in a lie. A nominal victory, but a victory nonetheless. Even that small an advance made Celestia proud.
But in that case, why not just give the ticket to Spike? Oh! She’d completely forgotten about Spike! Yes, she needed to mail a ticket for him as well. Maybe Twilight actually had made a friend and couldn’t risk disappointing Spike. She’d take care of that right away and apologize for her oversight. “Not enough blessings to go around,” indeed.
She plucked the two tickets from Twilight’s letter, added another from the stash across the room, and reached for a blank sheet of paper.
Celestia’s breath caught in her throat. Her hooves shook as she drew them to her mouth. “Ph-Philomena, she—”
The phoenix cocked her head. “Chee?”
Why had Celestia tried to read so deeply into it? It hadn’t even occurred to her to take Twilight’s words at face value. “Having more than your friends,” she’d written. Plural.
No, Twilight wouldn’t have stayed in Ponyville in the first place. She’d always preferred the familiar, the comfortable, the usual, at least as far as other ponies were concerned. But she’d asked to remain there, away from the home, the school, the teachers, the Princess she knew so well.
She wasn’t scared. She hadn’t failed, hadn’t tried to avoid the situation. She’d risen above it, triumphed in a way that only Twilight Sparkle could, and exceeded what Celestia dared to hope for. Friends. Maybe two, maybe three, maybe five of them.
Celestia steadied her trembling hooves and brushed away the gathering moisture from the corners of her eyes. Ruffling her feathers, Philomena craned her neck forward and peered down as Celestia pulled the paper closer. In a rush, she dipped her quill in the bottle of ink. Far too much—the first word left a huge blotch on the page, but she scratched it through and started over below it. Furiously she scribbled, word after word, as they flowed into her mind, out her horn, and into her pen. Every few seconds, she paused to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
My
My most faithful student,
Thank you for your prompt response. Your punctuality is just one of the many qualities I have come to admire about you, and I am pleased to see you reporting on a lesson of friendship so soon. One it appears that I have triggered myself, albeit inadvertently, but one that you have already learned and mastered.
It seems I have yet another quality for which to admire you. When I observed you turning down a party invitation from your fellow students before I dispatched you to Ponyville, I knew I had to do something about it. There is no way I could ever let you bottle up your wonderful personality and deprive everypony else of it. You are too interesting, too exceptional a pony to keep it all to yourself. If I could just nudge you into socializing more, then others would discover what makes you so unique and enjoy you as much as we lucky few who have gotten to know you through circumstance.
But more than that, you would broaden your experience. Other ponies can teach you more than you realize—they have their own interests, their own expertises, and that is a better teacher than any textbook could be. How much more have you learned by getting out in the world and applying your knowledge than by reading about it? I know that can be a scary prospect, but how often did it prove true in your scientific coursework, and how much did it make all the difference only a week ago?
I was also certain that everypony’s capacity to care about you would touch your heart. So I sent you to Ponyville, a place dear to my own heart since its founding. I knew you would find a friend there, not only to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, but to save yourself from isolation and loneliness.
When you told me you wanted to stay there,
Princess Celestia sniffled, smiled up at Philomena, and levitated a tissue from the box on her vanity.
I nearly broke down on the spot. To see you so attached to others that you would choose to remain with them, away from your home, your studies, your mentor, I was so, so proud of you. I hoped you’d foster a close enough relationship with one that you’d want to invite her to the Gala. So to hear back that you’d prefer not to attend unless you could bring more with you, that you’d become such close friends with them—
You have demonstrated great generosity, kindness, and loyalty to your new friends by making this decision. I suppose that trying to work honesty and laughter in as well would be stretching things, but you get my point. Already, you show the capability for demonstrating all the elements that make up friendship, and I speak not only of the traditional six elements. You will come to find that they are only the beginning.
I do not wish to go into why, but at first, I mistrusted your motives in returning the tickets, as if you would rather avoid friendship than confront it head-on. I should have believed in you more; you have never let me down or been anything but forthright with me. When I realized that you simply didn’t have enough tickets, that maybe I needed to send you another, or five more—
I have never been so overjoyed.
Princess Celestia plucked another tissue out, dabbed her eyes dry, and blew her nose. Then she noticed Philomena squinting at her. “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Celestia averted her gaze to the floor and swept away the few teardrops glistening on her letter, leaving behind thin streaks of ink.
