Dear Princess Celestia,
I'm not writing to you because I've learned something new about friendship. I'm writing to you because I've finally gotten the courage to write something I've known all along.
I love you.
I've always loved you. When I was a little filly, it was a different sort of love. You were my teacher, and I adored you. The older I got, though, the less it felt like adoration for a teacher and the more it felt like something else. By the time I moved to Ponyville I knew it was a crush. By the time I became an alicorn, I knew it was more than just a crush.
I wrote you a letter like this one, then. You had seemed so beyond me for so long that I never had the courage to say anything. You were the alicorn of the sun. I was just a unicorn of no particular importance. Then suddenly I was the alicorn of magic, and it seemed like maybe I was your equal. The words were hovering on my lips all through my coronation, and when I just couldn't bring myself to say them, I thought a letter might be easier. But I never got the courage to send that, either. I burned it in the fireplace almost as soon as I finished writing it.
I nearly said those words again when you gave me your power to fight Tirek. Knowing that I might never see you again was almost enough. Yet it also felt like it might somehow curse me, like if I treated that moment as our last meeting, it really wold be, so yet again I couldn't say those three little words.
I guess I still can't. When I said I'd finally gotten the courage to write this, I almost lied. I did get the courage to write it—I've written it so many times!—but I never have the courage to send these letters to you. I still don't. So you'll never see this one either. I'm sorry.
I do love you. But what can I offer you? You've been courted by the greatest ponies in history, and you turned so many of them down. Yes, I spent a lot of time researching your past love affairs. You haven't had many. How could I expect to be one of that tiny hoofful of ponies? I can't.
It's more than that, though. It's not just that I'm afraid I'm not worthy of you. I'm afraid of what will happen once you know. What we have now is so close to perfect. How can I risk ruining it? So I'll probably burn this letter too. I am just not brave enough to tell you how I feel. Maybe someday I'll somehow manage it. For now I remain,
Your friend, Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight carefully blew on the ink until it was dry, then stood and looked down at the letter for a long moment. How many had she written by now? She hadn't dared make a list of them, so she'd started to lose track. That first letter had seemed so incredibly daring, so hopeful, so wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Lately they were getting a little bit depressing. Why was she even still writing them? She wrote one nearly every time she was going to see Celestia—this one had been written because Celestia was visiting Ponyville this afternoon—and in a way they were cathartic. But she knew she needed to either finally send one, or stop writing them and move on.
She just couldn't bring herself to do either.
"Hey Twi!" Rainbow Dash strolled in through the front door of the castle library. That meant she was probably actually here for a book. Half the time when Rainbow arrived it was through a window, but for reasons that Twilight had never been able to quite figure out, when she came to check out a book, she came in through the door.
Twilight tried not to be too obvious as she hastily shoved the letter underneath a stack of papers on her desk. "Hello Rainbow. I'm afraid we don't have any new Daring Do books in."
"Nah, I know. I was thinking I might try something else. Pinkie showed me this book she was reading the other day. She said it was really good, and it sounded pretty cool when she told me about it."
"Pinkie hasn't checked out anything recently," said Twilight.
"Yeah, she said she borrowed it from Cherilee. I bet you have a copy here though."
"Probably. What was the title?"
"I dunno."
Twilight resisted the urge to face-hoof. "Do you know who the author was?"
"Some old dude, I think."
"Okay... Do you know what it was about?"
"It was some kind of adventure, I think. Maybe it had a dragon in it? Or maybe there was a deer? I remember the cover was blue."
This time Twilight didn't resist the urge at all. "The cover was blue."
"Yep."
"Right. Okay. I'll... see what I can do."
"Thanks Twi!"
Twilight trotted off to sift through the entire fiction section for books with blue covers that might have a dragon or a deer in them. Rainbow sat down and waited, instantly bored. She looked around the room. It was full of books. They were all non-fiction though, the fiction was in a different room. So these books were all boring and lame.
