Shinespark stepped quietly through the dining hall of the Immortal Dream, ignoring the staircase and passing through the small hallway to the very front of the ship. The observation room wasn't a place that saw a lot of public use, something that surprised her a little. Perhaps because it was out of the way, no one was ever passing through. It felt more secret than she had intended, drawing the ship's plans so long ago, but in time, she had come to think of it as her haunt. It was a nice secret.
And now, it was where she had put Grenada.
Her sister's eyes tracked her as she walked in, horn capped and hooves bound and burgundy coat silhouetted by a window of moonlit clouds. "This is humiliating," Grenada greeted, face stony.
Shinespark could feel the beginnings of tears tugging at her eyes, the present visage overlaid in her mind on a lifetime of memories. Speeches given in the Spirit hideout long before Braen was autonomous, meetings held against a backdrop of construction and machines... "I hate seeing you like this," she agreed, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to take a seat and not look away.
A flicker of sympathy crossed Grenada's face, and she tried to hide it, but Shinespark knew her too well. "You know whose fault that is."
"Mine?" Shinespark's jaw clenched. "I'm sorry."
"Too little, too late," Grenada snorted, and tried to look away.
"Is it?" Shinespark asked. "Just because I should have talked to you earlier doesn't mean we're not still alive. I won't stop being sorry even once it's too late to matter, but that hasn't happened yet."
"Just because you should have spoken earlier?" Grenada's brows both rose. "Just because? I lived with you here for an entire month, and you could not even dignify my question with a no? And now you followed me here where I was trying to start a new life and took all that away from me!" Her breathing intensified, chest threatening to heave... and then Grenada looked down. "I thought I understood you once. Now I cannot recognize you at all."
Shinespark's ears wilted. "That's because I've changed. Braen of Ironridge was made to be more perfect than one mare ever could be. She was built on a lie, that fighting with weapons was the way our Sosans could stand up for themselves and better their world! And then that lie was torn apart right in front of my face when it brought war to Ironridge. That lie was Braen and Braen was me, and so when it died on the bridge, it killed me, too. I've never been the same since. It took weeks for me to put myself back together, and I got up a different mare."
"That's bogus!" Grenada snarled, straining against her bonds. "Braen cared for every Sosan! She visited them in their homes, listened to their stories and gave them someone to look up to! Are you telling me that kindness was a lie, too?"
Shinespark watched, feeling energy tingle in her horn, tempted at the back of her mind to unbind Grenada and let herself feel the mare's wrath. "No. I didn't care for them because I was Braen. I was Braen because I cared for them, and it ended with Sosa and the skyport being destroyed! It ended with me unconscious with a broken leg while other ponies fought and almost died to protect our city from everything I allowed to build! It ended in the Ironridge skyport, C terminal, south wing, west control tower when I caught up to the Spirit and teleported everyone to safety but you."
Grenada shuddered. "Then where was it when I was waiting? If that care for everyone wasn't thrown away, why didn't I deserve any? Every day I spent growing up, you were there...!" Her shudders evolved to trembles, and soon the ropes were the only things holding her upright. "If Braen was a lie, I fell for it. And I have no respect for your truth if it's turned you into what you are now."
"Neither do I." Shinespark hunched over as if nursing a wound, squeezing her eyes shut and knowing her composure wouldn't hold out much longer. "I thought I could change the way the world works and it showed me just what it thought of that. I hate the way things ended, for Ironridge and for everyone I cared about. I fought it as hard as I could, Grenada. I became Braen because a dying Sosa wasn't enough, and I wanted to bring about a better world. The way things are isn't something I embraced. It's something that knocked me down."
Grenada stared, waiting and watching for her to go on.
"I'm so sorry I let you down," Shinespark whispered, meeting her ruby eyes again. "There are some wounds I have that never healed, left over from that day. Talking with you that whole month... you loved me because of how I treated you. Even if you were back from the dead, everything about you was a reminder of what I had told countless Sosans and how I had let them down. I needed to face up to it, to make things right with you and not let our friendship break apart because I spent our whole lives wearing a guise that was gone now. And? I failed again. I couldn't. It hurts." Her voice cracked, despite barely having volume. "You might have liked me better when I pretended to be flawless, but if I don't admit what I can't do then it will hurt even more when I run into things I could have avoided. I'm not the kind of hero I made myself out to be, and now it's hurting you, too."
"Really? Is that what you have to say?" Grenada's brow hardened again, though she didn't fight her bindings. A mountain ridge passed below, breaking up the reflective cloud sea, and its shadow reached up through the window floor, briefly cutting her off from the moonlight. "I was not looking for you to be flawless, Shinespark. I was overjoyed to see you again that evening on the pirate ship. It was like you had come back from the dead, too." The shadow passed, and once again she was lit, silvery light making her coat appear pale gray. "I knew your plan failed in Ironridge. It never mattered whether you succeeded because you cared and you tried!"
Finally, her mask slipped, genuine pain replacing the coldness and apathy from before. "I knew who you were inside that armor. The effort you put into every one of us was far more important to me than any of your rhetoric or propaganda. I may have been naive but that was never something I could not see." She sat up straighter, staring intensely. "You never became Braen because it was easy. I am not upset because you made a mistake, Shinespark. I'm upset because you're telling me that and are trying to justify why you stopped trying!"
