"Hard to believe we did so much in three days," Maple murmured, her plate half-filled with thirds, though she was visibly slowing down. "We've been on this adventure for months, and yet that feels like nearly half of it. But even though it's a whole half, everything's been so big, it might have been forever ago as well. I don't even know how to describe it at all."
"Your sense of time is messed up?" Slipstream raised an eyebrow. "Tell me about it. Feels like I had a life that was back then, and a life that's now, and I've done both done more with myself in the last six months than ever before, and spent it doing nothing but spectating on this grand ride while everyone else steers."
"Aren't we all spectators to our own lives?" Gerardo sipped from his drink, going slower to savor the beverage. "If they weren't worth watching, we'd have far bigger concerns."
Starlight wondered if her life was worth watching. Living it was tiring and stressful, and she just wanted to be normal... yet she kept attracting the attention of things like Glimmer and the harmonic flames. It was obviously worth watching, because so many were watching her. Yet at the same time, this didn't feel at all like what Gerardo was referring to.
She didn't want to figure it out, though. Her friends' cheer was like a blanket, and she had finally given in to the party, getting the most she could out of her friends before the morning's inevitable end. Spending time contemplating the value of her life wouldn't lead her to any new epiphanies, and would just lock her inside her head while she should be appreciating the ponies who were right there, in the real world around her.
"Who would watch my life? I'm a normie compared to everyone else here." Slipstream chuckled, then paused. "Actually, don't answer that. To anyone who's ever wanted to quit their job and run away on an adventure with a bunch of adventurers who are way cooler than they are, I'm living the dream. Ponies would probably even be jealous."
Amber nodded along. "It's true. I can't tell you how many books I've read about some ordinary gal going out on an adventure. We could make a killing writing about all the places we've been, now that I think about it..."
"Yes!" Slipstream cheered. "The utterly unqualified protagonist who goes along just so readers can empathize with them! They're my guilty pleasure when reading." Her pupils shrank. "Oh my. I just realized if I wrote a biography, I'd be a self-insert."
Gerardo chuckled, reaching over and patting her on the back. "Anyone who's survived this many trials with us is hardly unqualified. I consider myself knowledgeable, worldly and skilled with a sword, yet even I have found myself taking the backseat sometimes to our more talented friends. And even then, what qualifications does it take to be supportive and give the risk-takers somewhere to come home to?"
Slipstream blushed. "True. I shouldn't need to ask if that's really what you all think of me."
"You're cool." Valey folded her forelegs and shrugged. "It's pretty obvious Birdo's opinion of you is way biased, but you're still cool. Folks who aren't cool who try to come with us go the way of Pancake and Shades. You wanna brag about feeling like you're a normie who got to live the dream life? Brag it up. Everyone's bragging, so join the party."
Amber giggled. "We're going to get back to Ironridge, and then brag like crazy."
"Some of us will." Harshwater nodded. "I might be a little preoccupied figuring out what to do with my life to go looking for anyone to brag to."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Will the whole city not do?"
Harshwater cleared hers harder. "Anyone."
"Ah. Point taken."
"But we're also bragging now," Valey insisted. "And you know what dunks on everything else so far? I rolled into Stormhoof, hitched a ride on a pirate ship, washed into town, tried to be nice, scoundrels tried to take advantage of my multiple times, and I just flipped my lid and dunked on their entire castle at once, all after getting monked up by that shady guy. Their entire. Castle."
"Where we were already safe and sound and guests of honor," Maple pointed out.
Valey flexed, popping a grin. "So?"
"Ah, the early days of the Empire." Gerardo leaned back, strumming his talons delicately like a pianist. "Back before the political hullabaloo, when I looked forward to showing off the nobility and relaxation and occasional stuffiness of my homeland in a refined and dignified manner, and we still thought it would be a vacation..."
Slipstream pursed her lips. "I remember you completely freaking out about Wallace Whitewing the whole time. Who was refined and dignified?"
Gerardo adopted a serious look. "One must always make exceptions for true heroes."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, well, that true hero was the one who invited us to chill in Izvaldi, which was a little too chill thanks to... you know... the crazy ice pony they kept locked up in the basement?" She rubbed her head from the painful memory. "Bananas, I got foalnapped. I got foalnapped. And dragged off to a romantic beachside getaway and totally probably learned stuff about Nightmare Modules or moon glass or whatever and urgh. I think that's where I got real messed up in the head. Didn't get out of that funk properly until we were out of the empire altogether."
Gerardo adamantly shook his head. "While there were certainly high stakes and intrigue, I think Wallace Whitewing had perfectly good cause to want his friend's possessed daughter kept around..."
"Bananas." Valey shook her head. "Look, there's some stuff I can brag about on this adventure, and some really stressful stuff I can look back at and say was awesome in hindsight, but this is a little too raw. I was messed up. Maybe... Maybe I need a little more time on this one."
Shinespark rubbed her back encouragingly. "Can we change the topic to how I was still down after losing Sosa, and you entered the tournament just to prove a point to me?"
"Yeah... heh..." Valey nuzzled her in return. "For completely not feeling it at all, I sure kicked a lot of rear. Didn't I beat one guy while basically in a cast and unable to move? Bananas, what even injured me that bad...?"
"The pirate ship?" Shinespark suggested. "When I flew out to look for you?"
Grenada folded her ears. "That was when we reunited the... first time."
Shinespark nodded solemnly.
"Hope I at least was able to brighten your lives," Amber added. "I showed up sometime in there as well."
"And didn't we meet sometime around then too?" Felicity asked across the sound stone. "I distinctly remember hearing about you in advance from Senescey, and then one day you stumbled across her at work and she brought you over for a visit."