Rainbow yawned. She looked around again. Twilight's desk had a bunch of papers on it. She peered at them, in case they were interesting. They were mostly forms for ordering books and boring stuff like that. A corner of a different-colored paper stuck out from under one of them. It looked like it was fancy paper, the thick kind you might use for something special. She tugged on it, sure it would be just an extra-fancy form, but bored enough to check, just in case.
"Dear Princess Celestia," she read from the top corner. Oh! A friendship report! Rainbow wondered why Twilight had one of those sitting around. They'd stopped sending them ages ago. Curious, she kept reading. After a moment her eyes went wide. Then a huge grin spread across her face. She rolled up the paper and tucked it under a wing. "Hey Twi!" she called out, "I found something to read! See ya!" Then she hurriedly trotted out the door.
Only a few minutes later, Rainbow Dash lay sprawled atop a cloud over Sweet Apple Acres, safely away from any possible interruption by Twilight. She unrolled the letter and started reading.
When she'd finished she flopped over on the cloud and laughed. Twilight! And Celestia! This was too good! Poor Twi, mooning over her teacher like that. "Oh man!" said Rainbow aloud. "This is like something out of a bad romance novel. I should show this to Rarity!"
"Whatcha' talking about?" called a voice from below.
Rainbow peered over the edge of the cloud and saw a familiar orange mare looking up at her. "Oh hi AJ!"
"Hey Dash. What's up?"
"I just finished reading this letter. You totally should read it, it is hilarious!" She swooped down from the cloud and landed next to Applejack, holding out the paper.
Applejack unrolled it and started reading. Almost immediately her cheeks went red and she rolled it up again. "Rainbow Dash! Where did you get this?"
"Swiped it from Twi's desk," said Rainbow cheerfully.
"This is private stuff. You shouldn't be readin' it."
"Aw, come on, it's funny! Twilight is hot for teacher!" Rainbow grinned broadly.
Applejack rolled her eyes. "That ain't nice, an' you know it."
"Hey, it's just a little harmless teasing."
"Teasin' ain't always harmless." Applejack turned away from Rainbow Dash and trotted off, headed towards town.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm goin' to return this to Twilight, which is what you shoulda' done in the first place, 'stead of readin' it."
"Killjoy," muttered Rainbow under her breath.
"Whatcha' got there?" said Pinkie Pie, popping up from a bush alongside the field.
Applejack jumped. "Nothin' that's any o' your business, Pinkie," she said.
"It's a love letter from Twilight!" called Rainbow.
"Ooo, who's it for?"
"Nopony. It's goin' straight back to Twilight, where it belongs."
"But it's if a love letter, than it has to be for somepony! Who is it?"
"It's-"
"Rainbow Dash! That is private information that you shouldn'ta had in the first place!"
"I wanna see!" Pinkie went to snatch the letter from Applejack, who took it in her teeth and started running away from Pinkie. That also happened to be away from Ponyville and deeper into the apple orchard.
"Lemme see!" shouted Pinkie and bounced after Applejack.
"It's private!" said Applejack around the paper still clenched in her teeth, and ran faster.
A rainbow streak suddenly whooshed in front of Applejack's nose and tore the letter out of her teeth. Rainbow, however, hadn't quite gotten a good enough grip on it, and the wind from her flight tore it out of her own hoof as well. It went tumbling through the air, and a further gust of wind caught it and carried it among the apple trees. All three ponies went after it. Rainbow zoomed at it, but the wind shifted just as she reached it and she merely blasted past it, sending it blowing even faster. Only moments later it had left the orchard and fluttered into the Everfree forest.
Rainbow Dash landed at the edge of the woods and peered into the dark forest. There was no sign of the letter.
Applejack came trotting up beside her. "Consarn it, Rainbow, now look what you've done!"
"Well, you said it was private. Unless the trees have learned how to read, I guess Twilight's secret is safe now."
"Awww, I still wanna know who it was!" said Pinkie, making an exaggeratedly sad face.
