//------------------------------// // 567 - Through a Glass Darkly // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// In the time that Lex had known them, Sonata and Aria had mentioned their sister Adagio more than once. While the references they’d made to the missing Siren had quite often been unflattering in their depiction of her – terms such as “bossy” and “pushy” had been thrown around quite frequently – they hadn’t been universally negative in how they’d described her. Both had acknowledged that Adagio had looked out for them during their thousand-year exile on Earth. Apparently, she had been the only one among the trio to put actual consideration into where, when, and how they should use their powers of enchantment, aiming to minimize the attendant risks of magically manipulating that world’s human population while maximizing the payoffs, rather than doing so as the mood struck her. To Lex, that had sounded like little more than strategic thinking at its most basic level, but it had apparently been enough to leave a lasting impression on Sonata and Aria. Nor had that been the only good thing the pair had to say about their absent sister. Despite being vain creatures themselves, both Sirens had – begrudgingly – admitted that Adagio was notably pulchritudinous even by their standards. “It’s not that she’s hotter than us,” as Sonata had put it, “it’s just that she, like, totes plays it up.” Aria’s description had been similar, saying that Adagio “knows how to work it.” At the time, Lex hadn’t understood what they’d meant. But finally seeing Adagio Dazzle for himself, he did now. The resemblance between her and her sisters was impossible to miss. Even with only a moment’s glance, Lex could see that her eyes were the same raspberry hue as Sonata’s, the pout gracing her full lips a perfect match for the one Aria so often wore. And just like the other two, her body was a work of art come to life, composed of curves that were as plentiful as they were generous. Paradoxically, those similarities were highlighted all the more by how different her hair was from theirs, eschewing the darker hues of her siblings for a veritable waterfall of vivid orange and brilliant yellow. It wasn’t just her physical attributes that captivated his attention, however. Half-reclining on an opulent-looking divan, her posture accentuated her body in a way that made it impossible for him to examine her dispassionately. One leg was stretched out, while the other was bent at the knee, leaving her hips slightly askew. Her chest was pushed out slightly more than necessary. Her head tilted back just a little, as though she was caught in the middle of a sensuous stretch. The combined effect made her look inviting, as though she were silently calling him to climb on top of her, and yet wasn’t so wanton that she couldn’t have played the entire thing off as his imagination if she’d wanted to. She looked, quite simply, like sex incarnate, and despite his bodiless state Lex found himself wanting her…which left him confused and unnerved, because he knew he shouldn’t, for one very simple reason. Adagio Dazzle's body wasn’t that of a pony, nor was it the Siren form he'd seen Aria in. Instead, the beautiful creature lounging in front of him was a human. The absence of the disgust he knew he should have felt was enough to leave Lex reeling, trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance assailing him, all other considerations temporarily pushed to the side. Recalling that he’d experienced a similar attraction to Aria when he’d first seen her, despite her still being in her original body, he desperately looked Adagio over, trying to locate some hint of equine features. But there were none to be found. No tail. No triangular ears. No pony attributes of any kind, at least that he could see…and her outfit left little to the imagination. Save for a few baubles – a silver pendant resting in the valley of her cleavage, and rings on the middle fingers of each of her hands – she was clad in nothing but a bright red pair of panties with roses patterned into it and a bustier of matching color and design, her only other article of clothing being a diaphanous robe, open slightly over her chest and giving the rest of her skin a slightly silken look, as though tempting him to reach out and caress- “-rupted my beauty sleep?” huffed Adagio, her voice dragging Lex away from his unwanted fantasies as she raised one hand to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face. “If that’s all you came here to tell me, then leave.” Forcing his hyperactive libido, and the discomfort that caused him, out of his mind, Lex turned his consideration toward Adagio’s surroundings, needing to focus on something else. Although the scrying was centered on her, Adagio’s immediate vicinity was visible as well. Matching the plush divan she was laying on, the room she was in seemed like an exercise in extravagance. The wall was cream-colored and decorated in an abstract pattern, lit by a candelabra in a nearby sconce. In front of her was a small tea table, across from which – at the edge of Lex’s range of vision – was another small sofa to match the one she was using, which for some reason was the focus of her attention, despite being unoccupied. “Hm, and what’s in it for me?” she asked abruptly, eyes still trained squarely on the empty divan as she laid her hand on her hip, legs rubbing against each other idly. Despite her being able to make even a display of apparent boredom look suggestive, Lex felt a rush of concern that had nothing to do with his irrational attraction to Adagio’s human form. The one-sided conversation he was overhearing shouldn’t have been one-sided. Even if his scrying spell’s range of vision was narrow – perhaps she was looking at someone behind the empty divan, beyond the area he could see – he still should have been able to hear what she was hearing. Any sound that reached her ears would have similarly reached the spell’s sensor