Dear Princess Celestia,

These past few years have been some of the best in my life. When you asked me to believe in the magic of friendship, I was at first critical. I mean, who in their right mind would turn down the chance to learn the truest source of power from the harmonics within the ether, right? I'm glad to say that I couldn't have been more wrong.

While at first I didn't really understand it, there is a power of its own right within friendship, that friendship is in fact, magic. And now I find that the more time I spend around them, the harder it's going to be when I lose them. Princess, did you once have friends like this too? I don't mean to pry, but I can't help but wonder. Was there a time that we weren't so different?

I know that nothing lasts forever, and that includes the time you spend with your friends. It still hurts to know that there will come a time when the only people in this world that remember them will be us, Princess. I still can't hardly fathom what will come when that day comes, and I'm scared, Tia. So scared.

So all I'm really trying to do is to ask, what do I do? No matter how much I try to set it aside, I can hardly sleep! It's been nagging at me ever since I donned those wings. At first I'd taken my princesshood for granted, but now there's been enough time for the full implications to settle in. Even when I manage to sleep, all I see is their faces, and I know it won't last forever. Princess, what do I do?

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

Dearest Twilight,

I'm sorry to hear that you've reached this point so soon. It took me almost a decade to realize what you figure out in the last few months. Yes, they will die whether you like it or not, and there's no helping that. I wish there was a way to change that, and if they could all become Alicorns through my skill, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But the process doesn't stem from me, rather from the inborn destiny of those that inherit that responsiblity.

I once had friends just like you did, and I too was once a unicorn like yourself. But as time went by, I watched them grow older, at it slowly occured to me that they were aging while I was not. It's one things to understand a thing in theory, and another to see it standing right in your face. I wish that I could say that this will be easy, that your heart will not be shattered. But that would only be a lie.

All I can honestly say about this is to enjoy the time you have with them. You're right, it won't last forever. But that doesn't preclude you from having the opportunity to live your life with them until their appointed times come, to stand beside their side as a friend while you still can. This isn't going to be any nicer when they move on, but you still have a life to live with them for now.

Don't hide from them, Twilight. It is far better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Yes, a day of pain will come, but there is still time before then. Please, enjoy the life you live and those you love. And they love you too, my faithful student.

Your Loving Mentor,

Princess Celestia

Dearest Twilight,

I wish that the timing could have been better. However, there is a matter in which I need your assistance, as well as the Elements of Harmony. I know that what we have just recently talked about makes this seem like a cruel play, but life is sometimes a terrible master.

My intel informs me that we have recently had an encounter with a rather odd race. They are bipedal in nature, and walk standing without any form of a tail. How they maintain balance on those two thin legs is beyond me. However, they have managed to create technology far ahead of anything we have even imagined. And they unfortunately appear to be hostile.

I have managed to locate the position of the portal that they're using to send through soldiers and supplies near their staging grounds. If you and the elements could lead a small task force I have personally assembled and use the elements to close this gateway that they're using, that would be highly appreciated.

Again, I'm sorry to send you this request on such short notice, but sometimes life doesn't give us the luxury of time. If you should agree to this, I wish you the best of luck in this matter, and hope that things don't get out of hoof. Please, Twilight, I rarely ask you to perform one of these missions, and this is the most dire I have seen since Discord.

Your Loving Mentor,

Princess Celestia

Dear Princess Celestia,

Of course we'll do it! This isn't even a matter of royal duty or an obligation to follow your will. There are ponies out there that may well need our help, and we've yet to fail to aid them. I'm not going to sit on my hooves and fail them now! Don't worry, if we could defeat Discord, free Luna, and work together to stop Sombra's conquest of the Crytal Empire, then I think we can handle this.

I've already assembled the girls, and they are ready to fight for this country. You're right, this country needs us, and we'll be there to protect it. I know that what we'll be facing isn't exactly anything we've stood up to before, but we do have a home to safekeep. I'll write to you with any information regarding the new species as soon as I can gather more information, and maybe we're just being paranoid. But if not, we'll stand for you, Princess.

Regardless, I have the utmost faith that with friendship, all good things can triumph over evil. This will be no exception, and I'm sure that whatever the case may be, there is nothing quite as strong as the magic of frienship.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

Dearest Twilight,

I have sent a chariot and some guards to take you to the rallying point where my sister will help you assemble a unit from the soldiers I have suplied. Luna has also supplied some of her Night Guard, as well. They will come in handy if you at any point require the help of a vampony to take care of any scouting groups or small forces at night. They are well armed and well trained, so trust me when I say that they will be a great asset to the mission.

BE SURE TO BRING SPIKE.