Valey perked up a little. "Yeah... heh... A lot of us probably started meeting again around that time."
As they talked, Starlight stared, even more unsure of what she was seeing. She remembered Valey as she was during their stay in the Empire, desperate and stretched thin and struggling to find a goal she could commit to or a reason to do anything. She remembered a Valey who was boxed in by the things she thought about herself and the things others said about her, who had the energy to do things but was constantly afraid, like a bottle under pressure with its only exit blocked. Learning more about the nature of moon glass and Nightmare Modules, Valey had been terrified of her place and role within the world, and everything she could do if she wasn't careful.
It sounded awfully, painfully familiar.
"Well," Starlight said, getting everyone's attention with how rarely she spoke. "I got foalnapped too. And it stank. And I learned some things about myself I didn't really like, and accidentally got a Nightmare Module and got moon glassed for the first time, and I didn't know what to do. So, you're not alone."
Valey leaned over and ruffled Starlight's mane, all her cheer inexplicably returned. "That's my line, ya dork." Her cheeks squeezed in her biggest grin, and she sat back again with a sigh. "For real, though. Not good times, but I survived. And I think I kicked sufficient tail during them to keep us all alive and frosty."
Starlight just blinked, the conversation carrying on without her. How? How did Valey do this? Her friends were making light of their past fears and troubles, celebrating the harrowing things they had survived. But bad things weren't meant to be celebrated, and it was so hard for her to feel the same... and yet, here Valey was saying something was too bad to be celebrated. But even after they skipped it, she carried on and cheered back up anyway.
How did she draw the line? How was there a line to be drawn in the first place? Was it just that Starlight herself had never been through anything that was bad, but still not-bad enough that it could be joked about? Her friends were reminiscing about thing after thing she had lived through, too.
She just didn't understand.
"Our second visit to Izvaldi?" Gerardo was saying. "I can't say I remember that much about it. Perhaps there wasn't much to remember? We might have set out swiftly for Mistvale..."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. I think we busted into Chauncey's basement and snooped around his lab, though. And got back Nyala's body?" She glanced over at Nyala. "Oh yeah, we totally put you in Braen, too!"
Nyala nodded quietly. "It was during your first visit there, I believe."
"Wait..." Harshwater blinked. "Was I really the last one to join up? Feels like there were more after me..."
"Saffron," Gerardo pointed out. "Though she went about her own way after Kinmari."
"And myself, technically," Felicity added. "We were acquainted, and I did tag along to Mistvale with you all, though it really wouldn't be fair to any of us to call me a proper member of the crew before I made amends and paid my dues, as it were."
"Girl, you're as proper as you wanna be," Valey countered. "...Oh yeah, and we also had Crystal on the boat for a month. Bananas, she was a hag."
Amber winced. "Having spent some time around her in her more vulnerable moments, she didn't have the nicest personality. I still feel like there should have been something we could have done..."
"There always is something else we can do," Maple said. "We could have stayed in Stormhoof that night when Gazelle and Felicity convinced us to attack the tower, and let Crystal have her foal there instead of flying back to Izvaldi while she was in labor. Maybe if she had been around ponies who cared instead of Gazelle, something could have been different. But you can't change the past, and there's no use wishing you can. It's sad, what happened to her and what she did to everyone else, but all we can do is learn from it and try to move forward as more thoughtful ponies who might be able to put the experience to use in the future."
"Well put," Harshwater chimed in. "As someone who's still figuring out what to do with their life after making the stupidest mistake of building everything on a bad foundation... you gotta salvage what you can and not kick yourself too hard for the blind idiot you feel like you were."
"I wonder what happened to her foal, anyway," Shinespark murmured. "Everything went wrong because batponies breed true, so she was expecting a griffon, and when she had a batpony, Percival thought she had cheated on him, right? Even though it was actually because of something biological Chauncey had done?"
Valey scratched her head. "I think I heard that from somewhere? Maybe it was Grandpapa? Or hey, maybe she really was a cheater. Certainly tried her hardest to seduce me and then make me feel terrible for it." She shivered. "Batponies are born with their cutie marks, though. So, uh, given what happened to pretty much everyone in the Empire... Yeah."
Starlight suddenly had the sinking realization that in stealing back Valey and all the other sarosian souls with her moon glass, she had probably stolen away Crystal's infant foal as well.
"It's a shame it ended like that," Felicity added. "Truly. I... lost all the rest of my family from that event as well, though we had decided to forever go our separate ways mere days earlier, so I suppose I got at least a little goodbye..."
Starlight also didn't think she had ever told Felicity what she saw of Senescey's memory in her moon glass. She probably wasn't going to. Felicity didn't need to know what her sister would be reliving until the end of time...
That was one of her biggest regrets about settling down, now that she thought about it. If she stayed on her hooves and continued the adventure, she might one day be able to free all the souls she had trapped, or return them to their old bodies. But with how much it had taken just to save them from their ascendant queen, she couldn't see herself being strong enough to do that for a long, long time.
...With a sudden blinding flash of determination, Starlight remembered the way Valey had used her pendant to try seeing who was inside the moon glass they carried in the crates on the Immortal Dream. She had never actually tried wearing that pendant herself, but was similar enough to a batpony that it might do something interesting for her. What would happen if she got one of her own, and attached her moon glass sword to the choker? Maybe she could see the ponies inside, and do something to ease their purgatorial existences.
Although, there would be thousands. Tens, or maybe even hundreds. More than just the sarosians, brands and souls of Garsheeva's past sacrifices that she had stockpiled to fuel her immortality and had ripped away by Crystal. Going through all of those would be a job sized for a goddess, and nothing less.
Whatever. She would still ask Shinespark how to make a pendant of her own. She had a long life ahead of her, and more than enough time on her hooves.