“Thank you so much for this, Your Highness!” gushed the stallion as he backed toward the exit, bowing with every step. “I promise you won’t regret it!”
“Thanks!” chirped Sonata, smiling as she waved at the departing stallion. “We’re, like, totes looking forward to it!”
“Just remember,” added Aria with a haughty toss of her pigtails, “you won’t get a statement of endorsement unless everything’s absolutely perfect.”
“It will be!” nodded the stallion, his head pumping up and down repeatedly as he backed through the doorway. “I’ll see to every arrangement personally! You’ll be eminently pleased; you have my word!”
With one final bow, he turned and trotted away, Feather Duster closing the door behind him.
From his place in the high-backed chair that dominated the sky lounge – though with the hasty redecorations that the servants had done, it now looked more like a reception area – of his (formerly River’s) aerial yacht, Lex resisted the urge to sigh, glad the obsequious stallion’s prattling was finished. That had been the eighth meeting he’d had with a member of Las Pegasus’ elite since they’d left Vanhoover a little over two days ago, and it had proven to be just as tiresome as the rest. Now that the loan papers had been signed, each of the ponies who’d pledged to fund his nascent government was eager to talk about what they wanted from him. Or more accurately, what they wanted to do for him, since having a prince publicly find favor with their business was a highly coveted prize in their social circle.
As a result, each such conference was virtually identical. One of the signatories would sit down with him apart from his or her peers, outline the various extravagances that they’d lavish on him once they reached Las Pegasus, and then drop transparent hints that they wanted him to make some sort of overt statement of approval to the media during his time there. It was banal in the extreme, and only the fact that he’d already had River signal his agreement to these arrangements kept him from canceling them altogether, knowing that this was part of the price he’d agreed to pay in exchange for the one hundred million bits these ponies would loan him over the next ten years.
The only thing that had made these platitudinous exercises at all bearable had been, to his mild surprise, Sonata and Aria. Whereas he had no interest in conspicuous consumption, the Siren sisters took to it naturally, and so were keen to hear the details of the luxuries being thrown at him now. Between Sonata’s gushing approval and shameless delight at each new exorbitance, and Aria’s brazen entitlement and thinly-veiled disapproval if a given opulence wasn’t up to her standards, the pair had gotten everything they’d wanted from everyone they’d met with so far. The result was that there’d been little for Lex to do except sit back and supervise as the two mares worked out the particulars of the various affluences that were waiting for them in Las Pegasus.
Though that made sitting through these meetings no less tedious for him.
“These discussions are not to take place over meals from now on,” snapped Lex as his horn lit up, telekinetically retrieving the book that he’d spent the day reading between appointments. “The introduction of refection into these talks makes them take longer than necessary.”
“Aw, and miss the chance to play with our food?” grinned Aria, keeping her eyes on him as she peeled a banana, drawing her tongue slowly up its length before working it in and out of her mouth.
Lex grimaced at the display, while Feather Duster blushed and averted her eyes. But Sonata frowned, shaking her head. “What is it with you and bananas? That’s, like, the third one you’ve had, and you keep eating them wrong. Even that guy just now thought it was weird; didn’t you notice the way he kept staring at you while you were doing it?”
Rolling her eyes, Aria took a bite of the fruit at last. “That’s because he found it captivating, unlike that ‘trick’ you did.”
“Nuh-uh! Mine’s way more fun! Look!” Picking up a cookie, Sonata rose up onto her hind legs. Tilting her head back, she carefully placed the sugary treat on the end of her nose, grinning as she kept it perfectly balanced for several seconds before – with a bob of her head – she sent it skyward, catching it in her mouth as she fell back down onto all fours, munching happily. “See?”
Her question was directed toward Lex, but the stallion in question wasn’t watching, causing her to frown as she saw that he’d gone back to his book. “Lex,” she whined. “You weren’t looking.”
“Guess my trick was more entertaining after all,” snickered Aria.
Sonata scowled at that, but Feather Duster jumped in before she had a chance to retaliate. “That was the last meeting you had for today, Your Highness. Would you prefer to go over tomorrow’s schedule now, or in the morning?”
“Definitely in the morning,” interjected Aria.
“I was gonna say that,” huffed Sonata. “He’ll totes do it in the morning, because he’s gonna spend the rest of the day playing with us. Now come on!” Her usual cheer reasserting itself, she pointed toward the door. “The rec center has foosball! Last one there has to wait for next game!”
