Dear Captain Longstocking,
I'm not writing to you because I've learned something new about friendship. I'm writing to you because I've finally gotten the courage to write something I've known all along.
I love you.
I've always loved you. When I was a little filly, it was a different sort of love. You were my teacher, and I adored you. The older I got, though, the less it felt like adoration for a teacher and the more it felt like something else. By the time I moved to San Bernardino I knew it was a crush. By the time I became an alicorn, I knew it was more than just a crush.
I wrote you a letter like this one, then. You had seemed so beyond me for so long that I never had the courage to say anything. You were the alicorn of the sun. I was just a unicorn of no particular importance. Then suddenly I was the alicorn of magic, and it seemed like maybe I was your equal. The words were hovering on my lips all through my coronation, and when I just couldn't bring myself to say them, I thought a letter might be easier. But I never got the courage to send that, either. I burned it in the fireplace almost as soon as I finished writing it.
I nearly said those words again when you gave me your power to fight Bengt. Knowing that I might never see you again was almost enough. Yet it also felt like it might somehow curse me, like if I treated that moment as our last meeting, it really wold be, so yet again I couldn't say those three little words.
I guess I still can't. When I said I'd finally gotten the courage to write this, I almost lied. I did get the courage to write it—I've written it so many times!—but I never have the courage to send these letters to you. I still don't. So you'll never see this one either. I'm sorry.
I do love you. But what can I offer you? You've been courted by the greatest ponies in history, and you turned so many of them down. Yes, I spent a lot of time researching your past love affairs. You haven't had many. How could I expect to be one of that tiny hoofful of ponies? I can't.
It's more than that, though. It's not just that I'm afraid I'm not worthy of you. I'm afraid of what will happen once you know. What we have now is so close to perfect. How can I risk ruining it? So I'll probably burn this letter too. I am just not brave enough to tell you how I feel. Maybe someday I'll somehow manage it. For now I remain,
Your friend, Pippi Longstocking.
****
Pippi carefully blew on the ink until it was dry, then stood and looked down at the letter for a long moment. How many had she written by now? She hadn't dared make a list of them, so she'd started to lose track. That first letter had seemed so incredibly daring, so hopeful, so wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Lately they were getting a little bit depressing. Why was she even still writing them? She wrote one nearly every time she was going to see Captain—this one had been written because Captain was visiting San Bernardino this afternoon—and in a way they were cathartic. But she knew she needed to either finally send one, or stop writing them and move on.
She just couldn't bring herself to do either.
"Hey PL!" Anna strolled in through the front door of the castle library. That meant she was probably actually here for a book. Half the time when Anna arrived it was through a window, but for reasons that Pippi had never been able to quite figure out, when she came to check out a book, she came in through the door.
Pippi tried not to be too obvious as she hastily shoved the letter underneath a stack of papers on her desk. "Hello Anna. I'm afraid we don't have any new Daring Do books in."
"Nah, I know. I was thinking I might try something else. Annika showed me this book she was reading the other day. She said it was really good, and it sounded pretty cool when she told me about it."
"Annika hasn't checked out anything recently," said Pippi.
"Yeah, she said she borrowed it from Cherilee. I bet you have a copy here though."
"Probably. What was the title?"
"I dunno."
Pippi resisted the urge to face-hoof. "Do you know who the author was?"
"Some old dude, I think."
"Okay... Do you know what it was about?"
"It was some kind of adventure, I think. Maybe it had a dragon in it? Or maybe there was a deer? I remember the cover was blue."
This time Pippi didn't resist the urge at all. "The cover was blue."
"Yep."
"Right. Okay. I'll... see what I can do."
"Thanks PL!"
Pippi trotted off to sift through the entire fiction section for books with blue covers that might have a dragon or a deer in them. Anna sat down and waited, instantly bored. She looked around the room. It was full of books. They were all non-fiction though, the fiction was in a different room. So these books were all boring and lame.
Anna yawned. She looked around again. Pippi's desk had a bunch of papers on it. She peered at them, in case they were interesting. They were mostly forms for ordering books and boring stuff like that. A corner of a different-colored paper stuck out from under one of them. It looked like it was fancy paper, the thick kind you might use for something special. She tugged on it, sure it would be just an extra-fancy form, but bored enough to check, just in case.
"Dear Captain Longstocking," she read from the top corner. Oh! A friendship report! Anna wondered why Pippi had one of those sitting around. They'd stopped sending them ages ago. Curious, she kept reading. After a moment her eyes went wide. Then a huge grin spread across her face. She rolled up the paper and tucked it under a wing. "Hey PL!" she called out, "I found something to read! See ya!" Then she hurriedly trotted out the door.
