Wish You Could Have Been There
Dear dad,
I did it. We did it! The unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies are back together!
I wish you could have been there. I wish you could have seen it happen. You were right: they are everything we ever hoped for, everything we ever dreamed of! They are just like us, like you always knew!
But you were wrong, too: they had lost their magic long ago, so long that none of them knew what it’s like to have it. Do you think that could be what had happened? Do you think that could be why we drifted apart? Is that how the old Equestrians felt when Tirek took away their magic? Is that how they felt again when Cozy Glow followed in his hoofsteps?
A unicorn wandered into our village the other day and I befriended her; that’s how I found out. No, I didn’t just befriend her; I saved her from an angry mob and Phyllis’ anti-unicorn contraptions. Would you believe it? The streets are full of them by now! Were full of them… that’ll be changing soon, but… nevermind. Hitch even tried to arrest me! He came through, eventually, so don’t hold it against him; he thought he was doing the right thing, he and the rest of our neighbors. Do you think that’s how Twilight felt on the eve of her brother’s wedding to an impostor, standing alone against everypony she’d ever known and trusted, knowing she was right but unable to make them see it?
Anyway. Izzy and I escaped and went looking for a way to restore the magic. The first stop was Zephyr Heights. I wish you could have seen it, dad! So polished, so grandiose, just like the legendary cities of the old-era pegasi from your stories; so far away from our hometown and so high up in the sky you could almost see our little lighthouse! And there are TV billboards everywhere for everypony to look at; I wish you could have stepped in front of the camera and broadcasted your message of friendship so everypony would hear it!
I wish you could have seen Bridlewood, too; so serene and dreamlike, you can almost forget you’re not in old Equestria anymore! That’s Izzy’s home and home of the unicorns, deep in a forest, in cottages carved out of hollowed trees. Do you think they drew inspiration from Twilight’s first home in Ponyville?
I forgot to tell you why we came there. You see, Zipp - the pegasus princess we’d briefly run into just before entering Zephyr Heights and who later snuck us out of jail (don’t ask, but then again, you can probably guess how we ended up there) - showed us an old, neigh-forgotten part of the castle and a broken stained glass on which we saw a depiction of two crystals, one belonging to unicorns and one to pegasi, crystals once united but long ago separated and taken by their respective tribe. Something about her story made me think that if we reunited the two crystals, the magic would return; I don’t know what it was anymore, probably just a gut feeling, but what did we have to lose, right? Do you think the Guardians of Harmony felt the same way every time they had to invent a way to save Equestria?
Turns out we were wrong. We brought the crystals together and nothing happened. I was devastated, and so were Izzy and Hitch and Zipp and her sister Pipp! Not only had we failed, but we couldn’t return to our homes anymore as everypony had turned against us! We thought we were so close, and yet… Was Twilight this hopeless after losing her friends to Discord’s mental manipulations?
So I returned home anyway; I’d failed everyone and there was nothing else I could do. I’m glad in a way that you weren’t there to see the last vestige of hope in me die out, and yet I longed so badly to hug you, to cry my heart out on your shoulder like I used to as a filly; no matter what, I was sure you’d understand and forgive! After all, I’m just one pony, right? What can one pony do?
But didn’t Fluttershy show us that everypony’s contribution is important, no matter how small? And didn’t Pinkie always have a way of finding the right thing in the most unexpected of places at the most unexpected of times? Because that’s what happened when I least expected it! It almost felt like how Twilight must have felt when a spark ignited in her heart as she faced Nightmare Moon and realized where her solution lies!
Did you know there is a third crystal, dad? The one belonging to earth ponies? No, you couldn’t have, or else you would have told me about it; you couldn’t have known about the other two crystals, either, or you would have long ago gone looking for them in an attempt to reunite them. But at the same time, I can’t imagine that you didn’t know at all, as it was right there with us all along!
I just wish I didn’t have to destroy the lamp you made for me to get to it.
