"Well... at least it tastes good?"
Maple beamed hopefully, sitting in the galley and munching on a simple salad alongside Starlight. She had wanted to make soup, but that plan fell through when they realized the damage to the ship meant no general power, and Starlight's horn wasn't strong enough to heat water.
"It's nice," Starlight agreed, eating appreciatively. She hadn't felt hungry, but now that food was in her mouth, it started to dawn on her just how long it had been since she had eaten last. It was dusk then, and she woke up from the flame around dawn. She had been disappeared for an entire day cycle before that, according to Maple, didn't remember eating at all the night of the battle... and before that, she had been unconscious from a stun grenade that went off shortly before she was wanting lunch.
Adding up that many days caused her to double-take. Had she really not eaten in sixty hours? She stared at the salad with newfound appreciation, shoving as much as she could into her mouth at once and chewing hard. How she was still able to stand was a mystery.
"Hmmm..." Maple set her bowl down, humming softly. "I wish we could have made something that would make the whole ship smell nice. I'm imagining everyone running down here, and us sitting around that big table and talking about nice things instead of bombs and trying to guess what the Defense Force is doing..."
Starlight sat back, taking a moment to breathe. "There's not very many here. Gerardo, Shinespark, Valey, you, me, and White Chocolate's family, I think. We could take some to them, if you want?"
"Let's do that." Carefully, Maple stood up, looking back to where she had mixed the ingredients. "Maybe we should make extra, so her foals can have some too. I hope she isn't mad at me for not coming back after I said I would..."
"She was pretty upset," Starlight cautioned. "I think she was feeling a little better after I talked to her, but be careful. She might not let you leave for a while."
Together, with Starlight carrying the food offering and Maple leaning on her for support, they passed through the swinging doors and into the main hall. The landscape through the window below was closer than it had been before, and fully shrouded in night. Chill air crept down Starlight's coat, and she realized that with the power systems damaged, the ship must have lacked heating as well.
"I know you want to do things and not just lay around," Starlight murmured, "but it is warmer back in bed..."
"Hmm." Maple nudged her back. "It is, but I don't think I can go back to sleep right now. I've just slept a long time..." She yawned in emphasis. "And I bet you have, too. Still, the night is just starting... We've probably accidentally become nocturnal, haven't we?"
Starlight glanced at the distant, flooded river again. "I wonder if White Chocolate is still up."
"Well, we should hurry and go see," Maple decided, stepping firmly forward. "If she is, the longer we wait, the more likely she is to change that."
Rather than knocking, Maple sat back while Starlight pressed her ear against White Chocolate's door, checking for signs that they were about to disturb a pack of slumbering foals. She sniffed at the crack beneath the door, listened intently, but aside from the occasional shuffling and the sounds of small breathing, the room was still.
Starlight gave the door a gentle push, clunking it against the side of its rails with a volume that blended into every other wooden noise normal to the ship's operation, yet would still be noticeable to anyone awake and able to focus. Carefully, she did it again, twice in rapid succession.
"Starlight..." Maple whispered, leaning against the wall and keeping a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "It sounds like she's asleep..."
Then, the door rolled open, carefully and silently, and Starlight stepped back. She was greeted immediately by White Chocolate's face.
"Hi..." Maple smiled uncertainly.
White Chocolate deflated in relief, tension leaving her stiff shoulders, and walked out, touching a hoof to her lips and scooting the door open slightly wider so she could fit. In the room behind her, lit by an uncurtained window, foals could be seen snoring everywhere, though the eldest three were still awake, Snow reading and Jamjars brooding in a corner.
"Mom?" Hayseed mouthed after her. "Anything you need from me?"
Silently, White Chocolate shook her head, then eased the door closed. When she looked at Maple, a hundred different things that needed to be said mixed in her eyes, and she paused... and the one that won out was, "Thank you for not waking them. Can we go somewhere a little... better to talk?"
Maple nodded, awkwardly looking at the bowl on Starlight's back. "The kitchen? We were just there..."
White Chocolate raised no protest, and soon they were there. The moment the doors swung shut behind them, she let out a deep breath and laid straight down on the floor.
Leaving Starlight standing nearby, Maple walked in front of her, legs shaking. "I'm sorry. I said I'd be back, but..."
"I know," White Chocolate cut her off, not making eye contact. "Starlight said you were injured."
"Stabbed by a cursed sword." Maple grimaced. "And hit with a stun grenade and foalnapped before that. But still, I said I'd be back sooner. Are you...?"
"Angry?" White Chocolate folded her ears. "At who? Myself? I was scared. Lonely. Homeless."
"Is there anything I can do?" Maple asked, nearly stumbling and needing to sit down.
White Chocolate hung her head. "Nothing I'd be comfortable asking for."
"Oh." Maple blinked, then looked away herself. "Well..."
"She made you this salad," Starlight interrupted, offering the bowl. "And if you need someone to cry on or tell how awful everything's been again, I doubt either of us mind." She minded a little, but next to everything she had just been through, it was nothing at all.
"No... I think I got all that out already..." Wiping her eyes, White Chocolate took the salad and gave it a sniff, then started munching. "Thank you, though. For this and that."
"Are you sure?" Maple leaned forward. "I want to listen..."