****
Only a few minutes later, Anna lay sprawled atop a cloud over Sweet Apple Acres, safely away from any possible interruption by Pippi. She unrolled the letter and started reading.
When she'd finished she flopped over on the cloud and laughed. Pippi! And Captain! This was too good! Poor PL, mooning over her teacher like that. "Oh man!" said Anna aloud. "This is like something out of a bad romance novel. I should show this to Cassandra!"
"Whatcha' talking about?" called a voice from below.
Anna peered over the edge of the cloud and saw a familiar orange mare looking up at her. "Oh hi Willie!"
"Hey Anna. What's up?"
"I just finished reading this letter. You totally should read it, it is hilarious!" She swooped down from the cloud and landed next to Willie, holding out the paper.
Willie unrolled it and started reading. Almost immediately her cheeks went red and she rolled it up again. "Anna! Where did you get this?"
"Swiped it from PL's desk," said Anna cheerfully.
"This is private stuff. You shouldn't be readin' it."
"Aw, come on, it's funny! Pippi is hot for teacher!" Anna grinned broadly.
Willie rolled her eyes. "That ain't nice, an' you know it."
"Hey, it's just a little harmless teasing."
"Teasin' ain't always harmless." Willie turned away from Anna and trotted off, headed towards town.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm goin' to return this to Pippi, which is what you shoulda' done in the first place, 'stead of readin' it."
"Killjoy," muttered Anna under her breath.
"Whatcha' got there?" said Annika Pie, popping up from a bush alongside the field.
Willie jumped. "Nothin' that's any o' your business, Annika," she said.
"It's a love letter from Pippi!" called Anna.
"Ooo, who's it for?"
"Nogirl. It's goin' straight back to Pippi, where it belongs."
"But it's if a love letter, than it has to be for somegirl! Who is it?"
"It's-"
"Anna! That is private information that you shouldn'ta had in the first place!"
"I wanna see!" Annika went to snatch the letter from Willie, who took it in her teeth and started running away from Annika. That also happened to be away from San Bernardino and deeper into the apple orchard.
"Lemme see!" shouted Annika and bounced after Willie.
"It's private!" said Willie around the paper still clenched in her teeth, and ran faster.
A Anna streak suddenly whooshed in front of Willie's nose and tore the letter out of her teeth. Anna, however, hadn't quite gotten a good enough grip on it, and the wind from her flight tore it out of her own hoof as well. It went tumbling through the air, and a further gust of wind caught it and carried it among the apple trees. All three ponies went after it. Anna zoomed at it, but the wind shifted just as she reached it and she merely blasted past it, sending it blowing even faster. Only moments later it had left the orchard and fluttered into the Everfree forest.
Anna landed at the edge of the woods and peered into the dark forest. There was no sign of the letter.
Willie came trotting up beside her. "Consarn it, Anna, now look what you've done!"
"Well, you said it was private. Unless the trees have learned how to read, I guess Pippi's secret is safe now."
"Awww, I still wanna know who it was!" said Annika, making an exaggeratedly sad face.
"Annika, ain't you always tellin' me that spreadin' around ponies secrets ain't a good idea?"
"Yeah, but that's when somegirl has asked you not to tell. Did Pippi ask Anna not to tell?" Annika's eyes were wide and innocent as she spoke.
Willie put her hoof to her face. "No, she didn't."
"Then it's okay!"
"But only 'cause she don't know that Anna knows in the first place!" Willie sounded increasingly exasperated.
"Well I won't tell her," said Annika.
"It's Captain Longstocking!" said Anna, unable to keep silent any longer. She started laughing again. "Pippi's in love with the princess!"
"Oh wow!" Annika's eyes went wide. "Does the princess know?"
"No, she doesn't. And we're not goin' to tell her. It ain't our place."
"Hey, chill, Willie. I'm not going to tell the princess."
"Good," said Willie firmly. She looked into the woods one last time, scanning for any evidence of the letter. She saw no sign of it. "Well, I reckon that's the end of this nonsense, then."
****
Pippi trotted back out into the main room of the library, a book grasped in her magic. It had taken nearly half an hour, but she was almost certain she had located the blue book that Anna had wanted.
There was no sign of the impatient pegasus, which didn't exactly surprise Pippi. She heaved a sigh and set the book down on her desk. No doubt Anna would come back for it eventually. Meanwhile she had plenty to do to prepare for Captain's visit. First on the list was getting rid of the letter.
She picked up the stack of papers she'd stuffed the letter under.
It wasn't there.
