===
“For a while, they just stared at each other. Felt like watching your parents fight: even though it doesn’t involve you, even though you can only guess at what they’re even mad about to begin with, you still feel guilty, still wanna agree to anything if it’ll make them stop and be normal again…”
===
Without warning, Flurry Heart smiled.
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling. “Okay. Yeah. That tracks.”
Twilight looked as confused as Garnet felt, which didn’t make the staff sergeant feel any better. In fact, it had entirely the opposite effect.
“You think I’m doing this for him,” Flurry went on. “Because that’s why you’d do it. That’s what would drive you towards things you never thought you were capable of, so that must be what’s driving me.”
“Flurry, that’s not–”
“No, it’s okay,” Flurry interrupted, sardonic cheer dripping from every word. “You’re right. It’s that simple. I lost someone I loved, and I’m upset about it, and now you’re going to tell me that it’s okay to be sad and it’s not too late to do the right thing. It’s fine. It’s not my fault. Nothing is ever anyone’s fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Flurry,” Twilight insisted, more sharply than she seemed to have intended. After a moment’s pause to collect herself, she continued. “And it was Mizuma’s. They attacked without warning, killed thousands of innocent creatures–”
“As opposed to what?” Flurry interrupted again. “Guilty creatures? If they’d all been soldiers, would that have been fine? If my father had been an asshole, slapped me around instead of loving me, would his death have been easier to excuse? Could I have just said something pithy like, ‘Saved me the trouble of doing it myself’ and then forgotten he ever existed? Could you?”
Twilight took a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes closed so Flurry’s glare couldn’t reach them. “One atrocity doesn’t justify another,” she said once she looked up again, emphasizing each word like a teacher lecturing a student who refused to apply herself. “There are thousands of Mizumans who deserve punishment for what they’ve done. But not all of them.”
“And that’s what an invasion would be?” Flurry intoned. “Punishing all of them?”
Twilight didn’t respond to that. Flurry sighed and looked down at the valley again.
“You know what you and my mother both got wrong?” Flurry mused. “You quit while you were ahead. You fought the War to End All Wars, and you had that war won, and then you just quit. Took your soldiers home, gave everybody medals, and left a whole continent worth of loose ends to tie themselves up any way they pleased. And they did. And now we’re here.”
“So you would’ve just taken over?” Twilight grumbled — almost growled. “You think we were weak not to treat living, thinking creatures, a whole continent of them, as ‘loose ends’?”
“You’re telling me that’s how you treat living, thinking creatures? Carve up their countries and poison their fields, maim and murder a whole generation of young stallions and then tell them they deserve all of it because they lost a fight they should’ve known better than to start?”
“They told themselves that. They chose to believe it. And whether we like it or not, no matter what we think we know, it’s not our place to tell other creatures what to think. All we can do is give them something better to strive for.”
“Right. Like you did in Griffonia? You and your Orlovian friends, what exactly were you striving for?”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed, and her teeth ground together behind her pursed lips. “I’m not doing this with you, Flurry. If you want to be angry at someone, argue about who’s evil and who’s not as if you don’t know better, fine. But not with me. I’m not going to do what you want.”
For a moment, Flurry just stared at Twilight — then, without warning, she smiled again. “Sorry,” she said, chuckling and shaking her head. “Just… déjà vu. Forget it. Not important anyway.”