//------------------------------// // I'll Show You // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Valey stood in the middle of Shinespark's room, going nowhere, her friend held against her with a wing. They didn't make eye contact, but with their sides pressed together, she could feel all of Shinespark's occasional trembling, and it somehow told her far more than a look. "Think out loud, here," Valey murmured. "Keep talking. You don't wanna face your sister right off the bat and you gotta think things through first, so keep thinking. Not something I can do for you." Shinespark bit her lip, putting a little more weight on Valey. "I have been showing her favoritism all these years," she admitted. "Not that I know how much a lot is. It feels like forever, even though it's only been a few. But we probably see things on the same time scale, so it would feel like just as forever to her." Valey frowned. "This about getting dumped with a whole lot of responsibility when you were just a kid and having to grow up with all that? I know you've felt bad about that before, I mean. That has to do with this?" Shinespark took a shaky breath. "Y-Yes. I don't like doing it, but I wish I didn't have to handle incidents like this right now. Why couldn't this have waited a few years, or forever, or just never have happened?" "Hey." Valey tightened her grip a little, weathering the shudder. "You were how old when all this started again? You're uh, nineteen now, and you got your cutie mark seven years ago, so twelve?" "Twelve," Shinespark agreed, voice getting a little nasally. "Seven years ago." "Well, hey." Valey shifted so she could more comfortably hold Shinespark's weight, not breaking away or leaving their spot in the room. "For what it's worth? Getting hoofed all that and playing your job for that long?" She turned her head, trying to catch Shinespark's eye. "I'm honestly super impressed with how you turned out. I mean it. Yeah, you've got some leftover issues, and it really stinks, but even surviving it for that long? So what if you made a few mistakes on the way? You still did a pretty great job as a leader. Kept a whole lot of ponies inspired, managed a huge semi-conspiracy, built some neat underground science projects, and at the end, you've still got friends and are trying to clean up your messes and are still mostly on your hooves and stuff. Mostly. You know? It's honestly more inspiring than any of the stuff you pulled off in Ironridge... and I mean it." Shinespark sniffed. "How so?" Valey shrugged. "Alright. Look at it this way. You're nineteen?" She gave Shinespark a serious look. "I'm seven. Not literally, but that's how long I've... you know. And six years of that were spent being a sad, self-sufficient loner and hatesink in Ironridge. You at least got, like, a foalhood, right? Before you had to deal with all that?" She sighed. "Bananas, I'm not even there yet. Dunno if I'll ever be. At some point something's probably going to really, seriously clue me in on exactly what I missed out on by never growing up and never having parents and never doing literally any of that stuff that normal, healthy ponies build their lives on, and it'll probably be yet another stupid thing that messes me up, but I don't feel it yet. And you're just, like... I dunno. I seriously want to see you get through this. For both of our sakes. Don't tell anyone, but I'm kinda scared." "Oh, you're scared." Shinespark sniffed again, more wetly this time, but there was no malice in it. "I-I..." She swallowed. "I did take on a lot. I could have refused, but I didn't. Everything I did was about being responsible, and I bore it proudly! And then I failed because I wasn't good enough, and made a split-second decision to break my bond with Braen and in doing so allowed the skyport to be destroyed! And now you and everyone else are telling me that I don't have to take responsibility for that failure because it wasn't my fault, because I was too young and inexperienced to have been expected to do the right thing anyway. You're telling me I can blame my age and not myself." "Yeah." Valey just stood there, weathering her trembles. "Spooky thought, huh. And that scares you?" "Y-Yes..." Valey thought for a moment. "Scared because you think you'll blame yourself anyway? Or... because you still weren't good enough and why doesn't matter, so you're afraid of letting us down again?" "Worse." Shinespark tried to wipe her eyes, nearly unbalancing and leaning a lot harder on Valey. "I-I'm scared..." "That, uhh... That Grenada's in the same boat? Something about her?" Valey guessed, running out of things to say and deciding to just let Shinespark talk. "If I blame it on my age," Shinespark began. "Which I could do. I really want to. I-I want someone to tell me it's alright because I was t-too young to know better, and made mistakes anyone would have. I know it's true. Even Herman said so, in the skyport. He used me against myself..." "And he was a scumbag," Valey consoled, rubbing her back a little. "I kicked his tail for you." Shinespark swallowed. "That'll mean I won't be responsible for my actions. And it's still something I did. With letting the Spirit down, and with messing up with Grenada because of course she'd like me after how I treated her and everything I didn't tell her and everything else... This doesn't mean I didn't do it. It means it's okay for me not to be responsible. And e-everything I devoted my whole life to was..." "Was being responsible for everyone. Oh. Yeah." Valey trailed off, getting a little hollow. "You're scared of turning your back on that, or something?" Shinespark started to shake. "I am!" she gasped, almost hyperventilating