She leafed through the stack. Perhaps she hadn't actually put it on the bottom? But there was no sign of it. She searched the top of the desk, looking under the books. No letter. On the floor, maybe? No letter.
Pippi felt her heart racing. "Okay Pippi, don't panic. The letter is gone. You put it here, and it's not here anymore. That means something must have moved it. Spike isn't here right now, so either Owlowiscious moved it, or..." Pippi's eyes narrowed. "Anna," she hissed.
****
"There you go, little squirrely." Tommy smiled benevolently as she set the squirrel she'd been carrying down in front of a tree. "Run back to your family, I'm sure they've missed you." The squirrel chirped at her and nuzzled her hoof, then scurried off towards the nearest tree. Before it arrived, however, a piece of paper came floating down from the sky and landed on it, covering it completely.
The squirrel chittered angrily, and Tommy hurried to it and picked up the paper. "Are you okay, little squirrely?"
The squirrel chittered again, sounding very put out, but added a thankful little chirp to the end.
"Oh good! Run along, then," said Tommy, with a smile.
The squirrel smiled back, then scurried up the tree and was gone into the forest canopy.
Tommy looked down at the paper, her eyes scanning reflexively across the words. She suddenly blushed bright red.
"Oh, dear."
She knew she should probably stop reading, but her eyes dragged across line after line until she reached the end. Still blushing, and feeling very bad for having read something so private, she swiftly rolled up the paper. Then she paused, looking at the little scroll indecisively. What to do with it? Giving it back to Pippi would be every sort of awkward. It was addressed to Captain, but the contents rather suggested that it shouldn't be delivered to her. Yet keeping it would also be very wrong, she was sure.
"Cassandra would know what to do," she said softly, the nodded. She would take it to Cassandra and ask her advice.
She trotted off towards San Bernardino, the scroll tucked under her wing.
****
"Anna!" Pippi pounded on Anna's door, hoping desperately that the pegasus was home. "Anna! Come out here! It's important!" She pounded some more, feeling herself start to slide into panic. If Anna had the letter and she wasn't home, she could be anywhere with it! Anygirl could end up with it! Somegirl could read it! Or even worse, somegirl could read who it was addressed to and deliver it!
"Anna!" Pippi tried not to hyperventilate.
"Hey PL!" The cheerful voice came from behind her.
Pippi jumped most of her own height into the air with a startled yelp. She landed and spun around on Anna's cloud doorstep. "Anna!"
"What's up?" Anna was hovering nonchalantly a few meters away.
Pippi took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. "I just noticed that I am missing a very important and very private letter. It vanished just after you visited. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
"Uhm. I, er..." Rainblow looked incredibly guilty.
"I knew it! You did take it! Where is it?"
"Nowhere, I don't know what you're talking about."
Pippi's magic wrapped around Anna and she found herself being shaken back and forth with just a little too much energy. "Where?!" Left, "Is?!" Right, "My?!" Left again, Letter?!" said Pippi, punctuating the interrogation with one last quick shake.
"Aaaaagh, putmedown!"
Pippi stopped shaking her, but still held her in the air for a long moment, breathing hard, obviously fighting to calm herself. Finally she slowly and carefully set Anna on her hooves. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again. "Sorry. That was uncalled for. However." A glint of madness lurked in her eyes. "I insist that you tell me where my letter is. Now."
"I don't have it, I promise!" said Anna, feeling just a little bit freaked out. She'd seen Pippi lose her cool before, but she'd never been on the receiving end of it. It was really unnerving.
"You don't." Pippi's voice was flat, her eyes narrowed.
"No, I swear! It got... lost. Out in the Everfree. Nogirl has it."
Pippi instantly went nearly limp in relief. Then she stiffened again. "Did you read it?"
"I... uh..."
"You did."
"Sorry?"
Pippi glared at her, that glint returning. "Anna, if you breathe a single word of this to anyone, ever, I will pull out every feather you have, one at a time. Do you understand me?"
"Eep." Anna's eyes went wide. That was a terrifying threat, and Pippi didn't look like she was joking. "Yeah. I understand."
"Good." Pippi's wings unfurled and she spun and dove from the cloud, down towards the town below.
****
"...and I just knew that you could tell me what to do about it." Tommy sat in Cassandra's House, fidgeting nervously with her mane.
"Mmm hmm," said Cassandra absently, her eyes scanning over the letter. They went suddenly wide, then narrowed, and then set in an expression of determination, though there was also a certain sparkle of delight lurking. "You did the right thing, Tommy, in coming to me. This is a romance emergency, but I know just what to do." She rolled the scroll up again and held it firmly in her magic.
"Oh good." Tommy gave her a hesitant smile. "I'm glad."