I cannot express the importance of bringing him with you, as he is the only means of immediate communication between us. While I understand that he may still be just out of the infantile state for a dragon, do not understimate him. They age slowly, yes, but he has had plenty of exposure to the real world in the past, besides the fact that your charge has personally saved the Crytal Empire. But beyond that, he is also capable of transferring information to me faster than any mail-mare or scout could dream. This could be of vital importance if you at any point end up needing reinforcements.

I have faith in you, my Faithful Student. I know that no matter what may come, you'll still do your best to protect those you love. May the Light bring forth swift and heavy justice to your side.

Your Loving Mentor,

Princess Celestia

Dear Princess Celestia,

I know it's been almost a week since I last wrote to you. Things have become somewhat hectic around the Portal, and it's taken a while to gather sufficient intel to deduce what is really going on over here. But after several days of hard work and several casualties, we've finally found out what they are and why they're here.

Apparently this race is from another dimension. That's not to hard to guess given the fact that they're using a portal, but it affirms that they are not just from another nearby planet or something. They used a reverbation through the natural frequencies of our reality to theirs to open it, and have since used it to stage more than a thousand of their soldiers on Equestrian soil.

They call themselves something along the lines of Hyumens, and we've been trying to crack down their language. Apparently it doesn't follow quite the same style of syntax as Common Equestrian, or even Higher Equestrian from the past. The erratic style of their speech patterns only emphasizes their already somewhat chaotic nature as they bustle about, maintaining their quarters and machines with less than proper order or discipline.

The Hyumens have created a method of working things outside of simple magic or everyday technique that we take for granted. Instead of magic or flight, they simply have hands. But these hands have given them the opportunity to create such inventions as to fly or perform great feats without needing magic!

As for what the future may hold, I'm still not sure how all of this will play out. They are certainly more ruthless than we are, and seem to be preparing for war. Our few close encounters with them have instantly involved them firing weapons at us. Some of our soldiers were wounded in our last encounter, and one of them died back at the base. I write this to you because despite all of my skill with magic and all the experience of the medics we had soon at the scene, we weren't able to save him.

How can a species come up with such inventions that could kill a full grown stallion in a single shot, despite all of the care and magic put into him? How can that one little hole be able to perform what gaping wounds and shredded could not? For crying out loud, it looked fairly cauterized! The medics are performing an autopsy on the body to figure out what exactly happened.

I will try my best not to let this get to me too much, but I've never failed to heal an injured stallion before, and the insignificant size of the wound only pours salt into the already stinging wound. I hope that this doesn't become a recurring theme, Princess.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

The Humans are certainly hostile. We've finally finished translating their language and writing into Equestrian, and it seems that they have come with one single motivation: Conquest. But not any normal conquest, mind you. Since last monday, we've lost more than forty soldiers to them. Several of the bodies were taken back to their camps, and our scouts report that they cooked and ate them.

How can a sapient species, even that of a predator, choose to eat the flesh of another such species? Doesn't it bother them in the slightest that they are ingesting the meat off of the bones of their enemies? It didn't take them long to figure out our language either, it seems. Our scouts report hearing them practicing to speak a rudimentary and crude version of Equestian for the sake of future combat.

The autopsy on the body shows that while the small hole seemed underwhelming, the pellet we found in the corpse had in fact mushroomed inside the guard's flesh. It had moved faster than the eye could see, and the momentum against the air resistance is probably what caused the flesh to be cauterized. After all, it's nearly impossible for an element such as lead to pass through the air faster than the speed of sound without gaining some heat.

I have already mentioned some of the loses to you, and they seem to have little trouble dispatching our stallions in close-quarters combat. We have inflicted some casualties of our own on them, including several deaths, but have yet to attain a body to use to analyze their physical and genetic patterns.

As for my friends, there are some mixed reactions in there. While disgust with what they are doing is a given between all parties, everyone seems to take this a little differently. I suppose that's to be expected, given who we're talking about.

Fluttershy has seemed to take this rather calmly, surprisingly enough. While she seems disgusted with their eating habits, I suppose her involvement with other predators in the past has given her a more composed view of what facing other predators may be like. Believe it or not, their first loss was at her hoof! I'm surprised that she even had it in her to take a life, but that may well fit considering other times when she was defending her friends.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie have both taken on a mentality of calm disposition, seeming to seethe at their actions, seeming to deny an sort of conscious or sentient thought could exist in the monsters they see before them. I suppose this is to be expected, considering the deaths and pain they've both seen in the last week.

Rarity has taken to brooding a lot lately, and she seems to show up for anything outside of missions and meals less and less. I think she's bottling something up, but whether it's fear, anger, loathing, or what, I don't know. I wish I could help her, but she's been so unreceptive of late.

Applejack seems to have taken it the worst, holing herself up in her room more and more. I can honestly say that it's really starting to scar her inside. The poor mare is finding herself crying more and more often as this starts to drag on. I hope to find a way to close that portal soon, I don't want it to ruin her.

