We Had Magic, and Friendship Too (Messages From a Former World)

by Mockingbirb

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Zecora, Sad, Main 6, Spike, My Little Pony: A New Generation, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 1040

When magic's slow decline dooms Equestria, ponies write letters to a future they don't expect to see.

When magic's slow decline dooms Equestria, ponies write letters to a future they don't expect to see.

This story MIGHT turn out to be an entry in the "A Thousand Words Contest," maybe?
(#epistolary #literally-epistolary #1000words 1000words 1000 words)

Published 2022-03-26 16:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-03-26 16:00:01 UTC

Carved In Stone

You might have found these words carved on a rock, or stamped into buried metal plates, or anywhere else Celestia's Letters to the Future Project could think of.

Celestia is giving most ponies only a hundred words each, but I'm getting a thousand. Even to me that didn't seem fair. I might be an alicorn princess, but in the end I'm just another pony, you know?

So I said, what if I use my words to write not just about me, but about my friends and Ponyville and everycreature else? Celestia said that's fine.

I don't know if you'll understand what happened to us. We don't understand it ourselves. We do know, magic has been getting weaker and weaker, and we don't know why.

So much in our world depends on magic. It's hard to imagine a world without it.

Our earth ponies use earth magic to make the crops grow better, and to work with more strength than muscles alone could provide.

Our pegasi live in cities built upon clouds, which is possible because they can fly and cloudwalk. But when they can't, where will they live?

Some pegasi aren't even trying to move to the ground. They say, if they can't fly and control the weather to help the ground ponies, they won't be real pegasi anymore and maybe it's better not to even try.

That's going to be another problem: with no pegasus weather control, what will the world be like? It will be even harder for the earth ponies to grow food.

I wonder, how will ponies get enough to eat? If everypony is fighting over food, what will that do to their friendships?

Do you future ponies know how important friendship is?

I should tell you about my friends. A thousand words isn't enough, of course. But I'll write about how my friends are trying to help you, future ponies who might not even exist yet.

Applejack has found a plot of land where magic is even weaker than in the rest of Equestria, where she's trying to breed new kinds of apples that grow even without any magical help. So far they're just small and wormy, but they're better than nothing.

Rainbow Dash said, if nopony will be able to fly, she'd better try to get all the flying done now. You might think that sounds crazy, but it really means she's finding mountains and cliffs that are impossible to climb by hoof, and she's pulling up ropes and cables so ponies will be able to get up there even when nocreature can fly anymore. Maybe we'll still have pegasus cities in high places, but on the tallest mountains instead of clouds.

Pinkie Pie has been packing up party kits in big metal boxes, and burying them underground. That might seem frivolous, but she says ponies will need to remember what fun is like.

She's also been digging underground hideouts where ponies will be able to take cover if wild weather tries to destroy everything. Maybe that's more practical.

Fluttershy has been a wreck. She's used to doing almost everything with her animals, but she can't talk to them so well anymore. The last time I saw her cottage, some of the carnivores had attacked the herbivores, and it looked like...blood and death. She's still trying to take care of her big and little creatures, but she's had to send more and more of them away, to live on their own without her help.

With her whole life's work falling apart, I don't know how she keeps going. I'm afraid to ask.

Rarity is all about beauty and generosity. But in the coming disaster, who will have time for pretty dresses?

Rarity gave most of her fancy clothes to Pinkie Pie to bury in her party kits. She's also been working hard designing and sewing tough new clothes for relief workers. When she can find some spare time, she helps the Flower Sisters grow flower seeds. Rarity now plants seeds far and wide, and buries some more in jars with growing instructions. She says whatever the coming world is like, ponies will need beauty.

I haven't really told you about myself. But maybe reading about my friends tells you something about me, too. I'd like to think so.

Zecora is a zebra shaman who lives in the Everfree forest. When I first met her, I thought she was weird and scary. But as somecreature who doesn't have regular magic, she might be the most helpful equine in Ponyville. She's always had to live without using any of the three types of pony magic, and she's teaching everypony else all she knows.

Let that be a lesson: just because somecreature is different from you, doesn't mean you and she can't be good friends, and help each other. Sometimes you can grow the best friendships that way.

Spike...can't fly anymore. Not enough magic. I hear things are getting worse in the Dragonlands than they are here. I asked him about that, and he didn't want to talk about it.

Maybe he'll write some of his words about that, before the end.

Maybe there will never be any magic ever again? Or maybe there will be magic, but a different kind from ours. In our world, pony magic originally came from Celestia and Luna and the Elements of Harmony, but it's in everypony, like part of our bodies. Moondancer has a theory that maybe someday there will be a kind of magic that isn't based on being born with a horn or wings or...whatever it is earth ponies have. Instead, she says, maybe it will be based on friendship and...special gems and floating lights, or something like that?

I'm not sure she understands it very well herself. But if you can, try to find HER words. Just in case the answer is in there.

I wish I'd been a better friend to her. I'm going to miss her so much. I'm going to miss everycreature. I love

Author's Note

"Because we are working on a tight deadline to emplace as many copies as possible, if anycreature sends the Project more words than their quota, the extra words will not be included."