Cassandra smiled back. "Now come, it's time to fix the mess that Pippi is making of her love life."
"Oh my. That sounds... like maybe Pippi should fix her own love life?"
"Tommy, darling, Pippi is a wonderful, capable girl in many ways, but this letter makes it clear that she has absolutely no clue what she's doing when it comes to romance. But don't worry! Everything will work out just fine, you'll see. Now come."
"Where are we going?"
"To set things right," said Cassandra, and she headed out the door, her mouth set in a firm line, but her eyes shining with glee.
****
Pippi arrowed down from Anna's lofty cloud home, headed for her castle. As she flew, though, the feeling of relief she'd felt on learning that the letter was lost began to fade. Lost wasn't the same as destroyed. Admittedly, lost in the Everfree had a certain finality to it, but even there it wasn't entirely safe. Zecora lived there, for example. And Tommy ventured at least into the outer reaches of the forest all the time. Other ponies went in as well; herb gatherers, explorers and all too frequently the Cutie Mark Crusaders too.
No, the letter wasn't safe at all. And it was addressed to Captain! Somegirl, on finding it, might actually deliver it to her! That would be an unmitigated disaster. She swallowed hard and looked at the sun. She bared her teeth, fighting the urge to curse. She had only minutes left before Captain was going to arrive. What was she going to do? She had to do something! Think, Pippi, think, she told herself, wracking her brain for some solution. Suddenly she had it. She could find the letter, burn it to a crisp, and be utterly safe.
She gave up on flying and teleported directly there, landing with a skidding of hooves and a shriek of horseshoes on stone as she failed to properly bleed off her momentum and slid across the room to crash into a bookshelf and end up under a pile of books.
She scrambled from the pile with less care than she normally would have taken and Annaed to her desk. In one cubby above it sat a stack of thick, quality paper. With a thought she cast a sympathetic trace spell. It used the essence of the stack to find anything that had once been part of it. A dozen or so bright threads appeared leading away from the desk, visible only to her. Most of them went to other parts of the library, so she turned those off—they weren't want she wanted. Two, however, left the library and headed outside. She trotted swiftly along them. Once out the door she saw that one path stayed on the ground, headed towards San Bernardino proper. The other, however, immediately angled up, in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. That was no doubt Anna. She cut off the unnecessary line and spread her wings, soaring up after her letter.
The path ran more or less straight for some distance, then halted in a puddle of white light that meant the letter had been more or less stationary for a while. Probably atop a cloud that was no longer present. Then it continued, angled down now. Pippi followed it down to Sweet Apple Acres, where it jiggled and bobbed around at about eye level for a while, then took off slightly upward.
Here it became crazed and irregular, going up and down in broad swoops. No doubt this was where Anna had lost it and the wind had picked it up. Pippi hurried after it, tracing the path through the apple farm and to the Everfree itself.
She didn't even hesitate at the edge of the wood, she plunged in. She had to find that letter.
The irregular path finally touched the ground, but it didn't stay there. It lifted again, and moved straight. Pippi felt her stomach clench. Somegirl had found it. And indeed, the thread of glowing light was now headed back towards San Bernardino. Pippi trotted among the trees as quickly as she could, and as soon as the path came out into the open she took to the air, streaking above it. She was so focused on following the letter that she didn't notice the position of the sun, which would have told her that the time for Captain's scheduled visit had arrived. Nor, as she began to weave in and out among the buildings, did she take note of the chariot parked in front of the town hall. Her eyes were fixed on the glowing line below her. It was a good thing she was moving above ground level and that San Bernardino was mostly an earth girl town or she probably would have collided with any number of ponies on her way. As it was, she reached Cassandra's House without incident, and saw that the glowing thread led inside, and then back out again.
Pippi almost swore. Cassandra had to have it now. Would she gossip about it? Would Captain find out? She had to catch up to the letter and get it away from her friend, before it was too late. She streaked along the path of the letter, until it went through a door. Her magic and wings together were barely enough to stop her from crashing into the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a golden chariot parked just to one side, and something in her hindbrain started putting two and two together, but she couldn't wait to think, she had to get the letter.
She flung the door open and Annaed into the town hall, then skidded to a stop.
Mayor Mare and a little group of townsponies were standing nearby, but right in the center of the room were Tommy, Cassandra, and Captain Longstocking, who held a letter in her golden magic. She was obviously reading it.
There was a long silence. Pippi felt her cheeks go red with a terrible, terrible shame.
"Pippi-" started Captain, but Pippi threw up her head, gathered her magic, and vanished in an explosive burst of power.
