• Published 2nd Nov 2015
  • 4,031 Views, 10,118 Comments

Lateral Movement - Alzrius



Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.

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12 - Fiery Feelings

Sonata woke up slowly, rubbing her eyes with a yawn. She frowned as she realized she felt sad, but couldn’t remember why. Glancing around blearily, her eyes fell on Lex, who was sleeping across from her, and she wondered why he wasn’t right next to her…and then her memories from last night came flooding back.

Sagging under the weight of them, she kept looking at her boyfriend – at least she hoped he was still her boyfriend – and wondered what to do. No answers came to her, and with a sigh she started to get up. It was only as she stretched that she caught sight of Fireflower looking at her, apparently already awake.

Forcing herself to smile, she nodded at the room’s exit, and he bobbed his head in understanding. Pausing just long enough to abscond with Lex’s haversack, she shimmied down the rope, followed by the aranea stallion. It was only when they reached the bottom that Sonata gave him a half-hearted “Good morning.”

…or at least, she intended to. But the words got lost as she noted the ragged stump that was his tail. “Oh my gosh, what happened to you?!” The sight was severe enough to chase her misery from her mind, at least momentarily. His tail was completely lacking any hairs, and was an angry red color that looked like it had been severely abraded.

Fireflower’s face was also slightly red, but that was because he was blushing, both from the sudden attention and from where his injury was located. “Oh, er, it happened before…” he trailed off, not quite sure how to say “when I tried to kill that pony you care about so much.” As it was, he was just glad that the damage didn’t seem nearly as bad in this form as it did in his other one. He still wasn’t sure why he had a pony body now instead of a human one, but apparently the magic that let him switch between them had decided that his arachnid form’s spinneret was homologous to a pony’s tail.

Lex did that?” Sonata asked, suddenly indignant on Fireflower’s behalf. “I can’t believe him! Picking on you like that!” She scowled, feeling herself getting angrier the more she thought about it. She knew Lex had been hurt too, but that had just been a small burn; Fireflower’s injury seemed way out of proportion. Between that and how awful Lex had been to her last night, Sonata could almost feel her angst turning into anger.

“Well, um, the thing is…” Fireflower wasn’t sure what to say, since he knew that Sonata’s characterization wasn’t the most accurate way to describe what had happened last night. At the same time, he was reluctant to place himself in a less favorable light with her, considering how much she seemed to be on his side.

Sonata wasn’t listening. “Turn around, let me get a better look.” Not noticing how Fireflower flushed even more as he complied, she dug around in Lex’s haversack. “Let me see, I think that there’s a first-aid kit in here somewhere…ah ha!” Pulling out a small box, she produced a tube of cream and several bandages. “Okay, let’s get that tail patched up!”

It took her a few minutes to rub the ointment on (“stop wriggling so much!”) and get the bandages tied (“I think you’re cutting off my circulation…”), but eventually she gave a satisfied nod. “Much better! Now, let’s get some breakfast!”

Producing some food for the both of them, Sonata handed half of it to Fireflower before she began to dig in, munching quietly. She didn’t notice that her companion kept stealing glances at her as he ate. She was so nice…not like that other pony that was still sleeping up there.

Swallowing a mouthful of oat flakes, Fireflower paused in his mental characterization of Lex, wondering if he was being entirely fair. After all, the surly stallion had still fed him last night when Fireflower had admitted to being very hungry, and for all his talk about not trusting him, he’d still removed the chains when Sonata had pressed him to. For that matter…he could have killed me last night.

He shifted a little, not sure what to make of either of them now that he stopped and thought about it. Lex’s words had been awful, but his sharp tongue seemed to be the extent of his cruelty, and Sonata was much nicer than he’d thought ponies would be. In his colony, only Brightrose and Breezyleaf had traveled outside of their forest. While the former had apparently enjoyed his time abroad, Breezyleaf's description of her travels had not been encouraging, describing most of the other people she'd met as being selfish and moderately xenophobic.

That last term fit Lex to a “T,” though Sonata seemed more open-minded. Moreover, from what little time he’d spent with these two, neither of them seemed very selfish. If anything, they weren’t selfish enough, as they were suicidally intent on fighting a dragon to save a town. Just remembering that made Fireflower shake his head. Wouldn’t it be better just to evacuate the town instead?

He sighed, the thought of fleeing making him wonder about his remaining siblings. They had all scattered once the dragon had attacked, and although poor Waterlily hadn’t made it, he desperately hoped the others had. I hope they’re okay. I miss them so much.

“Hey. A bit for your thoughts.”

Fireflower looked over at Sonata, who had finished eating and was looking at him. He suddenly felt embarrassed, wiping a hoof over his muzzle to clear away any remaining crumbs as he swallowed the last of his food. “Oh. I was just thinking about the others. My siblings, I mean. I haven’t seen them since the dragon, and I’m kind of worried about them.”

“Maybe they ended up at Tall Tale, and we’ll run into them when we get there?” ventured Sonata hopefully.

“I hadn’t thought of that!” admitted Fireflower, his eyes widening at the prospect of possibly seeing his brothers and sisters again. “Wow, that would be great! I just hope I can recognize them. We didn’t have very long to get used to these pony bodies before we were attacked.”

