411 - Alternative Lifestyles
It was with a sense of profound regret that Lex slowly released Sonata and Aria, ending their romantic embrace.
Although he’d never considered himself to be sentimental, Lex nevertheless found himself wishing that he’d been a better boyfriend to the mares that had come to mean so much to him. Even if he had little idea of precisely how he might have done that, he still found himself lamenting that he hadn’t done more for them. No matter that Vanhoover’s ponies had needed his attention more. No matter that they’d been beset by monsters and enemies time and again. The fact that he’d taken their love so completely for granted made his heart ache with sorrow now.
It had been Sonata and Aria’s ridiculous scheme to make him enslave them that had made Lex realize just how badly he’d neglected them. As ill-conceived as their plan had been, it had still been their way of fighting to preserve their relationship with him. In their own way, the two of them had been willing to assume a great deal of risk in hope of staying with him, even more than he had when he’d summoned Harrowing Ordeal. While Lex had been prepared to sacrifice love in the name of duty, having seen no other alternative when the scabrous stallion’s advice had proven unusable, seeing Sonata and Aria go so far in order to protect their relationship had driven home the full cost of what he’d be giving up.
Just like the Night Mare had said: this was a sacrifice of something valuable to him. Something he’d miss.
“Is there any chance she’s bluffing?”
Aria’s question made Lex blink, not understanding what she meant. “What?”
“The Night Mare,” she explained tersely. “I mean, we weren’t being serious about trying to overthrow you. You sentenced us to be turned to stone even though you can’t actually do that. Maybe she’s just bluffing about making you dump us.”
Sonata jumped in, already grinning at the idea. “Yeah! Like, maybe you’re supposed to get up in her face and be all, ‘Do you’re worst, lady, ‘cuz I’m fighting for love!’ And then she’ll be like ‘Ha! That was the right answer all along!’ And you won’t actually have to break up with us after all!”
But Lex was already shaking his head. “I can assure you, her demand was entirely forthright.” Of that much he felt certain. The Night Mare had made it more than plain that she had reached the end of her patience with his lack of progress in promulgating her religion. As much as she lionized perseverance in the face of adversity, Lex was positive that she would make good on her threat to kill him and collect his soul if he defied her now.
Aria shrugged. “Then we’re back to that ugly freak’s love-slave idea.”
“No.” Despite the melancholy enveloping him, Lex didn’t hesitate. “That’s not something I’m prepared to do.”
“Why not?” whined Sonata. “We want it, you want it, so what’s the problem?”
“My government does not turn people into property, Sonata,” replied Lex. “There’s no way-”
“Yes there is,” interrupted Aria.
Lex frowned, giving her a reproachful look. “No, there isn’t.”
“Yes,” Aria insisted, stomping a hoof in agitation, “there is! You just haven’t figured it out yet!” Huffing, she glared at him. “You defeated that hideous thing you summoned by weakening the magic you used to bring him here! You sentenced the two of us to be turned to stone and then got us out of it on a technicality! So why can’t you do the same thing here?”
“Strictly speaking, you didn’t ‘get out’ of being petri-”
“There! That right there!” Pointing a hoof at him, Aria continued ranting. “Every time you run into a problem based on what you can’t do or aren’t allowed to do or aren’t supposed to do, you come up with some sort of loophole in order to do it anyway! So just do the same thing now! Your rules don’t let you keep slaves? Fine! Then what’s another way you can do the same thing without actually calling it that?”
“The terminology isn’t the problem!” Frustration crept back into his voice then, as Lex tried to explain it in a way the two of them would understand. “The formal structure of our relationship as it exists now is based on romance. That’s what the Night Mare is demanding that I give up. Any alternative relationship would need to be predicated on some other arrangement, one where physical and emotional intimacy are not unusual but also not the basis for us being together.” Just saying it out loud was discouraging, causing his momentary upset to change back into ennui. “But what few such arrangements exist aren’t ones for which my government is willing to set a de jure precedent, which is what would happen if I agreed to them.”
