Silence reigned in the wake of Lex’s bold pronouncement. Sonata looked like she was about to squeal in happiness, while Fireflower looked like he was preparing to be sick.
“You can’t be serious!” he choked out, glancing back and forth between Lex’s look of determination and Sonata’s grin. “Do you have…do you understand what you’re talking about? This is a dragon! You’d need an army to slay it!”
“That’s what’s going to make us so awesome when we do it all by ourselves!” smiled Sonata. She could practically see the parade that would be held in their honor!
“How ‘awesome’ do you think it will be when you have to see that thing kill someone you love?!” Fireflower’s shout snapped Sonata out of her daydream. “Do you have any idea how that feels? Because I do, and it’s awful!” He screwed up his features into a look of resolve before shaking his head. “I am not going back there.”
“You don’t have a choice,” replied Lex coldly. “We need to find out where this thing lives, and right now you’re the only one who’s seen where that is. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You’re taking us there.”
Despite being bound by chains, Fireflower looked ready to argue the point, but stopped as Sonata gently put a hoof on his side. “I’m sorry about what happened to Watermaple,” she said gently. “Were you close?”
“Waterlily, and of course we were,” snapped Fireflower testily. He didn’t seem to be able to sustain his anger though, and he let out a sigh a moment later, looking down. “She is…she was…my little sister. We’re all siblings. Rockwood, Shadowvine, Waterlily, Brightrose, Breezyleaf, and me. We’ve been together our whole lives.”
Lex opened his mouth, intent on making it clear that he couldn’t have cared less and reiterating that this was too important to indulge one not-pony’s fit of pique, but his attitude must have been written all over his face because Sonata glanced at him and gave a slight shake of her head. Reluctantly, Lex bit back his words.
Before they had started this ill-fated journey, he and Sonata had worked out an agreement, where she would speak for him so that his ideas could be presented while still observing whatever social nonsense was required for ponies to actually consider them. Normally, that meant that he’d use magic to quietly feed her what he wanted to say, and she’d parse it into something more digestible for simpler minds.
In this case, he was willing to allow her a greater degree of latitude. Unlike whatever ineffable quality he possessed that invariably upset ponies when he tried to explain why he knew better than them, Sonata had incredible social grace. Even without magic, she usually found it easy to charm others, and had proven how valuable that made her time and again. As such, Lex was willing to trust that she could do so here as well.
“I have, I used to have, two sisters. Aria and Adagio.” Sonata’s voice lacked its usual exuberant tone. “They never liked me very much, and I felt the same way, but no matter what happened we were always together.”
Lifting his gaze to look at her, Fireflower couldn’t help but ask. “What happened to them?”
Sonata smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I guess you could say the band broke up.” She glanced around to see if either stallion appreciated her quip. When neither seemed to, she sighed and tried again. "We were raising trouble the way we usually did, and we all got punished for it. I know that Adagio cut some sort of deal for herself, and Aria was banished somewhere, but that’s about it.” She was silent for a moment, then admitted, “I don’t really want to see them again, but I wouldn’t want what happened to Waterlily to happen to them.”
“Then how can you ask me-” started Fireflower, but Sonata cut him off.
“This pony right here,” she pointed at Lex, “is, like, the smartest pony ever. He says that something really bad is going to happen to Tall Tale, a town near here, really soon, and that that dragon might be what does it.” She paused to let that sink in, then continued. “If he’s right, then what happened to your sister will happen to a lot of ponies. We want to stop that, but we can’t do it without your help.”
“I…” Fireflower’s ears folded back, and he seemed to struggle with the decision before coming to a resolution. “Alright. But only to take you to where the cave was. You’re on your own for fighting it. I’m not going to join you in committing suicide-by-dragon.”
Lex snorted contemptuously, more at the idea that Fireflower would ever have been part of his plans, even nascent as they were, to defeat the dragon than at the aranea’s cowardice. His derision was lost amidst Sonata’s clapping of her hooves in appreciation, however.
“Thank you so much! We really appreciate your help with this, and when we’re done we’ll make sure you get some of the credit too!” She smiled over at Lex, making a small gesture, nodding her head towards Fireflower with exaggerated motions.
Frowning, Lex squinted in confusion. Unlike her shaking her head at him earlier, he had no idea what she was trying to signal at him now. Seeing that she hadn’t been understood, she repeated the motion, causing Lex to scowl. Did she really think that if he hadn’t understood her the first time, doing it again would make things any more clear? When she did it for a third time, Lex’s patience finally broke. “I don’t know what you’re signaling,” he said flatly.
“Like, oh my gosh!” Sonata rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I’m telling you to let the chains off of him!”
“What? No!” retorted Lex immediately. “Absolutely not! He-, no, it,” he pointed a hoof at Fireflower, “is too dangerous!” To indicate this, he turned so that he was standing in profile to her, making obvious the burn on his side where he’d been struck by the aranea’s spell during their fight.
