“Um, Your Highness?”
“…”
“Your Highness,” repeated the pegasus stallion, part of the gaggle of ponies – a mixed group of rubberneckers, royalty-obsessed superfans, and ponies with more curiosity than sense – who’d followed them around ever since they’d arrived in Las Pegasus. “I don’t mean to question your judgment-”
“Then don’t,” snapped Lex irritably, not looking back at the ponies following him as he instead allowed Feather Duster to lead him down a particularly filthy avenue between a pair of large brick buildings.
“Of course,” replied the obsequious pony quickly. “It’s just, if you could tell us why you’re here…”
From her place between Lex and the hangers-on, Aria rolled her eyes, hearing Sonata sigh next to her.
“Here” was the terrestrial portion of Las Pegasus, and in the last few hours Aria had become quite familiar with the place, courtesy of Lex’s sudden departure from what should have been a visit to the Wild Blue Yonder, a ride touted as being the most extreme rollercoaster not only in the city, but in all of Equestria. But when Feather Duster had come rushing back – apparently having been sent out on an errand earlier that morning – saying that she’d “found them,” Lex had abruptly gone off-script. While Sonata had been dismayed at not getting to go on the rollercoaster, Aria couldn’t bring herself to be too upset about it, knowing that her sister tended to shriek at an ear-splitting volume on thrill rides.
Instead, they’d come down to the part of Las Pegasus that wasn’t so glamorous.
Living quite literally in the shadow of the ritzy, cloud-dwelling resort town was Equestria’s premiere tourist destination was what Lex had called “the vital infrastructure required to maintain the habitability and operational integrity” of the aerial part of the city. Aria hadn’t known what that meant at first, but as they’d approached their destination – riding the same luxurious airship that they’d left Vanhoover in down to a dockyard that was considerably less prestigious than its counterpart in the clouds – it had quickly become clear. It had been enough to make her wonder if the rollercoaster wouldn’t have been better.
The grounded portion of Las Pegasus was the polar opposite of the floating portion of the city in every way. The majority of the place seemed to be factories and processing plants. The concrete lining the streets was old and cracked. The paint that covered building exteriors was faded and peeling. The lights – ubiquitous since the upper portion of the city made the place perpetually overcast – were far from the neon opulence that was to be found above, instead being fluorescent and dim. Many had gone out entirely, leaving large portions of the city shrouded in gloom.
Of course, none of the ponies there had seemed to notice the oppressive conditions, likely due to how busy they all were. Ever since they’d stepped off their airship, Aria had observed how everypony they’d seen had been rushing to get something done. Making deliveries, repairing pipes, filing out paperwork; there seemed to be no shortage of tasks that needed to be accomplished, with everypony going about their work so diligently that even the newcomers among them had barely warranted a glance, with neither Lex’s intimidating features nor the Siren sisters’ beauty getting anything besides a few quick looks as everypony went around their business, apparently too busy to stop for more than a moment.
Sonata had remarked on how weird the lack of attention was, prompting Lex to launch into an explanation of how they likely couldn’t afford to since the lower area functioned as a lifeline that fed necessary supplies to the otherwise-isolated cloud-dwelling part of Las Pegasus, but Aria hadn’t been listening by that point, already having discerned the truth of the matter:
Everyone down here worked their tails off so that everyone up there could have fun.
It was, in other words, a miserable environment, one that Aria – along with her sisters – had sought to avoid while living on Earth. While the humans living in such places had been no more difficult to beguile than the rest of their kind, the fringe benefits from doing so had never failed to be minimal. People who lived in this sort of borderline-squalor virtually never had anything to give, meaning that their adulation had no tangible form for the Sirens to take advantage of, making them good for a quick recharge and little else.
Of course, that was something that didn’t concern Lex, Aria knew. So why was he down here in the middle of the afternoon instead of living it up-
“We’re almost there,” announced Feather Duster quietly, turning into what looked like the loading zone of a factory. Or at least, a former factory, since the place was so decrepit it had to have been abandoned. At a glance, Aria could see patches of ivy growing up the side of the place, with several windows being broken or boarded up. The sight made her grimace, too reminiscent of how Vanhoover had looked.