"Pinkie, ain't you always tellin' me that spreadin' around ponies secrets ain't a good idea?"
"Yeah, but that's when somepony has asked you not to tell. Did Twilight ask Rainbow not to tell?" Pinkie's eyes were wide and innocent as she spoke.
Applejack put her hoof to her face. "No, she didn't."
"Then it's okay!"
"But only 'cause she don't know that Rainbow knows in the first place!" Applejack sounded increasingly exasperated.
"Well I won't tell her," said Pinkie.
"It's Princess Celestia!" said Rainbow, unable to keep silent any longer. She started laughing again. "Twilight's in love with the princess!"
"Oh wow!" Pinkie's eyes went wide. "Does the princess know?"
"No, she doesn't. And we're not goin' to tell her. It ain't our place."
"Hey, chill, AJ. I'm not going to tell the princess."
"Good," said Applejack firmly. She looked into the woods one last time, scanning for any evidence of the letter. She saw no sign of it. "Well, I reckon that's the end of this nonsense, then."
Twilight trotted back out into the main room of the library, a book grasped in her magic. It had taken nearly half an hour, but she was almost certain she had located the blue book that Rainbow had wanted.
There was no sign of the impatient pegasus, which didn't exactly surprise Twilight. She heaved a sigh and set the book down on her desk. No doubt Rainbow would come back for it eventually. Meanwhile she had plenty to do to prepare for Celestia's visit. First on the list was getting rid of the letter.
She picked up the stack of papers she'd stuffed the letter under.
It wasn't there.
She leafed through the stack. Perhaps she hadn't actually put it on the bottom? But there was no sign of it. She searched the top of the desk, looking under the books. No letter. On the floor, maybe? No letter.
Twilight felt her heart racing. "Okay Twilight, don't panic. The letter is gone. You put it here, and it's not here anymore. That means something must have moved it. Spike isn't here right now, so either Owlowiscious moved it, or..." Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Rainbow Dash," she hissed.
"There you go, little squirrely." Fluttershy smiled benevolently as she set the squirrel she'd been carrying down in front of a tree. “Run back to your family, I'm sure they've missed you.” The squirrel chirped at her and nuzzled her hoof, then scurried off towards the nearest tree. Before it arrived, however, a piece of paper came floating down from the sky and landed on it, covering it completely.
The squirrel chittered angrily, and Fluttershy hurried to it and picked up the paper. "Are you okay, little squirrely?"
The squirrel chittered again, sounding very put out, but added a thankful little chirp to the end.
"Oh good! Run along, then," said Fluttershy, with a smile.
The squirrel smiled back, then scurried up the tree and was gone into the forest canopy.
Fluttershy looked down at the paper, her eyes scanning reflexively across the words. She suddenly blushed bright red.
"Oh, dear."
She knew she should probably stop reading, but her eyes dragged across line after line until she reached the end. Still blushing, and feeling very bad for having read something so private, she swiftly rolled up the paper. Then she paused, looking at the little scroll indecisively. What to do with it? Giving it back to Twilight would be every sort of awkward. It was addressed to Celestia, but the contents rather suggested that it shouldn't be delivered to her. Yet keeping it would also be very wrong, she was sure.
"Rarity would know what to do," she said softly, the nodded. She would take it to Rarity and ask her advice.
She trotted off towards Ponyville, the scroll tucked under her wing.
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight pounded on Rainbow Dash's door, hoping desperately that the pegasus was home. "Rainbow! Come out here! It's important!" She pounded some more, feeling herself start to slide into panic. If Rainbow had the letter and she wasn't home, she could be anywhere with it! Anypony could end up with it! Somepony could read it! Or even worse, somepony could read who it was addressed to and deliver it!
"Rainbow!" Twilight tried not to hyperventilate.
"Hey Twi!" The cheerful voice came from behind her.
