“Why are you slowing down?!”
From his position on her back, Lex felt Solvei flinch at the question, her ears flicking down for a moment before returning to their usual position. “Because I need to rest,” she panted, glancing back at him as she maintained the loping stride that her hurried bounding had devolve into. “I’m very tired.”
“I don’t care!” snarled Lex, his eyes glowing so brightly that he could see the green and purple reflection on the snow around them. “Thermal Draft’s chances of survival are highly dependent on how long it takes me to rescue her! Go faster” – he held his wire-wrapped foreleg out toward her head then – “or I’ll make you!”
“But shouldn’t you save your seidr for when we find my pack?” whined the winter wolf, her answer coming between puffs of breath that made no steam clouds in the cold weather. “How will you rescue them, or your mate, if you use it all up now?”
The question made Lex’s spine stiffen, not because it was stupid, but because it was penetrating.
Despite what had happened back at the cave, he knew that there was little chance that he’d be able to rescue Thermal Draft in his current condition. The fight he’d had with Solvei’s kin, although brief, had caused several of his injuries to reopen. More than once during the frantic pursuit he’d demanded that Solvei make after her family had abducted Thermal Draft, Lex had come close to falling off of the winter wolf.
It didn’t help that he was freezing; not only was his cloak useless against the low temperature and cutting wind, but Solvei had been leaping through snow drifts almost as deep as she was tall. More than once, Lex had ended up showered with snow that she’d kicked up as a result, chilling him more. Even worse, Solvei’s body was cold to the touch as well. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, due to her breath, but it meant that being in contact with her was like touching an ice sculpture wrapped in fur. Between her, the snow, and the wind, Lex had lost the feeling in his limbs some time ago, a condition he’d ignored in his rush to save Thermal Draft.
Throw in that he’d expended a not-inconsiderable amount of his dark magic, and all he had left to rely on was the Night Mare’s power. But that would be for naught if he used it up before it had a chance to replenish. Or if the only creature he could use it on was too exhausted to fight because he’d pushed her too hard…
“…find someplace defensible where we can rest,” he ordered, making no attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Somewhere warm.”
She screamed for your help as she was being taken, and yet now you’re thinking of your own comfort? sneered his tulpa as Solvei nodded and began to look around. What if she dies while you’re napping? Will you tell Cloudbank that you were too tired to rescue the mare she loved?
Tactically, Lex knew he was making the right decision. It had barely been a day – one day! – since his fight with Dark Streak, a fight which he’d only survived because of an act of divine intervention. To engage in another fight now was tantamount to suicide, particularly when there were multiple enemies about which he knew relatively little, and his own powers were so attrited, to say nothing of how grievously he’d been wounded.
Even so, his instincts were screaming at him to ignore all of that and rush to Thermal Draft’s side as quickly as possible, and to Tartarus with the consequences. He’d made decisions like that before – such as prioritizing defending Nosey over himself while fighting Xiriel, or protecting Aria and Garden Gate against Starlight Glimmer’s final attack – and they’d turned out to be correct.
Except, of course, that they hadn’t. In both of those cases, he’d won only because his tulpa, given to him by the Night Mare, had cast spells of its own accord – a wound-transference spell against Xiriel, and his stamina-enhancing spell when he’d faced Starlight Glimmer – which had made all the difference.
That hadn’t been the only assistance he’d received in either fight, of course; Nosey had stepped up during his battle with Xiriel, and Sonata had rushed in to help him defeat Starlight Glimmer. But that didn’t change the fact that in both fights, the difference between victory and defeat had been because of what he’d received from the goddess.
Just like what had happened back at the cave barely an hour ago.
“I think this looks okay,” murmured Solvei, dragging Lex out of his brooding. Looking up, there was just enough ambient light for him to make out a cul-de-sac formed from where a large boulder sat near a rocky outcropping. A fallen conifer served as a makeshift roof, its boughs having kept most of the snow out, with several limbs having fallen down to create a moderately thick green blanket of overlapping foliage. While it had little heat to offer, it would at least be free from the worst of the wind and the weather, and Lex knew that was the best that could be expected. It would be a long and miserably cold night, but a survivable one.
The winter wolf padded over to the natural shelter, sinking down onto her belly so that he could climb off of her. Even so, Lex very nearly collapsed when he got down, his chilled hooves only reluctantly supporting his weight as he dragged himself onto the small patch of dry ground, pulling his cloak around him. It was only after he finally settled down that he noticed that Solvei was staring at him. “What?” he snapped irritably.
“Your name is Lex, right?” Rising to a sitting position, Solvei tilted her head. “Will you be warm enough here?” she asked, glancing around with a dubious expression. “I know your kind require heat, and this place doesn’t have very much of it.”
“I am Lex Legis,” he corrected sharply, lip curling in derision at being worried over by a thing that had wanted to eat him a little over an hour ago, “and I don’t need your concern, creature. Now stay there and keep watch.”
Solvei frowned, and Lex briefly wondered if she’d try to disobey him. “My name isn’t ‘creature,’” she muttered at last, moving to lie down in front of the entrance to the cul-de-sac. “It’s Solvei.”
Lex watched her for several moments before he was satisfied that she was following his orders. Not that she has a choice, since I can force her compliance for at least a little longer if she becomes defiant. He still had over a half-dozen uses of the Night Mare’s power left, and he’d already confirmed that he could control her with it, though after what had happened at the cave that seemed like a waste.
After all, there was apparently a great deal more to that ability than he’d imagined.
