“I think we need to review everything that’s happened today.”
Mystaria tried not to be disheartened by the reactions she received, but even so she cringed a little inside. Her friends were regarding her with reactions ranging from pained to incredulous. Littleknight’s only reaction was a soft, despondent meep. Toklo looked sullen, as though wishing he was anywhere else. Drafty’s expression was a clear plea for her to sit down and be quiet. By contrast, Solvei shot her a look of barely-concealed hostility.
And Lex, of course, showed no reaction at all to what she’d said.
Knowing she couldn’t allow herself to be discouraged, Mystaria plunged ahead. “I know that things look bad right now, but we can’t afford to give up. Woodheart is counting on us to save her, and so are all of those ponies back in that village, which means we need to find a way to work together-”
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Toklo. Sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, the adlet stared at the ground dejectedly. “All I want is to have these curses lifted and to bring Panuk’s body home. The rest of you can keep killing each other for all I care.”
“And we all understand why you feel that way,” answered Mystaria. “But right-”
“I don’t,” snapped Spinner peevishly, giving Toklo an irritated look. “You do remember that Woodheart saved your life, right? You really don’t feel any sort of debt to her for that?”
This time Mystaria did cringe. “Spinner, please-”
“Of course he doesn’t,” sneered Solvei. “He’s an adlet. They don’t know anything about loyalty. Just ask Hrothvitnir.”
“That’s not what we-”
But again, Mystaria didn’t have a chance to keep things on track, as Shadow snorted derisively. “You’re really going to talk about loyalty after what your ‘master’ did? He’s the reason we lost Woodheart to those monsters!”
“Shadow!” hissed Mystaria through clenched teeth.
“It’s not his fault Grisela’s allies showed up out of nowhere like that!” protested Drafty, cutting the priestess off. “If they hadn’t ambushed us, Lex would have summoned Solvei back and healed Woodheart right away!”
“Listen, blame won’t help-”
“That we were attacked doesn’t change the fact that Lex lost control,” interjected Valor. “The result of which was that Woodheart almost lost her life, and was left unable to defend herself when those monsters kidnapped her. Like it or not, that’s on him.”
“Which wouldn’t have happened at all if someone hadn’t stuck her nose where it didn’t belong!” growled Solvei, giving Mystaria a hateful glare. “Maybe next time, mind your own business!”
“If we’re going to talk about next time, then how about you don’t venture so far ahead?” huffed Spinner, pointing a hoof at Solvei. “Spell or no spell, if you’d only been scouting a few hundred yards in front of us instead of – what was it? A couple miles? – you could’ve showed up and chased those guys off before they nabbed our friend!”
“Or maybe you guys could actually figure out how to handle yourselves in a fight instead of needing to be saved all the time!” Drafty picked up an empty bowl and hurled it as Spinner, the bard ducking under the makeshift missile. “Aren’t you supposed to be professional adventurers?! How can you be so incompetent?!”
“Says the damsel who was stupid enough to sell her soul to a devil,” jeered Shadow. “Not to mention has a magic item that detects hostile intent but was somehow still taken by surprise before.”
“I can’t wave that thing around every minute of every day just in case there’s an ambush waiting to happen! If anyone’s to blame for being caught off-guard, it was your ‘filidh’ for not predicting it ahead of time!”
“I told you before,” yelled Spinner, stamping her hoof in agitation, “it doesn’t work like that!”
By that point, the accusations, insults, and recriminations were coming so fast that they were starting to drown each other out, and Mystaria had ceased trying to make herself heard. Instead, she reached into her saddlebag, drawing out a hooffull of multicolored sand. Throwing it in the air in front of her, she traced a quick pattern with her free hoof as she recited a brief incantation.
An instant later, the sand exploded into a kaleidoscope of overlapping colors, flashing brightly as they mixed with each other in a vivid, strobing rainbow.
Immediately, the shouting voices turned into shrieks of surprise and discomfort, their argument forgotten as her companions all squeezed their eyes shut. Knowing that she likely only had a few moments before they were at each other’s throats again, Mystaria spoke up as soon as the spray of colors faded out.
“I swear to Luminace, the next one of you who says something nasty is going to get a flaming sphere five feet in diameter shoved straight down their throat! Because if this is how things are going to be, then we might as well save Grisela and Paska and whoever else they’re working with the trouble and just kill each other right now! Otherwise it’s only a matter of time!”
