//------------------------------// // We Never Change // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Harshwater threw herself so hard on her bed, she bounced three times, coming to rest on her back with her wings and legs splayed and her tail dangling off the edge. "Feels good to be able to do that again," she remarked. "Thanks for getting me healed, by the way." "Uh, yeah. No problem." Valey looked up from locking the door, ensuring they were left alone. "So, you weren't finished? Just thought it would be a little better if you didn't talk about your love affair with a griffon in the middle of public." "There was no affair. Just me trying to get him to notice me..." Harshwater groaned, kicking weakly. But now that she had stopped for the flight up, her tears seemed reluctant to return. "Valey, how do you see yourself? Personal question, but since you're being open and stubborn already..." "Me? Bananas, that's a long story." Valey tilted her head, then sighed and sat down. "Not the greatest. I just got back from flying all the way to the grand temple, only to be told in person by the Night Mother that my worst fears are true and I really was created by an evil goddess to be a living weapon. But also that I have the freedom to decide what to do with that. How'd that make you feel?" Harshwater bit her lip. "So you're clearly an expert on feeling good about yourself." "I didn't say that!" Valey blinked. "I said I got how you feel! Good company, and all that, right?" She leaned against the side of the bed. "Bananas, you messed up twice with Kero? I messed up for seven years solid with Ironridge. I was someone I'm not proud of being." "Misery does love company," Harshwater sighed. "What would you do if you were in Ironridge now, living it all over again?" Valey rolled her eyes. "Can't even begin to guess. I did what I did to survive. And cope, I guess. Still doesn't mean I'm proud of it. Why?" "Because I'm trying to figure out how I feel about you." Harshwater stared at the ceiling. "Like saying it over and over and over again will get it through my slow head... I have nightmares about fighting you, but you spared me and then came to save me." Valey's jaw twisted. "Look, well, you're probably not the only pony from Ironridge who has nightmares about me." Harshwater flung herself onto her side, so that her face was inches from Valey's. "What did you really do in Ironridge? Something more than wasted years. Because every story I heard had you living the high life, treating yourself like a princess who got her hooves dirty, taking no flak from anyone and always doing what she wanted?" "Uh, exactly that?" Valey frowned heavily. "I listened to no one, considered no one's feelings, made a ton of enemies with lifelong grudges, acted like a buffoon, let myself get run around by that stupid yak...!" "And!? You don't do that now?" Harshwater glared into her eyes. "How much did you consider anyone's feelings when trying to break up the fight where you found me in that valley? Did you listen to anyone who told you to get out and mind your own business? I've heard from the others. You made the call to go down there right after the sarosians begged you not to! You did what you thought was right, and it wound up saving a huge number of lives, including mine! Does that remind you of anything?" Valey blinked. "Maybe it should remind you of Ironridge," Harshwater pressed, "where you did what you wanted, didn't care about anyone who tried to stop you, and messed up the Defense Force and Spirit so badly you probably held off an armed encounter for years. You're the same, you haven't changed, the only difference is that now you feel bad about being a hero! Stop lowering yourself to my level!" Her eyes burned with intensity. "One of the fundamental rules of being a mercenary is that you keep moving forward. You take a job and innocents die, you help someone who didn't deserve to be helped, you lose a comrade you cared about or loved, it doesn't matter. You keep moving forward. But that involves knowing which way forward is! I've lost everything, I need a direction, and the reason I'm so confused on how I feel about you is because you're my hero who outclasses me in every way but still cares and I need to look up to you for that, and you keep trashing yourself and putting yourself on my level! So get up, you lazy, banana-eating slob, and stop doing that!" Valey's brain crashed, skipping its tracks and taking several seconds to begin processing... several seconds Harshwater didn't give her. They were already face to face, Valey leaning against the bed's edge and Harshwater on her side atop it, and the stormy pegasus reached forward, grabbing Valey's and pulling her into a sudden kiss. Pomf! Valey's wings popped out stiff, and she squeaked in surprise, but Harshwater held on for several seconds before letting go. "You know what that was for?" "Buh..." Valey rubbed her lips with the side of a hoof, pupils pinprick. "Bananas, why did you do that!? I told you, you don't need to make yourself worth anything for me-" "Nope! Wrong answer!" Harshwater interrupted her with a glare. "And you just said we're in private, so don't worry about the Empire. In my old company, this is what we call returning the favor. You probably did that to so many mares once upon a time, you wouldn't remember, but you got me too, years ago. I was minding my own business, standing in line for a shop, and you came out of nowhere and tried cutting in front of everyone. Some stallion tried telling you off, you feigned being all apologetic, then kissed me out of nowhere as a 'consolation prize' just so you could pat the stallion on the head, tell him he was too hairy to have one too, and stroll away laughing your head off without even buying anything. That was the first interaction I ever had with you." Valey's face twisted in disgust. "Why are you making that sound like a good thing!?" Harshwater smirked, propping her chin on her forehooves. "I'm sorry, was I? I don't think I was. Are you really so incapable of seeing anything decent about your history that the moment anyone brings it up, you think they're telling you there might have been something worthwhile there?" Valey's eye started to twitch. "Try telling me there was anything worthwhile about that behavior!" "Try telling me there wasn't about sparing me in the mines!" Harshwater countered, her volume rising with Valey's. "I'm alive because of you! It's worthwhile to me! And in the