“I’m sorry, you guys? Would you mind giving me and Lex a few minutes alone?”
Drafty gave an apologetic smile to the other mares as they shot her looks ranging from surprised to exasperated, clearly not having anticipated being asked to leave the dome Lex had conjured right before finally going to sleep. But as bad as she felt at asking them to exit the warmth and comfort of the shelter, she didn’t withdraw her request.
It had been barely an hour ago that Lex had finally, after coming out of his days-long refusal to engage with anyone, indicated that he wanted to talk about what their having slept together meant. At the time Drafty had panicked, not having been prepared for him to suddenly bring that up, and it had only been Kara’s timely intervention – the goddess feeding her an excuse to postpone the discussion – that had allowed her to change topics. But while she’d been relieved then, it hadn’t taken long for her to start wondering if she’d missed an opportunity.
Their current circumstances couldn’t have been less conducive to the kind of heart-to-heart Drafty wanted to have with Lex. They were currently camped out in the middle of a forest that made the Everfree look like a picnic ground, with their shelter set up a stone’s throw away from the corpse of a giant bug that they’d killed earlier in the evening, and the nearby adlets were currently in the process of quite literally cannibalizing one of their dead. There was nothing remotely peaceful – let alone romantic – about their situation.
But that was unlikely to change in the near future. If anything, it was the current moment of relative calm that would be coming to an end soon. Which meant that if Lex was interested in clarifying what sort of relationship they had, she couldn’t afford to brush him off; there was no telling when, or if, he’d show this much interest in her again.
Of course, that presumed that he wasn’t just going to tell her that the night they’d spent together had been a mistake, or that he’d lost respect for her for throwing herself at him the way she had, or that he never wanted to see her again after they got back to Equestria. She knew that last one wasn’t likely, of course; Lex had made it very clear that he felt responsible for what had happened to her soul, and that he’d find a way to fix it no matter what, but it was amazing how nervous she felt all of a sudden!
Don’t worry, Sweetheart, cooed Kara in her mind. Just follow my instructions, and I promise that when you and Lex are done talking, you’ll be a very happy mare.
The goddess’ guarantee was enough to make Drafty shiver – this time as much in anticipation as nervousness – but she didn’t have a chance to dwell on that as the others, realizing that she was serious, voiced their complaints.
“Seriously?” groaned Spinner, looking up from where she’d just unfurled her bedroll. “It’s got to be after midnight!”
Shadow didn’t even bother to raise her gaze, fiddling with her saddlebags. “If you two want privacy, you can leave,” she snorted, retying a drawstring knot. “I’m not standing around in the cold and the dark while you have a quickie.”
Lex, who had been laying out a few gemstones before Drafty had made her request, glared at the masked mare then. He didn’t say anything, but a moment later Solvei – who had laid down across from him – stood up. “You can wait outside,” she growled, “or I can throw you out. Your choice.”
This time Shadow did look up, ignoring Solvei in favor of sending a hateful glare at Lex. “You know, at least Toklo’s father had the guts to make his threats himself, instead of having one of his subordinates do it.”
Growling, Solvei took a step forward, but Valor reached the earth pony before the winter wolf could. “C’mon, Shadow,” she sighed, taking the masked mare’s tail in her teeth and pulling her toward the edge of the dome. “Let’s go.”
“Ow! Valor!” yelped Shadow, struggling to keep to her hooves as her friend dragged her outside. “You’re really going to let him order us around like this?!”
“It was a request, not an order,” yawned Mystaria, scooping up Littleknight – the almiraj not even waking up as she deposited it on her back – as she moved to follow the pair. “And it was Drafty’s request, not Lex’s.”
As the trio left, Spinner heaved a sigh that seemed to come from her hooves, eyeing her bedroll wistfully before standing up and trudging after her friends. “Try and make it quick, will you? We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“Y-yeah...” called Drafty, trying not to feel too self-conscious, but the filidh was already outside of the dome and walking away.
Solvei glanced at Lex once before nodding in response to some telepathic command, and then went after then, having just enough time to shoot Drafty a wan smile before following the other mares, leaving the pegasus alone with Lex, who was now regarding her with a neutral expression. “If you want more spell-embedded gemstones-”
“I don’t,” blurted Drafty, the words coming out in a nervous rush, and she winced a little as she saw him frown at her. “I’m sorry, I just...”
Deep breaths, murmured Kara, her voice steady and soothing. Nice and easy. Just like I told you before, okay? Now, ask him directly.
Knowing that she’d lose her nerve if she hesitated, Drafty plunged ahead. “Lex...is what Mystaria said about you not being able to replenish your magic true?”
He went rigid with tension then, and Drafty had to resist the urge to shield her face with her wings, hoping that she hadn’t just sent him into another breakdown. Why Kara had insisted that Drafty begin their talk by bringing that up was beyond the pegasus, but the love goddess had been adamant that this was the way to start things off. And while Drafty had been dubious – her transformation into a doppelganger was still something she was coming to terms with – the fact remained that Kara had gotten her closer to Lex more than once up until now. If she could do it again...
After a pregnant pause, Lex let out a slow breath. “That,” he growled from between clenched teeth, “is none of your concern.”
Relief that he hadn’t gone into a rampage flooded through Drafty then, and she found herself following Kara’s further instructions without hesitation. “Lex, it is my concern. You’re the only one who can undo what Prevarius’ contract has done to my soul. If something’s keeping you from fighting at full power, that puts more than just yourself at risk.”