With a chirp, Philomena scanned the letter another time and wrinkled her brow. She gave her wings a tentative flap and waggled her tail.
“I know—a princess has a certain image to uphold.” Celestia let out a long sigh. “And, yes, some things she must discover on her own. I can’t lead her by the hoof forever.” Crafty bird. Sometimes, Celestia wondered if she was actually the wiser of the two. “The start of her new tenure in Ponyville is as good a time as any to fade into the background and grant her independence.”
“Rrrr?” Philomena glanced out the window toward the fancier homes clustered near the castle.
“Yes. Of course, you’re right,” Celestia said. She did have to worry about appearances. If the public felt that Twilight hadn’t earned her way to—
No, too early to think about that yet. A plan in motion, but still in the formative stages. Speculation wouldn’t serve her well now. But even in her position as Celestia’s student and emissary, Twilight needed to make her own way, or everypony would consider her as no better than a beneficiary of something akin to nepotism. Perhaps they already did, but Celestia had taken whatever measures she could to mitigate that.
Princess Celestia would consider this another subtle test, then, viewed from afar. Twilight would doubtless place more pressure upon herself if Celestia indulged in such ramblings and put that sort of scrutiny on her actions. So instead, perhaps the princess should simply let go.
After taking a deep breath, she levitated her quill back into the inkwell. She squared her shoulders, slid another piece of paper from the stack, and carefully blotted the excess ink from the quill’s nib.
My faithful student Twilight,
Why didn't you just say so in the first place?
Celestia tucked six tickets into the scroll. “Another outgoing, please.”
Once more, Philomena clapped her wings together and sent the letter on its way. The princess stroked the feathers on top of her pet’s head, then rose from her cushion and crumpled her first draft into a ball. She tossed it toward the wastebasket.
Philomena trilled a questioning note and hopped onto the metal receptacle’s edge to retrieve the wad of paper.
“What?” Celestia said, an eyebrow raising. “I thought we agreed it was inappropriate.”
Philomena flapped to a nearby bookshelf and tugged one of the volumes partway out. When Celestia saw which one, she nearly laughed out loud. A blank book, one she’d intended to use as a friendship journal, at least until she’d found Twilight Sparkle. Or, more truthfully, Twilight Sparkle had found her.
“Good idea.” Celestia nodded and slid Twilight’s letter inside the front cover. Then she smoothed her original reply back out and added it to the book as well. “Maybe, one day, I might actually send it.”
With a short chirp, Philomena glided over to her perch and watched. She always seemed to glow more brightly whenever Celestia’s own heart warmed.
For a long minute, the princess merely sat, staring at the book’s empty pages and enjoying the feeling. So much yet to fill. Then she rubbed the last few tears from her eyes and levitated the book into place. She stood to extinguish the candle, and—
Celestia held a hoof to her mouth and gasped. “Oh dear, I’ve forgotten Spike again, haven’t I?” She grabbed one last piece of paper, her quill, and another ticket. Only a moment to scribble out a hasty message before holding it aloft in her magic for Philomena to incinerate.
The princess leaned in and pressed her cheek to Philomena’s. “Thank you,” she said, “for the mail service, the sage counsel—” she doused the candle and folded back the corner of her bedsheet “—and the understanding ear.” In her magic’s glow, the stationery floated to its place on the shelf, not far from that book, where the crinkled edge of her letter still poked out.
Her eyes lingered on it for a moment before she wriggled her way under the covers. “And thank you—” she turned her face to Philomena’s soft light by the fireplace again “—for being a true friend.”
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We need a "soooo heartwarming" emoticon
that was really good!
5299993 Agreed.
And then Philomena usurped the throne and rule of Equestria, declaring herself queen.
At least that's what Celestia told us she'd said, and with nopony else around who could communicate with a phoenix, Celestia became the Queen's interpreter. It worked surprisingly well, all things considered.
I loved it!
Aww. Such a sweet story.
5301103 Sounds like a story you should write! If you like that sort of plot, here's a good one, though it's not Philomena.
Great job. Man
Well done. Very touching. Perhaps a little too much with the master plans, though that may be simply because I don't see Celestia that manipulative. But very good indeed.
I particularly liked the decision to not give too deep feedback on Twilight's choice, since that would have given her the idea that she was being tested and graded instead of having free reins. It's something to bring up some ways down the line once it's certain that Twilight's on the right path.