The interruption of what was supposed to have been a fun-filled vacation brought a caustic remark to the tip of Aria’s tongue, but she let it die there, unspoken. What’s the point?
The fact of the matter was that their vacation had turned sour before it had even begun. Lex, for whatever reason, had been acting unusually distant ever since they’d left Vanhoover. In conversation he was even more curt than normal, his every statement terse and clipped. He seemed to begrudge every moment spent with either of them, frequently demanding to be left alone even when there was nothing else on his schedule. Even after reaching Las Pegasus, he fulfilled only the bare minimum of the activities he’d agreed to, and it was only because the city’s elite were already singing his praises in their naked attempts to keep currying favor with the new prince – along with Sonata and Aria’s continual attempts to soften his mood and present him to the public in the best possible light – that his burgeoning reputation hadn’t suffered.
That was no small feat considering that the local newspaper had broken the story about what Lex had done to Princess Luna the same day they’d arrived in the city.
Even now, that particular scandal hadn’t been smoothed over so much as it had been smothered. The established ponies of Las Pegasus – fully aware of the implications of having entered into a binding agreement to support the new prince – had done their best to bury any follow-ups to the story. Only certain reporters were allowed to cover Prince Legis’s appearances, only preapproved questions were allowed to be asked, and anypony who couldn’t abide by the rules was politely but firmly escorted out.
It had contributed in no small part to the collection of ponies following them now, having gone so far as to charter a hot air balloon in order to tail them down to the lower city. From how often she’d heard Luna’s name mentioned as they’d muttered to each other, Aria knew they were all intensely curious about why someone who’d done something so awful to one of Equestria’s princesses was being treated with such reverence by everypony who was anypony in Las Pegasus. She also knew that the question would need to be answered, since that accursed article had shoved the issue in everypony’s face.
But Lex, as with so many other things lately, seemed utterly uninterested in doing so.
Across from her, Aria belatedly noticed Sonata’s ears perk up as they crossed the loading zone toward the far end of the abandoned factory. “You hear that?”
“Hear what?” muttered Aria distractedly.
Sonata cocked her head. “I’m not sure. Just listen.”
Frowning, Aria concentrated. At first she couldn’t quite pick anything out, belatedly noting that all background noise in the area was being drowned out by a dull, distant roar coming from inside the factory, that was likely caused by whatever production was going on in there…only to realize a second later that if the factory was as abandoned as it looked, there wouldn’t be any production happening inside. Which meant…
Her wings fluttering, Feather Duster stopped by one of the loading dock doors, behind which the dull roar was even louder, and gave Lex a bow. “In here, my prince.” Looking up, she smiled at him, and Aria couldn’t help but note how the expression was different from her usual reserved manner. “Shall I?”
Aria exchanged a puzzled glance with Sonata, hearing the whispers from the ponies behind them growing loud enough to be heard over whatever din was happening inside. But Lex simply nodded, his expression unchanged.
Making a noise that sounded suspiciously like a squeal of delight, Feather Duster flapped her wings, grabbing the cord that dangled from the bottom of the overheard door and yanking it upward to reveal the source of the noise…
Ponies.
What had to be hundreds of ponies filled the building. The factory floor was completely bare, whatever machinery had once filled it gone, and in its place milled ponies of every variety. Some were set up behind tables, dipping ladles into large vats and spooning out what looked like soup into bowls, passing them to anypony who approached them. More were lying on cots, mats, or even folded pieces of cardboard in the back of the building, talking to their companions or reading dusty-looking books or newspapers or simply sleeping. Others had set up a wicker basket with the bottom cut out halfway up a nearby wall and were tossing a ball around, trying to get it through the makeshift hoop.
There were just a few of what she could make out, along with brief glimpses of children playing with a tattered old jump rope, wizened ponies knitting in a circle, clusters of earth stallions talking while pegasi tried to clean some of the filthy windows and unicorns lit up their horns to try to brighten the interior of the place, and others. It was, Aria decided, like a smaller version of the camp back in Vanhoover. A second later her eyes widened as she suddenly knew why they were here.
“EVERYPONY!” called Feather Duster, having to repeat herself several times before everyone inside the factory quieted down, looking at her. Landing, she turned so that she was standing in profile to the truck-sized door, extending a wing toward it. “I know some of you didn’t believe me before, but just like I promised, Prince Legis has come to take you all back to Vanhoover!”