and been relayed to him. “That’s not enough,” Adagio smirked, shifting in a way that was almost a wriggle. “If I’m going to be the one taking all the risks, then I want a much bigger reward.” There were numerous possibilities for why he wasn’t picking up whatever communication she was responding to, of course. It could have been something as mundane as someone standing out of visual range and using some form of communication that didn’t rely on speech, such as some sort of gestural language or writing their responses down and showing them to her. Or the person she was talking to could be using magic to turn invisible and communicate telepathically; his scrying spell had no countermeasures for such things, and although Adagio’s gaze seemed steady, it was possible she had some sort of anti-invisibility spell of her own active. Aria had learned to utilize new magic during the few months she’d been apart from her sisters, so it was entirely possible that Adagio had as well. Or perhaps one of the trinkets she was wearing had an enchantment for that purpose. But the more likely scenario was that she was talking to someone who had some sort of anti-scrying magic active on them, screening their presence from what his spell could detect. “That’s more like it,” purred Adagio, sitting up slowly as she crossed her legs. “Now, tell me the details.” Lex’s first instinct was to check Adagio and the area around her for magical signatures – the ability to view the area through the magical spectrum was, like his whisper-spell, something that could conceivably be performed across the channel created by his scrying sensor – but his ability to do that was dependent on his circlet (he did know the thaumaturgical spell that replicated that effect, but he hadn’t bothered preparing it; why waste the thought-space, minor though it was, on such a spell when he had a magic item that perform the same function?), and it was non-functional while he was incorporeal. Swearing softly, Lex mentally directed the shifted the scrying spell’s point of view, angling it to it was behind Adagio, giving him a better look at the seemingly-unoccupied sofa across from her. That would give him the best angle- “What?!” Adagio’s voice was suddenly thick with tension, her hair whipping about as she looked around quickly, one hand rushing to her chest to clutch the pendant around her neck. “How?! I’m wearing the amulet!” Lex paused, still in shadow-form. What was happening? “You should have told me that sooner!” seethed the Siren-turned-human, falling silent as she stood up. But she stayed quiet only for a moment. “Where is it?” Following unheard instructions, she turned in a slow circle, coming to a stop as she turned her head… …and looked directly at him. “There you are.” Lex didn’t hesitate, immediately moving to terminate the spell. That wasn’t something that could be done with a thought, the way some spells could be. With all of the effort that scrying put into locating the target and creating a channel between them and the caster, the spell’s effect was too robust to have any sort of built-in shutdown effect. It either had to be allowed to expire naturally, or be actively negated. But there was one other way to bring it to an immediate end, one that Lex had been keenly aware of before he’d started casting the spell, just in case a situation like this occurred. A half-second later the sound of shattering filled the study as the stalagmite of black crystal he’d conjured struck the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Feeling the spell dissipate as its medium was destroyed, Lex watched as the shards fell, the fractured image of Adagio vanishing before the first of the mirror fragments had hit the ground. Nor did he move after the last of them had come to lay on the carpet and the echoes of the crash had faded away. Instead, he continued to regard them silently, mentally reviewing the events of the last few minutes. Technically, he had accomplished what he’d set out to do, which was gather basic information about Adagio’s circumstances. He’d confirmed that she was alive, that she wasn’t in immediate danger, and some supplementary data besides, such as her unexpected transformation into a human form. Although Sonata and Aria had told him that they’d spent their time on Earth in bodies matching those of the native population – apparently as some sort of side-effect of being shunted into that dimension – they’d confirmed that they’d changed back to normal once they’d arrived on Everglow. For Adagio to have somehow reverted to that alien form was a conundrum, and although Lex was sure he could undo whatever had done that to her – if he could change Aria into a proper pony, he could do the same thing for Adagio – it was still unnerving to consider. Nor was that the only reason he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease that had fallen over him. Whoever had been there with Adagio had been adept at hiding themselves from magical detection. While that might have been the extent of their talents, it hadn’t been lost on Lex how that unknown individual, rather than Adagio, had been the one to initially detect his scrying spell. If they were versed in defeating and detecting such things, then it wasn’t difficult to imagine that they also knew more aggressive – or insidious – countermeasures. Hopefully his ending the spell as abruptly as he had meant that they hadn’t gotten a chance to try and put any such things into effect. The last thing he needed was another problem from Everglow making its way to Equestria, especially now when everything was finally starting to proceed how he wanted it to. But there would be time to try and analyze what he’d witnessed for clues about potential threats later. Indeed, with six weeks of recreation in his immediate future, he’d have a surfeit of opportunities to do so. Right now, he had other tasks that needed to be taken care of before they left- Suddenly Lex felt his anti-scrying spell go off.