Lex watched as Fruit Crunch trotted back towards the camp, considering the exchange he’d just had with the child.
The most important thing, he knew, was that the colt had indicated understanding that he wasn’t to engage in any further dangerous antics. It was one thing if he and his friends wanted to name their little group after the Night Mare – something Lex suspected they’d done as a result of hearing Cloudbank’s sermon a few days previous – and play games about going on adventures, but actually putting their safety in jeopardy was quite another. It was fortunate that Fruit Crunch had come to comprehend and accept that, hopefully meaning that there’d be no more instances of them deliberately placing themselves in harm’s way.
But as for the rest of their conversation…
Lex glanced down at his chest, where the boy’s tear-stained face had been pressed just a few minutes ago. He’d hugged the child back in an attempt to be soothing, but that didn’t answer what had prompted the embrace to begin with. That the foal had apparently been so moved by his confirming things that were, as far as Lex was concerned, blindingly obvious – namely that his anger had been motivated by worry for how the safety of the colt and his friends had been imperiled, as well as how Fruit Crunch’s conduct toward Silhouette had been, shorn of any concerns about potentially being seen as legitimizing further activities in the same vein, meritorious – suggested that those things hadn’t been obvious to Fruit Crunch. That was certainly plausible; even discounting that most children lacked the faculties of adults, Lex was more than used to the ponies around him needing even simple concepts explained to them. But usually when he did that, it engendered more bad feelings instead of dispelling them. Why had this time been different?
Lex silently reviewed the last several minutes he’d spent talking to the boy, mentally dissecting everything that had passed between them in hopes of identifying the salient aspects that would let him answer that question. But the process yielded no more insights now than it ever had, frustrating his hopes of gleaning any greater understanding of whatever subtleties of communication he still couldn’t fathom. Just like every other time, there were plenty of data points, but no way of conclusively interpreting them. Although the failure was unsurprising, it was still discouraging.
Or rather, it should have been. But the emotion was blunted by the memory of how, contrary to his expectations, things with the colt had ended on such a positive note. Not only had he somehow managed to alleviate Fruit Crunch’s crying, but he’d done so with such proficiency that the child had expressed overwhelming gratitude for it as well, something that he’d confirmed when he’d asked if the colt had felt better.
Intellectually, Lex knew that there was no particular relevance to any of that. That he’d achieved such profound results with nothing more than some minor points of clarification, explaining things that were obvious to the point of self-evidence, and a few platitudes was meaningless if he couldn’t figure out the underlying dynamics as to why those had worked. Otherwise he’d never be able to adapt that knowledge so as to be able to utilize it correctly with regard to the specificities of future conversations. Serendipity, by itself, wasn’t helpful.
Lex knew that, and yet he couldn’t help but feel heartened by how his interaction with Fruit Crunch had gone. In the face of what had happened with Aria and what Lex knew would be an uncomfortable – at best – conversation with Sonata, the affirmation that things ending badly wasn’t a foregone conclusion was reassuring. Even if it was purely by happenstance, and even if the odds were decidedly against him, the chance of not only avoiding disaster with the mares in his life but actually working things out was still greater than zero. Given how miserable he’d been feeling just a few minutes ago, that was a welcome reminder.
His spirits buoyed, Lex turned and started back toward the train station.
Entering the lobby, Lex wasn’t surprised when Aria immediately moved to confront him. Despite the fact that she’d been curled up next to Sonata on the bench they’d all been sharing, the Siren’s eyes had opened in immediate reaction to the sound of his hoofsteps. By the time he’d closed the door to the station behind him, she’d already climbed down from the bench and was sashaying toward him.
“Well well well, look who’s back,” she drawled, a lopsided smirk on her lips. “Looking to pick up where we left off? Or are you going to run away like a coward again if things get hotter than you can handle?”
The taunt made Lex narrow his eyes, but he kept a tight rein on his emotions, refusing to let Aria goad him into losing control of himself a second time. “Neither,” he answered bluntly. “We’re going to have a clarifying meeting.”
“A ‘clarifying meeting’?” For a moment Aria’s face was incredulous, but then she sneered at him. “You know, I’m starting to think that the only reason Sonata puts out is because she knows you’d never get laid if she didn’t take pity on you.” She leaned in closer, her lip curling as she put her face inches from his. “Do you have to have a ‘clarifying meeting’ with her before you two get it on, or does she just push you down and do all the work herself?”
Lex grit his teeth, forcing himself to maintain his equilibrium. He could feel his anger rising in response to Aria’s ridicule, and with it his desire. It wouldn’t take much to shut her up, he knew. He’d imposed his will on her and made her submit to him once, he could do it again…
This time, however, his discipline held, and he kept his voice even as he continued. “The four of us are going to sit down and formally determine what our relationship is.” He made himself move past her as he spoke, walking further into the lobby. “We’ll do this in the morning, before my meeting with the Princesses, and…” Glancing at the bench where only Sonata was sleeping, Lex turned back toward Aria with a frown. “Where’s Nosey?”
Aria shrugged. “What am I, her babysitter? Last I saw, she was right where you left her.”
Lex frowned at that, glancing back at the alcove before returning his gaze to Aria. Had she done something to her? “She’s still back there? Why?”
“We were having a bit of girl talk, and she didn’t take it too well,” answered Aria snidely.
