The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Decision Making

"Oh!" Willow jerked when Starlight touched her, causing Maple and Amber to grumble and shift around. "Starlight?" She tried to raise her head, barely able to see over Maple's mane, looking around with bleary, nearly-closed eyes. "You're cold..."

"I went outside," Starlight mumbled, earning another twitch when she tried again to cuddle back up. "Don't get up. I'm cold."

"I'll say you are," Amber muttered as Starlight rubbed against her. "Nngh. Guess it's morning..."

Maple's hoof patted blindly around, searching for the filly, and eventually caught her and dragged her closer. "You are cold," she murmured, pressing Starlight against her chest, between her legs. "Here... hmmm..."

Willow shifted as well, sandwiching Starlight snugly between herself and Maple. "Hmm," she agreed, wrapped them both in a forehoof, and closed her eyes.

"I guess that means we're staying here for a while, huh?" Amber asked eventually, laying nearby.

"Doesn't seem like a problem to me..." Maple hummed, holding Starlight in her hooves.

It definitely wasn't a problem to Starlight. It was like the three had known exactly what she was hoping for... and they probably had, given how they hadn't even asked before blanketing her. "I can stay here," she agreed. "Mrmph."

"I don't think I'm going to get back to sleep," Willow murmured. "It's morning, and I'm hungry. But if I'm getting my house back today, I'll probably stay there with my children tonight, so I don't mind sleeping in."

"Yep. I'm awake," Amber decided. "Maple?"

"Hmmm..." Maple repeated, not budging.

"...So. Willow," Amber eventually decided. "That whole thing about us getting invited back to Ironridge... Want to talk about it now, if we're all awake and just warming up Starlight?"

Willow sighed. "Did you girls sleep on it? What do you think?"

"I'm scared," Amber admitted. "Kind of. I was planning to go anyway, to take Gerardo's boat and look for Maple and Starlight after the flood happened. But now there's no adrenaline behind it. And after you got back, I sort of figured I'd take the boat and become the new ferrypony. But... I never really had a timeline for doing that. I mean, it would involve traveling back and forth a bunch, and leaving you all here while I was gone, and figured I wouldn't start until something happened to make that not a problem. But I didn't know what that would be. I guess I thought... you know? Just thinking about going now instead of later... but it's also something I want to do. You know how much we wanted it, Maple."

"I did," Maple agreed, her voice muted as if she didn't want to fully move her mouth.

"Maple?" Willow asked. "How about you?"

Maple worked her jaw, swallowed, and lifted her head, taking a hoof from Starlight and rubbing her eyes. "Willow, I don't know. In my mind, Ironridge... I don't know how to deal with it. I feel like I've blocked out everything that happened, and when you ask... I just lose my train of thought. I don't know. I know it was hard when me and Starlight were there. I know it was stressful, and almost killed us. I know how much more we wanted it to be, and I know that a lot of what caused our bad time there is gone, but I just don't know. I'm afraid of making a decision." She tensed for a second, holding her breath, and added, "Every time I've made a decision in the last week, it's hurt me and Starlight. I sent us to Ironridge. I didn't stand up to Gerardo and make him leave us out of his plans. I pushed us to keep going in the Earth District when we had somewhere that was safe. I can't... I don't want to decide. I don't even want to decide what I'll do if you make a decision..."

"You stick with your friends," Starlight grumbled, still wearing Maple and Willow like a blanket. "There. I decided for you. Now it's not your fault if anything bad happens."

"Thanks..." Maple tried to curl up, resting her chin against Starlight's head.

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door. "Yo," Valey's voice droned from the other side. "Can I come in? Everyone decent in there?"

"Come in," Willow invited, lifting her head.

The door pushed itself open, and Valey followed through, a plate of toast in her teeth. "Thought I heard someone say they were hungry," she said upon putting it down. "Figured I'd see what I could do with your pantry. Toast?"

Willow sniffed, watching a Valey offered her a piece. "Is that banana?"

"What?" Valey shrugged defensively. "It's good!"

As Willow took it and experimentally chewed, Valey leaned against a bedside table, staring at Maple. "You know," she began after a silence, "I also thought I heard someone say they regretted every decision they had made, since nothing good ever came of that. You know, the pony who bailed me out in the Flame District and was super stubborn about trusting me before that. I agree that those were bad ideas, but..." She grabbed another piece of toast, munched it, and started talking with her mouth full. "I appreciate it. You know. For what it's worth."

