"Did I ever tell you about the one time I kicked a dragon in the face?"
"Do you refer to Nevlamas? Because I do believe I was somewhat of a witness to that."
"No no no. Before that. Waaaaaaay before that."
"Axan?"
"Nope. Even earlier."
"You're playing on my ignorance, then."
"Well, I did. I totally did. This was back when my friends were alive. This big ol' dragon was hibernating in the mountains southwest of Ponyville. Its snoring breath blotted the sun out with nasty smoke. If things remained the way that they were, then most of central Equestria was gonna experience a super long winter."
"Sounds like a mild crisis if I ever heard one."
"Yes, well, it was pretty big business for us in Ponyville. Turns out Princess Celestia was right on top of it, and she ordered her apprentice—my friend Twilight—to strike a peace agreement with the dragon."
"How so?"
"She was gonna politely ask the thing to move and resume its sleeping elsewhere. That way, everypony could be happy."
"Certainly sounds easier said than done."
"Right. So Twilight enlisted the help of me and the rest of her friends. We had just barely gotten to know each other at that point in our lives, and I think a lot of us were still rubbing off of one another the wrong way—like new friends are bound to do, y'know?"
"I take your word for it."
"Anyways, now that I look back at it, the whole quest was more a test for all of us than just for Twilight. Could Celestia or Luna have talked with the dragon themselves? Pfffft. Totally. But this was an opportunity for the Elements of Harmony to work together on the first super-serious thing since Nightmare Moon tried to cover Equestria in eternal night."
"I was promised dragon kicking..."
"I'm g-getting to that! Yeesh... So where was I? Oh, right, so we march up the mountain—"
"On hoof?"
"Er... yeah."
"Sounds rather counter-productive."
"Not all of us were pegasi, y'know."
"My mistake..."
"What, you assumed I only hung out with winged ponies in Equestria?"
"Seems strange that you would let yourself be bogged down otherwise."
"Er... uh... huh..."
"...so you ascended the mountain?"
"Right. And we met with the dragon. He... wasn't very cooperative, to put it lightly. Twilight and the others were patient, but I had just about all I could take of this huge scaled freakjob. An entire afternoon of hiking had gone by. All the ponies I knew and cared for were in danger 'cuz of his foul breath. On top of all that, I hadn't had a bite to eat in over a dozen hours."
"I'm guessing you pulled a 'you.'"
"Wham! Right in his friggin' snout!"
"And you lived to tell about it."
"Heh. Barely. He let loose a dragon roar straight in my face. I was thrown out of his mountain cave, and then my body barreled through my gal pals. Then the dragon came out, all stomping and snarling and spouting fire..."
"I thought it was some terrible chaos lord who ended your companions' lives."
"Oh, that's another story... one that I'm... erm... not b-big on retelling..."
"I see..."
"Anywho, we all trembled, expecting this dragon creep to gobble us all whole. I remember all of us hugging each other, shivering like filly scouts during a thunderstorm. Heh... I really didn't like cuddling back in those days..."
"And you're somehow different now?"
"Anyways, the most anticlimactic thing happened. Fluttershy—dainty wuss extraordinaire—trotted up and stared the big scaley dude down. Out of nowhere, she shows this... well... awesome display of guts, and she single hoofedly convinced the dragon not only to leave us alone, but to fly off to another part of the landscape. Wherever he ended up going, his smoke wouldn't bother Equestria anymore."
"Somehow, that wasn't quite what I expected."
"What? You wanted a story with more explosions?"
"In truth, I expected a heavy helping of blood."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't like me... at least n-not at that time."
"What changed?"
"For real?"
"Mmm-hmmm..."
"... ... ... I guess when my friends all passed away, it's like whatever was holding me back suddenly vanished. If you've no longer got ponies to be loyal to, then why bother being loyal to your morals?"
"Is it really that simple?"
"Pffft. Of course not. But it's helped me reason things out in my head when I feel like absolute trash... which... wh-which is a lot more often than I'd like to admit. Meh..."
"What brought upon this sudden nostalgia?"
"I dunno. Everything. Nothing. Feh... I guess it's just this shivering time bomb of an affliction I'm having to deal with."
"I see..."
"I'd say it was karma. But... if it was truly karma, then I'd have been done in a lot earlier, ya feel me?"
"Perhaps."
"But, for some reason or another, I've been allowed to live... even beyond death itself."
"That's something you have over Hurricane."
"Huh...?"
"She perished during her journey. But you? You perished and came back."
"Heh... yeah, well, Hurricane never ran into technologically gifted and egotistically psychotic Ledomaritans."
"Or perhaps it was fate."
"I doubt I'll ever take you for a mare who subscribes to fate."