month after you left Ironridge, Arambai and the Defense Force started to put together everything you'd been doing to sabotage everyone's war abilities, and you probably spared countless more ponies too! What's being rude and self-centered in the face of that, huh!? Tell me!" "Why can't I do both!?" Valey countered, piledriving a hoof into the side of the bed. "Why can't I be a good pony and act like one too!?" "You tell me!" Harshwater hissed. "Because you're doing everything you used to, but treating yourself like you're awful for it! Leave that to ponies who have actually managed to screw up everything in their lives and don't have an airship full of friends or the ability to stop wars! Stop trying to make it hard for me to look up to you!" "But I was a scumbag..." Valey's eyes shook, hollow. "The day after I met Maple, we were down in Blueleaf and I got led into an ambush by foals. These were kids who were stuck in this low-class dump town because I got their parents fired, or they quit so they wouldn't have to deal with me. I ruined their lives...!" "By getting their parents kicked out of a militia?" Harshwater raised an eyebrow. Valey countered with silence. "By taking the tools out of their fathers' hooves to ruin or end countless more lives?" Harshwater glared at her face. "What are you asking for, to do right by every last creature in the world? An old Yakyakistan proverb is that if every creature in the world helped two other creatures during their life, there would be enough to go around for the world twice over. You win some battles, lose others, some wins come at a cost and some losses leave you with gain. What did you do with those foals?" "Uhh... I kinda just left..." Valey looked away. "Didn't hurt them. I don't think. Starlight used her crystal spell to make them chill." "So forget them and leave cleaning up after yourself to someone else!" Harshwater pressed. "Or remember and try if you want, just don't try to be a hero for the entire world! You're not a goddess, and there are other good ponies who will pick up where you left off! Or do you think the world is so dark there's never, ever going to be someone who makes an effort again? It only takes one match to make a light in darkness." Valey took a shuddering breath. "What are you doing?" she asked, voice as neutral as possible. "I thought you were the one who needed my help with your issues. Bananas, all I was trying to do was say I get it. I know what you're going through. And yeah, I know I'm messed up. Kind of obvious. So why are you spending all your effort on me?" "How many times do I need to say it?" Harshwater glared. "I don't know what to feel about you, Valey. You're my hero, and you're somehow helping me just because and not asking anything in return. I need that right now because I have no direction in my life, but instead of taking that and running with it you're lamenting not being able to do the impossible for everyone? Just who do you think you are? Is what you did for me not impossible enough? You saved me, and you're profaning yourself over it like it wasn't good enough when for me, it sure was. Get up. Get on your hooves, stop trashing yourself and help those of us who are already here before you break yourself and can't do anything for anyone!" Valey rubbed at her mouth again. "...So what's that have to do with kissing me?" "Uggghh..." Harshwater scowled. "Okay, sure. What you did was bad. Don't walk up to strangers in public and kiss them. But would it kill you to have a little of that self-confidence back? I need to believe in you to have any hope for myself in this world, and seeing you not physically hurts me." She put a wing over her heart. "I'm serious. And besides, you're overcompensating." "Overcompensating?" Valey blinked. "How?" Harshwater pointed at the door. "When was the last time you flirted with someone?" "Uhhhhhh..." Valey squinted. "Riverfall? But the Empire's, like-" "Don't care. And the real you wouldn't either." Harshwater closed her eyes, folding her forelegs behind her head. "Doesn't even have to matter. Have you paid even a drop of attention to who likes you on this ship?" Valey frowned, counting on her wing spokes. "Well, Amber, but I think we agreed that wasn't a thing? Don't actually know where we stand. And then Sparky said she sort of liked me, but wasn't going anywhere with it because of heresy and everything else..." She glanced at Harshwater. "Wait, you?" Harshwater scoffed. "I like griffons. And dudes. Believe me, my emotions about you are messed up enough I could kiss you again if I wanted to, and probably more, but not what I'm talking about." She looked back at Valey with serious eyes. "Have you really not noticed?" A feeling of unease started to crawl at Valey's scalp. "Uhh... there's someone else?" Harshwater gave a long, drawn-out sigh. "Felicity talks about giving up her goddess for you. The one she's killed for and been a special agent of for twenty years. And that's just from what I hear through my door. She's right across from me, you know." Valey blinked. "She what?" "You were there!" Harshwater pressed. "When someone says following you and your friends and your ways of living with yourself even when you're not all that happy with them? In Ironridge you made up the barest, flimsiest excuses to flirt with mares! Are you so far in denial of your time there that you can't see the real thing when it's staring you under your nose!?" "Well, bananas." Valey sat back with a thump. "I mean... I don't... Bananas, I don't wanna be in a relationship, though. Look, I clearly get carried away with stuff like that. I couldn't handle-" "Tell it to her, not me," Harshwater droned, interrupting. "Look, I'm actually more tired than I thought I was, so I'm going to lay in a comfortable position for a bit and maybe try to practice walking without falling over. Didn't you have something to meet with your friends about?" "I did, yeah..." Valey's eyes shifted to the door, then fell. "Bananas, though. It was an important decision about what to do next, and suddenly I feel like I need to see to myself before tackling anything big..." Harshwater shrugged, curling into a ball. "So tell your friends what's what, recuse yourself and let them sort it out. Easy. And have fun if you're adrift and anchorless, because that's how I'm feeling all this time it takes for you to get your act together." "Yeah..." Valey paced to the door. "Uh, good talk. Thanks. I'll see you again soon." "See ya..."