Seashell (print rewrite)

SEASHELL

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle
From the desk of Sunburst, April 23, YS 1330:

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I received your letter waiting for me upon my return to Canterlot from duty on the Seawall. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to respond sooner, but the Seawall is too distant and isolated to get mail service. It’s a very lonely place.

I’m extremely happy for both you and Captain Rainbow Dash. It’s deeply pleasing to hear that you’re finally able to have a relationship in the open in the same way any other couple would be able to. Reading through old issues of the Canterlot Times to get myself caught up on things here in Equestria after my return, I noticed that in the first days after your public acknowledgement of your relationship there was the expected controversy about the idea of a princess romantically involving herself with a close member of her staff. I’m guessing your situation must have been difficult, and it must have been exactly these kinds of issues you and Captain Dash feared so much. I’m sorry those kinds of things helped keep you apart for so long. However, I was also highly satisfied to see that any problems were largely quenched after Princesses Celestia and Luna stood firmly behind you in support.

I was also humbled to learn that you had put in your recommendation that I receive a decoration. Your gratitude is very flattering to me, but no special thanks are necessary.

It is the duty of any protector to look after her master’s well-being, and of any soldier to do what her nation and its leaders need her to do. That’s really all I did, if maybe in a way not considered strictly conventional. A few roses may have been an unusual choice of weapon, but I had a feeling they were just the thing to help you achieve this victory.

I did of course face a difficult decision about how far the scope of such a duty extends. I worried for a very long time that doing or saying anything would be overstepping the bounds of subordination and obedience. I was scared it might do more harm than good. I’ll be honest and say that I doubted myself. It was hard to admit to myself what I was seeing. I thought at first that it would be for the best if I just kept your secret silently. I realized in the end that I couldn't do it – living a lie, and seeing the two of you living in suffering for it, is something that my conscience just wouldn’t let me accept.

As for the question of how I knew about you and Rainbow Dash and why I was finally driven to act as I did: well, I’ve wondered that myself at times. It still seems like a dream in some ways, and it’s a little unreal even to me that I would be caught up in such a simultaneously wonderful and frightening thing as bringing about a realization of true love. It all seems like something out of a fairy tale, doesn’t it?

All I can tell you with certainty right now is that I heard it in the voice of a child and the song of a seashell.

If that seems esoteric (and I know it does, I’m sorry), a better and more detailed explanation might be in the things I’ve already written about it. For that reason, you’ll find enclosed with this letter copies I’ve made of some selected entries from a journal I kept while all this was going on. These excerpts are all numbered and dated and in the proper order for your convenience.

I hope that these will help make everything clear. I feel greatly honored to have had the opportunity to to play a part in assisting you with this.
 
 
Proud to have served you,
– Sunburst
 
 
PS., Please tell Azure Sky I said hello, and I hope she’s not staying up too late at night, even if it is for a worthy cause like reading to pursue knowledge. Little ponies need their rest!