Lex almost demanded that she give him a straight answer, but decided that doing so would be more trouble than it was worth. Instead he turned and made his way toward the alcove. It took only a few seconds to round the corner and spot Nosey, lying on the floor in a heap, legs akimbo. The sight made Lex hurry, invoking his circlet as he examined her for magical auras. If Aria had used her magic on her…
But no, there were no active spell auras on her that he could see, nor any lingering traces of residual magic. That wasn’t conclusive, of course; the trace remnants of a weaker spell might have simply faded beyond what his circlet could have detected. But short of feeding more magic into his circlet – something he knew would have injured him further to do – there was no way to be sure of that.
For a moment, Lex almost did it anyway, but reluctantly decided not to. His physical recovery was far from complete, and worsening his condition before he met with the princesses was highly inadvisable considering that he was still weighing the feasibility of forcibly removing them from power. Also, he found himself reluctant to believe that Aria would do something like that to Nosey, despite her petulant behavior to date.
Instead, he placed a hoof on Nosey’s side, shaking her gently. “Nosey. Nosey, wake up.”
It took only a moment for her to begin to stir. “Mmph. Lex? That y-, gah!” Behind her glasses, Nosey’s eyes suddenly snapped open. Her face immediately turned red as she looked at him, and a second later she scooted backward as quickly as she could, her hooves scrabbling at the floor wildly. She didn’t stop until she’d struck the far wall, panting for breath. “Wh-what’re you doing?!”
Nonplussed by her behavior, Lex hesitated to answer. She’d been clinging to him for security before, and now she was afraid of him? “Aria told me you were back here, and I wanted to make sure you were alright.” He frowned, wondering if he’d been wrong to give Aria the benefit of the doubt. “Did she do something to you?”
For some reason, the question made Nosey turn even redder, and she shook her head with such force that it made her mane whip back and forth. “No! No she didn’t!” She gave a nervous laugh. “I mean, why would you even think that?”
“…because you were passed out on the ground.”
“I was?” asked Nosey, blinking owlishly. “I mean, uh, yeah! I was!” It seemed to take her a second to realize that wasn’t a satisfactory answer. “No, um, that was because it was, you know, too, uh, hot.” She nodded then, before suddenly going rigid. “I mean, the temperature was! The actual, atmospheric…thing! Not, you know, what h-happened…before…”
Lex sighed, having no idea why seeing him in a compromising position with Aria was apparently a source of such overwhelming distress for Nosey, nor caring enough to bother attempting to figure it out. Instead, he decided to try soothing her, the same way he had for Fruit Crunch. “Nosey, I want you-”
“Really?!” she yelped, looking like she was about to pass out again.
“-to calm down and listen to me,” finished Lex, pretending he hadn’t heard what she’d just said. “I’m going to do-”
“M-me?!” squeaked Nosey.
“-what I should have done before,” Lex continued, fighting down a surge of irritation, “and take-”
“Please be gentle,” whimpered Nosey, covering her eyes.
“-control of the situation-, stop that!” Finally losing his patience for her histrionics, Lex marched over to her and used his telekinesis to haul her upright. “Will you get ahold of yourself?!” Ignoring her renewed cries at the rough treatment, Lex planted her firmly on her hooves before giving her an annoyed look. “Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: in a few hours, before I meet with the princesses, there’s going to be a discussion between you, me, Sonata, and Aria. We are going to figure out exactly what we are to each other and resolve this…tension, between us once and for all. Until then, nothing is going to happen. Is that clear?”
Nosey blinked, as though struggling to fully comprehend what she’d just been told. “Oh…oh, okay then. That’s…that’s okay.” But for some reason, she didn’t seem entirely relieved.
Still, she’d ceased being hysterical, and that was enough for Lex. Giving a crisp nod, he turned and headed back toward the lobby. “Now, come with me-”
“Huh?!”
One of Lex's eyes began to twitch. “Back out to the lobby to go to sleep!” he growled.
“Oh…”
Silently kicking himself for having felt optimistic about communicating with the girls without it turning into a disaster, Lex wondered if this meeting was a bad idea. Based on Nosey’s current disposition, to say nothing of Aria’s sardonicism and Sonata’s capriciousness, it might very well be a recipe for disaster. But ignoring the issue was impossible after what he’d almost done with Aria, and he had no better ideas about how to resolve things.
Trudging back out to the lobby with Nosey in tow, Lex saw that Aria had already returned to the bench, glancing over at them as they approached. “That was pretty fast,” she snickered. “A little too quick to the finish line, huh Lex?”
Nosey started to sputter a half-formed denial at the implication about what they’d been doing, but Lex was in no mood for any of it. “Not one more word, either of you,” he ordered darkly as he returned to his usual spot. “Lie down and go to sleep, before I lose what’s left of my patience.”
Aria snorted, her expression defiant, but didn’t push her luck as she curled up beside him. A moment later Lex felt Nosey gingerly settle down on his other side. Sonata, despite all the talking and movement going on around her, barely twitched at the commotion, for once the least troublesome member of the group.
Closing his eyes, Lex silently reassured himself that he was making the right decision. Ignoring how things had been progressing with the girls had only led to things escalating, rather than the problem solving itself. Far better to deal with it directly and resolve it, one way or another.
In a few hours’ time, the question of how many girlfriends he had would be settled.