Dear Rarity,

I am truly sorry about what happened to Opalescence. This is my fault and I take full financial responsibility. Please send me her veterinary bill, as well as the bills for any other expenses incurred by the damage inflicted, and they will, of course, promptly be paid in full.

More importantly, I accept the full moral and ethical culpability for my actions. It was wrong of me to borrow your cat without your permission for any reason, much less for an experiment that I should have known presented intrinsic hazards. Please believe me, I understand that there is no excuse for this kind of behavior, and I know how angry you must be. Opalescence, like any beloved pet, is a part of your family, and I’m so, so sorry that I failed to consider your love and well-founded concern for her.

As to an explanation, I can only humbly ask that you try to see the significance of what I believed could be accomplished. In the heat of the moment, I admit I was blinded by the irresistibly exciting promise of what I thought was such a clever idea. Pitting the inevitability of a cat always landing on her feet against the conflicting inevitability of buttered toast always landing butter-side down seemed so easy but simultaneously so profound! Perpetual motion! Unlimited energy! Surely you can see my position as a mare of science and as a pony responsible for pursuing the betterment of Equestria: how could I not perform this experiment?

Perhaps it worked only too well. Now, in the aftermath of all the cat vomit and the tornado of claws flying through the air like uncontrollable deadly razors, I so deeply regret my shortsighted ethical lapses. For my part, at the very least, the sting of rubbing alcohol and the emptied box of band-aids in my wastebasket can attest to this. Believe me, after being ralphed and raked, I'm intensely aware of the error of my ways. I’m sure that your own tattered curtains and the dresses now in ribbons on your studio floor (which, I emphasize again, I will pay for in full) are a painful reminder to you as well, one that I wish more than anything I could undo.

In my own defense, I can only offer this: the benefits of virtually free, limitless power generation could transform almost every aspect of our technology and society. How could I not investigate something so incredible, so paradigm-changing? And, please, please understand here that while I am not trying to paint my poorly-considered actions as somehow justified or negate your well-founded anger, I do think that you should at the very least take comfort in the fact that Opal’s spectacular success shows that there is in fact promise to the general concept. Your cat and the toast strapped to her back are pioneers, opening new doors to discovery and progress, and this is something you can be proud of. Science sometimes requires a brave necessary sacrifice, and I’m sure the negative effects should only be temporary. Her drunken staggering has already largely corrected itself, if I’m informed correctly, and I’m nearly certain that her eyes will uncross on their own in time.

I can only hope fervently that our friendship will emerge from this incident in better shape than Sweetie Belle’s mane did, or at the least, that it will similarly be able to grow back eventually. I understand that for now, much of it may have been shredded beyond recognition by my foolish act of unauthorized kitty engineering and the resultant disaster of dizzy feline berserking, and perhaps you will not want to speak to me for a while. If so, I won’t press the issue and will trouble you no more after this letter. I will wait for you to reach out to me, if and when you’re ready to. I hope you can find it in your heart to do this someday, so that I may apologize in person. Until then, the guilt I feel about so much of poor Opal’s fur having to be shaved off to get all the bread and congealed butter out will be its own punishment, I assure you.

With deepest regret,

Twilight Sparkle