She looked around then, daring anyone to protest what she was saying, but although she received more than a few sour looks, no one objected.
Taking that as a signal to continue, Mystaria let her voice soften only a little. “Luminace teaches us that while friendship is something to strive for, we can’t expect to make friends with everyone we meet. Maybe that’s the case here, but even if we can’t learn to like each other, we have to learn how to work together! Because if we can’t, we won’t even be able to save ourselves, let alone Woodheart and those village ponies!”
No one could meet her eyes then, her companions all looking perturbed. Deciding it was a start, Mystaria sat down before speaking again. “What happened today was everyone’s fault, mine included. Now, we can point our hooves at each other and assign blame over who did what, or chide one another for not doing what they should have, or second-guess the decisions we all made that led us to where we are now…”
Pausing, she spread her hooves out toward everyone in a pleading gesture. “Or we can learn from our failures, and try to move forward.”
For a moment no one said anything, and Mystaria dared to hope that the malaise of the last few hours was finally about to be broken.
It shouldn’t have been that way, at least in her estimation. Solvei’s sudden return had been a positive sign; the only way she could have abruptly appeared like that was if Lex had summoned her. That, in turn, meant that not only was he coming out of his nonresponsive state, but that the spell Vidrig had cast on him had a limited duration. Both were cause to be hopeful.
Equally heartening had been what she’d found in her reference books on the topic of familiars. While they hadn’t explicitly confirmed that a familiar would experience some sort of debilitation if their master died – something which Littleknight had shown no symptoms of so far – they had been very clear that the opposite was true: a master who lost their familiar would go through profound psychic shock. While not hard confirmation, it was enough to make Mystaria fairly confident that the reverse had to be true, which was all the more reason to believe that Woodheart was still alive.
Even better, her books had verified that the mystical link between a master and their familiar made both aware of the other’s general location. But only if they were within a mile of each other. Past that, the link was stretched so thin that they lost their awareness of each other’s presence.
According to Solvei, that wasn’t a problem for her and Lex; as far as the winter wolf knew, no amount of distance could weaken her bond with her master. But that wasn’t the case for Littleknight. The almiraj had been bereft in the aftermath of Woodheart’s abduction, pawing at her discarded robe and meeping sadly, giving no indication that he knew where the druid was.
While Mystaria would have liked to converse with the horned rabbit to confirm that he’d be able to find his mistress if he came within a mile of her, she hadn’t bothered to try. For whatever reason, Woodheart had always been the only one who’d ever been able to communicate with Littleknight. To her, his meeping had been intelligible speech, likely because of their soul-bond; to the rest of them, the sounds he made were just that: sounds, not words.
Still, the fact that they had a “Woodheart-detector” (as Spinner had called him), even one that only had a one-mile range, had been some much-needed good news.
The other reason Mystaria had wanted to be optimistic had been because of Lex: shortly after Solvei’s reappearance, he’d become active again.
Barely.
The first sign had been when those twisted ponies he’d summoned – his incarnate fears, according to Thermal Draft – had slowly faded out. He hadn’t seemed to do anything to dismiss them; rather, they’d simply faded away, losing substance like mist in the morning sun. It had been shortly after that that a pair of glowing green-and-purple eyes had appeared in the mass of shadows that he’d become.
But he hadn’t turned back into a pony. Nor had he said a word to anyone. Instead, he’d simply floated off in the direction they’d been traveling when they’d been ambushed, not so much as bothering to inquire what had happened or if they were alright. It had been like he’d completely lost interest in everyone else.
Thankfully, he’d shown at least marginal concern for the rest of them as time had passed. He had – in some manner that Mystaria still didn’t understand – granted Solvei the ability to heal with a touch, allowing the wolf to repair Thermal Draft’s lacerated face. And shortly before nightfall, when they’d arrived at the outskirts of a snow-covered forest that Toklo had warned them about, Lex had abruptly stopped, casting the ‘tiny hut’ spell that created a climate-controlled dome for them all to rest under. He’d even used his ‘create food and water’ spell to make a meal for all of them, albeit the same gruel and tepid water he’d conjured the day before, rather than the glorious feast from before they’d left the village.
Even so, Mystaria had the distinct impression that he’d done those things only because Solvei had telepathically begged him to. Nor had he so much as made eye contact with anyone during the hours that he’d continued venturing into the wild. Neither Drafty’s timid inquiries about his health nor Shadow’s sneering insults had produced the slightest reaction from him, and his complete refusal to engage with them had cast a pall over everyone, making in unsurprising that things had finally come to a head now.