"And what of casual conversations in stairwells?"
"Oh... uhm... huh..."
"Indeed."
"... ... ... It's strange to think that adventuring was once fun."
"You no longer feel thrilled by flight and exploration?"
"Okay. So maybe 'fun' isn't the right word. There was a time when dragons, diamond dogs, and parasprites seemed like serious business. That one moment when the big scaley creep was staring down my friends and I? I felt seriously friggin' scared. I wouldn't have admitted it to my buddies at the time, of course, but it freaked me the heck out. But... looking back? I don't think I ever once thought I would die. It's weird. Even when dealing with Nightmare Moon, I felt like things were somehow gonna be okay in the end. Maybe that was because I was part of something bigger and far more harmonic than just myself..."
"Are things any different now?"
"Well... y-yeah! And no. I mean... unnngh... Like weeks ago, when I was flying circles around Stratopolis with Pilate dangling in my grasp and a ton of undead pegasi on my tail? I wasn't scared. I mean... not really scared. I was just... going through the motions. So much of what I've done since Ledomare—heck—since Windthrow has been me just flying by the seat of my saddle."
"You're certain of that?"
"Huh?"
"I don't know the mare you were before you began your epic journey. Are you certain it's been the same ride all throughout?"
"... ... ...I guess Silvadel changed me."
"The place where Axan nested, yes?"
"It was a landscape that had seen death. Like... it was almost a glimpse of what Equestria could perhaps have been like if creatures like that one snoring dragon had gotten their way in the end. The ponies who still lived there—Sam Rose and all his subjects—they had nothing but the ashes of once-happy lives to build a future on. In a way, they had already lost before they were even born into battle."
"And yet, your intervention saved them, yes?"
"Doesn't change the fact that the whole situation royally sucked! That was... th-that was an eye opener for me! I had gotten used to the high of doing fantastic things for ponies whenever I breezed by their towns. But there? In Silvadel? The best I could do was shine light onto a graveyard. Sure, I may have convinced Axan to get up and leave, but that doesn't take back all that the Silvadelians lost."
"You could have flown on without helping them."
"Sure. And yet... no... I couldn't..."
"What held you back?"
"I guess... I-I realized I was my own Silvadel. I was a living sepulcher of all that was once precious to me. The last Element of Harmony was around my neck, and it was a flimsy seal to a vessel of chaos. Gone were the days when simple misadventures in Ponyville would make my heart race. If I wanted to deal with Axan... like really deal with her, than I had to put everything on the line. I probably wouldn't have come out unscathed. In fact... I didn't. I should have died... I should have stayed dead..."
"But it's a fortuitous thing that you didn't, right?"
"I... I like to think so. I like to think that it was worth it just to meet Belle and Pilate... Eagle Eye and Kera..."
"It stands to be said that one life put at risk to help so many others is a sign of true heroism."
"And I got to meet you, Roarke."
"... ... ..."
"For real. Don't you think that's a fantastic thing? That you're here right now? That we're both here? Instead of—I dunno—lying in separate ditches somewhere?"
"I could perhaps hypothesize about the ample bounty I'd be in posession of right now if it weren't for your inexplicable intervention."
"Pffft! At what cost? Being the lap dog of the big-flanks up in Searo's Hold?"
"Well put..."
"I often think about what it'd be like if Discord hadn't dropped in on my friends and me. Like... imagine an alternate universe where we never died... where we'd still be hanging out... doing the whole Elements of Harmony thang... battling—pfft—I dunno... pillow monsters and sea ponies..."
"You can't be expected to predict something like that."
"But still, it just... it used to seem like such a happy, dreamy scenario to me. But now? Now that I've unearthed all the crap that Chrysalis has been up to? Now that the likes of Shell and Zaap Nator and Nightshade and Nevlamas have been dealt with? I can't fathom having lived another existence. Even... even if it m-means that my friends have to stay dead. It's like I was meant to come out this far... to do so many awesome—and not so awesome stuff... just to make sure the world becomes... y'know... better."
"I think it's the mark of a strong pony to account for all of her calamitous circumstances and see them for the good that they've brought about."
"Yeah, I guess. I just wish I didn't have to struggle with such a perspective for so long."
"Indeed."
"How about you? Do you ever pine for the life you had before you got caught up in all this nonsense?"
"There was one particular occasion at a young age where I commissioned by an older warrior to fetch her a dozen eunuchs from the southern kingdoms. It wasn't until the delivery was made at the cost of much blood and sweat that I realized she actually desired a dozen studs for a private brothel."
"... ... ..."
"It... erm... was exceedingly amusing to me at the time."
"Maybe we should go downstairs where it's closer to the lavatory or some other place where I could vomit."
"Agreed."