Lex waved a hoof at her without lifting his eyes from the pages. “You two go ahead. I want to finish this.”
“Oh come on.” Aria sauntered up to him, draping herself across his lap. “Wouldn’t you rather see me score all over Sonata than sit here alone with…” She paused as she glanced at the book’s cover, her brow furrowing. “‘Dapple Gray’s Anatomy’? You’re turning down spending time with us so you can read a medical textbook?”
“It’s one of several suchs texts that I instructed House Call to loan me before we left,” explained Lex. “Given that our schedule once we reach Las Pegasus is likely to be filled with inane activities, I’d prefer to get through the majority of these treatises on the way there.”
Sonata’s eyes widened. “For realsies? Lex, you’re already a super-strong wizard who introduces new religions, rescues and rebuilds cities, makes deals for, like, tons of money, and now you wanna be a doctor too?”
“I’m not interested in that title, or the certifications involved in earning it,” replied Lex as he turned a page, scanning it quickly. “I just want the knowledge. Everypony with healing magic stayed behind, and if another unforeseen disaster happens during this trip I want more curative options at my disposal than just the weak healing spell that the Night Mare gives me.”
Both sisters glanced at each other then, having a moment of shared understanding.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” sighed Aria, reaching up and snatching Lex’s book away, ignoring his snarl of outrage as she rolled off of his lap.
“You mind giving us the room for a little bit?” Sonata’s smile was polite enough, but Feather Duster knew immediately that she wasn’t really asking, murmuring a statement of compliance as she showed herself out.
“What do you two think you’re doing?” growled Lex as the door closed, his eyes glowing dangerously as he rose from his seat.
“Getting you to relax,” huffed Aria, dropping the book to the floor and putting her hoof on it just as it was surrounded in the grip of Lex’s telekinetic aura, preventing him from picking it up. “Seriously, we’re two days into this trip, and you’re still acting like everything’s going to fall apart if you don’t keep up the tough guy act twenty-four-seven!”
“C’mon, Lex.” Unlike Aria’s belligerent tone, Sonata’s was pleading, walking over to nuzzle him. “I know things have been crazy for a while now, but you did it. You beat the bad guys, saved everyone who needed it, and now things are looking up. So let’s all blow off some steam now that we can.”
But Lex was already shaking his head. “I didn’t save everyone who needed it,” he corrected, his voice turning dour as he thought back to how Block Party had refused to be resurrected.
“Close enough!” snapped Aria. “Look, do you not get that if there is another disaster, you’re in no shape to handle it right now?”
The indictment of his abilities cut through Lex’s melancholy, causing his to narrow his eyes in anger. “What?”
“She’s kind of got a point, Lex,” admitted Sonata. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you did an awesome job with Starlight Glimmer and all – plus, I totes loved fighting next to you – and it was super-impressive seeing you drop a huge mountain of black crystals on Twilight like that. But you could have been a little harder on them, you know?”
“A little?” scoffed Aria before turning back to Lex. “I get that you don’t kill ponies, but you were holding back so much that you put your own life at risk! Where were all those spells you used when you fought me? No force fields or pits filled with acid or red-hot energy beams? That wasn’t smart, and being smart is supposed to be your thing.”
Lex opened his mouth, only to immediately close it again, knowing that he couldn’t afford to disabuse them of the idea that he’d refrained from using his strongest magic deliberately. Twilight Sparkle had already figured out that something was wrong with his thaumaturgical spellcasting, and had doubtlessly shared that bit of knowledge with the other princesses by now (though hopefully his using his last attack spell to freeze the hound archon she’d summoned would make them hesitate to put much stock in her theory). Any further leaks of information regarding that particular weakness had to be avoided if at all possible.
“See?” pressed Sonata, misreading the reason for his silence. “Plus, you’ve been totes jumpy the last few days, always looking around like you’re expecting to be attacked any second.”
“You won’t even let us relax you the way we know you like, even though the walls are thicker here,” added Aria, flicking her tail in irritation. “Which is pretty unfair considering how helpful we’ve been lately.”
