The door to the empty cabin Maple had put Valey in slid open once again, and Maple stepped back through, closing it tightly behind her and sitting down beside the bed.
"Mmmph?" Valey grunted, shifting at the disturbance.
"Don't let me wake you," Maple whispered, looking away into the darkness. "I just finished talking to Amber. Just thought you might sleep better if you weren't alone."
"Not asleep," Valey mumbled. "Just tired. Bananas. Don't you have Starlight to snuggle with, or something, Ironflanks?"
Maple shook her head. "She's in the observation room and said she just wanted to think about something for a while. You, on the other hoof, looked like you needed company."
"I told you, I just need to think about stuff for a while too. I'll be fine, Ironflanks. Seriously, you know how much I hate moping. Feeling like myself always makes me feel better. I'll be rude and chipper again in the morning, no sweat."
Maple sighed and leaned against the bed. "Unless you aren't, in which case you'll feel bad about yourself for not being able to cheer up and that will make it harder to cheer up and you'll get stuck in such a spiral that you won't even be able to get out of bed. At least, maybe... Maybe you'll be fine, but I've been there and just wanted to be here, now, just in case it helps."
Valey made half an effort to roll over, then fell back and bounced lightly in place. "Mmph."
"Amber said you found something out," Maple murmured. "About your past, that you didn't like. She didn't say what, other than that you asked her to keep it a secret and she couldn't tell me. But she also said you needed someone to talk about things here, someone who could give you a shoulder and not be thousands of miles away. I wish I could help..."
Valey pressed her chin harder into a pillow. "I don't wanna."
"That's okay," Maple said, pushing down the sting of bitterness at not being trusted enough to hear something. Valey had her reasons. "I can still be here, right? You can try to go to sleep. If there's anything I can do, I'll be right here."
"I don't wanna!" Valey sniffed, repeating herself. "With Amber, she was fun to be around, and I felt like I liked her and maybe could trust her with something really stupidly big, since even if she took it bad I didn't really know her so I'd be safe taking the risk because I'd have less to lose! Bananas... You stuck your neck out for me again and again and again in Ironridge, trusting me even when I tried my best to give you every reason not to and then even bailed me out when I was dumb and got trapped in the Flame District, and I had never even met you before. Let alone did anything for you... I didn't get it. Maybe you're just that stupidly kind. Not really a thing I try to question or think about, because I want that! Want friends like that. Didn't really realize how much I was missing it those past bajillion years on my own. But it feels like I'm borrowing against myself, or pushing my luck, or something, and at some point I could just go too far and stuff would break and I'd lose all this good stuff. I hate being a wuss, but I don't wanna lose..."
Maple sat for a moment, thinking. "You never understood why I did everything for you? You still don't?"
Her tone was sad more than anything, and Valey flattened her ears. "I mean, I had guesses, but... Bananas, I'm not supposed to get scared about stuff like this!"
"I didn't think about it much, either," Maple admitted. "I also hoped it didn't need to be thought about, but there is a reason. I spent a long time in Riverfall feeling powerless, insignificant, and like whatever I did wouldn't really change anything. When I went to Ironridge with Starlight, what I wanted to do more than anything was make a difference with my life. To do something worth doing. And there were a lot of things that either weren't worth doing or were too big for one hopeful little pony, but I saw you and heard you on that cart ride we took to Grand Acorn, and you felt like someone I really, truly might have been able to help. And don't forget, you helped us first. Me and Starlight were lost in the Flame District, and you tracked us down and brought us food and guided us out."
Valey's eyelids drooped. "Huh. I forgot all about that."
Maple nodded. "And so that's what I did. You had been kind to us, letting us through to the Stone District and finding us in the mines and keeping us safe from the Defense Force and guiding us to where we wanted to go, without us ever doing anything for you. So I wanted to repay you, felt like I could make a difference, and then you got trapped and needed our help..."
"Bananas," Valey groaned, thinking slowly. "I seriously did do all that, didn't I? Was I always like that? Thinking I was a menace but actually just being nice all the time? I mean, I tried my hardest to avoid doing anything really evil and to make up for the pranks when no one was looking, but..."
"You did," Maple hummed. "For us, at least. I didn't see you before that. But don't think of it as who owes what. We're friends now. I'm very attached to seeing you do better, and if it's hard to imagine me helping you carry whatever burdens you have just because I can, imagine me helping myself instead by feeling good about helping you. Really, I'm doing both, and that's how friendship should work."
"Yeah, but..." Valey frowned, looking slightly desperate. "What if it's something you can't help with? Like, you think you can just walk up and ask history to rewrite itself?"
