There is one thing I can agree with that crimson stable buck in Fillydelphia, ponies need to be reminded of their duties. And even if they have forgotten them, every individual have a duty they need to fulfill. Parents have a duty to their foals, soldiers have a duty to their commanding officer, a subject has a duty to their monarch and everypony has a duty to their fellow ponies. I will admit that this is a bit hypocritical of me as I have once forgotten and abandoned my own duties. Duties to my ancestors, to those who placed their hopes in me and to the citizens of a country which has been immolated until merely ashes and ravaged souls remain. And the duty to the future generations so they might not suffer the same horrors.

There was a stallion I met a long time ago, an exemplar of the virtue. When I was wallowing in solitude and carnage he had stayed truer to his duties than anyone else I ever known. He lived by his duty to Equestria and to the mare he loved even if she had long since passed from this world. As a lost foal I stuck by him for over a decade until I finally returned to my own path, I do wonder however his life turned out in the end? I know that the order he created is built around the virtue of Duty and it has held strong for two centuries where towns and would-be nations have crumbled. Yes, the Steel Rangers know to hold on to their virtue and they have grown magnificent as a result. Yet even among them there are those who have forgotten their oaths and their duty. There will come a day when he is forced to remind them, as their originator and as the lover of their Minister.

There are moments when I wonder if I should have abandoned my own foolish designs and have stuck by his side. My knowledge and talents could surely have helped him, and perhaps he could have restrained my more destructive tendencies. However, I still have a duty above all others. One I can't abandon, my promise to her.

If I have to burn the heavens for her sake then so shall it be.

Ètoile Van Hoof

Duchess of Vanhoover