“I’m sorry about that,” piped up Fireflower. “Really. I panicked because, when you started chasing me, I thought you might be another aranea whose territory I’d wandered into. I hadn’t eaten or slept in days. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“That’s still kinda weird, isn’t it?” asked Sonata. “I mean, if you ran into others of your own kind, wouldn’t you ask them for help?”
Fireflower shook his head. “Maybe that’s how it is for ponies, but we’re different. We keep to ourselves in small colonies, and only go into another colony’s territory when we’re looking to, you know…” he turned slightly red, “to meet someone else. Even then, there’s supposed to be some formal way of declaring yourself, or so Brightrose told me. Anything else is an attack.”
“Nopony cares,” said Lex curtly. “The chains stay on.”
“Can you excuse us for a moment?” Sonata asked Fireflower with a tight smile. She didn’t wait for an answer before going over to Lex and whispering harshly, “Why are you being such a jerk about this? He said he’d help us, so we need to do something nice to show that we trust him!”
“It’s an ‘it,’ not a ‘him,’ and I don’t trust it!” Lex hissed back. “You didn’t see this thing before, Sonata! It may look like a pony, and talk and act like a pony, but it isn’t a pony!”
“…Is that how you think about me?” asked Sonata quietly.
Her question had only been meant to make him listen to himself, to hear how unfair he was being, but the effect was far more dramatic than she’d expected. Lex gave a start, as though she’d slapped him, and for a moment he gaped at her as though he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.
Sonata realized that, for whatever reason, he’d taken serious offense to what she’d just said, and opened her mouth to try and walk it back, but it was already too late. Lex’s face settled into a cold mask, and the look he gave her didn’t have even the slightest trace of affection in it, displaying nothing but antipathy. “Have it your way, then,” he said tonelessly, and stomped a hoof on the ground. Instantly, the black crystal chains around Fireflower shattered, crumbling into powder.
Sitting up gingerly, Fireflower knew better than to say anything to the feuding pair, unable to help having heard their entire conversation in the close confines of the extradimensional room. Instead he made sure to keep his gaze firmly on the floor, trying to give them at least the illusion of privacy.
He didn’t need to try very hard, as both ponies seemed to have forgotten he was there. For her part, it was with a sinking feeling that Sonata tried to repair the situation. “Lex…c’mon, don’t be like this.” She tried to put a hoof on his shoulder, but he batted it away.
“We have a long day tomorrow. Go to sleep.” It was unmistakably a command, and Sonata’s ears folded back at the harshness of his words.
Not willing to let this go, she tried again. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re so upset, but I’m really-”
“I told you to shut up and go to sleep,” Lex cut her off, and although his voice was quiet it was practically dripping with venom. “Now, I know you’re stupid, but are you really too stupid to understand even that much?”
Stung, Sonata fell back, and she could feel her eyes watering. “Fine! Just…fine!” Stomping to the other side of the small room, she practically threw herself down, facing away from him.
Lex then turned his gaze to Fireflower, but the other stallion had already anticipated that Lex’s instructions were meant for him as well, and he had settled into one another corner of the room, facing the wall. Nevertheless, Lex glared at him for long moments, actively hoping that that monstrous, disgusting thing that wore a pony’s form would do something to provoke him. He wanted to storm out of there, but that was impossible in the current circumstances; if he left and that spider-monster hurt Sonata…even imagining that level of guilt and self-recrimination was almost too much to bear.
Fireflower failed to provide any provocation, however, and Lex slowly forced himself to lie down as well. He could hear Sonata sniffling, but the sound only made him angrier. She had hurt him deeply by questioning his feelings for her, and she was going to act like the wounded party?! Though she was facing away from him, he couldn’t help but give her a hateful glare. Sleep, he knew, would be a long time in coming.
A few feet away, Sonata was similarly doubtful that she’d get much rest. She’d been with Lex long enough to have gotten used to him ranting and yelling whenever he was mad about something, but she knew from experience that when he got all quiet like this was when he was at his angriest. That had only happened once before, when they had been lost in the realm of the goddess Kara, and that time, just like this time, she had no idea why he suddenly hated her so much, or how she could fix it.
The only thing that had snapped him out of it then was when Kara had whisked her away to privately console her, and Lex had apparently freaked out that she’d disappeared. Sort of disappeared, at least. She’d later found out that he and everypony that was with them had seen her and Kara’s talk, but even so…he’d been so relieved to have her back that the fight had been over.
Kara, I really wish you were here right now, thought Sonata miserably. I could really use your help again. Sonata rubbed her watery eyes as she remembered the nice mare that had soothed her troubled heart before.
It was nothing more than a passing wish, formed more from desperation more than any sincere hope that it would come true. But even that was still a prayer, and Sonata had no idea that at that moment, her sincere feelings towards the goddess were winding their way across the planes toward their intended recipient…