Maple returned the frown with a small smile. "I can try? Two mares and a filly fending off a foreign nation's invasion and killing a swarm of magical windigoes sounds impossible too, but we did it."
"Nngh..." Valey shuddered. "I don't wanna say it! I hate being scared! Bananas..."
"I already told you you don't have to," Maple insisted, scooting just a little onto the bed. "But Amber told me it would help you, so I'm here to listen if you ever change your mind."
Valey grimaced for a few seconds longer, then her face finally broke. "Remember all those times you yelled at me for warning you I wasn't really a pony?"
Maple's heart sped up in worry, but she had asked for this. She would be ready.
"I meant it," Valey went on, unable to stop now that she had started. "The real Valey kicked the bucket years ago. Drained by empty moon glass, just like Nyala, only a year earlier. Only difference was, she lost her body and I hung onto her soul... She lost the real Valey's soul, and hung onto her body. Tried to get some stupid mad scientists to put her back together. Wound up putting a real moon glass cutie mark back in instead... and that's me. Soul-lookalike from space, notorious for possessing blank ponies and causing personality disorders. Got you to agree it was shady and definitely evil, even. Just, my body's original inhabitant was kind of gone, so I've got it all to myself in here. And that's what I am."
Maple's vision was already blurry. "Oh, Valey..."
"See?" Valey sighed, defeated. "Wish I could have pushed my luck about it earlier, but I checked and you told me to stop ragging on myself instead of digging into what was up. Thought I'd leave well enough alone, and-"
"That's not leaving well enough alone!" Maple choked, leaning forward. "Maybe I just didn't understand the situation, or needed to revise my opinion, or..." She swallowed. "But you said you just found this out talking to Amber..."
"Nah. That was something on top of this."
"Something more...?" Maple's ears folded. "Valey, if worrying about this is what you've been dealing with... Can I hug you? I know Amber said you had some bad experiences with that, but it's how I know best how to help, and... What else did you learn?"
Valey raised an eyebrow at her, now inches away. "Uh, yeah, sure, knock yourself out. But you're already crying, and if I say more you're gonna cry harder, and that's gonna make me cry, and bananas, I hate that too. I don't wanna be a wuss!"
Maple lunged over, closing the last of the distance, and glomped onto Valey, putting a hoof behind her neck and sitting up, trying to cradle Valey's head against her chest. "That didn't stop you in the eastern valley after the dam was destroyed, when I couldn't move or speak and you needed it then. Taking care of yourself isn't being a wuss. Now what did you find out?"
"Nnngh... N-No..." Valey resisted, struggling and trying to hide her face against Maple, but Maple felt a wet spot growing against her chest where Valey's eyes were. "D-Don't wanna..."
"Shhhhh," Maple consoled, wrapping her forelegs around Valey's back and rocking back and forth a little. "I'm here."
Valey turned to the side enough to suck down a wet breath. "T-This whole time, I was... constantly t-telling myself that just because there was a super high chance moon glass actually c-came from the moon and does a ton of bad stuff and there were old l-legends in my place that the c-creator of batponies is up there and is some sort of m-monster, there might be a totally innocent and reasonable explanation for what I am, or where I came from, or w-what moon glass does to real ponies, a-a-and I t-thought maybe it would all be okay, and..." She wiped her eyes again on Maple's coat. "Dorable. The factory chief dude from Ironridge. He was one of those scientists. Don't remember if I told you. Remember that Nightmare Module thing Puddles had on her tongue? Amber got him to talk to me, since we knew he knew something about those, and I wanted to know how dangerous she was." She sniffed again, hard. "They're made from moon glass and stuff. A whole bunch of science jargon I didn't follow at all. And they're ridiculously bad news!"
Her voice was raising, now, and Maple could plainly see her gritted teeth and clenched eyes and flattened-back ears. "He said stuff like how they're part of some evil superweapon and moon glass is supposedly full of a whole bunch of spells and designs and stuff to let someone build these Nightmare Modules! And they're like... machines, or something, that only batponies can use, and moon glass is probably some sort of attack or something that was deliberately sent here to do bad stuff, and that means me with it! I don't wanna be a weapon! I wanted there to be some innocent explanation for what I was or why I was here, and now that's impossible! It's what I s-s-spent all my time hoping and wishing I'd find, and now I got the opposite! I dunno what to do... I dunno...! Snrrrkt... Bwaaaaaaah!"
Valey was straight-up clutching Maple like a pillow, pressed into her chest and beginning to hyperventilate as her tears flowed freely. For her part, Maple sat in a quiet stupor, crying in solidarity and doing the only thing she could when words failed her: being there, and holding on.