Maple put her head back down. Starlight didn't even need to open her eyes to feel the mare's guilt.

"Just saying." Valey shrugged, sensing she hadn't gotten her point across. When Maple still didn't respond, she walked over and poked her with a wing. "Hey! Ironflanks!"

Maple looked up.

"I appreciate it. Got it?" Valey gave her a stern look. "We can go back and forth about how much weight my opinions hold all day, but the point is, you seem to value them. And I'm saying you wanted to help me, did help me, and thanks. And I don't authentically thank ponies for their help that often. Or get helped in the first place. But if you're saying you rather would have kept yourself and Starlight safe and sound and left me buried and unable to save all of Ironridge, and also bailed on your friend White Chocolate who I still think is totally taken with you... I get that a lot, too. So I'll understand."

Maple started crying, softly shaking against Starlight. All her limbs were pinned beneath her, or she instantly would have hugged the mare back.

"This is why I hate being a therapist," Valey grumbled. "All I wanted was to let her know that stuff wasn't pointless and wasn't unappreciated..."

"It's not that," Maple choked, shaking. "I... Thank you, Valey. I just don't understand... if everything I did was the right choice, Ironridge shouldn't have gone so wrong..."

Starlight frowned, shoving against her for attention. "Wasn't it you who used to tell me about how unfair the world was? We're two unimportant ponies from outside the city! Neither of us knew what we were going into, you knew nothing about keeping yourself safe in dangerous places, and I had a broken horn and am just a filly! Us saving the city is way more than we should have been able to do already. I want there to be perfect endings, but if you believed in that, you'd tell me to get up and leave Riverfall and keep walking because as good as it is, it isn't good enough. Yeah, we almost died. Maybe there was something better we could have done if we could see the future, or something, but we can't and there probably wasn't. And saving the city without any of us dying is hard enough that maybe it is a perfect ending and we just need to look at it differently. If anyone in Ironridge knew what really happened, they'd probably think it went unrealistically good."

She deliberately omitted mentioning her run-in after the battle with the clueless couple who had no inkling of the danger they had been in, or how it had been resolved. That was something she still needed to get her feelings straight on, herself. But Maple responded, finally sitting up and shuffling about in the bed to face Valey. "Then I want to go back."

"Maple?" Willow asked, wrapping her forelimbs around Starlight to make up for the lack of Maple's presence, bidding her to go on.

"Everything I decided, I decided under pressure, hoping for the best, and trusting that I could make a difference," Maple said, squeezing her eyes shut. "I feel like I messed up. Like everything I chose was a mistake, even though I hear what you're saying and know there are good parts. So if you think that's the right way to make choices... make me believe it. I'm feeling pressured. I'm being optimistic. And if things go better, maybe it will help me with getting back on my hooves and dealing with what I went through, because right now I'm trying my best to get back to my old life and I still feel strained inside."

Valey shrugged, grinning happily. "Well, hey, I'm in. I might stick to the shadows a little to avoid stirring up trouble, depending on what my reputation is like, but there's no ward against stuff going wrong like an unbeatable bodyguard. Amber? Feel like a vacation?"

Amber smiled awkwardly. "Well, I'll need a first time some time. Better to do it with friends than by myself?"

"I'm going," Starlight demanded, anything else adamantly off the table.

"Well, girls..." Willow nuzzled the two of them and Starlight in turn, nodding appreciatively to Valey. "I suppose my foals will have to live without me a while more, because I still don't feel comfortable taking them to Ironridge. There are a lot of arrangements we'll have to finish before we can go, but it sounds like we've made our decision. And now that we're awake... would anyone like to get our day started?"

Amber nodded, rolling out of the bed and standing up on legs that wobbled like jelly. "Hey, looks like I can stand on-" She promptly collapsed to the floor. "Okay, almost. Valey? Mind giving your poor, invalid friend a hoof?"

Valey winked, strolling over. But as she passed by, in a voice so low only Starlight could hear, she whispered, "You. Me. Pantry. We should talk."

Starlight swallowed, nodded, and started making her way for the kitchen, wondering what that was all about.

Comments

[FloydienSlip]

"You. Me. Pantry. We should talk."

Argh, you tease.

[RoboRed]

🤔

[Quinch]

"It's not that," Maple choked, shaking. "I... Thank you, Valey. I just don't understand... if everything I did was the right choice, Ironridge shouldn't have gone so wrong..."

Well, Maple, there's correct choices and then there's the right choices.