• 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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2 - Keeping Things on the Rails

“You bought the wrong tickets?!” Lex’s angry shout seemed to fill the train car, making Sonata wince. “How could you possibly have bought the wrong tickets?!”

“Um, I-”

Lex didn’t give her a chance to answer, continuing to rant. “This entire time we’ve been talking about going to Vanhoover! Princess Celestia and Princess Luna said that they’d cede me authority over Vanhoover! Twilight gave us an overview of the current situation in Vanhoover! When we looked at the map in the royal library, the city we focused on was Vanhoover! So why,” he lifted the pair of boarding passes in his telekinetic grip, waving them in Sonata’s face, “do we have tickets for Tall Tale?!”

The silence that followed was deafening, and it took Sonata a moment to realize that Lex’s last question hadn’t been rhetorical. Flattening her ears, she glanced around to see if there was anything that would let her easily change the subject. Naturally, there was nothing to be found; the car had been empty before, and even the train attendant had fled after Lex had begun shouting in response to finding out that they had bought tickets for the wrong train.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out why he’d run away. Whenever Lex used his magic, even something as innocuous as lifting things with his horn’s telekinesis, his eyes began to glow with a sickly green light, and purple contrails sprouted from the outer corners of them. Together with his eerie-looking shadow and his blood-colored horn, the latter of which was currently sheathed in a roiling purple aura, matching the one surrounding the pair of tickets, the entire display was quite intimidating.

“Um, I just thought that, you know…since Tall Tale and Vanhoover were right next to each other, that a train that went to one would have to go to the other,” Sonata explained, a sheepish smile spreading across her face. Maybe Lex would get captivated by how cute she looked when she was embarrassed, and forget all about being angry at her?

He wasn’t. “Right next to each other? What are you talking about? They’re not right next to each other, they’re separated by over twenty miles and a river!”

“But on that map they were almost side-by-side!” Sonata protested.

Lex’s features softened, but only to the extent that some of his anger changed into incredulity. Before they’d left, they’d looked at a map of Equestria with Twilight. Being a sister city to Vanhoover, Tall Tale was located just to the south of it, which on a map that showcased the entire continent made them appear very nearly adjacent to one another. Apparently Sonata had read a little too deeply into that.

“You have to take into account the map’s scale.” The words, spoken around gritted teeth, were almost a growl.

A look of incomprehension spread across Sonata’s face. “Its scale? But it didn’t look like it weighed very much.”

Lex’s answer was to press a hoof to his face and groan, every inch of him radiating exasperation. Sonata waited for him to get ahold of himself, but Lex didn’t move, apparently unable to do anything but struggle to deal with how big of an idiot she was.

Almost thirty seconds went by like that, and Sonata could feel herself starting to get upset. So she’d made one little mistake! It wasn’t worth all of the melodrama! “Look, it’s not like this is a major problem or anything. So Tall Tale’s like, a little bit away from Vanhoover. It’s still not that far away. We’ll get there and then hitch a ride the rest of the way on a wagon or something. It’ll be fun!”

Lex lifted his face from his hoof at that, but only to give her a sour look, clearly disagreeing with her assessment of the situation. “C’mon, I’m serious!” she pressed. “Twenty miles isn’t that big of a deal, and I bet we can even get some of the locals in Tall Tale to-, oh my gosh!” Her eyes widened as a totally brilliant idea came to her. “Like, brainstorm! We can talk to the ponies in Tall Tale and get them to help us help Vanhoover!” She stood up on her hind legs and spread her forelegs wide, a huge smile on her face, clearly thrilled with herself.

Lex frowned, not in disapproval but in thought as he considered the notion. He doubted it would be that easy, since it was likely that Tall Tale had experienced their own problems. Still, it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. If nothing else, it would allow them to figure out why, according to Twilight, Vanhoover had never asked its neighboring city for assistance after the floodwaters had receded. At the very least, a brief stopover would let them spend their bits to purchase a modest supply of food and medical supplies to help with their relief efforts.

“I…suppose that’s not a bad idea,” he admitted.

“You see? It’s seren-, um, sering…it’s a happy accident.” Despite flubbing the word, Sonata was all smiles as she fell back onto all fours. “I totes had a plan all along, I just didn’t know it!”

“The word is ‘serendipity,’” corrected Lex with a snort, but Sonata picked up on the wry tone in his voice and couldn’t help but giggle, delighted at how she’d turned things around.

“C’mon, let’s run into town and get that lunch before-” just as she spoke, the train gave a lurch, causing the pair to stumble as it began to pull out of the station.

“…or we could just head on over to the dining car?”


After eating, the pair returned to what had unofficially become “their car,” since nopony else ever seemed to want to be in there for some reason. Lex had returned to his scrolls and Sonata was watching the scenery, letting several hours pass in the patterns they'd established.

“Lex, you should take a look at this. The leaves are just starting to change colors, and the sunset is making them all look, like, super pretty!” She couldn’t help but stare out of the window, enraptured by the beautiful vista.

Her very special somepony failed to match her enthusiasm, giving a half-hearted “yeah” without looking up from the notes he was jotting on one of his scrolls. For the last three days, he’d spent virtually all of his free time jotting down notes about what to do once they arrived in Vanhoover. For all of his work, the results were far from the comprehensive plan that he would have preferred.

