“Wait! We think we might know where that hag from last night is hiding!”
The words stopped Lex dead in his tracks. As much as he detested the five earth mares he’d briefly fought – and fought together with – last night, the prospect of locating Grisela’s lair, rather than combing the wilderness searching for her, was one that he couldn’t afford to pass up. Though that still left the question of what exactly that pony who’d spoken – Mystaria, he knew – would want in exchange for telling him what she knew.
But to his mild surprise, the earth mare didn’t stop there. “We came here because we were planning to look for an old temple to the Night Mare that’s supposed to be in the mountains somewhere in this area. We don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that winter hag is using it as her base of operations.”
Outwardly, Lex showed no reaction to what he’d just been told. But in his mind, he was already looking to verify Mystaria’s information. Solvei.
Yes, Master? The winter wolf’s mental voice was thick with surprise, clearly not having expected to hear from him so soon.
Since you started following those creatures’ trail, did you see anything that resembled an artificial structure?
Puzzlement was the emotion he registered from her then. You mean like those odd ‘house’ dens the ponies in that village made for themselves? No, Master, nothing like that. Just burrows and warrens and the occasional cave.
Lex didn’t bother to reply, turning back to Mystaria, who looked like she was waiting for a reaction from him. But Thermal Draft beat him to the punch before he could say anything. “There’s a temple to the Night Mare out in the middle of nowhere?” she asked, her voice thick with skepticism.
Spinner answered before Mystaria could. “It’s probably antenoctem. Most of her houses of worship from that era were made far away from anything that we’d call civilization.”
“Excuse me?” snorted Valor. “Anti-what now?”
“Since when did you become a religious scholar?” added Shadow. “I thought that was Mysty’s turf.”
“Well, what can I say?” smirked Spinner, giving the masked mare a triumphant grin. “I might not have grown up in Blevik, but I’ve picked up a few things here and there.”
“So, what’s ‘antenoctem’ mean?” chimed in Woodheart, finishing the contents of her bowl and placing it on the ground for Littleknight to lick.
“It’s actually two words,” explained Mystaria. “‘Ante noctem’ is Lacertian for ‘before nightfall.’ In the Night Mare’s religion, it refers to the period before she was recognized as a goddess who claims dominion over the night itself as well as mastery of its terrors, which marked the beginning of her worship becoming widespread among ponies, since before that she was seen only as a goddess of monsters, and so needed to be placated rather than venerated. Of course, this is regarded as an act of usurpation rather than religious reformation by the Moon Princess and her allies, since before that the latter goddess claimed sole dominion over the night-, ouch!”
Rubbing her shin where Shadow had just kicked her, Mystaria frowned at the other mare. “What did you do that for?”
“Besides payback for you dumping your breakfast over my head?” drawled Shadow. “I thought that maybe it was a bad idea for you to start talking about someone else’s goddess as being a ‘usurper.’ Since we’re trying not to make any new enemies, I mean.”
Mystaria turned bright red at that, spinning around so she was facing Lex before bowing her head. “I’m so sorry!” she sputtered. “I swear, I meant no disrespect to the Night Mare!”
Lifting her holy symbol, she held it out toward Lex even as she kept her eyes on the ground. “While Luminace might be the goddess of my heart, I swear that I have nothing but reverence for every deity in the pony pantheon!”
For his part, Lex couldn’t have cared less about what she’d said about the Night Mare. As far as he was concerned, the goddess’s standing on Everglow wasn’t any of his affair; he was far more interested in potentially expediting the process of securing this village’s safety. “Where is this temple?”
For some reason, Shadow slumped at that. “Damn it.”
Mystaria, however, perked up at his question. “I have a map that shows where it is.” She opened her saddlebag then, rooting around in it. "I found it when I was going through an old trunk full of my parents’ things. There were actually several really interesting-”
“I don’t care,” interrupted Lex, his patience wearing thin. Whether it was attacking Thermal Draft, needling him about having heard his affair with the pegasus, or simply wasting his time with their endless banter, he was growing thoroughly sick of these mares. “Give me the map. I want you out of my sight as soon as possible.”