This time Lex did flinch. In the immediate aftermath of his scrying on Adagio Dazzle, his own counter-scrying spell had activated, which meant that either she or whoever had been there with her had attempted to magically spy on him the way he had on them. That shouldn’t have been possible, since scrying on someone required the caster to have some sense of the target’s identity. A scrying spell could be directed at someone if all you knew was their name, or their face, or had some other sense, no matter how modest, of who they were. “The person who just attempted to spy on me” – which should have been all that Adagio and her unknown companion knew about him – wasn’t sufficient. And yet, they’d done it anyway, suggesting that in the brief period of time between when his spell had been noticed and when he’d terminated it, one or both of them had somehow used their own magic to pervert the link between himself and his scrying sensor in order to get some information – likely audiovisual, since that’s what the spell normally conveyed – about him. Although he’d been in shadow-form at the time, even a glimpse would have been enough to let them focus a scrying spell on him in turn.
And while his countermeasure had defeated that first attempt – sending a torrent of magic that not only overloaded the scrying sensor, but sent a dangerous explosion of electricity back through the link to strike the spellcaster – his counter-scrying spell was now expended, leaving him with no way of defeating subsequent attempts to magically view him from afar.
That knowledge had left Lex profoundly uncomfortable, and while he’d refused to let that keep him from performing necessary work on everypony’s behalf, he’d taken to sweeping the area around him for magical signatures at random times, using his circlet and peering into the magical spectrum in an attempt to ferret out the active (or lingering) divinatory aura that a scrying sensor would have generated; thankfully, he hadn’t found any yet, but he’d kept checking all the same. He’d thought he’d been subtle about it, calling upon his circlet in silence and spending several seconds looking around. But apparently Sonata and Aria had apparently noticed, even if they hadn’t realized exactly what he was doing.
Of course, the fact that he’d refused to engage with them sexually since then had been something he knew they’d object to, but that couldn’t be helped. As stressful as it was to know that someone was potentially spying on him at any given moment, the idea that some stranger was watching him during what he considered to be a profoundly intimate experience between him and the mares he loved was utterly intolerable. That meant that, until he could prepare and cast his anti-scrying spell again – something that would likely have to wait until the equinox, now just over a month away – there was nothing to do but remain chaste.
The fact that he hadn’t explained to Sonata and Aria why he’d suddenly stopped touching them – with no confirmation of any subsequent scrying attempts, and no way to stop them if there were, it would have been premature in the extreme to share that information – was something he’d known wouldn’t go over well. But with no alternative explanations having come to mind, there had been no other choice but to say he wasn’t in the mood during the trip and hope that the activities awaiting them in Las Pegasus would be sufficiently exhausting so as to deaden the girls’ libidos. It was an unlikely hope, but it was the only one he had.
And judging from Aria’s complaint just now – as well as the way Sonata was nodding fervently in response to it – he was going to need to come up with a better plan.
Pouting at his lack of response, Aria strode forward, standing opposite Sonata to nuzzle him herself. “C'mon, I know you're capable of relaxing," she murmured. “Sonata said you were actually playful after you beat that dragon in Tall Tale. And I know you got into a pillow fight once while you were huddled in that warehouse. I wanna see that side of you.”
“And we're not saying you have to party hearty all the time,” chimed in Sonata, picking up the discarded anatomy book from where Aria had dropped it and bringing it over to him. “You can totes get some reading done too. Just not all the time, 'kay?”
“You work hard,” added Aria. “So now let’s play hard. First in the rec room...” She leaned in closer then, putting her lips by his ears as her voice turned husky. “And then in the bedroom.”
“Or,” grinned Sonata, “we could pillow fight in the bedroom and then totes get naughty and wreck the rec room. Just sayin’.”
Lex grimaced, knowing he couldn't give them what they were asking for; not completely, at least. “The two of you go ahead,” he sighed. "I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
“Woo hoo!” cheered Sonata, grinning as she turned and galloped toward the door. “Now that’s what I like to hear! C’mon Aria, I’ll race you! First come, first served!”
“Like I care about who comes first.” A sultry grin on her face, Aria turned and set off after her sister at a more sedate pace, flashing a smirk back over her shoulder at Lex as she made sure to wag her tail a little more than necessary. “Just so long as I get what I want in the end.”
Lex let out a slow breath as he watched the two of them go, sitting back down as he idly swept the room for magical emanations again, only barely paying attention to the results as he thought about how unsustainable the situation with Sonata and Aria was likely to become. Especially since he wasn’t even sure that someone was spying on him to begin with.
Ten seconds later he spotted the scrying sensor.