To Ourselves
And Our Posterity
by
George Pollock, Jr.
Day 14
Month 5
Year 632 of Equestria
My darlings:
Many, many, MANY blessings – and my congratulations and deepest LOVE – to all of you on the new addition to the family! At this rate, there'll be too many grandfillies around for this old mare to keep track of. (Two fillies now? The "fun" has been doubled! Good luck with THAT – HA!)
(By the way, I LOVE the new one's name! Makes a great "bookend" for her sister.)
How are things in Canterlot? I remember when it was an outcropping of rock on a mountainside. Can you BELIEVE that? (I feel so OLD sometimes.) They said they picked the site for the capital because you could see almost all of Equestria from there. Guess they never imagined the westward expansion. That surprised me a lot. BUFFALO! Who KNEW?
Things are about the same here in Cloudsdale. Being mayor isn't exciting – as you've heard me say all your life, Diana – but it keeps me busy. I had my excitement and adventure when I was your age, and I don't mind the quiet life now. (But sometimes, I SWEAR I'm going to SCREAM if I have to read another building permit application!) But I wouldn't have wanted to help any other place "grow up." When I saw the cloudbank we chose for the pegasus city, I knew it was right. It wasn't a fluke. It was destiny, no matter how silly that sounds to you. I've never regretted it. (And I can see your house in Canterlot from here! HA! OK, not really …)
Did you know there are almost as many unicorns and earth ponies living up here now as pegasi? It's TRUE! Remember how the unicorns came up with the spell to walk on clouds, so they and earth ponies didn't fall through? A lot of both moved up here to help build the place and stayed. They live mostly in the center of town, still. They stay away from the edge on the outskirts – for obvious reasons. You know how terrible I feel when one of them dies like that. After everypony named me mayor-for-life, I changed and began to see ANY pony who lived here as almost my child. An earth pony's or unicorn's life is as precious to me now as a pegasus'. You've heard me talk (probably TOO much) about what I was like in the bad Old Times before Equestria was founded. Angry and arrogant – and ultra-tribal. I'm so deeply ashamed about that now.
There's something I need to confess to you now. Especially because a "lineage" (I guess) seems to be starting. Apollo, as recently as before your marriage to Diana, I had, well, "bad old thoughts." Things from the Old Times. When my daughter introduced you to me, I didn't approve. Forgive me for how I was then. I grew up in the Old Land, and hearing that my Diana's possible future husband was a half-breed
(OH, MY STEED! APOLLO, I'M SORRY! I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST WROTE THAT! OH, STEED, FORGIVE A CRAZY OLD MARE! PLEASE!
(Bi-tribal – I mean my son-in-law is BI-TRIBAL. Apollo, in the Old Land, a colt or filly from a "mixed marriage" was considered a freak. Something RANK resulting from a SIN. That's the way things were then. And I was guilty of those thoughts. Again, forgive me. Please.)
I WAS conflicted when an earth pony/unicorn wanted to marry my pegasus daughter. But you proved your love, respect and care for her, and I saw it was genuine, and I came around.
I don't think I've ever told either of you WHAT changed my mind. Yes, I've always said, "I thought better of it." I DID, but something happened to MAKE that happen. Remember it was winter when we all met? Like I said, I was conflicted. Apollo, do you remember that one argument we had about what your and Diana's children would be like? That no one knew what a "tri-tribal" child would be like? There had never been one recorded in all of Equestrian history. The idea certainly frightened ME. I could feel my "bad old thoughts" coming on – and so I stormed out. (And, oh, so VERY dramatically! I'm so embarrassed now.)
Do you remembered it snowed that evening? It started on my way home. Now, I KNOW snow is scheduled in Equestria and it's completely normal. But you both know I lived through the Great Windigo Blizzard before Equestria was founded. (I've hated snow ever since, Apollo, and that's why. Diana already knew that.) I pray to The Steed that you, the fillies or any other ponies never, ever go through ANYTHING even close to that. The worst blizzard you've ever seen would have been a dusting then. Ponies starved and DIED in the streets, kids – IN THE STREETS! And they were ready to KILL one another for food. I'm NOT making this up.
So I stopped and watched it snow, and I was scared. SCARED. Call me a crazy old mare, but I actually thought my "bad thoughts" were starting to bring the Old Times back. (Like I said, call me crazy. But that was the only thing my mind could think of at that moment.) So I went home, sat up thinking all night and gave you two my blessing the next day. And like with Cloudsdale, I've never regretted it since.
And then you two had your first filly! I was so PROUD! A pegasus with earth-pony blood AND a unicorn's horn! I guess that was inevitable with you two as her parents, but nopony had ever seen a filly like her before. EVER. And she could fly like her mother and do magic like her father. (Color ME surprised!)
I remember how the doctors (and LAWYERS, for Steed's sake!) didn't know what to even CALL her. I know it didn't matter to you. It didn't to me. I called her my grandfilly. That's all I ever cared about. So leave it to nopony less than Clover the Clever to come up with something, huh? "Alicorn." Who'da thunk it? They've had to change the dictionaries! (HA!)
Tell me, though – were you scared when Clover said your first filly was the "fulfillment of Equestria's destiny"? I know I was. When a unicorn sage says it, it sounds so ominous. What did that even MEAN?
I HAVE to ask you: Are you REALLY comfortable with the tribes agreeing to have her – and now the baby – trained to be "symbols of Equestria"? (Again, what does that MEAN?) I know you agreed to it. But I think Clover went overboard with it. Yes, the fillies have all the tribes' blood in them, and I think that's wonderful (despite my first "bad old thoughts"). But what about Clover's proposal to proclaim them something like ROYALTY?
I mean, how would they rule? Eldest first and alone? Together? What if one gets jealous of the other? How would the other react? No pony seems to be even THINKING of things like that. (And what would they do all day? Sit on a throne, looking pretty? How would they pass the day and night?)
Imagine their lives if the proposal is accepted. Not just the glamorous things of being queens (or at least princesses) but the responsibilities and hard and maybe horrible choices they'd face. Kids, YOU KNOW I KNOW what I'm talking about here. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE think about things like that when you look at the fillies while the proposal is being discussed.
I'm sorry for getting so worked up. I DO worry. I want the best for the fillies – and for you. Because I love you all so much. That's something an old war pegasus like me has to keep working on every day. I've told you especially, Diana, how angry and arrogant and selfish a leader I was in the Old Times. I think love has been a good thing for me through all these centuries, after all. (Although building permit applications still make me want to kick somepony's RUMP sometimes! HA!)
Sorry this letter has been so long. I'm closer to the end of my life than to the beginning, and there are things I want you to know before I go. I love you, Apollo and Diana. And I DEEPLY, DEEPLY love the fillies. It's like they're what surviving the Blizzard was all about. The future.
Give baby Luna her grandmare's first kiss for me! And keep an eye on Celestia. The last time I was there, she was becoming quite the little prankster.
Yours soon to be even more of a doting grandmare,
Mother Hurricane