5301347 Also, that story you linked was a good laugh. It's nice to see Trixie being clever. Though I half expected her to use bureaucracy to take over Equestria. And Celestia letting her do it so she could finally have her vacation.
I know it would have been a bad idea for Celestia to send that letter but, oh my gosh! Twilight would have cried so hard. It would have been beautiful.
I love how you brag about the number of EqD features you have like it's some kind of accomplishment and not just a reward for being banal enough to stoop to their way of doing things.
5299993
I always saw it as Pinkie crying tears of joy, even if her mane is straight, so that might fit.
5303521 If you don't think it's an accomplishment, that's your prerogative, but why does that mean you need to start judging people who do?
5303521
Considering every one of those stories has been good, I'd say Pascoite has every reason to proud of his work. It's not as if EqD declines a bunch of great stories for not fitting into some ridiculously arbitrary mold. If anything, there's bias in favor of crappy fics that might still appeal to some readers, and I think they've been getting better about that
5304003
Great job, as usual. One minor thing's got me curious: Celestia might have something to do in a few hours, but appears to be retiring for the night. Was this an oversight, or is she not planning to sleep for long? I think most people tend to think of "a few" as something like three or four, maybe five
*clears throat*
Er... Luna sort of returned that week...
5305271 Well, it happened the week before, it was an event with mixed emotions for her, and the argument could be made that she knew how it would turn out.
Add to that the fact that she wouldn't likely want to go into that in a letter to Twilight which has only a tangential relation to that, and it's not unreasonable that she'd say this.
Nice to see this fleshed out a bit. Great job with this, Pasco.
Pretty good, pretty good. Not much else to say, well done.
This story has a really intriguing characterization of Celestia. The tidbits about her own empty friendship journal and her comments to Philomena suggest she is quite lonely herself, which puts her unsent letter in a new light.
5304003
Because an EqD feature isn't about whether a story's any good or not, it's about it fitting into the narrow confines of what the pre-readers are looking for. If it was about seeking the quality, there would be a system similar to what we have here (where the best rise to the top and the worst are forgotten). Basically, as soon as you have a small group of people deciding what the "cream of the crop" is that's when you start running into trouble.
Also, when you have a pre-reader bragging that thirty-one of his thirty-four stories are EqD featured, you can kinda see the flaw if you squint hard enough.
5304651
In your opinion, they may be good. What I'm say is that there are doubtless countless authors who have much better stories who aren't getting featured because: a) they aren't an EqD pre-reader and know how to game the system; or b) catering to those pre-readers' prejudices of what a good story should be.
5307135
I've looked into those authors that frequently bitch about the pre-readers, and their stories are awful. FIMFic doesn't offer a better system either. It may keep out the worst 10%, but what rises to the top is more like a random mixture of the remaining 90% than the top 10% (kinda like Top 40 radio). EqD features may not be the best of the best, but they tend to be higher quality than whatever's popular here
I don't see much bias with the pre-readers. From my understanding, they each have their own tastes and pick stories from the queue that they're interested in (so the guy who likes sadfics will probably be the one reading a story where everyone Twilight loves dies, while the guy whose OTP is OctaScratch will be reading fics about that). They're looking more for objective problems, like spelling and grammar (which are serious issues in fanfiction) or poor story structure. Pretty sure the pre-readers hold each other to higher standards, as well. If they have any edge over other writers, it's that they know people who can help make their story better, rather than letting it through despite not being good enough
That was great! I'd love to see the day Twilight finally gets all those responses. There are plenty of times when she could've really used the reassuring words. The want it need it incident, for example, or the parasprite invasion, or when she became princess, or when Celestia sent her to the Crystal Empire as a test... and pretty much every other time Celestia showed up in the show. Knowing how much Celestia really cares about her would have helped so much, and saved Twilight a lot of worry and premature heart-ache.
5307135 So you'd rather that pre-readers didn't know something about writing? Can't have it both ways, chief. If EqD does such a bad job of posting good stories, show me a story featured there that has a poor vote ratio here. And you're really going for the popularity=quality argument? If that's all you want, you can already get it here. Live and let live. I don't get the free-floating anger.
Anyway, this is a story thread. If you really want to gripe about EqD, there's a group for that.