In the silence that followed Captain glanced back down, reading the final line, and then let the letter drop. She turned her head to the mayor. "Forgive me, I'm afraid I must cancel this visit. Please see my secretary about rescheduling." Then, she too vanished in a flash of light.
****
Pippi appeared in a field of snow, more than halfway to the Crystal Empire. She had poured all her energy into a desperate attempt to reach the furthest place she could think of. Few other ponies could have teleported that distance. In fact, she was aware of only three others who could. Unfortunately one of the three was Captain Longstocking, and Pippi knew the princess was perfectly capable of reading a teleport vortex and following it. So, she didn't stay amid the swirling snow; she charged her horn and immediately vanished again.
This time she popped into existence in Canterlot. She paused for a moment to catch her breath after two such powerful spells. Suddenly Captain appeared next to her. "Pippi-"
Pippi yelped and teleported again, this time back to San Bernardino. On arriving she realized that wasn't nearly far enough and Captain could follow instantly. Indeed, Captain appeared a bare second later, but Pippi was already leaving; vanishing to return to reality in Appleoosa. She didn't rest there, but winked out again immediately. This time, she went to Manehattan, then a skip back north to the Crystal Empire proper, and then south again to the Everfree. Maybe the wild magic there would throw Captain off her trail.
She was nearly exhausted, so she paused there to catch her breath, but Captain appeared next to her once more. "Please, Pippi, don't-"
Pippi did a panicky teleport to Ghastly Gorge, then to the middle of nowhere near Dodge City. She was running out of power and her range was shrinking. Panting hard and with her corona trembling, she appeared just outside of the Pie family rock farm. She was also running out of places she could remember and go to quickly. She halted again, needing to rest, but already charging her horn again anyway. Pippi had almost forgotten why she was running, but she knew she had to escape. She vanished just as she saw the flash of Captain's appearance. This time she went to the Whitetail Woods, and nearly staggered with exhaustion as she arrived. She'd crossed the continent repeatedly, and she was nearly spent.
Captain appeared again, and Pippi charged her horn again, but this time Captain didn't pause to speak, she just tackled Pippi, grabbing her with hooves, wings, and magic. If Pippi teleported now, she'd have to take Captain with her.
With a sob Pippi released her magic. "Let me go. Please, just let me go. Let me have my shame in peace," she said.
"Shh Pippi. There's no shame to have. You've done nothing wrong."
"I've made a complete fool of myself writing those letters. I never should have done it. It was stupid. I'm stupid. My stupid little crush is stupid." She found tears gathering her her eyes.
"Oh Pippi." Captain hugged her tighter, enveloping her in white feathers. "The only thing you did wrong with the letters was not sending any of them."
Pippi lifted her face, trying to blink away tears, reeling with confusion. Too much had happened too fast, and he couldn't make her brain work. What did Captain mean?
"Pippi... I love you too."
Something in Pippi seemed to break open suddenly. "You... you do?"
"Yes. I've loved you since... since I can't even say when. Every time you tacked a new subject you took my breath away, mastering effortlessly magic that I'd struggled to grasp. You brought Luna back to me." Captain looked down at her, the faintest possible blush touching her cheeks. "You... I don't even have the words for how long and how much I've loved you. And perhaps I was a fool also. I should have told you. But I knew you'd idolized me as a filly, and looked up to me as a mentor, and I worried that if I told you, you would feel obligated to date me, even if it wasn't what you wanted. I didn't want that for you. It seemed better to say nothing and let you find love elsewhere, without such pressures. I... I looked for signs that you felt the same way, but I never saw any. I saw affection, but I thought it was only for a friend. I saw admiration, but I thought it was only because I was your princess. I didn't think you felt that way about me." She shook her head. "And perhaps I was afraid too, that you would reject me. I have not offered up my heart often, over the years. I have not been... brave, in that way."
"I would have thought you'd have all the suitors you wanted. I thought you were just... I don't know, that you had very high standards."
Captain smiled, still gently holding Pippi. "I do have very high standards. I require somegirl I can trust completely, the way I trust you."
"I... Oh." Pippi tucked her head against Captain's chest, giving in completely to the warm wonderfulness of being held in her embrace.
They nestled together for a long, wonderful moment, while around them sunlight filtered down through the leaves of Whitetail Wood, painting them both in green and gold.
Finally, at length, Captain loosened her embrace. She bent her head and kissed the tears gently from Pippi's cheeks. Then she tilted Pippi's head up and kissed her softly on the lips. Pippi kissed back with a sigh, letting go of the last tiny scraps of her fear. She had been a fool, and had nearly ruined everything, but now she was here, with her love, and whatever the future held, this moment was enough.