Being able to follow parallel lines of thought simultaneously meant that, even while he’d been trying to come up with plans for rescuing Thermal Draft, he’d also been analyzing what had happened a short while ago, when he’d unintentionally used the power that the Night Mare had given him to enhance Solvei. But so far, he’d come up with little except theories and speculation. The one thing he felt sure about was that the ability he’d manifested – to enhance and empower the creatures that were vulnerable to what the goddess had bestowed upon him, in addition to simply controlling their movements – had been there from the beginning, ever since the goddess had designated him as her champion back on Equestria.
That was the conclusion that best fit with the available data, at least. Most obviously by way of the fact that he now knew that he – or, more accurately, the presence of anything that contained some fragment of the Night Mare’s divine essence – had the ability to forge a connection between the goddess and ponies who wished to dedicate themselves to her, even if they were in a world that was beyond her reach the way Equestria was. In order to independently operate in a realm where the goddess herself had no power strongly suggested that what she'd given him was self-sufficient, neither losing strength when metaphysically distant from its creator nor gaining it when closer to her. Certainly, that fit with the goddess’s dogma of self-sufficiency; while she was willing to give him tools to work with, it was up to him to figure out how to utilize them. His continuing struggle to master his tulpa was proof enough of that.
That it had taken Fruit Crunch and his friends to open his eyes to the truth about his needing to personally induct ponies into the Night Mare’s religion was something that Lex was still embarrassed about. The fact that Cloudbank had had gained divine spells only after he’d taught her the basics of the Night Mare’s faith, and had been the only one to receive them despite multiple ponies taking up the goddess’s worship after Vanhoover had been saved, should have been enough for him to figure it out. That he hadn’t realized the significance of those children gaining special powers under the tutelage of Severance – a divine artifact which, like himself, had a sliver of the Night Mare’s divinity – was an unforgivable lapse of perspicacity on his part, one which he’d spent quite a bit of his time in Las Pegasus gritting his teeth over.
But that was nothing compared to how he felt now.
If I’d known that there was more to this power, I would have taken the araneas with me when I left Tall Tale!
The thought of how things could have gone differently if only he’d been smarter was a constant refrain in his mind now. Thermal Draft could still be rescued, and Sonata and the others might still be alive, but the knowledge that he could have done more if he’d simply realized the full scope of what he’d been given was a wound for which there was no balm. Especially since Fireflower and his siblings had been right there for him to make use of.
In hindsight, it was obvious that the Night Mare had expected him to do so. Why else would she have been so sanguine about his request to bring Waterlily – Fireflower’s deceased sister – back to life? No matter that the six of them hadn’t wanted to leave Tall Tale; with no one else he could have used that power on, and the crisis in Vanhoover requiring extraordinary measures to resolve, there had been more than enough justification to force them to come.
How many more lives could he have saved if he’d brought the araneas along? They were already spellcasters of modest talent in their own right, and while their spider forms were disgusting, they offered natural advantages of their own. Being able to potentially empower them with abilities beyond that could have alleviated any number of challenges. Survivors could have been found faster. Block Party could have been rescued. Silhouette could have been protected from Severance’s treachery. There were any number of possible disasters that could have been averted if he had only realized what was right in front of him all along!
But you didn’t, did you? laughed the voiceless presence lurking in his shadow. Instead, you let yourself develop tunnel vision, becoming so focused on the ponies you wanted to save that you failed to take proper stock of everything you had at your disposal to save them with. And now you’re intent on making the same mistake all over again.
Too exhausted to suppress his reaction, Lex winced. As much as he hated to admit it, his tulpa was correct. Now that he was aware that there was more to the power the Night Mare had given him than he’d first assumed, he needed to test it. Without knowing what its limits were, what range of powers he could potentially grant a subject and how they operated, he was effectively divesting himself of a resource. That was inexcusable under normal circumstances, and far more so now, when he had so little left to make use of.
Fortunately, he still had over a half-dozen uses of the Night Mare’s power left before midnight arrived, and there was a creature right here whom he could use them on.
Turning his head slightly, Lex regarded the winter wolf lying across from him. As loathe as he was to admit it, he needed her assistance if he was going to rescue Thermal Draft; the battle in the cave had made that very clear. But Solvei needed him just as much, since without the power he commanded, she was far weaker than the rest of her mutated kin. Not to mention that she almost certainly possessed information about what happened to her family – and the “Red Man” who had apparently made them that way – that he’d likely need when it came time to face them again. That data would tell him what he’d need to do when he used the Night Mare’s power on her, enabling her to fight the battle he needed to win.
By making her into an extension of his own strength, they’d be able to do what he couldn’t accomplish alone.
It was all so perfectly representative of the Night Mare’s religious tenets that Lex couldn’t help but snort, looking at the barbed wire wrapped around his left foreleg, the physical representation of the fragment of her power that the goddess had given him. Was this the chance to grow stronger that she’d alluded to when she’d put him down here? Had she placed him in Solvei’s path so that he’d discover the true nature of what she’d given him?
It might have been because the numbness in his legs was beginning to wear off, but Lex could have sworn he felt the wire move just a little bit.
Having no further use for recriminations, he turned his eyes back toward the winter wolf lying a few feet away from him. The mistakes he’d made would weigh on his conscience for the rest of his life, which was what was supposed to happen, but right now he had a responsibility to avoid making them again. “Solvei.”
Her ears twitching, the winter wolf lifted her head, a look of surprise flashing across her face. “Yes?”
“Before either of us rests, I want to test what kind of powers I’m capable of giving you,” stated Lex, paying no mind to the way her ears perked up at that.
“And then,” he continued, “I want you to tell me everything you can about the Red Man and what he did to your pack.”