Sonata went over to him, putting a hoof on his shoulder in a show of camaraderie. “I bet we’ll be able to find them, we just have to know what to look for. Do they have anything that makes them stand out?”

Fireflower shrugged. “They’re really good at their type of magic?” he ventured, not sure how that would stack up against whatever magic ponies had.

Sonata’s ears perked up. “Oh yeah, I forgot you can use magic! What kind?”

“Oh, um, fire magic.” Caught off-guard by her interest, he fumbled to expand on what he thought of as a very simple, straightforward type of magic. “It’s actually really versatile, and it can be used for a lot of different-”

“That’s so cool!” interrupted Sonata, her voice brimming with enthusiasm. “I wish my magic could be all flashy like that! I mean, it’s cool to be able to make people do what I want and all, even if Lex says that it’s all, like, ‘immoral’ or whatever…” she trailed off, her good mood dampening as her thoughts turned back to the pony that she was currently feuding with. Refusing to let that jerk drag her down, she forced herself to keep talking. “But having fire spells must be, like, a total showstopper! You totes have to show me some!”

“Really?” Fireflower wanted to say something impressive to match her unexpectedly positive view of his magic, but found that he couldn’t stop a big, goofy grin from spreading across his face. Feeling unexpectedly warm, he got momentarily lost in Sonata’s smile for a moment before he came back to himself. “You mean right now?”

“Yeah. Show me what you got!” nodded Sonata. Fireflower was such a nice pony, how could Lex be so awful to him? It totally served him right to miss out on all of this awesome magic!

Fireflower trotted several yards away from Sonata. “Stand back, this is dangerous,” he warned her. In fact, this spell wasn’t really very dangerous at all, since he had total control over the effect. But he couldn’t resist the urge to try and impress her. Sonata nodded, backing up to give him some room.

Chanting and making several gestures with his hooves, Fireflower cast one of the strongest spells he knew, causing a large ball composed of flames five feet in diameter to appear between them. Hearing Sonata’s cry of wonder, he felt his spirit soar. “You think that’s something, how do you like this?” he called, and with a moment’s concentration, began rolling it around so that it circled her, making sure that it stayed far enough away from her to be safe. Sonata, for her part, let out another whoop, stomping her hooves in delight.

Both of them were caught completely by surprise when Lex suddenly dropped down into their midst. His teeth were bared in a snarl, his horn was sheathed in a roiling purple aura, and his eyes were blazing green as they locked onto Fireflower.

I'LL KILL YOU!


Lex awoke suddenly. By itself that wasn’t unusual, as his nightmares always caused him to snap awake with a start. But this time he knew immediately that wasn’t the case. Instead, something had tripped the alarm spell that he had set last night, meaning that something was within twenty feet of the entrance to their extradimensional hideaway.

His head snapping up as he instantly realized that there was a threat, Lex’s blood ran cold as he realized that both Sonata and that spider-thing were gone. An instant later, he heard Sonata’s voice cry out, and in the split-second that it took him to turn his gaze to the window around the room’s entrance, he heard Fireflower’s voice call out, “You think that’s something, how do you like this?” A moment later, the edge of a large globe of fire rolled through the window’s field of view.

The information collated in his mind instantaneously, coming to the logical conclusion: something had happened, and now that thing was attacking Sonata.

Even as Lex bodily hurled himself across the few feet to the room’s exit, time seemed to slow down. A thousand thoughts flowed through his mind. How could this have happened? No, how could he have let this happen? They knew absolutely nothing for certain about this “aranea,” except that it was a dangerous creature from a dangerous world; everything else that it had offered them was unverifiable, and therefore suspect. To have let it be completely without restraint, to actually fall asleep and let it have unsupervised access to both of them while they were completely defenseless…what kind of insanity had seized him that he’d allowed that?

Except he knew exactly what madness had taken hold of him. He’d let himself to be blinded by how hurt he’d felt when Sonata had suggested that his feelings for her were less than completely sincere. It seemed so stupid now, so incredibly foolish to have let something like that get in the way of making sure that she was safe. And now…now she was going to pay the price for his childishness.

What if it’s already killed her? The words from his shadow floated through his mind, even as his forelegs reached the exit and started to pass through. What if she’s dead, and the last thing you ever said to her was to tell her how stupid you thought she was? The thought of that made Lex feel as it something was squeezing his heart, and for an instant it was like he couldn’t breathe.

…and then he was through the entrance, and falling towards the ground, and he could see her. The globe of fire was passing around her, and he could see her crying out, her hooves working under her as if she wanted to run but didn’t know where, but she was alright.

She was alive…

Time started to flow normally again, and Lex reached the ground, already turning his head to where he’d spotted Fireflower out of his periphery. The cold feeling that had taken hold of him had left with the realization that the one pony that actually mattered to him was still in this world. What replaced it was a sense of rage so powerful that, as soon as Fireflower became centered in his field of view, Lex’s vision momentarily swam.

I’LL KILL YOU!

Author's Note:

The worst part of bad decisions is that they tend to beget more bad decisions.

Can Lex's rage be quenched before he makes an even bigger mistake?

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