As for myself, I can't really say how I'm taking this emotionally. I've set such notions aside for the time being, mostly to ensure that my friends remain safe. I don't think I could function with all of this otherwise. I hope that we can end this soon, I don't know how much longer I or they can take it.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

Dearest Twilight,

You don't know how much it pains me to hear this. I will immediately start to assemble some reinforcements. I simply hope that this can be resolved one way or another before this starts to become the new norm in Equestria. I've spent the last thousand years trying to steer this land away from the bloodshed and pain of war.

No matter how hard this may seem to you and your friends, try to keep in mind that there is still a world out there worth fighting for, a place where this new reality for you doesn't have to exist. While the humans may have come to take their fill, that doesn't mean that what you're facing there is everywhere. Yet.

By holding your ground and facing them, you're keeping such actions away from places such as your beloved Ponyville and the innocents that reside there. You're protecting a world worth protecting, and sacrificing a part of yourself to do so. Never forget that, my dearest Twilight.

No matter how hard this may seem at times, no matter how dark and lonely the world may seem, no matter how horrific the actions that they inflict on those that neither ask for nor deserved such actions, the sun will still rise tomorrow. There can still be beauty and joy in the world, even in the darkest of hours. But never lose that about yourself, or what you're fighitng for. While the fighitng may not seem to end, never forget that there is still a silver lining.

Your Loving Mentor and Friend,

Princess Celestia

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm still reeling from what happened yesterday, and am only now really capable of expressing what has just transpired. We've become far too predictable, and we don't really know how to cope with the newfound manner in which we now have to wage war. Yesterday they exploited this fact to lay out an ambush.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were on the raiding party we sent out early yesterday morning, before the sun could quite rise. The mission was rather simple, move behind enemy lines, quietly kill the sentinels standing near the supplies, and quickly raid said supplies for resource while burning what we didn't need. It all went on without a hitch at first.

From the few survivors, it has been reported that they intentionally allowed a few of their soldiers to die simply to lay out an ambush. The supplies were fake, being simple explosives and IED's. Almost all of raiding party died within moments, and only the few that were outside the blast radius even survived the initial blast. Pinkie was not among them.

With nearly seventy percent of the party now dead, the humans put the nail in the coffin by opening fire on the remaining portion of our unit, dispatching most of what little had survived. Only two of the initial twenty made it out alive, and neither of them were Rainbow Dash.

I went into shock for a few hours in there, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that two of my closest friends had died so readily. From the report I heard, they had been taken completely by surprise by this heinous act. My remaining friends didn't take this too well, either. No one did, especially Applejack.

She had run off to her quarters last night, and didn't want to be seen by anypony. I tried to console her, to convince her to let me help her, but she wouldn't open up. Rather than pushing the point, I figured that I'd let her cry herself out. Early this morning, I went back to check up on her. The door was locked and she wouldn't answer, so I barged my way in. What I saw still won't leave my eyes.

Applejack hung from her own noose, crafted meticulously and carefully from her own lasso. The chair beneath her feet had been kicked out from under her, and it looked like she had in fact managed to get the noose right. I'm glad she didn't suffer, breaking her neck cleanly and efficiently according to the medics. I had Rarity and Fluttershy put under Suicide Watch, but it has so far proven unnecessary.

I haven't slept since the raid, and I don't know how well I ever will again. I can still see their faces, staring back at me through some kind of strange, broken mirror. I would like nothing more than to die right now, and even thought of doing so. But our people need me, and I can't afford the luxury of a nice, quiet death. It hurts like hell, Tia. It really does.

You're Faithfulll Sttudent,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

Is there such a thing as an end to war? The last five months have been a living hell for me, and the stupid bastards cutting into our homeland have not yet relented. At long last we've finally managed to recreate some of the technology they've been using. I hope that when this is all over, it can be as quickly disposed of as it came into this world.

I've killed more humans than I'd care to count, and I'm the only one of the three remaining Elements to choose not to keep track. Rarity has hardened herself similar to the manner in which Fluttershy already had long ago, and now they've been competing for who can kill the most humans the fastest. It makes me sick.

The only time I catch either or them smiling or laughing is in an after-action report where they had the opportunity to butcher some of the humans. They haven't spared a single life since the others died. I feel more and more distant to those two, almost like the colour of life has been sapped out of them, they meaning to life drained like so much sewage from a flooded manhole.

What happened to them, Tia? The loving, caring ponies I once knew no longer seem to even be there. I can't see how this can be justified, and there's really nothing left in me to confront them about it. Are we all just pawns on some great battlefield? I know one thing for certain, a part of us all died that day, whether our bodies acknowledge it or not.

I know that we've been getting less and less frequent with our letters, Tia. There's no denying that both of our lives have become busy of late, and it's been almost two weeks since either of us sent a letter. I think that it will be strange, once this is all over.

