===
“And all the while, that little shard around Flurry’s neck is glowing, pulsing. I remember thinking I finally understood its name: the Heart of the Crystal Empire. The blood of a nation, an entire way of life, coursing through billions of veins, driving them all forward towards... I didn’t know what, back then. But I think I knew it’d be worse than I could imagine. And that in the end, I’d feel like it was my fault…”
===
Flurry murmured like a distant friend at a funeral, trying to express sympathy without any hope of sounding sincere. “There’s no right choice sometimes. You told me that once.”
“I meant it,” Twilight affirmed. “You just have to do–”
“What you think is right. Because we’re Princesses. What we say, goes, and what we think is right, is.”
Twilight shifted in place, wings flaring behind her. “That wasn’t what I–”
“Yes it was.” Flurry turned sharply, eyes furrowed in disbelief. “Do you really believe that’s not what you meant? Really?”
“Flurry, I–”
“Tell me something, Twilight. Tell me the truth, just once: do you think we’re the good guys?”
Twilight looked down towards the distant city. She didn’t answer.
“Because if you don’t,” Flurry went on, “if there’s even the slightest inkling of doubt in your mind right now, then you’re not on the right side. And keeping the power you have in spite of that, doing anything but finding someone who believes in the Alliance and letting them rule in your place is worse than tyranny. It’s betrayal. It’s hurting millions of creatures, destroying millions of lives, because you’re too proud to protect them the way only you can.”
Twilight still didn’t reply. She let out a short, muffled cough, and her shoulders shook from the tiny motion.
“I don’t think we’re the good guys, Twilight. I know we are. We’re fighting against genocide, against nations that would murder us and every free creature in our care the moment we give them the chance. And there is a right choice, always, and it’s whatever keeps us, the good guys, in power. Whatever ensures that anyone who wants to break the world we built — Senna, Zaniskar, Mizuma, Orlovia — is broken themselves before they can even try.”
Flurry was shaking too, eyes glassy and alight with fury. “Celestia understood that. My mother understood that. And they knew they couldn’t do what was necessary, what was right, and they gave their power to someone they believed could. So don’t tell me you don’t believe in what we’re doing, Twilight, because that means you don’t believe in them. You’re letting the monsters of the world win, and I… I can’t accept that.” Flurry sighed, and her eyes hardened, and the shard around her neck jerked on its chain. “You can’t make me accept that.”
Finally, Twilight turned back around. Tears glistened in her eyes and tracked down her cheeks. Flurry blinked her own away, and her pendant shuddered and shone atop her trembling throat.