As short as Valey's climb was, she had to stop several times to catch her breath, well aware that the rejuvenation from Maple's pink flame wasn't infinite and the moment she pushed herself too hard, she might not be able to get up and continue. Maple weighed like a bag of bricks across her back, fortunately warm but also limp and useless, lacking even the strength to keep her head from dangling toward the ground. Valey had to hold her mane back with a wing to keep from tripping on it.
They crested the edge of the ravine, revealing nothing but more devastation. Another climb to the top of a nearby crag later, and they had a panoramic view of just how bad the landscape was: black bedrock, stretching on into the night, crisscrossed and scarred with rivers and lakes of draining water, a maze of ridges and walls and waterfalls just like the ravine they had left, in which flat ground was rarer than signs of life. To the west, the blown-out husk of the dam stood like a relic of a long-dead civilization, parts of the wall still standing despite teetering outward, the giant fissure down the middle still leaking water from the bottom. To the south and east, their valley rose back up into the mountains, a wall of debris where the ground had been scoured and the dirt above collapsed into a mudslide, leaving a vast climb before any untouched land continued. And to the north, where Sosa was supposed to be, there was a sea.
The Yule had burst its banks a hundred times over, the narrow canyons it threaded itself through on the journey east unable to accommodate a mountain's worth of water even with the force that had blasted the valley bare, backing the water up as it tried to drain and forcing it out in every direction. The wind-rippled surface extended out of sight around the mountains, reaching west to where the Earth District lay, and far out into the north where chunks of the already-broken badlands poked above like natural spikes. The ruins of Sosa breached the surface; much had been completely crushed by the onslaught, but there were places where the water had merely flooded, leaving part of a roof or a leaning tower or smokestack visible against the new lake.
"...Heh." Valey licked her lips, the wind blowing at her hatless mane. "Well, at least if we get out of here we won't have anything to miss, right?" She expected no reply, and got none. "Dunno how we're going to do that, though. The only way this valley opens is to the north, and that's totally blocked by water. Beats me what I was thinking earlier, swimming through this stuff to get you... but there's no way we're making it through that mess. And I doubt I'll be ready to fly you and Starlight any time soon."
Maple didn't respond. With a blink, Valey realized that all she saw was the ground; up on her back she was probably a lot more exposed to the wind, too. Carefully, she set Maple down in a sitting position, holding her up with a wing and a shoulder and her own neck to lean on so she wouldn't be in too much contact with the cold ground. It didn't let her see Maple's eyes, though, so hopefully she was fine with it.
"That better?" Valey asked, huddling against her for warmth, again getting no response. "Don't worry. We'll... We'll get Starlight soon. She's not too far, and then we can think of some way to ditch this place. We can..." She swallowed, closing her eyes. "Ugh. Bananas. Hey, Iron... Maple? Wow, that's awkward. I know there's nothing you can really do to stop me, but... can I say some stuff? Stuff I probably... no, definitely wouldn't say to anyone who could say something back? That you'll probably wanna talk about when you get de-swordified, and I'll totally kick myself for opening up on then but really need to anyway? Please?"
She pushed Maple away far enough that they could see eye to eye, and Maple looked left. Left meant yes, didn't it? It did. Valey took a deep breath.
"Knew you'd say that. Heh..." Valey looked away, then pulled Maple back so they couldn't see each others' faces. "Here's the thing: I'm... I'm scared. I don't feel like me any more. For seven years, my life consisted of putting up with Herman, making sure the Defense Force couldn't do anything big, trawling the Earth District for stealable fruit and cheap laughs, and wearing a snazzy hat. I was so ridiculously invincible between the threat of having an army and just being me that I could stroll into the most hostile situation imaginable and treat it like a joke. I mean, you saw me fight Neon Nova back in Blueleaf, right? Where I basically put on a show and kicked his rear as epically as possible when one or two moves could have finished it instantly? That was, like, a taste of what I could do. I must have started so many good-natured bar fights back in the day..."
