Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
Sonata sat bolt upright as someone pounded on the door.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was or what was going on, staring ahead blankly as the knocking continued. For a brief moment she wondered if it was Aria or Adagio telling her that she’d overslept again, but the thought didn’t seem right somehow, as though she was forgetting something important. Like, really important. Yawning, she got to her feet…only to go tumbling forward with a yelp, landing awkwardly on all fours. Oh yeah. I don’t have feet anymore, she realized with an embarrassed giggle, glancing down at her hooves. Whoopsie.
The sudden tumble was enough to jog her memory. She’d gone to the train station so that she could work on a song about everything Lex had done up until now. That way, all the camp ponies would know what a great guy he was, and she’d have done her job as a spokespony! Just the thought of it – of all those eyes watching her sing, of Lex’s surprise when he got back and everyone cheered for him, and of how proud he’d be of her for doing such a great job – had been enough to make her prance in excitement before she’d gotten down to work.
Of course, actually coming up with lyrics and a tune had been kinda tough. The melody was easy enough – all she had to do was think of how she wanted her audience to feel, and imagine something that felt right – but the words had to actually tell a story, rather than saying whatever seemed appropriate, and it turned out that was harder to do. There weren’t a lot of things that rhymed with “gigantic astral pony” or “huge squid monster.” Plus, they’d had a whole bunch of adventures! Like, forget one song; there was an entire album’s worth of stuff that they’d done!
It hadn’t helped that she’d started to get super tired partway through. Staying up all night to make sure Aria didn’t try anything sneaky with Lex had totes tuckered her out, and after a little while she’d been yawning more than humming. She’d finally decided to lay down on one of the interior benches and take a quick nap, telling herself that she’d just rest for a little bit and then get right back to it. And now…
Now someone was knocking on the door again.
“Gimme a sec!” she called as she climbed down from the bench, groaning as she stretched her sore muscles. Maybe Lex can invent a spell that summons a hotel or something. A nice one, with a big fluffy bed and wall-to-wall carpeting. Maybe a bubble bath. If it was a really big one, he could even have everyone in camp check in until help arrived! The thought made her grin as she trotted to the door and fumbled with the keys, pleased with herself. She’d totes have to remember to tell him about her idea later. She was still smiling as she unlocked the door and opened it. “What’s u-”
“Finally!” Cozy’s voice was somewhere between frantic and outraged, and she didn’t wait for an answer as she pushed past Sonata, taking a half-dozen steps into the train station before whirling and glaring at the other mare. “Do you know what happened?!
“Huh?” Sonata blinked, her smile falling away in favor of a confused look.
“Cloudbank and Drafty,” answered Aisle, still standing outside the door. Unlike Cozy, his face was unreadable. “And the three other ponies that left with them.”
“Huh?” answered Sonata blankly, not sure what they were talking about. “You mean C. Shells and Sandbar and whatshisname, Turnip?”
“Turbo,” corrected Aisle.
“Right, that’s what I said.”
“Stop with the fooling around!” Cozy stomped a hoof, agitated. “Did Lex tell you what happened?!”
Sonata’s brow furrowed. “Lex went into Vanhoover to go get them a little while ago. He took Aria with him.” She rolled her eyes at that last part, unable to resist signaling what she thought of that particular decision on his part.
But the only reaction that Aisle and Cozy had was to glance at each other, a look of mutual comprehension passing between them. For some reason, the sight made Sonata nervous. Her feeling was validated a moment later as Aisle spoke up. “Sonata…Lex and Aria came back a little while ago. Alone.”
Sonata’s eyes widened. “For realsies? Why didn’t he come get me? I did a totes awesome job keeping this place running, and I wanted to…wait…” She put a hoof to her mouth, the gears in her head slowly turning. “What do you mean ‘alone’?” That didn’t sound right.
Cozy stomped her hoof again, but this time her posture was clearly more distressed than angry. “Cloudbank and the others didn’t come back with him. They haven’t come back at all.” She looked like she was going to say more, but suddenly stopped, shaking her head and looking away.
Aisle, still wearing a blank expression, spoke up. “There’s a rumor going around…”
A terrible feeling crept over Sonata then. She wanted to wave a hoof and say that this place had been crawling with rumors, mostly about Lex, ever since they’d gotten there. But the way these two were acting now was enough to stop her from dismissing whatever it was they’d heard. Instead, she asked the obvious question. “What rumor?”
Neither pony answered for a moment, and she canted her head back and forth as she looked between them, her bad feeling blossoming into full-blown worry. “You guys, seriously, what rumor?”
“That they’re dead,” answered Aisle woodenly. “Cloudbank and Drafty, and the other three. They’re all dead.”
Sonata’s eyebrows went up to her hairline, and for a moment she just looked at him in shock. When Aisle’s only response was to look back at her helplessly, Sonata turned her head to look at Cozy, silently asking if that was the case. But the crystal mare’s eyes were glued to the floor, refusing to look up as she bit her lip. It was only after several long seconds went by that Sonata managed to react, giving a snort as she went with her earlier instinct and waved a hoof as though to bat Aisle’s words away. “No way. Nuh-uh. I was totes there when they left, and there’s, like, no way a bunch of ghouls could have punched their tickets.”
“Then why aren’t they here?” Cozy’s voice was heated, but there was too much pain in it for it to sound hostile. “Why did Lex come back, and they didn’t?”
“I don’t-, look, let’s just go ask him!” There was a sinking feeling in Sonata’s stomach, not liking where this was going. Those five ponies hadn’t been bad people; quite the opposite. Sure, she hadn’t liked the way that Drafty had been so obviously crushing on Lex, and Turbo had been part of Garden Gate’s gang, but they were all ponies that she’d gotten to know since she’d arrived here. The idea that they had left and that was it, that they were gone and never coming back was, like, totes ridiculous. Important people don’t just wander off and die like that. They get a bunch of flashbacks first, and then a big dramatic death scene complete with a teary, heartfelt goodbye. That’s how it’s supposed to work. “If Lex is back, then we can just go and talk to him right now.” A lightbulb went off over her head, then. “Come to think of it, how come you guys didn’t just go talk to Lex about this already?”
“He left.” Aisle rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. As much as he wanted to know what had happened to his friends, he wasn’t exactly eager to confront Lex again. Not after how unpleasant their last meeting had been. He suspected that a lot of the camp ponies felt similarly, since news about what Lex had done to Spit Polish, and Garden Gate, had by now thoroughly made the rounds.
“You, like, just said he was back!”
“He was, for a little while.” Cozy’s voice had lost its edge, and all of a sudden she sagged in place, as though all of her energy had fled her. “The ponies here saw him wandering around, like he was looking for someone, and then he and somepony else left the camp together.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, right? I mean, if he went back to Vanhoover, then-”
“They weren’t going back to Vanhoover.” Aisle nudged past Sonata as he spoke, going over to Cozy and turning to stand alongside her, letting her lean against him. Closing her eyes, she nuzzled him gently, and Sonata blinked at the gesture, knowing what it meant. Heedless, Aisle kept speaking. “The two of them were seen heading east, toward the mountains.”
Sonata gave him an uncomprehending look, closing the door automatically. “Why would Lex go away from Vanhoover, and with some-, no, you know what?” She shook her head then. Normally some gossip was a bit of harmless fun, but this had now gotten officially out of hand. Hoof. Whatever. “This is just another crazy rumor. If Cloudbank and the others had been killed, Lex would have been heartbroken, and as soon as he got back he’d have found me and-”
“He doesn’t love you, Sonata.”
The air seemed to freeze at Cozy’s words, and Sonata turned to stare at the crystal mare, stunned. “Excuse me?!”
Cozy let out a sigh, still leaning against Aisle as she looked Sonata right in the eye. “I know that you’re in love with him, but I haven’t seen anything, not once, that says that he feels the same way about you. Whenever he talks to you he’s always cold and awful, and there’s no indication that seeing you or hearing you or being around you makes him happy.”
Sonata snorted, feeling her hackles rise. “Look, I get that you’re worried about your friends, but-”
“Please, just listen to me. I’m a priestess of Lashtada, the goddess of love, and I’m telling you, Lex is just using you. I don’t know if it’s for your magic or your body or what, but he’s not somepony who deserves your affection.”
Sonata just stared at Cozy, her features tightening as a sudden surge of anger went through her. This was just like what had happened with Fireflower! Except, like, a million times more mean! Who did this meddling little mare think she was?! “I, like, totes don’t know where you get off lecturing me about love, since you went and found a new snuggle-daddy after your husband bought the farm.” Both of them went rigid at that, and Sonata knew she’d hit a nerve. But that was fine; years of being teased by her sisters had taught her that you won these kinds of fights by going after those. Giving her mane a flippant toss, Sonata gave Cozy a condescending smirk. “Are you gonna trade up again now that Lex cursed him? Or are you hoping that Lashtada will help you out this time, since she didn’t when Pillow died?”
Cozy’s eyes widened, recoiling in shock, but she didn’t have a chance to reply as Aisle suddenly stepped in front of her, glaring at the other mare in anger. “You’re way out of line, Sonata!” he snapped. “Cozy is only trying to help! You don’t need to-”
“Oh put a sock in it, Mr. Flopsy,” snorted Sonata. “People who throw glass stones shouldn’t live in houses.”
She was going to add another biting remark, but didn’t have a chance before the train station door suddenly opened. Glancing over, Sonata almost did a double-take as she saw who was there. Lex! Smirking, she started to say something…but the words died between her brain and her lips as she saw who was next to him: Nosey.
By itself, that wasn’t a big deal. If anything, seeing them together should have been a good sign, after how insensitive Lex had been yesterday morning. It would mean that they’d patched things up somehow, which to Sonata would have been a dream come true. The last thing she wanted was for there to be bad feelings between her boyfriend and her bestie. But looking at them now, Sonata realized that there was one thing she wanted even less between them, and that was for them to be getting along too well.
But with their sides pressed against each other now, that was exactly how they looked.
Cozy and Aisle confront Sonata over their missing friends, only for things to rapidly go south!
Is Lex about to walk into a battle even worse than the one he just faced?
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I'm sorry Cozy, but really, %^&* you. Being a priestess of a love goddess doesn't suddenly make you a relationship councilor, especially since A: you're not that great a cleric, and B: mean-spirited as it was, Sonata kinda has a point in that your own relationship status is kinda messed up.
Guh, I know she's not working with the better picture of Lex's emotionally stunted psyche that we have, but even in the middle of a crisis she demonstrates why I can't wait for them to find a way to get the trains working again so she can be shipped home, even if that's just likely to allow her to cause even more grief when she reports in to Cadance...
And then nothing of note occurred.
Someones showing a bif of fundamantalist there?
Lex certainly has the worst timing here but Cozy, despite her intentions, is even worse.
Granted, her ignorance of the depths of Lex's personality is to blame here but even so, her priorities here seem skewed to me here. She's heard rumors that her friends could be dead and yet here she is, trying to lecture someone on their love life.(even if they believe the former to be rumors at this point)
Though I have to wonder if Cozy is doing this as a form of petty retaliation against Lex for cursing them and if her friends are dead, then just add one more reason to why Cozy thinks Lex is a bad guy. Or does she really think causing drama in such a tense situation is actually helpful.
Funny thing is, with what you told us about Lashtada, what Cozy's doing is essentially going against her dogma(as lax as they may be) by trying to divide two lovers. This, to me, reinforces the idea that Cadence didn't properly educate the acolytes before sending them out provide 'disaster relief'.
Regardless, I think Lex will likely draw everyone's attention to Nosey's injury and the cause behind it and inform everyone that they need to prepare for the possibility of a ghoul attack(I doubt he's did so prior to arriving at the station since it'd cause panic) while also ignoring Cozy's grievances and adding more fuel to her dislike of Lex.
Or
Sonata would make Lex explain himself and address the situation, which is quite possible after their little talk though given the urgency of the situation...
Damn it Cozy, why did you have to complicate things so much
I want to hear that song some day as much as Sonata wants to sing it.
8786711 You know, that's been a consistent reaction from readers, which sort of surprised me. Although Cozy is antagonistic toward Lex, I'd thought that I'd made her reasons, as well as personal disposition, sympathetic enough that people wouldn't dislike her too much (e.g. her lingering stress about Lex looking like King Sombra, her losing her husband, his disrespect for her religon, etc.). But virtually all of the reactions I've gotten from readers suggests that they don't like her at all, regardless of the rationale behind her actions. I'm a little surprised, to be honest; I wonder if that means that I didn't do a good enough job making her point of view clear enough, or her reasons compelling enough, to ameliorate the effect that her antagonism toward Lex has on the readers.
8786787 No doubt!
Clearly, we can just skip over what happens next, since it's not gonna be important at all.
8787090 I'd chalk it more up to her disbelief that she's lost more ponies that she cares about, but I suppose that might be a factor as well.
8788263 I really want to thank you for your comment; you've identified an area where I think I didn't do as well as I needed to in this chapter, and in so doing let me know what I need to address in forthcoming releases (and what to look out for in the future). I'm referring specifically to this critique:
Looking back at the chapter, I can see why you'd find her priorities to be skewed. After all, one minute she's asking if her friends are dead, and the next she's talking about Sonata's love life? In hindsight, I can understand how I made that seem abrupt and ill-defined within the scope of what's happening. Part of this is because I wanted to present this chapter from Sonata's point of view (save for a small point where I have Aisle noting that nopony wanted to ask Lex about the rumors for the two hours he was traipsing around trying to find Nosey, since they were at least somewhat afraid of him; that was a point that I felt needed to be addressed), and in doing so didn't leave myself any room to get into Cozy's head-space about why she was acting the way she was.
To be fair, I think that there was a reason for why Cozy suddenly veered off-topic like that. She went to the train station because, having heard that her friends might be dead, she wanted some answers and wasn't afraid to demand them herself. With Lex gone, that left Sonata. But upon finding out that Sonata knew even less than she did, Cozy had nothing left to pursue on that front...and then Sonata tied that into her (Sonata's own) relationship with Lex, saying that those rumors couldn't have been true because, if Lex had returned from Vanhoover after finding out that the others had died, he'd have come and talked to her (Sonata knows Lex well enough to know that he'd be crushed if that was the case). As such, Sonata conflated the issue of Cozy's friends with her relationship with Lex...and Cozy pounced on that.
That she did was, admittedly, stupid of her. If Cozy was anywhere near a calm state of mind, she'd have been able to separate the two topics...but she's not. She's still reeling from the loss of Pillowcase, a new relationship that's still on uncertain ground, has just been adversely impacted by Lex's cursing Aisle in such a humiliating fashion, and now she thinks she's lost two of her other friends as well. As such, it's not surprising that all of a sudden her ill-will toward Lex, in the form of her suspicion that he's using Sonata, came pouring out...and went over about as well as could be expected.
None of which is an excuse for me not making that clear in the chapter itself, of course. If I have to make things clear in the comments, then it means that the chapter itself didn't do a sufficient job in making what happened readily understood. Although that couldn't be helped, since I wanted the focus to be on Sonata, that's still not an excuse. As such, I'll try to rectify this later on.
Thanks for letting me know what I still need to work on!
Regarding Lashtada...her dogma does make it clear that love should never be stifled or interfered with, but that's presuming that the love is real in the first place. Insofar as Cozy is concerned, what's going on between Sonata and Lex isn't real love, but rather a one-sided love that Lex is manipulating for power and/or sex. I suppose there could be a religious tenet that, in such a circumstance, she should – as a cleric – try to get Lex to fall in love with Sonata "for real," but given that she finds Lex to be cold and standoffish (and because he reminds her so much of King Sombra), that's really a non-starter...if it's even a religious tenet in the first place. (That, and Cozy is a Neutral Good cleric of a True Neutral goddess, so there's going to be some "dogma drift" anyway.)
Beyond that...well, we'll just have to see what happens next!
8788838 Well, that might be kind of hard; not only do I know nothing about music, but a text-based medium is a poor format for showcasing music anyway.
8789444
8788263 sums my feelings up pretty well. She just HAS to shove her beliefs down everyone's throats, even when it's probably the worst time for her to be doing so. And her comparing him to Sombra is part of her problem. To me it seems Lex could practically be a saint, but because he has Sombra's horn and uses shadow powers, she's never going to be willing to give him a chance. Rationalizing her actions is fine, but her actions just make her a mopey yet bossy little twit who keeps a grudge on Lex no matter what he does, who has no feet to stand on on lecturing others about the states of their relationships when she was jumping another guy's bones within days of her husband's death, whether it's a part of her religion or not, especially when there's still a chance of reviving the guy.
8789548 Thanks for the feedback! I'll mention that her associating Lex with King Sombra, and how that made her react so badly to him, was meant to be emblematic of crystal ponies in general. That is, any crystal pony would freak out at seeing someone so similar to King Sombra; the impression that I received in both episodes of The Crystal Empire was that the crystal ponies were all severely traumatized by their time under his rule (which may or may not have had something to do with his magic).
Beyond that, well...I've got some ideas for how to treat Cozy going forward, now.
8789444
I think the reason behind our negative reactions to Cozy in this chapter is mostly due to us seeing what was happening whilst everyone else was probably wandering around the camp, doing their own things, completely ignorant of what really happened.
So even if you did show us her reasoning behind her 'intervention', having seen Lex's struggles only to see others talk about him behind his back would cause us to view Cozy in a negative light as most if not all of us have grown more attached to Lex over the course of the story than we do with Cozy.
I'm certain you writing the chapters focused on Cozy and her own troubles was supposed to make us sympathize with her more and I do but her sudden hostility towards Sonata and her relationship towards Lex here dampened it to a degree. Still, stuff happens and nothing to do but move forward and look upon this as something to learn more about as a writer.
8790222 I want to stress that I didn't ever intend for Cozy to be a likeable character, per se. It's no secret that her role in the story, at least thus far, has largely served to antagonize Lex. I just wanted to make her reasons for acting that way understandable, even sympathetic, to the point where her motivation couldn't be impugned. I suspect my mistake was thinking that, if her standpoint was one that couldn't honestly be faulted for being in bad faith, then that meant that she'd be more sympathetic than outrightly disliked. In that regard, I suspect I was naive, if for no other reason than I myself have come to dislike characters who look down on a protagonist I liked (especially one who's struggled to accomplish what they have), even if they didn't know any better.
8790653 I'm sympathetic to any character who has no idea of the full picture, but I will say that this is something I've seen many, many times in fanfiction: The author creates an antagonist who is, on paper, fairly sympathetic, and often has limited knowledge of the hero compared to the audience, and then the audience loathes the antagonist like they are pure evil.
In this particular chapter, you had Cozy hurt the feelings of Sonata, the Woobie of the story, that was always going to piss off your readers. (Even though Cozy was trying to help Sonata, but what are you going to do?)
8793889 You'd have thought I'd be more aware of that, since I've had the same reaction with regard to other series. I suspect it comes from frustration, as we know the antagonistic character is acting out of incomplete or flawed information, and that tends to be rather irritating since we, the audience, are often screaming at them for not knowing what we know. I'll need to be more cognizant of that going forward.
On a tangential note, I've never liked assigning labels to a character based on their role in the story/what emotions they evoke in the audience. Although characters do exist in regards to how they advance the narrative, I find that pigeonholing them based on those terms to be reductive, defining them purely in terms of their meta-story function rather than based on who they are and what they do as individuals.
That was an adorable image.
I hope she never loses that innocence.
9217624 Sonata is, without a doubt, the most fun character for me to write. She's also what keeps Lex going, so I also hope that she stays exactly the way she is.