It sat on a polished goldenwood desktop, the stark white of the paper glaring against the warm sun-colored wood. All other papers had long since been swept away in a shaky magical grasp, scattered to the four corners of the room. The lone paper was not entirely alone, however. Translucent globes of water beaded on the polished shine of the desk, reflecting the pink and gold of another glorious sunrise, shimmering and shivering in the hesitant, sob-choked breaths of the figure hunched in abject sorrow over the letter.
There were damp spots on the page, blurring the ink in places, but never quite wiping away the words; those words that the mare could never unsee, never not have read.
The calligraphy was elegant, accomplished sweeps of a brush, held in an unshakable magical grip, the finely formed script she had patiently taught him, one painstaking day at a time in years past. She had never thought then that those lessons, those shared moments, would be used to hurt her this way.
Although she would have given anything in her power to make this single letter a figment of her imagination, a lingering remnant of nightmare or hallucination, she could not help but read the words again, hoping against hope that this time they might say something different.
My Dearest Aunt Celestia;
Do you know how hard this is to write? I must have torn up a hundred drafts, shredded an entire forest’s worth of paper, to write what will, in essence, be this, a short farewell.
For that is what this is, a goodbye far too long in the making. Perhaps I should have penned this letter years ago, when I first realized the lies you had woven around me; the half-truths and outright evasions you blithely spread over the truth like jam over scorched toast. The sweetness can hide a multitude of sins, but can never quite cover the bitter, burned taste.
At first it was the lies in kindness that any parent tells their child. Santa Hooves, that the monster under the bed is not real, and perhaps that most penultimate of untruths, that everything will be all right. Well, Santa Hooves does not exist, the monsters may not be under the bed but they are very real, and sometimes, everything will never be right again.
I could have forgiven those, for every parent ever born has told those tiny lies in kindness. And you were indeed that, my loving parent, a doting aunt and the mother I could never have, though I, as a foal, wished for that like nothing I had ever desired before. In the privacy of my room, after you had tucked me into bed, I sometimes called you that, whispering words I could never say in the light of your sunny day.
But as I grew older, so too did the lies, evolving from the gentle half-truths of a parent to more blatant evasions. From the sideways glances, avoiding my eyes, when I would ask why I lived in the palace with my Auntie Celestia, when all the other foals had mothers and fathers, to the unsubtle attempts to change the subject when I asked questions about the ruling of a kingdom. For all that I love you, my dear aunt, subtlety is not your strong point. Manipulation, gentle nudging of things behind the scenes, careful planning and outright mangling of the truth, oh, those you are a master of... but when something that makes you uncomfortable comes up, your grand chessmaster facade comes crashing down.
I have seen the truth behind the mask, you see.
The benevolent princess, the loving aunt, those are just another set of lies, a sugar-coating to hide what is really there.
I will not call you a tyrant, for you do everything in your power for your subjects, those ponies who will never see the other side of you. You will do everything to keep them from harm and from seeing that their beloved princess is a tired, frightened mare who has lost her way.
I think, perhaps, that you lost your way a long time ago, a thousand years or more. You see, when you lied to me about the mare in the moon and Nightmare Night, I took it upon myself to find the truth you would not reveal, the woeful tale of a younger sister who lived too long in the shadow of the elder, who failed to notice so much. I found an old, battered diary in the depths of the library in which you recounted how you had been blind to your sister’s anguish and growing resentment and all the times a few simple words might have set things right. Words you had never said, and how a mare of darkness was born from a morass of fear, resentment and anger to challenge you.
What happened then, I cannot say, for there are a number of pages in the middle of the diary torn out, directly after the day your sister became the infamous Nightmare. I wondered what had once been written there, what rueful and pained words you might have penned then, but there is only one soul who knows, and she will never tell the truth of what lay in those missing pages.
Perhaps losing Luna to her madness is what caused you to lose your own way; to become, if you will forgive the analogy, a spider sitting in the center of her web, pulling strings and maneuvering all around her in her schemes and designs. Plotting and planning... and above all, lying and manipulating everypony who dared care for you.
Your little student, Twilight Sparkle, among them. I wanted to hate her for absorbing all your attention when I still craved it like water, but your deceptions had already soured on me. She was and still is, blind to your flaws and to the calculated ease with which you manipulate her, your “faithful student.”
At least your former student, Sunset Shimmer, saw through you as I did. You quashed her incipient rebellion effortlessly, so I never gave you cause to turn your gaze on me. Perhaps I should have, it would have garnered your attention, at least.
Some small part of me, the foal I once was, who adored his Auntie unreservedly, hoped that with the Summer Sun Celebration and the subsequent return of your sister would— I don’t know— help you become more than the lost mare I saw beneath the mask of the perfect sun princess.
Alas, that was not to be. You continued in your lies and deceptions; your grand chessmaster scheming. Perhaps it had been a part of you for too long, a habit you did not know how to break.
I found myself with more in common with your sister, my new aunt, Luna as the days passed. The bitterness that had transformed her into the Nightmare had found seed in my heart, but I was determined not to let it flourish. It was shortly after the rather spectacular disaster that the Gala had become, when I realized just how much I was letting the shell I had built to protect me from hurtful lies— that of the arrogant, careless prig without a thought in his head beyond his place in society— become me.
I need to find who I truly am, because right now... I do not know.
I am not a good pony, Auntie. I have done questionable things, and treated ponies as beneath my notice. It was never clearer to me than when the esteemable Rarity, element of generosity, went off on me. It brought my attention to just how far I had fallen. So far that the light of your sun no longer falls on me for the darkness of my soul.
So this, I fear, is goodbye. Perhaps not forever— for someday I might be a better stallion, one without bitterness and resentment festering in his heart, and you might once again be the aunt I thought you were when I was still a foal and knew nothing of your lies. I doubt it, but it is a faint hope in the dark.
I think perhaps it is time to follow the destiny branded upon my flank, when I drew my first map, of all the secret passages in the palace, even those you did not know of or had forgotten. It is time to follow those lines on a map, and hope they lead me to myself. If I had a map to do the same for you, know that I would give it to you unreservedly.
I still love you, and I doubt I will ever not love you, even when my bones lie bleaching beneath the heat of your sun, and I hope somehow you still love me in more than the distant way you care for all of your subjects, those pawns on your grand game board.
Be well.
HRH Blueblood the 52nd, Royal Cartographer, First Class.
No matter how many times she read them, the words remained unchanged in the harsh light of day. Nothing could erase those stark black letters, for now every one of them were branded in her heart. No matter how many tears she shed, how much the ink blurred, she would still remember every last painful word.
She collapsed across the desktop, her ethereal mane gone limp with despair, and wailed, a heartbroken cry of anguish that terrified everypony who heard it. The entire palace— indeed, the whole city of Canterlot and the environs beyond, quailed at the grief in that cry.
And somewhere, on a dusty road, a lone stallion hesitated briefly before resolutely placing one hoof before the other on his way to the distant horizon.
