Dear Ben Chwarmer,

I did indeed abbreviate your name in my most recent letters, and I did it because of the reason you suspected. I thought that perhaps using your full name was just a bit too formal for what I was writing: A letter to a friend. These correspondence are not for public record or professional interest, so why not address you with how I might were you here with me? I would really like it if we could shed the formality and let our letters be less uptight.

It might only be fair to warn you (before you make another cultural faux-pas) that it is rarely, if ever, appropriate to ask for a mare's age. She might get upset with you (and perhaps violently so) for it. I am personally fine with the question, or was up until it was asked within the context you mentioned. Your own age still baffles me, and I really would rather not embarrass myself any further by admitting how old I am. Perhaps it is best if we just let this topic fade away for the sake of not becoming red in the face each time we go to pen to one another.

In one fell swoop, you have successfully altered my vision of Terriel from being a metal-driven utopia to a war-torn wasteland. I'm sure both are much too extreme to be close to the truth? I also see how you just casually mention all of this tragedy as though it were commonplace. Is war and crime something common for humans in general or just back on Terriel? I'm a bit horrified now at the thought of what it must have been like growing up there. Perhaps it is just the hyperboles I keep imagining though: Maybe when we find a way for you to go back home, I could come with you to see it for myself and let my mind rest from its extreme ideas. After seeing what your friends might say about me, though, perhaps I would not be as well-received as I might hope.

I see you mentioned that you own a sorcerer? How can that be? You told us that your people did not use or even believe in magic! How is this possible then? Also on the thought of magic, I think I discovered where your horn is too! Your I/O ports are a direct connection with your cerebrum, right? So is a unicorn's horn. It is a direct channel from one's mind to the outside world, so maybe this is a step in the right direction of finding out how you got here.

As for my titles, it is a long story and I don't know if you're in the mood for reading a biography on me right now. The star pupil comment is just because I've been recognized once or twice for my academic achievements back in school, and the fact that the Princess has selected me personally for special assignments before. Did I tell you about my assignment? I've been sent to Ponyville to research the magic of friendship. I know that might sound silly to you, as it did to me too, but believe me when I state that I have made some very helpful discoveries along the way. As for the element of harmony title, perhaps we should save my quill, and your eyes, from telling that whole story in a letter.

I also wanted to mention that I noticed you had not told me how things in Songring are going. Is everything alright? You haven't been hit by another hurricane and don't wish to tell me for fear of leaving me upset, right? Please let me know how things are there next time.

Informally Yours,
Twilight Sparkle

Dear Twilly,

You must have some sort of extrasensory perception to have asked how things are going here when you did. Your timing is impeccable. Up until recently, my neglect to mention life in Songring has mostly been due to just familiarity and feeling like there was little noteworthy to mention to you; however, right now that is certainly not the case. I am well, or as well as I can be given the circumstances, but the situation at Songring is quickly becoming dire. I am not sure how much or how little I can and should reveal to you, since I am not certain if these letters go through any censorship, and the information at hand is quite sensitive and probably not good for public knowledge. To be fair though, I will not leave you entirely in the dark.

Songring has been attacked. We do not know what group or entity has targeted us, but I fear that we might soon come under siege from this force. We've lost a few good ponies so far, and I dread the thought that there may be more lives yet to lose. A farmer, a miner, and a militia pony are listed under the casualties for this season. The settlers are scared, and I don't know if I have the courage needed to stand up and try to bolster them right now.

These letters, however, I mean to use as my escape. I don't wish to mull over the hardships as I think of you and everyone back there in Ponyville. I almost wrote the word "home" instead, isn't that silly? I must just be projecting my wish to get back to somewhere safer and more peaceful like returning home from a long trip.

War is very common for humans and the other intelligent species of Terriel. I'm trying to think of a time in my life that war was not a concept that I understood or was not complacent with. Even at the youngest age I can remember, I played with a cap-gun revolver, while pretending I was a cowboy, and treasured the stories of how they battled with savages on an open frontier. It is just something that we accept as a culture, and maybe that is why I address it with such a casual demeanor. Perhaps that familiarity to me is exactly why I have not ordered an evacuation of Songring or sent out a distress call yet.

I was not lying when I said we don't believe in magic. The joke I made was about a game that I played with a few others I knew back on Terriel called Chimeras and Caverns. It is a role-playing game in which each player assumes control of a fictitious character that has skills and abilities chosen beforehand, and through the use of polyhedral dice and math, the players attempt to guide their chosen characters through perils and combat to successfully complete quests and campaigns. Magic is a concept found in those types of games only because most consider everything from the game to be fictitious or equivalent to fairy-tales anyways. That is what I meant by my sorcerer comment. I apologize for the confusion.

Hopefully things there in Ponyville are better than they are here. I could really use some good news right about now. Tell everyone that I miss them if you can. Perhaps it might be best not to mention the current state of affairs here. I don't want them to worry about something they are too far from to change. Just let them know that I hope I get to see them soon.

Exhaustedly Yours,
Benjamen Prodder