Sonata rubbed her chin in thought. “Okay, so like, what’s another relationship that we can all be in where you still get to love us up?” The words were barely out of her mouth when her eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait! I’ve got it! We can be prosti-”
“Absolutely not!” snapped Lex.
“Aw, c’mon!” pleaded Sonata, clearly quite pleased with her idea. “It’d be totes classy!” Like, you’d be our one-and-only client, and pay us by buying us fancy dinners and beautiful dresses, treating us like really elegant ladies the whole time!”
“At least until nightfall,” smirked Aria, picking up on the narrative seamlessly. “Then you’d use us like we were cheap thrills that you picked up on a street corner. Just imagine what that’d be like.” She started circling him slowly, moving until she was pressed up against him, with Sonata mirroring her movements perfectly on his other side. “You’d have the two most beautiful girls in Equestria with you every day…”
“Everyone admiring how fancy and stylish we looked,” purred Sonata.
“And then you’d take us to bed and tell us that we need to earn our keep,” whispered Aria huskily.
“Which means doing whatever you tell us…”
“Reminding us that we’re not allowed to say no…”
“Because we belong to you,” they finished in unison.
The erotic fantasy made Lex shudder. But as much as the sexy suggestion stirred his desire for the two of them, he couldn’t bring himself to seriously consider it. “I can’t possibly legitimize the practice you’re suggesting.”
Both mares sighed, with Sonata pouting and Aria rolling her eyes. “Why not?” complained Sonata, dropping her seductive attitude as she moved to stand across from him again. “It’s not like we’d be slaves that way, and it fits with all that stuff you said about needing a different kind of relationship where we can still be together.”
“The commodification of people-”
“Too many syllables,” interrupted Aria. Like Sonata, she’d dropped her flirtatious mien, separating herself from Lex in order to look him in the face. “Keep it to ordinary words, if you don’t mind.”
Letting out a slow breath, Lex tried again. “All people are inherently worth more than any amount of money, no matter how great. They therefore cannot be treated as property, which includes renting them, because the defining characteristic of property is that it has a set monetary value.”
“Right, we figured that you wouldn’t be down with the whole slavery thing,” huffed Aria. “Hence why we tried to go the criminal route instead.”
The reminder earned her a glower from Lex. “Which was incredibly foolish of you. Criminals have some of their rights abrogated as part of the penalties they face for their offenses. But that does not include being compelled to participate in an intimate relationship, nor does it allow for them to be considered goods. Furthermore-”
“Wait, I’ve got it!” Sonata grinned as another idea came to her. “We can be, like, massage girls who work just for you! So when you want to relax at the end of the day, and you totes come to us to give you a rubdown, and-”
“Forget it, Sonata,” sighed Aria. “He said it has to be a relationship where pleasure is part of business, and I don’t think that counts. Besides, I don’t even want to know how you’re going to butcher that ‘happy ending’ joke.”
“But there’s got to be something!” Sonata’s whine was accompanied by a dramatic fall onto her back. “Like, can’t we just give up our right to not be property?”
Lex shook his head again. “Inherent rights cannot be forfeited, Sonata. That’s part of what makes them inherent. Violating them under any circumstances, even with the consent of the individual, is wrong.”
“It’s more wrong to just throw us away like this!” snarled Aria. “I can’t believe you can’t think of some way to…wait…” Her brow furrowed as a sudden memory came back to her then, something he’d said last night…
Sonata scrambled to her hooves, giving Aria a hopeful look. “Ooh! Are you having a brainshower? Please say you’re having a brainshower!”
“Brainstorm, you idiot,” muttered Aria. But her heart wasn’t in the insult, putting all of her effort into remembering what Lex had said during their escapade last night. She felt sure there’d been something in there about what to do when there was no right answer. It hadn’t been when he’d been talking to that hideous stallion that he’d summoned; it had been before that, when he’d been lecturing those foals. But it hadn’t been about there being no right answer; he’d phrased it differently. It was more like…like… “The least wrong answer,” she murmured at last.