and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment to steady herself. "I devoted everything I had to the Spirit and Sosa and Ironridge. Almost all of my teenage years. I cut my foalhood short, didn't do the things other fillies my age would have done that I'm not jealous of because Ironridge was worth it and I always had that and if I... It feels like I'd be turning my back on it, Valey... Like after I committed so much, and now it would be turning around and saying all that was meaningless if I tried to take responsibility for an entire city but take the easy out not to be responsible for myself. I-I-I..." She grabbed onto Valey, losing her fight against crying openly. "Oh bananas," Valey murmured, patting her gently. "Here, uhh... let's lie down for a bit." She shifted them towards the bed, thinking frantically for what to say. "Well... I... Look, Sparky..." "I'm scared," Shinespark choked, half-crawling, half being pushed into the bed. Valey slithered up after her. "I'm scared that if I can't even apply everything I stood for to myself, I'll just have w-wasted those seven years of my life and they won't mean anything and I'll be nowhere..." Valey sighed long and slow, positioning herself behind Shinespark and finally at a loss. "Sorry, Shinespark," she murmured, hugging her from behind. "I dunno what to say about that. It stinks. I'm here. But I just dunno what to do." Shinespark sniffled thankfully, curling and uncurling and eventually settling into a limp, miserable stretch. At least she was thinking about it instead of sitting on all that, Valey mused, though she didn't have many thoughts left aside from being there for her friend. Her forelegs wrapped around Shinespark's chest and barrel, letting Valey feel every sob as her own, and they lay that way for quite some time. Eventually, the sound of hoofsteps on the deck above heralded the return of their friends from hanging out with Wallace. Shinespark had quieted, though she still occasionally trembled and made no move to escape Valey's grasp. The door was shut, and nobody knocked, the ship eventually settling back into its usual silence. More time passed, enough that Valey was sure the thought of getting up had crossed Shinespark's mind... but she hadn't, so Valey stayed there as well. "Hey," she finally whispered, after an afternoon without sleep once all her friend's tears had finally run dry. "Sparky?" Shinespark's tail twitched. She was listening. "I figured out what to say." "Did you?" Shinespark's mouth sounded sticky, and Valey guessed she needed a drink. "Yeah. I did." Valey smiled into the back of her neck. "You wanna hear it?" With a great effort, Shinespark lifted herself, breaking from Valey's grasp and rolling over so they were making eye contact in the bed. It was darker than earlier, now that the early-afternoon sun was no longer shining on Shinespark's curtained windows, but there was enough light in the room for her sapphire eyes to glint just a little. She wanted to hear what Valey had to say. "You," Valey began, "are worried that if you let yourself off the hook for some really big stuff that's way too big for anyone to reasonably blame you for, it'll make the last seven years of your life meaningless. Forget everything before you were twelve, that's a long time. Forget all the other good stuff you undoubtedly did for hundreds and hundreds of other ponies during that time. Bananas, you gave those dudes seven years of hope and a mysterious golden savior to cheer for. You think they're gonna blame you now if you don't blame yourself? Nah. None of that matters. It's about how you feel about yourself, and if anyone knows how thinking a huge part of your past is worthless feels?" Her eyes narrowed. "It's me." Valey nodded as she spoke. "Seven years after you were twelve? Try your entire life, as far as you can remember. And I don't even get to say I did some good stuff with that! I was a jerk, Shinespark. So yeah, I've been there. You wanna say all that time was useless and worthless and wasted? Cool. Someone might try and talk you out of feeling that way. It's not gonna be me, because I have no clue how. But I do know how it feels. I've been there. I'm there right now. And bananas, you're not alone." She pulled herself forward, hugging Shinespark tightly again. "And you know the best part? It's been messing me up. Really badly. Especially with Puddles right before all the pirate stuff, when I was just finding out about Nightmare Modules. Practically turned me into an edgy wreck, and I hate being that way. So you know what I'm gonna do? What I'm gonna promise?" Opening her eyes again, Valey pushed herself far enough back to see her friend's face. "I am absolutely done being a basket case about this. No more. If you've gotta choose between letting yourself feel like it's okay to say you weren't ready for all that and feeling like those years mattered? Screw your past. We've got time. We've got decades ahead of us, and those are what matter. Maybe someday you can come to terms with it another way, and that would be awesome, but right now, I'm the queen of doing what I want and having wasted some time in the past isn't gonna stop me. And I'll do this for you." She took a final breath. "I'm entering Wallace's dumb tournament. Not because I've got a wish for Garsheeva, but because I can. You hear this, Shinespark? I said you were cool earlier, that I found you inspirational for standing a chance after going through all that? Well, I'm going to be the best role model you ever saw. You just watch me. You watch me, you hear? If I can get by and live life to the fullest even though my past is wimpy and wasted and useless? You can do it too. I promise."