Twilight jumped most of her own height into the air with a startled yelp. She landed and spun around on Rainbow Dash's cloud doorstep. "Rainbow!"
"What's up?" Rainbow Dash was hovering nonchalantly a few meters away.
Twilight took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. "I just noticed that I am missing a very important and very private letter. It vanished just after you visited. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
"Uhm. I, er..." Rainblow looked incredibly guilty.
"I knew it! You did take it! Where is it?"
"Nowhere, I don't know what you're talking about."
Twilight's magic wrapped around Rainbow Dash and she found herself being shaken back and forth with just a little too much energy. "Where?!” Left, “Is?!” Right, “My?!” Left again, Letter?!" said Twilight, punctuating the interrogation with one last quick shake.
"Aaaaagh, putmedown!"
Twilight stopped shaking her, but still held her in the air for a long moment, breathing hard, obviously fighting to calm herself. Finally she slowly and carefully set Rainbow on her hooves. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again. "Sorry. That was uncalled for. However." A glint of madness lurked in her eyes. "I insist that you tell me where my letter is. Now."
"I don't have it, I promise!" said Rainbow, feeling just a little bit freaked out. She'd seen Twilight lose her cool before, but she'd never been on the receiving end of it. It was really unnerving.
"You don't." Twilight's voice was flat, her eyes narrowed.
"No, I swear! It got... lost. Out in the Everfree. Nopony has it."
Twilight instantly went nearly limp in relief. Then she stiffened again. "Did you read it?"
"I... uh..."
"You did."
"Sorry?"
Twilight glared at her, that glint returning. "Rainbow Dash, if you breathe a single word of this to anyone, ever, I will pull out every feather you have, one at a time. Do you understand me?"
"Eep.” Rainbow's eyes went wide. That was a terrifying threat, and Twilight didn't look like she was joking. "Yeah. I understand."
"Good." Twilight's wings unfurled and she spun and dove from the cloud, down towards the town below.
"...and I just knew that you could tell me what to do about it." Fluttershy sat in Carousel Boutique, fidgeting nervously with her mane.
"Mmm hmm," said Rarity absently, her eyes scanning over the letter. They went suddenly wide, then narrowed, and then set in an expression of determination, though there was also a certain sparkle of delight lurking. "You did the right thing, Fluttershy, in coming to me. This is a romance emergency, but I know just what to do." She rolled the scroll up again and held it firmly in her magic.
"Oh good." Fluttershy gave her a hesitant smile. "I'm glad."
Rarity smiled back. "Now come, it's time to fix the mess that Twilight is making of her love life."
"Oh my. That sounds... like maybe Twilight should fix her own love life?"
"Fluttershy, darling, Twilight is a wonderful, capable pony in many ways, but this letter makes it clear that she has absolutely no clue what she's doing when it comes to romance. But don't worry! Everything will work out just fine, you'll see. Now come."
"Where are we going?"
"To set things right," said Rarity, and she headed out the door, her mouth set in a firm line, but her eyes shining with glee.
Twilight arrowed down from Rainbow's lofty cloud home, headed for her castle. As she flew, though, the feeling of relief she'd felt on learning that the letter was lost began to fade. Lost wasn't the same as destroyed. Admittedly, lost in the Everfree had a certain finality to it, but even there it wasn't entirely safe. Zecora lived there, for example. And Fluttershy ventured at least into the outer reaches of the forest all the time. Other ponies went in as well; herb gatherers, explorers and all too frequently the Cutie Mark Crusaders too.
No, the letter wasn't safe at all. And it was addressed to Celestia! Somepony, on finding it, might actually deliver it to her! That would be an unmitigated disaster. She swallowed hard and looked at the sun. She bared her teeth, fighting the urge to curse. She had only minutes left before Celestia was going to arrive. What was she going to do? She had to do something! Think, Twilight, think, she told herself, wracking her brain for some solution. Suddenly she had it. She could find the letter, burn it to a crisp, and be utterly safe.