White Chocolate shook her head, tucking the bowl between her forehooves. "You've been doing things for Ironridge, risking your life and getting real injuries. I'm sad about the same things I've always been sad about. It's not-"
"Important?" Starlight interrupted. "Worth our time? You could have just taken the food and stayed in your room, but you came down here with us and asked for a quiet place to talk. I know you want someone to listen to you."
"But...!" White Chocolate protested, her composure beginning to crack.
"Whatever else you think we should be doing, we're here," Maple gently told her. "I'm here. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to keep my promise, and I feel bad about it. Can I please listen? Please?"
White Chocolate gritted her teeth and scrunched her eyes.
"I would mean a lot to her if you let her help you," Starlight remarked from the side, feeling like she was Willow giving herself that advice regarding Maple. Maple shot her a glance, but didn't say anything.
Slowly, White Chocolate started hyperventilating, trying and failing to fight it. "It's not fair," the larger mare sniffed, and again Starlight was struck by an uncanny feeling of role reversal. "For two years, I lived with my children and tried to figure out what I did wrong that made Faron leave me! And then you came along and told me it wasn't me, and made me promise I'd believe that and promised you wouldn't leave to prove it! And I knew you wouldn't come back but didn't want to believe it, and then you didn't, and now you did but after I had given up, and now we're going somewhere and you're here again and telling me to trust you again! I know you mean it and I know that wasn't your fault and I'm horrible for worrying about my problems when my whole family is here and healthy and might even get a new house, but I'm scared because I want to trust you and know if I do, I'll get hurt again but if I don't I won't feel any better in the first place!"
As Maple leaned in to listen and White Chocolate continued, Starlight sat back, stunned. There had been a time, she remembered, long ago when she was waking up after being fished from the river, when she was confronted with a mare trying to love her, and couldn't accept it with the hard shell she had built up in the mountains and since Sunburst to protect herself from loss and loneliness. She had known that letting it go would only make it hurt more in the future if they left her, too, but had done it anyway. Was White Chocolate in exactly the same place she had been? Or... was she exactly where she would be if Maple left her?
Once, Starlight had snuggled Maple because it had been a safe and easy way to make the mare happy. Now, she gravitated toward it without thinking. Just how much did they depend on each other?
She shook the thoughts off like wet cobwebs. If she and Maple were separated... They had been separated, for all of one evening. She was fine, but getting back to Maple had been her primary and only goal. Maple had been a lot less so.
Starlight wasn't an expert psychologist, but she had a faint idea that wasn't healthy. The world was unfair, after all. If it tried to split her and Maple apart, it could probably do so, even if they'd both fight it with every ounce of their beings. They'd both be hurt, like Sunburst but worse, feeling terribly empty and alone, and she shuddered just from imagining it. The solution... What was the solution?
Make more friends. That was it. Starlight nodded, pleased with herself: the more ponies they had that they cared about, the less alone they'd be when one went another way. That was how to survive. Still, she resolved, she would always keep a special place in her heart for Maple, and fight with everything she had to keep them together so long as it was what they both wanted... but if the world thought it could take everyone she would come to know from her at once, it would have to try a lot harder than Ironridge.
Her thoughts were interrupted when White Chocolate broke off her sniffling lament with a groan, putting a hoof on her midsection. "Ooof!"
Maple blinked in alarm. "White Chocolate? Are you okay?"
"Yes..." Slowly, she relaxed, then managed a smile. "Just a rowdy, unhappy foal. I don't think he or she likes it when I get worked up." Curling around, she whispered, "Go back to sleep, little one. Mommy's sorry for waking you, but it's still bedtime..."
"That's amazing how quickly you calmed down," Maple whispered, putting a hoof on White Chocolate's shoulder after a moment of silence.
White Chocolate sighed, and opened her eyes. "I have more than just myself to think about. I've made a lot of mistakes, but my children shouldn't have to pay the price for them. At least, that's what I tell myself..."
"You took your eyepatch off," Maple remarked, looking from eye to eye and comparing shades in the irises just like Starlight had done. "Are you feeling better about that, at least?"
"I needed the string to tie something else with." Sadly, White Chocolate shook her head. "Though if we're going somewhere else, maybe it can be like a new start... Where are we going?"
"To my home town," Maple said, laying down right next to her. "Riverfall. When the boats ran, it was the closest stop to Ironridge. It's very peaceful, and nothing eventful ever happens. The ponies there are almost entirely mares, so there are a lot of single mothers... They all know what it's like, and are used to caring for each others' kids so they can get time away from home. I was raised collectively by four or five different mares, myself, though it varies depending on how active parents would like to be in their foals' lives. But I think you'll be able to be happy there."
"Riverfall...?" White Chocolate stared into space. "It's still there, hmm? My mother was from Riverfall."
"A lot of Ironridge ponies have Riverfall ancestry, and the other way around. And it's still there." Maple stared alongside her, looking slightly wistful. "Ever since the boats stopped coming..."
Starlight watched them from a nearby corner. If Maple was going to talk about Faron, that would be her decision... but it looked like both mares had calmed down, and the salad was once again disappearing. Her presence didn't seem to be needed.
Silently, she slipped out into the main hall, unsure what to do with herself.