She shivered, both from the wind and from the memory, and was sure Maple felt it. "And now that's all gone. Like, yeah, I knew I decided to ditch my allegiance to the Stone District to fight for you and Starlight, and I knew that would be big... but this is like everything's changed! Forget all the stuff with Herman and the Defense Force that just went down, I lost! The first fight I picked... or got picked by... to keep you guys safe, and they kicked my rear. You had to bail me out, and it took some weird magic that changed your eyes and broke your cutie mark and probably did a ton of other bad stuff to do it! And then I basically sat there and watched while the Defense Force and the Spirit blew each other to pieces when I had stopped them from doing that for seven years before while barely even trying. And I don't even have my hat anymore! Why? I don't get it..."
Leaning away from the billowing wind, Valey kept her eyes closed and her voice level. "That's not all. I used to go out of my way to annoy absolutely everyone. Sure, I had reasons I don't now; I wanted to keep anyone from getting too friendly with me... but still. I mean, I'm pretty sure I got actually kind of nasty probing you about your past in that wagon to Grand Acorn. But look at me now. The two of us, doing some hardcore cuddling for the life-and-death reason of staying warm? I should totally be flirting as hard as I can right now, trying my best to make this awkward, or maybe even feeling you up. I mean, you're completely helpless! But instead, I'm telling you what I'm scared of. And I mean really scared. Being honest... vulnerable... Since when does the terror of Ironridge do that?"
She took a shaky breath. "I'm scared of not being me any more. It's kinda ironic, given how I see myself... and yeah, I know I promised to stop bringing up the whole 'I'm bad' thing, but this is important. I wanted to change. I wished I could be different. But now that it's happening, now that I am... I didn't like what I was, but I knew what I was. Is that changing? Can it change? I don't want to find out..." Loudly, she exhaled. "Bananas, for all I know every normal pony has this problem. Ironridge is basically all I've ever known. Iron... Maple? Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever felt like you're a completely different pony than you used to be? Especially over just a day or two?"
Valey turned her so they could see face to face, and Maple's eyes slid to the left. Yes.
"Heh... heh heh heh..." Valey slumped forward, staring at the ground, and Maple practically fell on top of her without the assistance sitting up. "Oof. I guess I've got a lot to learn about acting like an actual normal pony, then." She sighed. "You know what the difference between batponies and other kinds of ponies is? I can't remember if I've told you this before... but we're born with our cutie marks. We always have them. Every last one of us. You could say they're even more important to us than to normal ponies. So... what do you think happens to us when we lose them?"
She glanced down at the black stone set in her pendant, and her vision briefly misted. "...We're a lot worse off than Shinespark and her secret armor, I'll tell you that. And did you know the Earth District has stories of mares whose cutie marks just... faded away?"
Maple's eyes shifted left. They looked surprised.
"Really? Huh." Valey pursed her lips. "I'll be interested to know how you found that out. All the cases I'm aware of, it's something they really, really don't want to talk about. Anyway, the point is, it can happen, and... Hmmmff. I don't want that to happen to me. Even if I don't like who I am, and would normally love to be something better, if there's a chance it would make my soul disappear... Yeah. You get why I'm scared, right? I've never even considered that anything could get rid of me before today, and now two different ponies just blew themselves up to stop me from dying twice in a row, and... you get it? You understand?"
Once again, Maple's eyes looked left. Valey could see her own reflected in them, and both sets were watering.
"Bananas... sorry..." Leaning forward, Valey buried her face in Maple's chest, wrapping her arms around the mare and shaking. "I don't mean to be a big baby about this. Maybe I still am a jerk, springing all this on you when you can't talk back or stop me from using you like a towel or whatever, and while we should be looking for Starlight, and... and..." She swallowed. "I don't want to disappear. This isn't just because I've lived my entire life surviving by knowing my surroundings and controlling them, and am scared of anything new. I'm serious..."
She didn't look at Maple's face for what felt like an eternity, just hanging there as the wind continued to blow and the temperature slowly dropped. Eventually, though, she stood up and wiped her eyes one last time.
"Sorry for the unsolicited pretending-you're-a-pillow," she grunted, struggling to get Maple back on her back. "Think of it this way: now I have to make sure both of us survive so you can get me back for that. I... do feel better, a little. But first, let's go get Starlight. I am way too tired to fly, but maybe I can carry both of you together on the ground... maybe."
One careful hoofstep at a time, she descended from the tip of the crag in search of a path toward Starlight's scent. Everything would soon be over, and she'd see to it that they all survived.