“What are you doing here?”
Feather Duster felt a surge of panic rush through her at Master Legis’s question, knowing that she’d tarried too long. Instantly, she folded her wings and dropped to the ground, dipping her head subserviently. “My apologies,” she croaked. “I didn’t mean to-, erk!”
Her voice caught in her throat as she glanced up and saw what her husband was doing. Without a care in the world, Tryout had strolled right up to Master Legis and started bobbing his head, glancing between Lex and his errant shadow as though trying to figure out why it was falling at the wrong angle. “This is really something!” he gushed, grinning as he crouched down so that Lex was between himself and the sun, looking back at how his own shadow wasn’t obstructed. “I tried some sleight of hoof when I was a colt, but this is seriously impressive! I’d say it has to be a spell, but your horn isn’t glowing!” He finally gave up trying to figure out how it worked, stepping back with an appreciative chuckle. “You must make a killing at birthday parties! What else can you do?”
“TRYOUT!” Terrified that Lex would answer her husband’s question in the worst possible way, she rocketed forward with a speed she didn’t know she was capable of, almost tackling Tryout and forcing him down into a low bow, adopting the same posture as she tried to figure out what would stop Master Legis from turning them both into stone or cursing them to go mad or whatever other horrible punishment he was doubtlessly contemplating at that moment. But when she opened her mouth, only panic poured out. “I’m so sorry! Please, for Cleansweep’s sake, forgive my idiot husband! I swear he didn’t mean to-”
“Geez, babe, what’s gotten into you? I was just trying to be friendly,” complained Tryout as he wriggled out of her grip. He gave her a look that was somewhere between annoyed and worried, before shaking his head and turning back to Lex with his carefree smile back in place, apparently unconcerned by the stony glare the other stallion was giving him. All around them, the crowd had stopped to watch the scene unfold, but that didn’t seem to bother Tryout either. “Don’t mind her, she’s always been jittery,” he explained, before extending a hoof to Lex. “My name’s Tryout, what’s yours?” But the question had barely left his mouth before he kept talking. “No, wait, don’t tell me! Your name is Freaky Deaky, and your special talent is making haunted houses.”
Lex’s eyes narrowed at that, just before they turned green and purple, and Feather Duster could only be grateful that their daughter wasn’t here to see what was about to happen to her fath-
“Don’t talk to him like that.”
All eyes turned to look at the vermillion mare with the bandaged horn who’d spoken just then. “Don’t talk to him like that,” she repeated once she saw that she had Tryout’s attention, striding over and placing herself between him and Lex, getting right in the pegasus stallion’s face. “Ever.”
Stumbling back at the sudden aggression, Tryout made a placating gesture with his hoof. “Whoa, whoa, calm down there, toots. I was-”
“My name,” interrupted the mare coldly, “is Garden Gate, and his name,” she swept a hoof back to indicate Lex, whose eyes had changed back to their normal color, “is Lex Legis, and he’s a hero!”
That sent a murmur through the crowd, with more than a few ponies glancing back and forth between Garden and Lex. For his part, Tryout gave a patronizing nod, still trying to defuse the situation. “Okay, look, Garden, I get it. He’s some kind of bigshot here now, and you’re clearly a fan, so let’s all just-”
“HE’S! A! HERO!” With each word, Garden took a heavy step forward, forcing Tryout to move back, the crowd parting behind him as he did so. “Do you have any idea what happened to this city after the flooding? It wasn’t just a disaster zone! There were monsters everywhere, and he defeated them all! And that was just the beginning!” She continued to move forward, forcing Tryout to cede more and more ground. “When we were starving, he brought us food! When we were sick, he brought us medicine! When we were ready to give up, he brought us hope! And he did it all with ponies like you,” she snarled, reaching to jab Tryout sharply in the chest with her hoof then, “doubting him and suspecting him and distrusting him, even after he’d saved all of our lives!”
“Hang on, I-”
“And he never said one word about any of it! Not one word! If he’d been even half as bad as the rumors that were flying around this place, he would have lashed out at anyone who dared to utter a bad word about him, but he didn’t! The only ponies he punished…” She choked up then, but recovered her poise before Tryout could try and get a word in again. “The only ponies he punished were the ones who did terrible things! Really terrible! The ones who hurt other people! Because that’s what we were doing before he rescued us! We were hurting each other, because we’d given up on ourselves, and he never did…”
She was shaking now. A quick glance around showed Feather Duster that the crowd had grown, with those among the camp ponies who hadn’t come to meet the train drawn over by Garden Gate’s yelling. But despite its size the crowd was utterly silent now, listening raptly to the impassioned speech. Even Tryout wasn’t able to speak, his ears folded back as he finally seemed to realize that he’d crossed a serious line.
This time it took several seconds for Garden to pull herself together, giving her mane a toss and fixing Tryout with a cold stare. “His name is Lex Legis,” she repeated at last. “And if you want to speak to him, then you DO IT WITH RESPECT!” The last part came out with such intensity that it made Tryout step backward again…and go tumbling off the edge of the platform, giving a yelp of fright as he fell to the ground in a heap.