Grenada's words settled like dust around her... or perhaps the dust was any argument Shinespark could have prepared. "You're right," she whispered, helpless. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"...I have no idea what to do now," Grenada admitted, scowling at the ground. "I could have helped you. I might have imagined you being my gleaming knight, because I was naive too, but I thought I could pay you back for inspiring me so. I wanted to be the pony you could lean on. I would have listened and understood like no one else, because I was there too and knew what you had gone through. And you lumped me in with the rest of your past and tried to throw me away."
Shinespark bowed her head, waiting for Grenada to say her piece.
"I know what you are thinking," Grenada went on. "You haven't even mentioned how I treated you just now, when I commanded my ponies to attack you, denied you and fired at you with my trebuchet. Are you waiting for an apology? Do you want me to take the initiative?" She paused, but got no response. "...I had a reason. How was I supposed to feel after you threw me away and forced me to live a life on my own, then walked back into the new life I was building? Were you going to tear it all down? Or become every Varsidelian's savior just like you were for Ironridge and just like you couldn't do for me? I was jealous, angry and afraid, and my fears were founded. Here I am being hauled away in disgrace while a truce has been reached between my friends and the sarosians, courtesy of your friends and not me."
A lump stuck in Shinespark's throat and refused to go away.
"If you get to justify being a coward and taking the easy way and ignoring everything that made you who you were, why can't I do the same!?" Grenada tried to stomp, but her hooves were tied. "I didn't trust you! I wanted nothing more to do with you and you came back into my life after everything you had done, and so I shot you with my own horn! See? I had a reason for disowning you, too! Does that make it any better? How does it feel, being on the other end of your argument!?"
Shinespark cringed. She hadn't had time to fully care for herself since the battle, too busy with sarosians and truces and everything else the days had involved, and some char from Grenada's blast still lingered on her fur as a result. She brushed it with a hoof. "It's no defense."
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Grenada wouldn't let her gaze go. "Saying you were worth less than fear."
"And it doesn't make things right." Shinespark straightened up, a flicker of resolve returning to her voice. "You're worth more than my issues with Ironridge, too. That's why the first thing I said was that whatever else we lost, both of us are still here." Her horn lit sapphire, beginning to unbind the ropes from Grenada's hooves.
Grenada watched as they fell away, standing where she was without moving. Then Shinespark's aura settled around her horn, lifting away the cap that prevented its use. She looked at her hooves, then at Shinespark, and didn't say a word.
"I'm sorry," Shinespark said once more.
"Well?" Grenada whispered after an eternity of silence. "Who is going to say it? Will we at all?"
Shinespark watched her, beseeching. "Would it mean anything, coming from me? I'm not in a position of power, here. I wronged you. I couldn't deal with Ironridge, and you paid the price."
"And I hated you," Grenada answered. "More than anything, for making me hate you. I hated the necessity of it. I asked why you couldn't leave me to lick my wounds in peace? I felt like if you would only leave me be, next time I could be the bigger mare. We could come full circle, and I could be the shining knight who reached down for you and forgave the way you failed me. But that was just another fantasy."
"No," Shinespark growled, growing tears beginning to obscure her vision.
"Isn't it?" Grenada frowned. "Both of us have-"
"No!" Shinespark repeated, rising in intensity. "Us making up does not have to be a fantasy! If I don't feel like I deserve to forgive you and you feel like there's more you need to do to forgive me, then we'll never make up even though we both clearly want it, and that's not right! I don't care whether I'm allowed to say it or not when I'm crawling back after leaving you like that, I forgive you, and I want to try again! And if that's somehow wrong in any way, then whatever says otherwise isn't a law I'm willing to let my world work by!"
Grenada choked on her response, rushing forward and nearly knocking Shinespark off her hooves as she wrapped her legs around her neck and buried her face in her fur. "I missed you...!"
"I forgive you," Shinespark insisted, putting a leg of her own around Grenada. "And I'm sorry. Now take my hoof and get up."
"T-That's more like it." Grenada's voice was shaky, and in their embrace Shinespark could feel her ribs, a product of hard living for the last few weeks. "I forgive you too, but it doesn't even matter. That's the Shinespark I knew. Never letting what was and wasn't possible control what you tried to do for the ponies you loved."
Shinespark wiped at her tears, still holding the embrace. "I think it might be reaching a little to compare me forgiving you to being the hero of Ironridge, but I appreciate the sentiment. And I missed you too."
"It doesn't feel like reaching to me," Grenada countered. "It felt like the mare I looked up to was gone. You tried as hard as you did and then had nothing left for me, even though I knew you would never do that. And now you are trying again to live like the world is the one you want to see..."
"Shhh," Shinespark urged, putting a hoof on Grenada's back. "There will be time enough for talking about who we want to be later, now that we're friends again. Right now, we should worry a little more about who we are, and you're not very well taken care of. Come with me to the kitchen?"
Grenada's eyes shone in the moonlight, reminding Shinespark of all the pain that had built up to this chance. It wasn't over, but it had a chance to heal. She had to be careful... but as long as they talked to each other, they could understand and make it through.
"To the kitchen..." Grenada began. "Sister."