She gave up on flying and teleported directly there, landing with a skidding of hooves and a shriek of horseshoes on stone as she failed to properly bleed off her momentum and slid across the room to crash into a bookshelf and end up under a pile of books.
She scrambled from the pile with less care than she normally would have taken and dashed to her desk. In one cubby above it sat a stack of thick, quality paper. With a thought she cast a sympathetic trace spell. It used the essence of the stack to find anything that had once been part of it. A dozen or so bright threads appeared leading away from the desk, visible only to her. Most of them went to other parts of the library, so she turned those off—they weren't want she wanted. Two, however, left the library and headed outside. She trotted swiftly along them. Once out the door she saw that one path stayed on the ground, headed towards Ponyville proper. The other, however, immediately angled up, in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. That was no doubt Rainbow Dash. She cut off the unnecessary line and spread her wings, soaring up after her letter.
The path ran more or less straight for some distance, then halted in a puddle of white light that meant the letter had been more or less stationary for a while. Probably atop a cloud that was no longer present. Then it continued, angled down now. Twilight followed it down to Sweet Apple Acres, where it jiggled and bobbed around at about eye level for a while, then took off slightly upward.
Here it became crazed and irregular, going up and down in broad swoops. No doubt this was where Rainbow Dash had lost it and the wind had picked it up. Twilight hurried after it, tracing the path through the apple farm and to the Everfree itself.
She didn't even hesitate at the edge of the wood, she plunged in. She had to find that letter.
The irregular path finally touched the ground, but it didn't stay there. It lifted again, and moved straight. Twilight felt her stomach clench. Somepony had found it. And indeed, the thread of glowing light was now headed back towards Ponyville. Twilight trotted among the trees as quickly as she could, and as soon as the path came out into the open she took to the air, streaking above it. She was so focused on following the letter that she didn't notice the position of the sun, which would have told her that the time for Celestia's scheduled visit had arrived. Nor, as she began to weave in and out among the buildings, did she take note of the chariot parked in front of the town hall. Her eyes were fixed on the glowing line below her. It was a good thing she was moving above ground level and that Ponyville was mostly an earth pony town or she probably would have collided with any number of ponies on her way. As it was, she reached Carousel Boutique without incident, and saw that the glowing thread led inside, and then back out again.
Twilight almost swore. Rarity had to have it now. Would she gossip about it? Would Celestia find out? She had to catch up to the letter and get it away from her friend, before it was too late. She streaked along the path of the letter, until it went through a door. Her magic and wings together were barely enough to stop her from crashing into the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a golden chariot parked just to one side, and something in her hindbrain started putting two and two together, but she couldn't wait to think, she had to get the letter.
She flung the door open and dashed into the town hall, then skidded to a stop.
Mayor Mare and a little group of townsponies were standing nearby, but right in the center of the room were Fluttershy, Rarity, and Princess Celestia, who held a letter in her golden magic. She was obviously reading it.
There was a long silence. Twilight felt her cheeks go red with a terrible, terrible shame.
"Twilight-" started Celestia, but Twilight threw up her head, gathered her magic, and vanished in an explosive burst of power.
In the silence that followed Celestia glanced back down, reading the final line, and then let the letter drop. She turned her head to the mayor. "Forgive me, I'm afraid I must cancel this visit. Please see my secretary about rescheduling." Then, she too vanished in a flash of light.
Twilight appeared in a field of snow, more than halfway to the Crystal Empire. She had poured all her energy into a desperate attempt to reach the furthest place she could think of. Few other ponies could have teleported that distance. In fact, she was aware of only three others who could. Unfortunately one of the three was Princess Celestia, and Twilight knew the princess was perfectly capable of reading a teleport vortex and following it. So, she didn't stay amid the swirling snow; she charged her horn and immediately vanished again.