Lex watched as Garden’s final outburst sent that annoying stallion over the edge of the platform. That seemed to act as some sort of signal, as the crowd suddenly burst into applause. The sudden outpouring of support seemed to catch Garden by surprise, making her start slightly as she looked around before giving an awkward smile, her eyes sliding back over toward him as she did.
For his part, Lex had no idea how to react to what had just happened. He’d already been on his way over here when Feather Duster had rushed ahead after asking permission to take care of some errand that he couldn’t have cared less about. What he’d been more concerned with was the sudden reappearance of Fencer – or Garden Gate, since she seemed to be using her original name now – and her friends, something which had caught him by surprise. He hadn’t given them any instructions to return after they’d delivered the most at-risk patients to Canterlot, and he certainly hadn’t expected them to do so of their own initiative. So why were they here now? The only thing he could think of had been that there was some sort of emergency that they felt he needed to know. But he’d barely been able to get a word out before a stallion that was apparently his maid’s husband – and, in all likelihood, Cleansweep’s father – had gotten in his way.
Lex had taken an instant dislike to “Tryout,” as Feather Duster had called him. The other pony had possessed a relaxed disposition that Lex had never known how to handle, unsure if his remarks had been mocking or made in good humor. The ambiguity of it had left him momentarily paralyzed, and that paralysis had been more upsetting than if the other stallion had been openly hostile; Lex was far more comfortable with conflict than uncertainty.
And then Garden Gate had stepped up to defend his honor.
How exactly was he supposed to respond to that?
As the mare in question walked back over to him, her friends offering quiet words of encouragement and congratulations before they fell in alongside her, Lex decided to put the question out of his mind for now. There were more important things to worry about at the moment. “What are you doing here?” he asked, and this time decided to make absolutely sure that the question was as clear as possible so that Feather Duster – who was glancing at the edge of the platform as if uncertain as to whether she should go to her husband’s side or not – didn’t think he was talking to her. “What happened with the ponies you were escorting to Canterlot? Are they alright?”
The question seemed to surprise Garden, but only for a moment. Then she smiled, nodding crisply. “They’re fine. Princess Cadance used her magic to heal them. Last time we checked, they were taken to the hospital for observation.”
“Not only that!” added the larger stallion, Funshine. “That crystal pony who’d been here in camp stowed away on the train with this other guy, and they had Princess Cadance bring her husband back to life!”
That bit of news earned Lex’s undivided attention. Celestia and Luna had mentioned, when they’d rejected his trying to de-escalate their conflict by telling them that he could bring Silhouette back to life, that they’d have Princess Cadance do it instead. He knew that the remaining alicorn princess – the only one he’d never met in person – had taken up the faith of Lashtada, a minor Everglow deity of love, but he’d been skeptical of her being able to accomplish a feat of magic of that magnitude. Even before he’d started studying that gem the Night Mare had given him, what he’d learned during his time on Everglow suggested that resurrection was a difficult feat of magic, and Cadance couldn’t have had more than a month or two to be taken into Lashtada’s religion. And yet now there were eyewitnesses reporting that she’d apparently brought Pillowcase (a pony whom, he noted uncomfortably, he hadn’t been able to save) back to life.
Which meant that Celestia and Luna had been right about Cadance bringing Silhouette back. In fact, she’d probably done it already.
Lex was still thinking through the repercussions of that when another of Garden’s friends, Granola Bar, spoke up. “There’s something else you need to know. We stopped at Ponyville after we left Canterlot, and we overheard Spike, Twilight Sparkle’s dragon, reading a letter from the princesses. They said-”
“Stop.” Lex raised a hoof as he said it, and to his satisfaction she fell silent instantly. They were going too fast, providing information without relevant context or salient details, which raised the possibility that important data would be overlooked or miscommunicated. More than that, everypony was still gathered around them, the crowd having only slowly returned to their mingling after Garden’s confronting Tryout. They needed to be properly debriefed, in a location that would allow them to speak privately. And while he’d intended to continue overseeing the burgeoning market at least until Aria returned, this took priority. “Follow me,” he ordered, turning and walking in the direction of River’s manor.
“M-Master Legis?” called Feather Duster, her voice uncertain.
“See to your husband,” ordered Lex, not bothering to look back. As annoying as he found Tryout to be, he wasn’t about to prevent Feather Duster from reuniting with him now that he’d returned. “I’ll do without your services for the rest of the day.”
“Yes! Thank you!” called Feather Duster, but Lex had already lost interest in her, instead turning his thoughts to what he’d already been told. He’d need to inquire closely about how Cadance’s resurrection magic had functioned; precisely what words and motions she’d made, how close she’d been to the body when she’d utilized it, how long it had taken her to cast the spell, and numerous other factors would need to be properly analyzed, even if it was via secondhoof information-
“So, did you really fight the princesses?” asked the smaller of the two stallions, Slip ‘n’ Slide. “Because we heard something happened to Luna…?”
Lex sighed. There was no point in withholding that particular bit of news, since it had happened in full view of the public. Besides, he’d already told the camp ponies almost everything that had happened anyway, so they’d find out one way or another in short order.
“The situation here has changed since you left…”