He flinched at that, and Drafty felt a sudden rush of guilt. Trusting Prevarius had been her own foolish decision, as had been destroying her contract, triggering the clause that her soul would be consigned to oblivion after she died rather than going to Hell. Lex didn’t deserve to have that put on him.
Patience, sweetheart, urged Kara. This is all building toward a purpose.
For his part, Lex had recovered from his brief display of mortification, his expression turning bitter. “I don’t need to be reminded of what’s at stake if I can’t protect you,” he spat. “What you need to be reminded of is that this conversation makes it harder for me to do that!”
This time Drafty didn’t need Kara to tell her what to say. “How?!”
“Because any discussion of the limitations of my capabilities runs the risk of being found out by hostile parties!” he snapped, his eyes flaring into luminescence. “Regardless of your intent, there are any number of ways that information could be leaked! Mind-reading spells, somniloquy, mistaken identity-”
“What are you talking about?!” Flaring her wings in agitation, Drafty tried to make sense of what he was telling her, even as she kept parroting the lines Kara was feeding her. “Lex, everyone already heard Mystaria say that something was wrong with your magic, remember?! You made her say it out loud! We all heard it, so did Toklo, who I’m sure told his dad and all the other adlets here, and I’m betting those monsters who attacked us right afterward heard it too! You’re protecting a secret that’s already out in the open!”
Black crystals were starting to form around him now; not the massive spikes that had marked his complete loss of control a few days ago, but the smaller ones that she knew were indicative of his emotions flaring up. Even so, she followed Kara’s instructions and stepped closer to him.
His face was twisted in a snarl of rage and frustration, but although his eyes were glowing bright green – the purple flames from their outer corners flickering of their own accord – what she saw when she gazed into them wasn’t hate or anger or resentment.
It was fear.
Suddenly Drafty knew exactly what Kara was doing.
“I’m not bringing this up because I don’t trust you,” she murmured, closing the distance between them even more. “I’m doing it because I want to help. I want to be more than some burden you have to protect; I want to be someone you can rely on, the way you do with Solvei.”
Lex was the one who looked away from her then, his eyes suddenly turning back to normal as the black crystals around him abruptly crumbled to dust. “What happened with Solvei wasn’t by design,” he muttered, sound almost petulant.
“But you still make use of her now,” pointed out Thermal Draft. “That’s something the Night Mare is big on, right? Using the resources you have available? Well, my ability to use micro-rituals is a resource. I want to put it at your disposal, but since I don’t have a psychic connection to you the way Solvei does, I need to understand what you’re capable of so that I can make snap decisions in a fight.”
Lex’s ears folded back then, his face scrunching up as though he’d bitten into a lemon, and for some reason Drafty found it so adorable that she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Instead, she gave him a gentle smile. “Lex, there’s no downside to this. I know you wanted to keep what’s wrong with your magic a secret, but now that it’s out there, shouldn’t we make the best of it?”
For a moment he didn’t answer, scowling as he stared at the ground next to her, before he suddenly raised his eyes back to hers. “Back in the village, why did you proposition me?”
And there it was.
Just like Kara had predicted, Lex had sought to change the subject to something else when he couldn’t argue the point any further, bringing up the topic that she’d dodged earlier that night.
But this wasn’t like when he’d asked her that before. Last time, there’d been a sense of detachment when he’d asked her about what they’d done, as though he wasn’t particularly interested in her answer but was simply looking for something to talk about and hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
Now, however, that aura of indifference that he’d had was completely gone. Talking about whatever was wrong with his magic had touched a nerve with him, but unlike a few days ago – when raising the issue had driven him completely over the edge – it wasn’t so bad that he lost all control over himself. Instead, whatever fears he was dealing with were eroding the emotional walls he normally kept up, causing him to inadvertently showcase the vulnerability – and the intimacy – she knew that he was capable of, having shown it to her before, when she’d disguised herself as Sonata in order to steal an intimate encounter with him.
And now he was showing it to her again, without thinking that she was someone else.
In her mind, Kara laughed in delight, and Drafty could feel her heart beating faster even as she gave Lex a coy look. “For the same reason that you accepted me when I did,” she murmured, moving closer to him. “Because I knew.”
Lex’s brow furrowed, but only a little, and he didn’t back away as she moved closer than was polite. “Knew what?”
“That you’d made a vow to the Night Mare,” she responded softly, leaning in to nuzzle him. “To take no wife” – she planted her lips on the side of his neck then – “to keep no mistress” – her next kiss pressed against his jawline – “to have no girlfriend” – and then she brushed her lips softly against his own.
“Because I knew,” she whispered, wrapping her wings around him then, “that the only way you’d accept me was if we didn’t talk about it, didn’t put a label on it, didn’t try to formalize it. And we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t talk about what it meant, or what to call it, or what happens next. We should just accept it. Maybe not forever, or even until we get home, but just...just for right now...we let this be whatever it is.”
Another long silence fell over them then, and even in Drafty’s mind, Kara was quiet. What happened now, whether Lex was willing to go along with what she’d proposed – a state of affairs so nebulous and imprecise even she wasn’t sure what it meant – was entirely up to him.
Finally, after almost a full minute of stillness, Lex spoke.
“The reason I can’t replenish my thaumaturgical spellcasting is because there’s a flaw in how I created it...”