5308825 I've got a couple of ideas about that. Either that Celestia will save them up and give them to her someday, maybe that she sent them right after Twilight ascended to princesshood, or maybe that those were among the letters she sent back when Discord had corrupted her.
It's an interesting idea to think about. If you like it, why not write it?
5309615 Okay, I'll add it to my ever growing list of things to write. Maybe someday I'll get around to some of them.
#shotsfired
But seriously, this was a good expansion of the writeoff version, and the area around the quoted section is a great breakdown of the letter (including lampshading the entirely legitimate interpretation of "friends" = "Spike + 1", as well as the slightly-less-legitimate-once-you-work-through-the-logic-out-loud stuff that I mentioned in the writeoff) and a nice opportunity to further define the subtext of the relationship. The more languid pace here, plus the added introspection, does a much better job for me of selling the turnaround to her
response without actually making it feel 
ish. The new bit about letting her go is crucial to that and a powerful addition.
Sorry I never got back to you on the final third of the PM, but the tl;dr of it was that I tried to take your point to heart about critiquing/judging based on the story in my head. If a story fails in meeting its own goals, that's a problem, and if its goals end up in a place that leaves me not feeling it, that's also a problem, but conflating the two will produce unhelpful advice.
Glad I got to read the new one, and congrats on the well-deserved feature and featureboxing.
I'm glad there are stories like this that show Philomena a bit more. Considering how long phoenixes likely can live, I love the idea of Celestia and Philomena being this close rather than just "Princess of the Sun and that one pet she has". Your take on what we didn't see in the show (her reasons for responding in such a way) is done very well, and I think you definitely deserved your features.
Definitely a heartwarming story that can be appreciated, especially during this time of the year for us people of the Northern Hemisphere.
5310623 Our discussions regarding this story were definitely helpful. In explaining why I didn't think Celestia would necessarily jump to any of these alternate explanations, it made me reason through them. And that became a good way to expand the story. I still think it wasn't inevitable that Celestia would have come to these other conclusions, but it's not unreasonable for her to, either. I thought you might recognize our debate as Celestia's internal conflict before writing her first response.
I've struggled myself with how much to count against a story for things I would have done differently. Technically, even pointing out a misspelled word is saying I would have done that differently, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to point out. On the other end of the spectrum, I've also suggested alternate ways of playing a scene to an author, and it's very hard to divorce that vision from whether it would make the story better to other readers, and even if that's the case, whether it's something fair to demand of the author, especially when it's a substantial change to the plot, characters, or mood. At the very least, I discuss it as a possible direction, which you did, and even though it's not necessarily in the sense you meant, something productive came of it, so... don't stop making suggestions.
5313054
Yeah, basically agreed. I think the key as a prereader/critiquer is to divorce "here's what's wrong" from "here's something that might fix it"; that way if my proposed solution doesn't match the author's vision, they can discard that while still giving weight to the issue I bring up. If there's something that genuinely needs fixing, then it's easy enough to back that up by highlighting the flaws of a section; and if I'm pointing out flaws that the author disagrees are flaws, then they know my suggestion won't be helpful out of the gate.
There's been some talk of "wise reading" over in the writeoff forum, too, which is giving me some useful things to chew on. I may start a thread at some point on how to provide good feedback, for the benefit of newbies, but also because feedback on critiques is a lot rarer than feedback on writing.
> even though it's not necessarily in the sense you meant, something productive came of it, so... don't stop making suggestions.
Roger.
Hope to see you in the minific round, if the fun levels edge back into the black!
Simply wonderful
I know this is possibly the most common sentiment possible but... I'd like to see more. Twilight has been through so many experinces and written so many letters, not to mention the ones her friends wrote in later seasons, there's so much more that I'd like to see Celestia's private musings on.
I'll just backpedal to the first bit: simply wonderful.
5307253
To be honest, I don't actually care. I just felt like trolling Pascoite because of his smug attitude about his EqD popularity.
5315921 What exactly did I do that was smug?
Nice one. I liked Celestia's perspective here. This made me think of Ticket Master again from an angle I never considered before. I think the tears were pushing it a bit, but overall, this was a very enjoyable story with very real-feeling emotions. Good job.
5307253 Sadfic: Everyone Twilight knows dies horribly, then she realizes she doesn't exist and disappears... along with all the other universes... and it hurts. Alot. I mean, hurts like having your intestines removed through your mouth-level agony.