The fact was that Lex was the tactical lynchpin of their current undertaking. It wasn’t just that he was conspicuous in how much magic he commanded, even with his inability to replenish his arcane spellcasting, or because he controlled the powerhouse that was Solvei; his ability to make food and shelter alone showcased how much more difficult things would be if the dour unicorn wasn’t there. Valor had been right before, when she’d bluntly stated that Lex was absolutely necessary for this expedition to succeed.
But the way he was acting now made it seem like he’d all but given up.
I just hope I was able to get through to him, Mystaria prayed silently as she waited for someone to say something in reaction to her speech.
A moment later the silence was broken as Thermal Draft let out a soft giggle. “I’m sorry,” she tittered, putting a hoof over her mouth. “It’s just…that joke you made just now, about your group’s name? That was awful.”
“A nun with a terrible sense of humor,” snickered Spinner. “Way to play into the stereotype, Mysty.”
Toklo’s ears twitched, glancing between the pegasus and earth mare in confusion. “That was a joke? I don’t get it.”
“Trust me, you’re better off,” chuckled Valor.
“Why?” asked Solvei, looking unsure as well.
“Because getting everyone to talk about how bad that joke was is the biggest ‘fail forward’ we’ve had in a while,” muttered Shadow, her voice wry.
Another round of chuckling passed through the ponies then, even as Solvei and Toklo shared a glance, momentarily united in their not seeing the humor. It was enough to make Mystaria sigh in relief, glad that the tension from before was finally dissipating.
But after several seconds of quiet laughter, all eyes turned toward Lex.
Hovering near the edge of the protective dome he’d conjured, the pony-turned-shadow had yet to react to anything that had happened over the last several minutes, continuing to steadfastly shut out everyone around him as he stared out into the darkness. And he seemed intent on continuing to do so now, showing no indication that he was aware that everyone had turned their eyes toward him.
“Lex…” murmured Drafty quietly, and the plaintive tone in her voice made Mystaria’s heart ache for the poor girl. Given how deeply in love with him the pegasus was, being ignored like that had to hurt worse than having a gash torn across her face. It was one thing for him to shut out people he didn’t trust, but Drafty couldn’t have been more obvious in her devotion, and now-
Solvei suddenly sat up straighter, her eyes widening. “Yes, Master!”
Everyone watched, suddenly rapt with attention, as the winter wolf strode over to Lex’s side…just as he turned back into a pony for the first time in several hours.
A grunt escaped his lips as he steadied himself, the awful wounds that he’d taken before still present. But he had to bear them for only a moment, as his winter wolf was immediately at his side, apparently already having been imbued with restorative powers. A single touch from her was all it took to fix Lex’s broken leg, the cut on his head closing a second later, followed by his bruises fading. By the time Solvei put her paw down, Lex looked as though he’d never been hurt to begin with…though the bitterness of his expression, far more pronounced than his usual sardonic look, made it clear that he hadn’t gotten over what had happened.
But at least now he’s stopped ignoring us, which means now we can start focusing on doing better next time, decided Mystaria, smiling as she took a step toward Lex. “Welcome back. Do you want to eat something first, or should we…Lex?”
But the stallion in question didn’t answer her, didn’t even look in her direction, before turning his back on her and lying down near the edge of the dome, pulling his cloak tighter around himself.
A round of looks – confused, dismayed, and disgusted – were exchanged among the Fail Forward mares, even as Drafty crept toward the reclining stallion. “Lex, please, don’t be-, hey!”
Her objection came as Solvei padded up behind Thermal Draft and took the scruff of the pegasus’ neck in her jaws, lifting her up and carrying her away from Lex. “Solvei, what are you doing?!”
“Master wishes to be left alone right now,” replied the winter wolf, her voice sad as she gently put Drafty down several paces away from Lex.
“But…but he changed back to normal,” protested Drafty, a stricken look on her face. “I thought that meant-”
“He changed back because he needs rest,” answered Solvei, her voice taking on a resigned tone. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed, by you or anyone else.”
The winter wolf didn’t wait for a reply, padding back toward Lex and curling up next to him protectively, keeping her body between his and the others, leaving Drafty standing there looking crushed and everyone else scowling, Mystaria included.
She hadn’t gotten through to him at all.