When dealing with a natural disaster, the best-case scenario was to prevent the disaster from occurring in the first place, or at least to have plans and mechanisms in place to reduce the damage as much as possible. That opportunity was long passed by now though, so instead they needed to put everything possible on relief and recovery.

The problem was that both of those things required a great deal of funding, resources, and ponypower to accomplish…and Lex was keenly aware that he and Sonata were distinctly lacking in all of those things. Even though they’d been given a large sack full of bits, and even though they each commanded magical powers far in excess of what other ponies could use, that still wasn’t going to be enough to make a measurable impact on a city with tens of thousands of ponies.

This would have been easy if Celestia and Luna had simply given me all of Equestria like I wanted them to, he groused internally. Had the alicorn sisters acceded to his demands and abdicated in favor of him, fixing this problem would have been far simpler! With the whole of Equestria at his disposal, it would have been foal’s play to move money and materials to the areas that needed them most via emergency decrees. The neighborly sentiment that characterized the individual towns and cities across the country would have been elevated into a national sense of unity, letting the recovery effort swell in response.

And of course, he would have been at the center of it all, directing everything in the most efficient and orderly manner possible. With the efficacy of his leadership on display, there would have been no problem with expanding the scope of the work, and surpassing the prosperity that Equestria had been enjoying before the elemental bleeds had struck.

But now…

Now, with the alicorn sisters granting him only a single city, the best that he could hope for was to make use of whatever resources were still available in Vanhoover, and that was a dicey prospect at best. Between the extensive scope of damage that a major flood could cause, and that the survivors would be desperate to get their hooves on anything they could in order to sustain themselves in the aftermath, Lex couldn’t imagine that there was a surfeit of materials, capital, or goodwill that he’d be able to draw upon once they arrived.

They did it on purpose. The words flowed through Lex’s mind, filled with malice despite their lack of a voice. They set you up to fail, and you were foolish enough to agree to their terms.

Lex glanced at his shadow, currently spreading across rows of empty seats towards the back of the car, perpendicular to the sunset shining in from the windows, knowing that it was the source of the spiteful words. Or rather, that his shadow was the closest that the source of the words could come to a material manifestation in the real world.

In fact, the real source of the hateful dialogue was a rebellious fragment of his own mind, giving his fears and doubts a quasi-life of their own. Still, as long as he kept himself in check and didn’t respond to its barbs, he knew it would sink back into silence and leave him alone…at least for a little while.

“…Lex?”

His musings interrupted as Sonata poked him gently, Lex looked over at her. She was sitting directly in front of the sunset, and the effect was stunning. The panorama of gentle colors played over her, making her mane and her coat catch the soft light in a way that made them appear incandescent. The sight of her in that moment pushed everything else from his mind.

Sonata blinked as Lex looked at her with an inscrutable expression. She was about to ask him if something was wrong, when he leaned towards her, giving her just enough time to feel surprised before he kissed her gently.

The effect was electric. They had confessed their feelings for each other only a few days ago, just before they’d started this trip in fact, and since then they hadn’t shared very many kisses…and almost all of those had been initiated by her. As such, the sudden press of his lips against hers was enough to make her melt, and she momentarily forgot what she’d been about to tell him in favor of closing her eyes and reveling in the romantic moment.

“Er…”

The two of them jumped at the unexpected voice, the moment suddenly shattered at the interruption. Two pairs of eyes swung around to behold a blushing Ticket Stub, who was standing beside their seats with a wide, shallow box full of various items. “I, uh, I was just asking the lady if either of you wanted a postcard or a brochure for Tall Tale…” he smiled awkwardly. Sonata flushed, suddenly remembering why she’d called Lex’s name in the first place.

For his part, Lex stared silently at the train attendant, who fidgeted in growing nervousness. “We also have, um, m-magazines or newspapers if you’d p-prefer,” he all but whimpered, holding up a newspaper as though to shield himself from the outpouring of wrath that he was certain was imminent.

The newspaper was suddenly snatched away by unicorn’s telekinesis, and Ticket squeaked in fear, squeezing his eyes shut. But there was no outburst accompanying the paper’s loss, and after a moment he opened his eyes a crack. Much to his surprise, the stallion was reading the paper intently, apparently absorbed in the headline.

Ticket shared a look with Sonata, her face reflecting the surprise that he was sure was on his own. “I, uh, guess we’ll take a newspaper,” she hesitantly offered. She tossed him a few bits in payment, and he grabbed them before fleeing from the car while his good fortune held out.

Once she was sure they were alone again, Sonata nudged her traveling companion. “Hey. Wanna pick up where we left off?” No response was forthcoming, with Lex apparently unable to tear himself away from the newspaper. “Lex?” she tried again.

She got a reaction that time. Or rather, there was a reaction, but it wasn’t in response to her, as his eyes stayed firmly affixed to the newspaper even as they suddenly blazed green and purple, his lips pulling back in a snarl of rage. “Those nags!” he hissed in sudden fury. “Those miserable…treacherous…backbiting…nags!

Author's Note:

It's almost painful how new Lex and Sonata are to the whole "relationship" thing. But so far they seem to be making it work...mostly.

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