5414009
I wanna see someone write that as a comedy
maybe I'm just listening to the right music, but aaaaaa ;_;
On a more serious note: Celestia's reaction feels very awkward here. I get that you were going for the whole "motherly bond" between her and Twilight, but I'm pretty sure the show only implies a "teacher-student" relationship, and (maybe) a "motherly affection" that Celestia has for ponykind as a whole.
The idea that she writes out lengthy letters that she ends up never sending out is neat, but the way Celestia just breaks down is way out of place for me, especially given the context. A different letter from Twilight might have been a better choice, because the point of that episode's conclusion was wholly different: Twilight decided to make the right choice (based on what she believed were the circumstances), and Celestia bluntly offered the easiest solution instead, i.e "the friggin princess of Equestria is your pen pal, dummy! Just ask for more tickets!" One may write it off as just a comedic twist on a standard "moral", but in a way it's also part of how Celestia is acting as Twilight's mentor, which means she occasionally has to "troll" her student to educate her.
images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/24900000/Celestia-troll-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-24917621-400-400.jpg
That said, perhaps the letter written in "Luna Eclipsed" is one I could imagine making Celestia emotional on this level. Sure, even in this case, I could imagine she would be pleased to know that Twilight is finally making friends and is willing to pass on the Gala to keep them all together, but the way Celestia reacts here is almost degrading. She is thousands of years old. I'm pretty sure she's had plenty of friends just like Twilight, so she's used to seeing them go through this process. If anything, I imagine she'd only get more proficient over the years at guiding her proteges toward the "right path" and would not spend much time crying over it all.
The concept of "unwritten letters" is the most interesting one presented here. The dichotomy between "what I want to write" and "what I need to write" is an excellent detail, although the way it's delivered is a bit too blatant for my tastes. Also, if we assume this level of familiarity between them, then Celestia worrying about "her image" feels out of place. Besides, how is saying "Why didn't you just say so in the first place?" any more "princess-y"?
Instead, like I said above, it makes more sense for her to choose the second version of her response because it is "the most educational." As for the lengthy and emotional response, the "lengthy" part feels like it should have had a greater focus, perhaps with an added implication that Celestia does this with other ponies close to her as well. This could be a sort of hobby for her where she writes out her thoughts in full length about those she knows, only to then condense her response into a letter that is, in her experience, the most appropriate for the situation.
That's my two cents. Other that all that, it's a decent read.
5458367
On this we wholly disagree. I'll leave it at that.
5458715
Fair enough. For argument's sake, let's say Celestia's affection for Twilight goes way deeper. That still makes it awkward how a silly scenario manages to make her cry her eyes out like this, not to mention makes her write in a style that is anything but what makes sense for a being of her age and wisdom. Even if this is the whole "my daughter is finally growing up" scenario, even if we can imagine that Celestia's most commonly seen exterior does not match her interior (which she reveals to us now), the emotional reaction is portrayed in such a jarring manner that I just can't take it seriously.
To be fair, overall, the premise does work. There are certain moments in life when a seemingly unremarkable event/experience can somehow open one's "emotional floodgates" and make them break down, similar to how Celestia does here. In that regard, you have touched upon an excellent concept that's worth exploring.
My problem is that the buildup and the "climax" itself feel unnatural. Every event feels like part of a very rigidly choreographed act: "here's the bit where she does something mundane", "here's the bit where the letter arrives," "here's the bit where she cries like a filly who dropped her ice cream", "here's the bit where we all get emotional," etc.
Terse writing is good, you can definitely tell a story in less words than I can, but "saying a paragraph with just one sentence" isn't the same as "cramming as much emotion and whatnot into every sentence as I can." Sometimes, you need that bit of "filler" in there to give the reader time to become immersed.
Well. That was perfect. I don't normally see such short stories doing so many things that I like. I'm biased, I suppose; this is the kind of thing I always wanted to see from Celestia, and what I always wanted her to be like. There will be those people who say we don't see enough of her in the show to know, but what Twilight thinks of her is enough. Plus she seems to have been a bit more open about a few things in season four, during the few times she's around.
It seems sad to me though, that Celestia would find it necessary to reel in her correspondence like this for fear of overburdening Twilight. I'd like to think she shows these to her someday.
I wrote a review of this story!
It can be found here.
Aww. That bird is truly a princess's best friend.