This time she popped into existence in Canterlot. She paused for a moment to catch her breath after two such powerful spells. Suddenly Celestia appeared next to her. "Twilight-"
Twilight yelped and teleported again, this time back to Ponyville. On arriving she realized that wasn't nearly far enough and Celestia could follow instantly. Indeed, Celestia appeared a bare second later, but Twilight was already leaving; vanishing to return to reality in Appleoosa. She didn't rest there, but winked out again immediately. This time, she went to Manehattan, then a skip back north to the Crystal Empire proper, and then south again to the Everfree. Maybe the wild magic there would throw Celestia off her trail.
She was nearly exhausted, so she paused there to catch her breath, but Celestia appeared next to her once more. "Please, Twilight, don't-"
Twilight did a panicky teleport to Ghastly Gorge, then to the middle of nowhere near Dodge City. She was running out of power and her range was shrinking. Panting hard and with her corona trembling, she appeared just outside of the Pie family rock farm. She was also running out of places she could remember and go to quickly. She halted again, needing to rest, but already charging her horn again anyway. Twilight had almost forgotten why she was running, but she knew she had to escape. She vanished just as she saw the flash of Celestia's appearance. This time she went to the Whitetail Woods, and nearly staggered with exhaustion as she arrived. She'd crossed the continent repeatedly, and she was nearly spent.
Celestia appeared again, and Twilight charged her horn again, but this time Celestia didn't pause to speak, she just tackled Twilight, grabbing her with hooves, wings, and magic. If Twilight teleported now, she'd have to take Celestia with her.
With a sob Twilight released her magic. "Let me go. Please, just let me go. Let me have my shame in peace," she said.
"Shh Twilight. There's no shame to have. You've done nothing wrong."
"I've made a complete fool of myself writing those letters. I never should have done it. It was stupid. I'm stupid. My stupid little crush is stupid." She found tears gathering her her eyes.
"Oh Twilight." Celestia hugged her tighter, enveloping her in white feathers. "The only thing you did wrong with the letters was not sending any of them."
Twilight lifted her face, trying to blink away tears, reeling with confusion. Too much had happened too fast, and he couldn't make her brain work. What did Celestia mean?
"Twilight... I love you too."
Something in Twilight seemed to break open suddenly. "You... you do?"
"Yes. I've loved you since... since I can’t even say when. Every time you tacked a new subject you took my breath away, mastering effortlessly magic that I’d struggled to grasp. You brought Luna back to me.” Celestia looked down at her, the faintest possible blush touching her cheeks. “You... I don’t even have the words for how long and how much I’ve loved you. And perhaps I was a fool also. I should have told you. But I knew you'd idolized me as a filly, and looked up to me as a mentor, and I worried that if I told you, you would feel obligated to date me, even if it wasn't what you wanted. I didn't want that for you. It seemed better to say nothing and let you find love elsewhere, without such pressures. I... I looked for signs that you felt the same way, but I never saw any. I saw affection, but I thought it was only for a friend. I saw admiration, but I thought it was only because I was your princess. I didn't think you felt that way about me." She shook her head. "And perhaps I was afraid too, that you would reject me. I have not offered up my heart often, over the years. I have not been... brave, in that way."
"I would have thought you'd have all the suitors you wanted. I thought you were just... I don't know, that you had very high standards."
Celestia smiled, still gently holding Twilight. "I do have very high standards. I require somepony I can trust completely, the way I trust you."
"I... Oh." Twilight tucked her head against Celestia's chest, giving in completely to the warm wonderfulness of being held in her embrace.
They nestled together for a long, wonderful moment, while around them sunlight filtered down through the leaves of Whitetail Wood, painting them both in green and gold.
Finally, at length, Celestia loosened her embrace. She bent her head and kissed the tears gently from Twilight's cheeks. Then she tilted Twilight's head up and kissed her softly on the lips. Twilight kissed back with a sigh, letting go of the last tiny scraps of her fear. She had been a fool, and had nearly ruined everything, but now she was here, with her love, and whatever the future held, this moment was enough.
Author's Note
Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
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