Far from having the desired effect, his statement seemed only to upset the group further. Valor was the first to respond, her lips curling in a sneer as she shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“You’re not exactly fun to be around either, you know,” shot back Woodheart.
“Is he always like this?” Spinner’s question was directed toward Thermal Draft. “Because even if he has a crap-ton of magic and is great in the sack, I don’t know how you can put up with his attitude.”
Lex was about to tell the lute-carrying mare not to speak to Thermal Draft, but didn’t have a chance before Shadow chimed in. “How much are you willing to pay for the map?”
That was enough to make Mystaria – who’d stopped digging through her saddlebag when he’d ordered her to turn the map over, giving him a crestfallen look – send a glare her friend’s way. “Shadow!”
“What? Isn’t this the best answer?” insisted the masked mare. “This way, he gets to go check the place out, and we get to make some money. Plus, we can still tell the authorities what happened here once we get back.”
“That wasn’t the deal and you know it,” sighed Valor. “Mysty said she’d drop her objections to us heading back to Viljatown if he already knew about that temple. Unfortunately for us, he doesn’t.”
“And I’m not selling my parents’ map!” Giving Lex a look as if to make sure he knew the statement was directed at him as much as Shadow, Mystaria frowned at the latter pony. “I never got a chance to know them, and the stuff in that trunk is all I have of theirs now!”
Taking a slow breath after her outburst, Mystaria collected her composure, turning back to Lex and Thermal Draft. “I know we got off on the wrong hoof before, and if it helps, I’ll apologize again for what happened last night. But the ponies in this village are starving, terrified, and have no one coming to save them. I want to do my part to fix things here, and I know that you do too. So I’m proposing that we work together-”
“Absolutely not.” Lex didn’t hesitate to make it clear that he had no intention of budging on this point. “Even if you weren’t ponies of weak moral character, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you’d be assets when I face that disgusting humanoid that calls itself Grisela again. You’re not fit-”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Thermal Draft, stepping in front of Lex to give Mystaria and her friends a pained grin. “Can you excuse us for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, she put a hoof on Lex’s chest, trying to direct him backward. “Just need to have a quick powwow.”
Lex, however, refused to go along with whatever the pegasus was up to. “I am not-”
Once again, however, the pegasus didn’t let him finish. “Lex, please,” she begged, still trying to direct him toward the far end of the common room. “Just hear me out-, ngh!”
Just like before, her hind legs gave out on her, and the reminder of how rough he’d been with her last night softened Lex’s attitude as he moved to steady her. Sending a warning glare at the others – one that was largely ignored, as they’d moved into a huddle – he bit back a growl of irritation as he helped Thermal Draft limp away from the earth mares.
“I am not working with those five,” he reiterated as soon as they’d reached their destination, wanting that to be as clear as possible. “They’re useless at best, and dangerous at worst.”
“Look, I’m not what you’d call their biggest fan either,” agreed Thermal Draft. “But they might be useful the next time you fight that winter witch, or whatever she was.”
Lex snorted. “Their performance last night suggests otherwise.”
“Does it?” She canted her head back at the five earth mares then. “That one with the shield, Valor, actually transformed into a bear and took down a couple of those yetis all on her own. The one with the mask, Shadow, was able to get her and Valor out of there when they realized they were outnumbered, despite being surrounded and with very few places to hide. Mystaria conjured up a big ball of fire. Spinner made a smokescreen. Woodheart summoned a huge tiger from out of nowhere. And they did all that with only a few minutes to prepare, and no real idea what they were up against.”
But Lex was unmoved. “I’m aware of their exploits, as well as the fact that they ultimately proved insufficient.”
“They might be sufficient next time around, if they had you commanding them,” insisted Thermal Draft. “Lex, you’re a leader; having followers makes you stronger! You were able to turn a group of foals into a fighting force capable of standing up to Starlight Glimmer. Solvei was the runt of her litter before you turned her into an unstoppable powerhouse. Imagine what you could do with a group of seasoned adventurers!”