Did you know, at least on a subconscious level, what you built into it, hoping I would one day realize its significance and restore the destiny that was taken away from it? I wish we could have done it together! It was your life’s work, and when the time came to complete it, to show the world how right you were, to clear your name and to relish in the fruits of your efforts, you weren’t there anymore…
...but it happened, dad. It didn’t start from the crystals themselves, but the struggle to reunite them reunited us, the three tribes, and the magic happened. I wish you could have felt it! Is that what it was like for Twilight when she earned her wings? Because I got wings too, and a horn, ethereal as they may be, but they were there! I wish you could have partaken in the eruption of joy when the ponies gave up the hatred that plagued us! Is that what King Thorax felt when he and Starlight taught his kind to accept love?
We are all friends again, dad, and it’s everything we ever hoped for! I wish you were here to see it! I can almost picture you racing Zipp through the meadows; she only just began to fly but I can already see she’ll be on par with Rainbow Dash if not better! I can almost see you tapping your hoof to Pipp’s beautiful songs; I wonder if old singers like Rara and Songbird Serenade had ever produced such heartfelt melodies! And I can imagine you wearing Izzy’s friendship bracelets! She made some for all of us, dazzling as the best of Rarity’s creations, and I just know any one of them would fit you perfectly! In a way, you were her friend too, even if you never got to meet in person. Do you know she’s the one who found that drawing we sent out all those years ago? Can you believe that’s what inspired her to come to Maretime Bay? In a way, you helped start it all!
I wish you could have met my new friends, and I wish they could have met you, you in flesh and blood. As it is, they’ll only know you from my memories and the stories I’ll tell, just like I knew the heroes of old Equestria through stories that you shared with me, and how I imagine Applejack learned about her parents’ lives many years after they were gone. I can see something of them in each of my friends, dad! I wonder if they were just like the legends say or if something got distorted through the prism of time and imagination? But you know, don’t you? You’re together with them in the Great Beyond! What are they like? Do they know what their world had come to? Do they look upon us with grief and disapproval, or are they celebrating the return of harmony with us today?
Maybe they’re not unimaginably far away after all. Maybe their spirits are still with us, right in those three crystals; maybe they helped restore the magic to the world when the time was right? It warms my heart that it might have been so, and I like to think that, maybe, you were there too to help restore some of that magic. I like to think that it couldn’t have happened without you, dad! I may have trotted down the path that led me here, but you’re the one who set me onto that path!
And it’s a path I intend to stay on. I’ve only just begun, after all; but there is so much more out in the world that we turned our backs to long ago! We don’t even know what it’s like for the other creatures out there anymore! Did the griffons restore their former pride and glory? Do the yaks still brave the unforgiving winters? Do the hippogriffs still soar through the sky and swim with their seapony brethren? Is the changelings’ love still keeping their starvation at bay? Did any of them try to keep Equestria from straying into darkness? Do any of them have records about what happened and how? Do any such records still exist in Equestria, in some dusty corner of an abandoned archive or a forgotten library? The ponies may have broken apart from one another and the rest of the world, but it doesn’t have to be like that! We can be friends again, and I want to find a way to get there! I can do it, dad, I just know it, now more than ever!
I just wish our home hadn’t been destroyed in all the chaos that sprouted in my absence, dad. We’ve managed to dig out my six toys and your necklace; they suffered some damage but nothing that can’t be fixed. Our photo, the one next to the front door, got a little torn up around the edges and the frame broke; I’ll miss straightening it out every time the slamming door sends it askew. Most of the rest got destroyed, I’m afraid. The neighbors promised to rebuild the lighthouse, but it’ll never be the same, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to bring myself to set hoof in it without my heart breaking for the old one, where we lived together, where you taught me everything you knew and believed in. Then again, maybe I won’t have to; my path has just begun and I expect it’ll take me far and wide, all across the world, and I may not be back in Maretime Bay all that much anymore! The road is unknown but I’m not afraid; the new dawn awaits, and my new friends will be there with me every step of the way.
And so will you, dad. In that one surviving photo in my saddlebag, in the legacy that paved the road under my hooves, and in the many memories I carry in my heart.
So let’s start, shall we?
Hooves to hearts,
Your Sunny