Dear Princess Celestia: Letters from a Murderer

Chapters

Letter Three
Letters Four and Five
Letters Seven and Eight
Letters One and Two
Letter Six

Letter Three

Dear Princess Celestia,

I guess I've been addressing you as Princess again because I don't deserve what you've given me. It won't matter soon, anyway. The bleeding makes it difficult to concentrate. It's funny, I fought so hard to stop her from doing this to me or anypony else. But a life for a life is fair, right?

By this point, you probably already tried teleporting into my castle and bounced off the wards. I'm sorry, Princess, I just can't deal with this anymore, and soon enough you'll understand too. It's a fair price and one I can't make anypony else pay.

I guess you won't understand immediately, but it's best for Equestria if ponies didn't have a Princess who might kill them. I've reviewed seventeen different points of failure in how I became a murderer. This is the only way.

I'm so sorry.

Your faithful st

Letters Four and Five

Dear Princess Celestia,

I guess I don't blame you for having me locked up in here. I should have known the wards I used would fail with my consciousness, but obviously I wasn't thinking clearly. With Spike visiting the dragon lands all week, I have to imagine it was you or Rainbow Dash who found me and my letter.

I still don't ~~feel like I~~ deserve these wings. I have a lot to learn. But the doctors have helped—especially Redheart, I might have to do something for her if I ever feel comfortable exercising authority again—and the pills have helped, and I don't feel like I have to die quite as strongly anymore. I could still make a convincing argument, though. I don't think anypony here knows how to deal with ponies who can actually make a rational case for their own demise.

My... handler... says I should focus on something more positive. For now, I don't want to say too much, but Fluttershy is the best. She's been here every day. My other friends have stopped by almost as often, but she was here when I woke up. I guess it really leaves an impression when the first thing you see is one of your best friends crying on you.

More positively—Why she's the best. She actually has a lot more to say than the rest of my friends, and she feels the most like she's here for me, instead of for herself and her own fear and worry. She can talk endlessly about what everypony has been doing while I've been here. Listening to her, I feel like I've been out and about with the ponies I love, not trapped in this dull institution. Did you know that Rainbow Dash and Harry the Bear are wrestling partners now? Or that it's traditional for bears to have wrestling partners, and they're smart enough to help ponies take care of other animals?

That was a weird tangent, but it's been on my mind. Anyway, about Fluttershy. I was still pretty bad when I woke up. I asked her why she was crying over somepony like me—don't worry, I'm past that now!—and she blurted out that she loved me. Like, love loved me. Loves, I guess. Apparently she's had a crush on me since we met and didn't have the courage to say anything. That is just so like her.

I don't know how to deal with this.

I must continue to sign as
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

Ha ha ha, and other flat and unamused forms of laughter.

Yes, that means I received your copy of Courtship for Dummies. Do I need to remind you that I'm not a virgin? Surely you remember who I gave my virginity to. I don't need dating advice, and talking to Fluttershy is nowhere near as intimidating as approaching a pony more like, for example, you. Things are just really complicated right now.

Writing this out, though, I guess I understand the point. She loves me. I knew she loved me as a friend, and I believe her when she says it's more than that~~, though I don't know what sh~~. Do I love her? Am I willing to give her a chance, once I get out of this dismal place? I guess those are the important questions.

~~You're as bad as Discord sometim~~ Thank you for helping me understand that, in your own special way. I'm just not ready to deal with this right now. I'm not sure I ever will be~~; I don't deserve~~. How does a ~~mur~~ pony like me ever know she won't hurt someone she cares about again?

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Letters Seven and Eight

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm sorry I didn't respond to your letters sooner. Group therapy has been exhausting. Two days really doesn't feel like enough time to recover between sessions, even though I know from my own study that it should be and that Doctor Fair knows what she's doing. The problem is, it's been hard to connect with anypony there. They've all seen me around, but I don't think they know how to deal with me when I try to put myself on the same level as an ordinary pony and just talk. One of them actually tried to get everypony to kneel when I walked in the first time, and another has done nothing but mock me for "falling." It would make more sense if she was talking about the murder...

The rest simply don't talk to me—they only flinch, make their polite or reverent acknowledgements, and move on. I thought I knew how to make friends with anypony, but I guess I was wrong. Again.

To your most urgent question—yes, it's true. I'm sorry for the upset and worry I've caused you, and it hurt to read how disappointed you were, but that kind of drives home my point. I don't deserve to fly. I don't really deserve magic either, but I have to have something to protect myself once I'm out of the hospital, and I've never been very good at using the earth pony side of being an alicorn. It's so intuitive that it's unintuitive, if that makes any sense.

I still don't know what to say to Fluttershy. I know it's eating her up that I don't have an answer for her yet. She tries to hide it, but every time I equivocate or change the subject she glances away and her ears and wings droop just a little. Maybe she's just worried for me, but I know I would be pretty upset if I liked somepony a lot and they just didn't respond.

I'm going to have to talk to her. I've barely said five words today, anyway.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

I don't understand why you care so much about what happens with Fluttershy, but yes, I ended up dodging the question yet again yesterday. ~~Who knew a killer could be such a coward?~~

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Letters One and Two

Dear Princess Celestia,

I think that what I learned this week is, friendship isn't the answer to everything. Not everypony is ready to embrace it.

She wouldn't let me help her. I guess somepony should know that. The way she laughed when I offered her friendship, the look in her eye when she said that if I wouldn't fight her she'd just keep cutting and let "what's left of" me watch while she tore living ponies apart—I believed her. I believed her, and I tried to escape and stop her, and ~~I ki~~ I don't know my own strength.

There was so much blood. I haven't slept in a few days. I see it every time I close my eyes and I'm scared of what my dreams might be. I don't want to bother Princess Luna.

Please. I know you have a therapist. You've told me too many things that must have been horrible to deal with on your own, and I've been auditing the palace expenses in my spare time since I was eleven. I know we can't talk to the same pony, but if you could get me a referral to somepony or someone just as capable...

I don't mean my friends—I already have their support, even if there are things I don't think they should hear about what happened after I woke up alone.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm fine, thank you. I don't need more help. I just need to get to know Mrs. Smiles a little better—thank you for getting me that referral—so I can talk to her more easily and get this all sorted out. Between her, my friends, and I, everything is under control. I know things have been a little crazy and you have every cause for concern, but you don't need to worry about me. Not really.

I'll be fine.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Letter Six

Dear Princess Celestia,

They let me out to attend one of the memorial ceremonies a few days ago, or as much of it as I could stand. They didn't remove the spell suppressing my magic. I understand I'm too fast and too powerful and a little bit too upset with myself to be trusted not to escape and hurt myself again, but having nothing but basic levitation and my innate sense for magic in public makes me feel so naked. If somepony were to ambush me again—it wasn't safe.

Anyway, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and my brother were the only other ponies to come, and even Rainbow was pretty quiet. I asked her if she was okay and Shining started crying, then Fluttershy started crying, and then we were all crying and clinging to each other over the grave of somepony who hurt all of us. Putting it that way feels pretty silly, but despite everything that happened, it still felt like I was helping to bury a chunk of my heart. Besides that, I spent half the time just imagining all the things I could have done better and how I'd still have friends and family if I had done just one of nearly thirty things differently.

I should have stayed at the hospital.

It's funny, except not funny at all, that I can write so much when I'm barely able to muster a few syllables a day out loud now. I guess that's just one of the weird parts of being me.

Thank you for all the paperwork, by the way. It's really nice filling my head with numbers and analysis again, and it's good to know I can still do some good for Equestria.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle