With his enemy finally slain, Lex turned his attention to the next most pressing matter: Nosey.
A glance to the side showed him that the blonde mare was still inside the force field he’d raised, cradling her mangled foreleg and looking at him with a worried expression. Turning his back on the scorch mark that was all that remained of Xiriel, Lex dismissed the force field with a word, making his way over to her. “Nosey, give m-”
“Is it dead?!” she snapped, looking around anxiously. “Did you kill it?!”
Taken aback by the abrupt question, Lex nodded. “It’s dead. I checked-”
“Are you sure?!” His reassurance hadn’t calmed her. If anything she looked more nervous, her breath quickening. “That monster can teleport! It might have gotten away! Or…or maybe used some sort of illusion! It can do that, you know!”
Lex shook his head. “I checked for magical auras-”
“You tried that before, back at the train station, and it fooled you then!” She half-shouted the words, a hysterical note entering her voice. “It might have done it again now!”
Wincing internally at the reminder of his having been deceived, Lex momentarily considered her words. Twice in the course of that fight he’d thought he’d defeated Xiriel, only for it to come back mere moments later and continue the battle. Could it happen a third time? But a moment later he shook his head, forcing confidence into his voice as he answered her. “Listen to me. That thing slipped past my notice because it shut down my circlet,” he pointed to the small ring of metal around his head, “without my notice, preventing me from seeing into the magical spectrum. This time I’ve confirmed that it’s operational, and the only auras in the area are from the magical items still here and the spells that were cast during the battle. There are none from when Xiriel-”
But hearing the creature’s name seemed to make Nosey’s condition worse, and she stepped away from him, shaking her head in denial. “You don’t know that thing!” she shrieked. “This is exactly the sort of game it’d play! Letting us think we’re safe now only to come back and get us later!” She was shaking as she looked around again, breathing heavier as she descended into a panic. “It’ll come back, and when it does it’ll kill you and take me again! It’ll slip ins-inside me and make me do things, horrible things while I can’t do anything but watch and there’ll be no one to save me and-”
“NOSEY!” bellowed Lex. That seemed to do the trick, making her whip her head back around to look at him. Rearing up onto his hind legs, he reached out to take her face in his hooves. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said slowly, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
“But-”
“I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
It was obvious, even to him, that Nosey was experiencing some sort of traumatic breakdown over what had happened, and the sight of it tore at Lex. It was a vivid reminder of just how badly he’d failed her. She, like everypony here, was under his protection, and yet he’d not only let that monster possess her, but also fallen for its subterfuge when he’d checked on her, allowing it to maintain its hold on her. Worse, he hadn’t been able to remove her from the battlefield when he’d finally confronted it, letting Xiriel casually torture her in order to lure him out.
If anypony else (other than Sonata) had been victimized so badly, Lex’s only reaction would have been to castigate himself for allowing such a thing to happen on his watch. After all, with the pony in question having been rescued, his only remaining responsibility to them was to mend their wounds. Unless it drove them to cause some sort of public upset, any lingering stress they felt over what happened to them wasn’t something that concerned his administration.
But this wasn’t some random pony. This was Nosey, one of his only friends, and Lex couldn’t stand to see her like this. It wasn’t just revulsion at the prospect of having one’s spirit broken; the contrast with how vivacious and outgoing Nosey normally was with the terrified wreck of a pony in front of him was somehow painful for him to witness, driving him to try and restore her peace of mind. He had no idea what he was doing, of course, and had he not been physically and mentally exhausted from the fight he’d just had he probably would have thought to turn her over to Sonata – whose social acumen and mind-affecting magic would doubtlessly have be much more helpful in aiding the wounded unicorn’s troubled mind – but at the moment the only thing Lex could think of was to look Nosey in the eyes and try to make her understand that the danger had passed.
“I killed it, it’s dead, and it’s not coming back,” he repeated again. “Say it.”
“I…” She trailed off uncomfortably, dropping her gaze from his.
He felt her shift, trying to pull away from him, but he refused to release her, keeping his hooves on her face. “Look at me,” he ordered her. She reluctantly obeyed, and he didn’t blink as he repeated his earlier command. “Say it.”
“You…” She swallowed, but didn’t look away this time. “You k-killed it…” She paused then, and he nodded at her expectantly. “It's dead…” she continued, and he felt a shudder run through her as she spoke the last part. “And it’s not coming back…”
“Good,” replied Lex, not realizing that was the closest he’d ever come to paying her a compliment. “Now, again.”
For a moment, she looked like she was going to protest, biting her lip, but then her reluctance seemed to melt away. “You killed it…it’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
“Again.”
Nosey began to cry then. She didn’t sob or sniffle; her eyes simply filled with tears, cascading down her cheeks as she looked at him, the words coming more steadily now. “You killed it. It’s dead, and it’s not coming back.”
For a moment, Lex considered her demeanor. Despite the tears she seemed calmer now, and he reluctantly released her face, lowering himself back down onto all fours. Nosey regarded him silently as he did, taking deep breaths but otherwise not moving, and Lex turned his attention to what he had originally tried to say to her before she’d descended into hysterics. “Now, give me your hoof.”
She cringed slightly, but held out her left foreleg, and it was all Lex could do not to wince at the sight. The acid cloud had damaged her leg severely, and everything below the knee was red and raw and dripping blood, the flesh having melted off in large patches. What looked like bone was visible in a few areas. She has to be in incredible pain, he knew. Fortunately, he still had the healing magic that the Night Mare had given him. Feeble and imperfect though it was, it would still be able to alleviate her wound; fortunately, he’d had the foresight to use the reservoir of magic in his circlet when he’d healed Aria earlier, so the spell was ready to be used agai-
Biting back a curse, Lex realized that he couldn’t use the spell again. Unlike most of the magic that he knew, that one required a material component to activate, specifically a small quantity of water that he’d imbued with the Night Mare’s power. He’d kept several vials of the stuff in his haversack…but that receptacle and all of its contents were gone now, sacrificed in a failed bid to defeat Xiriel. Glancing behind him, Lex regarded the river in the distance. It wasn’t prohibitively far away, but in his exhausted state getting there and back would take some time, and Nosey would have a hard time limping over there with him. The better alternative would have been to use a substitute component, but the only one Lex knew of was…
Devil’s blood.
Snorting at the coincidence, Lex used his telekinesis to gather a drop of the black ichor that Xiriel had spat up after its organs had been disintegrated. Bringing it over to Nosey, she shifted uneasily at the sight, but didn’t pull her hoof away. Letting the foul substance splatter against her side, Lex chanted the words to the spell, making the requisite gestures before touching his hoof to her chest. It was fortunate that the spell simply required him to touch the recipient, rather than their wound specifically. A moment later, she gasped as she felt the spell take effect, her leg starting to scab over. Slowly, over the next minute, the ugly tissue began to thicken and spread, until eventually her entire leg was covered with a single large scar. When the process finished, Lex nodded perfunctorily. “That should do until you can see Cozy.” Normally, referring to the Lashtadan priestess’s command of more efficacious healing magic would have irritated him, but Nosey’s well-being came first. “Are you able to walk on it until then?”
Gingerly, Nosey touched her hoof to the ground, and when that didn’t seem to produce any pain she put more of her weight on it. “I think so.” Her voice was subdued, speaking in a monotone that was quite unlike her usual self. “It feels a little numb, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Good.” Lex was already looking around the area, cognizant of the remaining thing that needed to be attended to before they left: Xiriel’s magic items. While three of its magical gemstones were still orbiting Lex’s head, courtesy of Nosey’s timely intervention – he glanced sidelong at her for a moment, wondering if he should say something about that before deciding that it could wait – the other two had been flung aside by the belier in a rage after Lex had destroyed one of its heads. Fortunately, their auras made them easy to spot with his circlet, and it took Lex only a few moments to telekinetically gather them up, along with the ones still in his possession, and put them in a saddlebag.
That left only the scroll case that it had extracted, lying near where the belier had died. Xiriel had said that it contained a spell to create undead, but looking at it with his circlet, there were multiple magic auras there, not just necromancy. That was enough to make Lex narrow his eyes in suspicion. Did the scroll inside the container have more than one spell on it? Or was the container itself trapped somehow? Examining it would take some time, and right now he needed to get Nosey back…but leaving it there was just asking for trouble. Reluctantly, Lex lifted the scroll tube in his telekinesis, placing it in a separate saddlebag.
“Can we go?” Nosey’s voice was still restrained, lacking any of her usual vitality as she ran her good hoof across her eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Lex started to turn back to her when something caught his eye, and he paused to peer at the small object a few dozen feet away. It took him a moment to recognize the small, mangled piece of metal and shards of broken glass as being what was left of Nosey’s glasses, knocked from her face at some point during the fight. For some reason the sight bothered him, and he found himself telekinetically lifting them up, bringing them closer.
“Lex, c’mon. I wanna leave.” The sight of her broken glasses seemed to make Nosey uncomfortable, folding her ears back and looking away from them.
But Lex didn’t acknowledge her complaint. Instead, he started to cast another of the spells that the Night Mare had given him, calling on the remaining reservoir of magic in his circlet so that the spell wouldn’t be expended. It took a long time to cast, with minutes ticking by as he gestured and chanted, but as he finished the shards of glass came together to form intact lenses, setting themselves into a frame that was no longer mangled and ruined. With the repair spell finished, Lex turned and placed the glasses on Nosey’s face, giving a satisfied nod.
Nosey, however, had a very different reaction. A shocked look crossed her face, her mouth opening and then closing soundlessly. Slowly, she reached up and pushed her glasses further up her muzzle, and the action seemed to trigger something in her, because she began to tear up again, shaking as her expression started to crumple.
Confused at how her composure was breaking down, Lex silently cursed himself. Once again he’d done the wrong thing! He was about to snatch the glasses from her and toss them away, when Nosey let out a wordless cry and flung herself at him, crossing the few feet between them in an instant. Her undamaged foreleg wrapped around him as she buried her face in his chest, holding him close as she started to cry. This time her tears were accompanied by sobs, heavy ones that wracked her body as she wailed.
Her complete breakdown was enough to stun Lex, and he reflexively tried to pull away, but Nosey refused to relinquish her grip on him. With no other choice, Lex stood there awkwardly, letting Nosey cry her eyes out, not sure what to do. This situation was too far outside of his range of experience for him to have any parameters regarding what response to formulate. Frowning in uncertainty, he went with the next-best line of inquiry that he could come up with: What would Sonata do if she were here?
Slowly, tentatively, Lex wrapped his foreleg around Nosey and hugged her back.