Dead silence reigned as Lex stepped inside the building, looking around at the ponies gathered within.
For a moment nopony moved, until an earth stallion with a dirty coat and shaggy beard shuffled forward, his face tight with uncertainty. “Um, Your Majesty, sir. Beggin’ your pardon, but…is that true? You’re really here to take us home?”
His expression looking like it had been carved out of stone, Lex nodded once. “Yes.”
Biting back a snarl as she realized that the crowd would be the opposite of reassured by Lex’s demeanor, Aria adopted a coy smirk as she trotted forward. “That’s right,” she drawled, giving her pigtails a toss as she felt all eyes turn toward her. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but Equestria’s newest prince has been working hard to reverse the damage done to the city. He’s already cut a deal with the richest ponies here for them to fund the recovery effort.”
“And he’s totes given out free food, and medicine, and even jobs to everypony who comes back!” gushed Sonata, grinning as she followed up on Aria’s announcement. “We’re even building houses that everypony can live in while we clean up the place!”
“I know I said it before, but I can personally vouch for everything these ladies are saying,” added Feather Duster, looking out over the crowd. “Some of you know me. Most of you don’t. But I can promise you, Prince Legis is a force for good in Equestria.”
“But…” Another pony shuffled forward, this one a wrinkled old unicorn mare. “But what about what he did to Princess Luna?” she asked, voice trembling as she held up a newspaper article, showing the former alicorn staring at the camera.
“We kinda wanna know that too,” muttered someone in the group that had followed them there.
Aria grimaced, and Sonata frowned, but before either of them could say anything, Lex spoke up. “I stripped Luna of her alicorn status because she doesn’t deserve to be one,” he announced flatly.
Sonata folded her ears back, trying to turn the alarmed look on her face into a smile as she swallowed nervously. “I think what Lex means to say-”
“The princesses have failed you,” continued Lex, refusing to let himself be interrupted. “They failed to protect you from the disaster that drove you from your homes, they failed to see to the city’s recovery, and they failed to come look for all of you now.”
He swept a hoof out, indicating Feather Duster. “When my assistant’s husband told me that he was unable to return to Vanhoover due to a lack of personal funds necessary to make the trip, I knew that there would be other ponies here who were in the same position. That is not acceptable.”
Each of the last four words came out with the force of a hammer blow, resonating in the air with an intensity that was almost palpable. “I have a responsibility to see to the safety and wellbeing of everypony under my care,” Lex continued, “and if anypony tries to interfere with that – even a princess – then they will be made to pay.”
He let that hang in the air for a moment, as though daring anyone to ask any follow-up questions. When no one did, he looked back at the scruffy stallion that had first approached him. “Now, is this all of you?” he demanded.
Slowly, the bearded pony nodded. “Yessir. We brought everypony back when that one there” – he pointed at Feather Duster, much the way Lex had a moment before – “said that there was a prince here to bring us all back.”
“Good,” replied Lex. “Now, let’s discuss the logistics involved with getting all of you back to Vanhoover.”
Slowly, everypony else in the building began talking, the collective breath they'd been holding coming out. Aria could almost see the emotions play across their faces, allowing themselves to believe that the pony in front of them really was here to help them, that their time living like vagrants was at an end, and that they were finally going to be able to go home. It rippled across them like a wave, starting with excited murmurs, then turning into relieved laughter, and finally into joyous shouting, until the entire place was thrumming with noise far louder than before. Similar reactions were coming from the group that had been tailing them, with murmurs of "knew there was more to the story" and "give him a chance" being thrown around.
Sharing a relieved glance with Sonata, Aria tried to relax, glad that for once Lex's inability to sugarcoat things had worked in his favor. But she couldn't bring herself to completely be at ease. After all, the ponies in Vanhoover had been in a worse state than this for a longer time, and Lex had still been able to open himself up to them despite that.
Whatever had been bothering him up until now, it wasn't this. Of that Aria felt sure. And while it was all well and good that Lex was still helping complete strangers, she wasn't sure how much more she could take of him pushing away the ponies who loved him...