Friendship Letters
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on March 15, 2025
The Geodian mare looks over what she’s written with a smile and a critical eye. This was never a part of adventuring she was too good at, but her journey to the surface has been the biggest adventure in Geodian history! Notes need to be taken, reports made, even if she never returns to Geode herself…
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Dragonfly’s Report - Subject: Ponies
- The first thing I observed about ponies on the surface is their lack of even a basic metallic tone in their coats. This might not be a surprise to our scientists, we’ve always suspected our visually metallic nature was a result of long-term, generational exposure to the ambient Geode magic field. But… Hey, confirmation I guess! Do spread this through the upper class though, if they’re going to deal with surface nobility they can’t be expecting Lustres like me or even just my dad Coal.
- - Sidenote to the above, ponies up here don’t have Jankiir (Our gem eyes, for any surface ponies reading this paper in a library or something), so tell whatever diplomats you send to learn to focus extra extra hard on expressions and body motions or whatever, right? As you’ll notice later in this paper- and with basic common sense- we can’t afford to offend Equestria if we want to expand outside of Geode. We need them.
- Alright, my second major observation: Mutations are extraordinarily rare up here. I’ve heard of a pony named Fluttershy with the ability to speak to animals and control creatures through a stare, but nothing else. Of course they seem to have birth defects, but these are all genetic issues, not magic ones. I recommend our initial diplomat teams and transfer students or whatever happens on first contact be mostly Mutated. I know how our society treats them, I haven’t been away long enough to forget my own treatment, but showing Equestria how we treat the Mutated won’t end well. It’ll come out eventually, but it needs to be a scandal, not a first impression.
- Third, ponies on the surface have very little natural magic resistance. This and my next point are not to give you the impression that we’re superior to them, I know a chunk faction of Geode would love to conquer the surface, but to highlight: We need to be extremely careful around them. At least at first. An accident is an accident, but if one of our first unicorns up here kills a foal while trying to heal a bruise, it’s a terrible look. I might be a Mutated adventurer, but I was the daughter of a Sunstone. I can smell bad press from a mile.
- Fourth, Equestrian ponies have a somewhat lower natural magic potential. I’m not going to give comparisons for fear of sounding condescending to any Equestrians who might read this in the future, but notably their spells have evolved to be generally smarter, more efficient, more precise. I believe this to be due to our magical systems being entirely reliant on external energy combined with our potent environment- some of the things I could do back home fail and leave the air colorless and light. I also believe their unicorns (Their pegasi don’t seem to have developed aeromagick, at least not to our levels) utilize an internal magic source instead- at least somewhat- and so are not entirely limited by their environment. This means their help will be invaluable if we ever wish to expand to the surface. Our methods of construction, transportation, all of it- there’s no telling what might not work up here, while the Equestrians have proven methods.
- Finally, some smaller notes. Equestrian lungs have no problem with mundane air, contributing to my theory of internal magical sourcing. This is likely due to the naturally much lower magic content up here, and I’ve had to adapt to breathing as easy as they do. It was hard. Perhaps drain some air for pre-training diplomats, so we don’t look like literally fishes out of water?
- Equestrians (again supporting the internal magic theory and all) don’t have any arcaez. For Equestrians who aren’t biologists, they’re magic intake threads and we have large amounts of them, especially in unicorn horns, pegasus wings, and our hooves. I’ll let my Geodian readers guess how I figured this out- and if you know what I look like, I’m not stopping your imaginations- but in case this makes it to schools I won’t explain in detail. Let’s just say it was kind of disappointing in the moment. I can’t rule out other forms of magic intake, but this is my biggest support for the internal source theory.
- Equestrians have softer hooves. It’s just a fact, even if I wish I had hooves as soft as theirs. I guess it makes sense since they’re used to grass and dirt instead of stone and… Just stone, really.
- Equestrians have a fourth type of pony called an alicorn. Every single one that I’ve seen has been beautiful and pretty and- dropping the professional tone, I’ve had a slight crush on Celestia since I first saw her. Hopefully that lights up a so far pretty dreary report. Anyway. They have the attributes of all three other tribes and they seem to be even more powerful than some of our most powerful wizards sitting in a box of unprocessed crystal. They take on leadership positions, all of them, and they don’t age. I don’t think I need to say this, hence not being further up, but don’t piss off the god ponies. It should be obvious, but if our first diplomats intentionally aggravate an alicorn, BEST CASE SCENARIO we lose access to all the Equestrian help we might have gotten. Again, best case scenario. I doubt they anger easily, but don’t send ponies who will take that chance. Ever.
Signed: Dragonfly Sunstone, 24 YoA
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