Dear Princess Celestia,

I continue to strive, at all times, to fill in your impossibly large hoofsteps. It continues to be such an immense honour, privilege and chance for me to be the pony to carry on your work during your brief absence. I suspect you will return to us soon, and so I, and all your devoted, faithful, loving subjects are striving to make everything just right for when you and your equally divine sister return to grace us once more.

Like I recounted to you during my last correspondence, my travels have been great, and are continuing without a hitch. After ensuring everypony in Equestria was truly accepting of friendship, of harmony and peace, I realised just how silly it was. After all, we have been surrounded, all this time, by creatures unlike us, who sometimes know nothing of friendship, or only as a means to an end.

Naturally, this is a terrifying prospect. How could we sit idly by while potential friends of tomorrow remain ignorant, sometimes warlike and hateful just beyond our frontiers or overseas? We already nearly came to blows multiple times with the dragons, buffaloes and griffons, just to name a few! No, something definitely has to be done about the situation now, not in 60 years or so.

I will admit, the changelings are proving... resistant, more so than even the griffons. Besides the fact that they are annoyingly hard to catch if they try to hide - and they do - thanks to their incredibly large and confusing hive constructs, they always try to mix in with my own ponies when we come to visit to evaluate their affinity for friendship. Thankfully, by now, I've managed to get a good eye for it, and can usually single out infiltrators of their kind without issue. Naturally, those who do that sort of stuff are irredemable failures in terms of friendship, but the rest... well, they try. Sometimes.

To be very frank and honest with you, the very concept is foreign to them. It appears they only ever knew subservience as a closest thing to friendship, so Chrysalis and her rule may have had a more lasting impact and influence than I would have liked, even if the changelings themselves keep insisting that their 'way of life' is based on their 'biology' and the need to literally drain love. Lies, of course! No creatures are put into the great, wide world, the likes of which you and your sister reign in and over, if they were so utterly, fundamentally opposed to friendship.

My efforts to bring them to heel - that is, to make them shed their horrible, disgusting way of life - are ongoing. I've been a little side-tracked by other duties and trips however, as my quest throughout the world nears its end. I've already met most world leadery by this point, from the young emperor of the griffons, or the various kings of Griffonia, to the various republics all around the empire.

My last visit was to one of those kingdoms mentioned prior. Wingbardy. Unlike the changeling lands, it at least looks good, so my hopes were high indeed for the upcoming friendship test. My arrival caused a little bit of commotion, but it was nothing I couldn't deal with in the blink of an eye.

Finally, I managed to meet eye-to-eye with their king, a certain Garibald Talonuel. The third... apparently. He seemed surprised, shocked even, to see me at first. I was even more surprised, then, that he asked me where his son was. Apparently he feared for him, and wanted to see him desperately to know he was safe.

We chatted for a little while after that, the king and I. It turns out the king was deeply worried about his son's well-being on a variety of levels. Apparently he already tried to drill friendship into him in his own way, to make him a fit successor to the throne. Currently though, he was apparently nothing more than a hedonistic couch potato. Hmph.

I have given the king my approval, but have dismissed the parliament that was in place in his name. A single glare into that room upon my entry had been enough to deduce it was filled with conniving, opportunistic, self-absorbed...

...with politicians, is what I mean to say. And like most politicians, the word 'friendship' is little more than a media stunt to please crowds and raise approval ratings. Not only do they not appreciate and live friendship, they spit on its good name by pretending they are nice and friendly! Hmph. It was certainly a relief to get rid of them.

I will be back in Canterlot soon for another project I am working on, one which I'm absolutely, 100% certain you and your holy sister will absolutely adore when you return to us soon. It will help everycreature and, if everything goes as I want - as you want - then it will change the world forever.

I yearn for your destined return, as always. Your subjects and I await you and Luna to take up your rightful places in Canterlot once more, and to begin a new age of peace and harmony for all of us.

Until then, I shall remain eternally,

Midnight Sparkle,
Eternal Regent of Canterlot.

Author's Note

So yeah, I've decided to elaborate on the story a little more after all, hence the now 'Incomplete' marking of the story. There's more to come, but consider this a little taste for now.