Your Loving Friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm afraid to say that this is likely the last time I'll ever be able to send you a letter. There have been some new developments through the portal, and they've brought thousands of soldiers through. If what remains of this battalion fails to hold this ground long enough for you to send that army you've been raising, the war will be as good as over.

It's strange, knowing when one's death is inevitable. I've always wondered what dying would be like, and a part of me has always really known. I wonder if there will be an afterlife, and maybe I'll see my friends again. I miss them so much.

The passings of both Fluttershy and Rarity were hard on me, but I've grown somewhat callous over the last year in this blasted war. I now feel somewhat empty inside, though. The only person here that I even knew before this whole matter began is Spike, and he and I both know what's coming for us.

It's odd, having seen him grow to the point he has. He may only be a bit larger than the average pony at this point, but he's quite mature for someone of his relative age. I suppose he'd more like a wizzened stallion in a young dragon's body than someone of his own age. I'm proud at what he's become, that's for sure.

I've done some thinking. After all, that's somewhat of a talent of mine, and if there was one thing I had left to do before I died, it would be that. I always supposed death would be something that comes about by the choice of the one dying, that someone who dies in battle is someone who chose to die in battle. While somewhat true, that doesn't fully capture the nature of the matter.

By choosing to face what we have to in war, we aren't choosing whether we live or die. One day we will all die, even someone supposedly immortal such as us, Tia. Whether we die on the battlefield or in the cold, lonely bed in a hospital, one day the reaper will come for all of us. We can't choose whether or not we live or die, nor even the manner of our death (excluding those that do what Aj did.) In the grand scheme of things, all we can really decide is what we are when we die, how we choose to go.

We can be cowards, wasting away in our fear of what we must do. This has shown itself to be more common than I'd care to mention, even among trained soldiers. But the other choice, the harder choice, is to choose to die as heroes. I know it sounds somewhat cliche, but the truth is, that is our only choice.

I can run from the battlefield and live another day, away from the turmoil and fear that has permeated my life. I don't want to die tomorrow, and I know that I can't really face it on my own. But if I did that, there'd be nothing left to live for anyways. The other choice, the harder choice, is to stand my ground. I can die tomorrow, but have died for something worth living for.

We're outnumbered, outclassed, outgunned. There is no way in heaven nor hell that can save us except through retreat. But that isn't an option. If our lines break, if we fail to hold it, everyone else will die for our weakness. I've already talked to the troops, and they've all decided to lay down their lives for this nation we all love so dearly.

I hate to have to tell you this, but there is no way around it. At best, you can have that army here in three days. I need you to do that, as all our dying will do is delay them. But die we must. And in a way, if I had to choose a manner of my death, I don't think I'd choose anything different than to die for the people I love.

Maybe one day we'll see each other again in another life, but until then, this is goodbye. I'll miss you, Celestia, and I want to tell you one thing right now before I go. I love you. Not as a friend or mentor, nor as a companion through all these years. You are like a sister I never had, Celly, and I wouldn't trade the world for it. I don't know if you have felt the same way, but I always wanted a big sister. I suppose it's a little late to say this, but I have to tell you.

Farewell, Celestia.

Your Loving Friend and Caring Companion,

Princess Twilight Acorna Sparkle

My Dearest Twilight,

It has been nearly three years since your passing. I suppose that the reason I'm sending this letter is mostly for closure, since I doubt that you can read this. But I just have to write this. I suppose old habits die hard, in a way.

At long last, the war is finally over. Whether or not they'll ever manage to open another portal, I honestly cannot say. But one thing is for certain, they won't be coming back anytime soon. We drove them back into the pit from which they came, and I'm glad that this conflict is finally resolved.

I cannot express how much I have missed you these last few years. Despite the vast length of my life, I've never felt so attached to anyone save my sister Luna. Our sister Luna, Twilight. I know that it sounds strange, but I too felt that bond between us, and to see you go has hurt me almost unbearably.

You did not die in vain, my faithful student. You died for something greater than yourself, greater than all of us. You died for the world, Twilight, and your blood was the turning point in this entire war. Had you not done what was necessary, I doubt that the celebrating in the streets of Canterlot would be going on today. For that I will be forever in your debt.

Today is the revealing of a commemeorative statue for all of those that lost their lives in this war. There are semblances of you and all the elements on it, as well as some of the others who have fought bravely and magnificently. Nearby I've placed a wall with all the names of those that fell, every single one. Oh Twilight, it's so much bigger than it should be!

I will never forget you, nor any of the others that have been laid to rest for this. I don't care if I live a million years, I'll still remember you like it was yesterday. No matter where you are, no matter how long it is until we meet again, know that I always have and always will love you.

Your Loving Sister,

Princess Celestia