5 July 2███,
My dearest Wintergreen,
It’s been five years since we last spoke. Five since you XXX▇▆▇█▇▇XX.
Sorry. The grief makes it hard to think—think or write clearly. Bunny insists I write to you before we set our wedding date, so write I must.
I haven’t told you about Bunny—or really anything about Earth since your exit, have I?
Baguette Buns is my marefriend turned fiancée. We got engaged last month. Do you remember the Equestrian history books you read to me before we married? She is as tall as Luna and weighs as much as the sun goddess herself. According to her, all fellow immigrants from the Ardennes Forest are of similarly massive build. Her coloration is bay; her cutie mark is a 7-spoked wheel. It has an exquisitely low contrast on her coat.
Describing her to you has helped me already. She, just like you, inevitably puts me in a good mood. I’m even returning to being happy while thinking of you now, just like while we were still together. I sure hope you don’t mind me describing how I finally encountered somepony who brings me as much joy as you brought me all those years ago.
It was a year and a half ago? No. Must’ve been only 13 or 14 months back. The evenings were still warm. I hailed a wagon taxi to the stallions’ club. I had gotten back to dating about a year or two before then without luck. Swiping on my fellow humans is a futile meat market. Swipe on the men for meaningless instant success, on the ladies for disappointment. Did humans suddenly become challenging over our all-too-brief three years together?
A wagon pulled by an enormous bay horse pulled up to my weekday apartment, my bachelor pad to impress dates. I gave her the address, and then she trotted off with me in tow. She asked me why a human man would want to have anything to do with a stallion club. I ended up sharing our story with her—our story and my hope that I could strike lucky with a pony. You may be the best, but surely there must exist others who are close.
Once I had reached that statement, she abruptly stopped.
“You fell in love with at least two human women during high school and college, then married and were widowed by a stallion?” or something like that, she said before offering to continue to the stallion club or to accept a refund for my ride and spend the night together on a date.
She pulled into a third-tier sketchy cart depot to drop off her cart and driving harness (scary!) before walking down the stairs to the subway. Before we entered the platform, she insisted I ride her to save on distance fare. I showed her my distance card and told her about our property way out on the west line. She lives at the northeast terminus of the 1:30 line.
When the train stopped, I rode her at a trot for about half a mile until she shouted for me to grab her mane. She quickly accelerated to a gallop, then jumped an impressively scary leap over a creek into her home. Her home was a thicket of purloined buckets, A-frames, mounting blocks, stools, and stepladders from a potpourri of painting contractors—she was no stranger to human companionship before she gave me the ride. We were greeted by her yearling colt, whom she gently dismissed to head to the far pasture.
I did mention I was widowed. This is what she wants me to write about. That’s what she’s prodding me with her muzzle to check if I’ve written your story already—seeing you make your incorporeal return to Equestria via the sun. She just promised to leave me alone to write, but she will check back.
It was a hot summer day. Maybe it wasn’t hot. It was undeniably mostly sunny and July.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I pulled into our driveway. Our equine neighbors stood with flared nostrils and whitened eyes in our pasture. Brutus had leaped over several fences and across the highway; Lenny had busted straight through the weak spots in both his fence and ours to reach you.
“We offered the traditional final act of kindness, but he insisted that he stay here until you arrive,” explained Lenny.
I did not need to ask why such measures were considered. You were on your side with a broken foreleg. As soon as I sat for you to rest your head in my lap, I saw the fatal gopher hole. Perhaps it was murderous bunnies. Most likely, a freak accident. Brutus told us the consulate dispatched two pegasi with an hour flight time immediately after he hung up. That was 45 minutes before. We still had 15 minutes for me to stroke your frosty blue mane and confirm arrangements if the prognosis was as expected. Mostly mane-stroking. All mane-stroking, really. A few pauses for me to bend to listen to your ragged breathing or scratch your withers.
We were gifted a few moments extra when the medical team circled overhead. They rode the thermals as reverse buzzards before hovering over the ground and cautiously landing. Two mares: one orange-maned, the other golden-white, their coats obscured by the uniform. The white-maned one pulled out her clipboard, spotted the hole, and her face fell. It would be six Earth months until Equestria was easily accessible from this part of Earth, and you were in no condition to travel around the globe for emergency treatment. Front legs are load-bearing, they explained, and, unlike hinds, they had yet to make a device that could take the weight without inviting some other cause to kill the patient slowly. They did commend Lenny for charging through the door to the supply shed and Bruce for having the dexterity to grab bottles of “the good stuff” to keep you out of agony until I arrived.
The… XXXXX▉█▇██
Your final moments are still a blur. Their instruction to me was clear: keep your horn pointed to the sun at all costs. They mentioned that your strong bond to your body may pose a challenge as you’d suddenly change your mind and thrash your body in a delusional attempt to free yourself. Free yourself from fate? From my arms? From…?
There was at least one wasp with a gentle sting that afternoon. A fatal sting, but gentle. You told me you loved me and that you hoped humans can visit Equestria once I reached my expiry date. I stroked your muzzle and cheek and felt your magic surging, gathering, pulsing, and agitating before I was blinded by a silent straight ray of lightning from your horn to the sun.
That was the end.
I promised myself I wouldn’t end on such a sad note. I can’t end on such a note, especially if it rubs off on Bunny. Do you remember when we first met? I don’t know how I discovered that this unicorn demanding my attention was a stallion, but I distinctly remember telling you that I’m not into men.
Your words remain forever in my mind: “Good thing I am a stallion, then.” You then used your silly trot to circle me and brushed your poll against my hand. That was what sold me on giving you a chance. Even when I gave human men a chance after our time together, they never measured up to you (or even the stallions I unsuccessfully tried to date after you). If nothing else, human men don’t have that silly circle trot to warm my loins and my soul. The rest of that night is unsuitable for the sacred magic of transmission to Equestria. I know you still remember it, too. Just remember that night, smile, and pretend I wrote it here. Or remember a different night, but always starting with that trot when you initiate.
I miss our karaoke nights. I’d set you up with “What good is a bar if you ain’t poppin’ the bottles” and you’d freestyle instead of giving Nelly’s expected retort.
The only consistent lie I told you was that our wedding kiss was the happiest day of my life. The happiest moments were before then. When we practiced the public kiss. When I’d shift weight back to support you after you reared to make our lips touch. The wedding was just one kiss. The practice sessions had many. Most failures that you made more pleasurable than successes. Yes, even counting the bruises from the falls. After the falls—when it’d always be you on top from momentum—you’d insist on a makeout session with your velvety muzzle, often escalating to activities that precluded continuing the display kissing practice.
This isn’t quite as “in a manner safe for a filly to hear” as Bunny would prefer, but this is between me and you, with some moments for her to eavesdrop and check I stayed on task.
One final thing to tell you before I grab a magnifying glass, roll this letter into a tube, and commend it to the sun while she’s still shining bright. To help me write this letter, I finally opened an envelope from Equestria bearing the name “King Terramar.” Inside was a lovely letter thanking me for giving you those good years after you moved to Earth and a photo of a hippogriff, you, and the skewbald stallion who cried more than I did while feeding me strong drinks at your memorial service. You were just as loved in Equestria as I loved you here on Earth. They were lucky to have been your collegiate boyfriends and buckball teammates.
‘Til death did we part.
I love you,
Charlie