“I’m more concerned with what they could do to you, if something sets them off again.”
His retort seemed to surprise Thermal Draft, her eyes widening even as her cheeks reddened. “Lex…”
“And besides,” he continued, “Solvei and I are sufficiently powerful to deal with Grisela. Even if she has additional forces in reserve, I’d rather face them with a small group that I trust than with a larger unit that’s unreliable.”
Thermal Draft moved closer to him then, uncomfortably so. Bringing her face within a few inches of his own masked visage, she placed her hoof on his chest again, this time simply letting it remain there rather than trying to push him someplace. “And I’d rather not see you get hurt again.”
Frowning, he took a step back, letting her hoof fall away. “I told you, Solvei and I-”
“You still got beaten up pretty bad last night, Lex.” Thermal Draft’s eyes never left his own as she shook her head sadly. “You had Solvei with you, and you still received a lot of injuries. The same thing happened with Prevarius, remember? You and her were fighting together – and I was helping too – and you still almost died. I’ve had to watch you get hurt over and over…”
She couldn’t seem to continue, which was just as well, because Lex didn’t care for the implication she was making about his power being insufficient for the task ahead. “It was a fight. Injuries are inevitable.”
“And what if you’d died?” Again, she stepped closer to him than was appropriate. “If you won’t let those adventurers help for your sake, then let them help for mine! If something happens to you, I have no way to make it back to Equestria! I’d be stranded here, with no way home and no one to work on breaking that last part of the infernal contract I signed, and I don’t know what I’d do then…”
Beneath his mask, Lex clenched his jaw, hating that she had a valid point. “Those mares assaulted you less than a day ago. I don’t trust-”
“I trust them,” she interrupted. “Or at least, I trust them more than I trust those monsters that attacked us, which is what we’ll be facing when we find where that witch is hiding. These ponies are at least trying to apologize.”
“…”
Lex didn’t reply to that, instead brooding in silence. As much it galled him, the vested interest that Thermal Draft had in those five mares accompanying them was well-founded. While he still doubted their overall combat effectiveness, they weren’t helpless in battle. That wasn’t something he could bring himself to overlook, not for his own sake, but for Thermal Draft’s.
Leaving her here in the village while he and Solvei went looking for Grisela was not an option. While the ponies here had been forced to turn on their own kind, the fact remained that they had. He couldn’t take the risk that they’d do something to her in his absence.
But taking her along meant that her safety had to be prioritized. While Lex remained confident that he and Solvei would be able to handle whatever Grisela threw at them – regardless of whatever wounds he’d sustain in the conflict – Thermal Draft would be safer if she had experienced adventurers surrounding her. At the very least, that would require him to pay less attention to defending her when he inevitably faced the hag in battle.
And while he still found those mares’ statements of remorse for how they’d treated Thermal Draft last night insufficient, he had to admit that they’d never displayed any sort of murderous intent the way those monsters had.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was the best at judging apologies anyway. He’d badly misread Garden Gate’s display of contrition in the wake of Pillowcase’s death back in Vanhoover. If he was making the same mistake now…
“Fine,” he murmured, his voice coming out thick with displeasure. “We’ll bring them along. But I’ll dissolve this collaboration at the first instance of misconduct on their part, and I won’t hear any arguments to the contrary. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely!” Far from seeming chastised by his warning, Thermal Draft gave a happy gasp, throwing her forelegs around him a moment later. The unexpected hug lasted only for a moment before she turned toward the others, still huddled in front of the fireplace. “You guys! Lex says we’re go for teaming up!”
Mystaria’s head shot up, a grin plastered all over her face. “Really?! That’s great!”
Breaking ranks with her friends – who looked considerably less enthused – she trotted over to Lex and held out a hoof. “Mystaria of Fail Forward, at your service.”
Looking at her outstretched foreleg for a long moment, Lex heaved a long-suffering sigh before raising his own, begrudgingly pressing his hoof against hers. “Lex Legis.”