Sonata tilted her head. “What?”
Aria ignored her, looking at Lex. “You told those kids last night…something about how your morals worked in…what was it? Levels?”
Lex blinked once, not sure why she was referencing that. “You mean tiers,” he corrected. “Specifically, the ranking of deontological imperatives as a method where, in the event of an irresolvable moral conflict, you have an intrinsic method of determining the least-wrong course of action.”
Slowly, a grin grew across Aria’s face. “Right. That.”
With no further explanation, she walked over to Sonata and began whispering in her sister’s ear. A second later Sonata’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?! We should-” Another bout of whispering from Aria silenced her for several seconds, before her eyes slid over to Lex. “He would, but-” More whispers followed, causing to bit her lip. But eventually, her pensive look faded into one of resolve, nodding. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Frowning, Lex watched the exchange with a growing sense of trepidation. “I’ll remind you that the last time the two of you came up with a plan,” he warned them, “it was not only a spectacular failure, but was necessarily doomed from the start.” He almost shifted back into shadow-form, just in case they’d decided to attack him again, but the thought warred with his sense of guilt over not having treated them well enough before, and he couldn’t bring himself to go through with it…but neither did he relax, waiting for them to explain whatever harebrained scheme they’d come up with this time.
A moment later Aria finished whispering in Sonata’s ear, and both sisters smirked at him. “So Lex,” began Aria conversationally. “Your whole moral tier thing, it puts saving pony lives at the top of the list, right?”
“That’s a gross oversimplification of one of the most important of the positive duties,” snapped Lex, already not liking where this was going.
Sonata nodded, as though pleased by his answer. “So is it more important than all that other stuff you were saying about how you can’t turn people into property?”
Lex’s tension skyrocketed. Were they suggesting that they’d go on some sort of rampage throughout the camp if they didn’t get their way?! “What exactly are you saying?”
“Oh, nothing much,” answered Aria, her voice casual. “Just that if you don’t agree to own the two of us, then we’ll kill ourselves.”
“For realsies,” added Sonata solemnly.
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Wow... That escalated quickly. This is not a good place. Poor Lex.
Wow...I know those two really love Lex but to actually go that far? I'm not sure if I should be horrified at the implications of such an action or deadpan at how quickly those two came up with such an idea after the whole 'enslave us' plan they cooked which they still want to go through with.
At least no one can say the two sisters aren't devoted to their man though I do wonder if Lex would take it as a bluff after the earlier 'fight' or will he cuff their hooves together and gag them so they can't actually hurt themselves or each other though that would be a stop-gap measure at best. He'd likely need to curse them with the inability to hurt themselves.
Or agree to their demands to avoid the hassle of preventing them from offing themselves.
Tie them up
Problem solved
Call them idiots
ok this is a loop hole that even LEX will be hard put to ignore.
Well that got Halloween level quickly. Especially depending on how old they really are and how their long life, immortality prior was implemented.
Lex, sign them up for permanent exclusive zero hours contracts.
9921843 Yeah, the Sirens seem to have decided to go for the nuclear option. We can only guess how well this will go.
9921882 The question here, of course, is if those two are serious about their threat. Unfortunately for Lex, that kind of judgment is what he's worst at, so even if he's not inclined to believe them he's going to know that he can't really make an accurate guess as to how sincere they're being. Of course, you have to wonder if Sonata and Aria know that...
In theory, he'd find a way out of this by simply using magic to prevent them from hurting themselves. But you have to wonder if that's something his dark magic can curse them with, especially since he's already used up his ability to enhance it. Nor does he have much time left to think about it, since he's coming down to the wire (pun intended) on having to honor the Night Mare. As such, it's hard to guess what he's going to do in response to their latest ultimatum.
9922185 That's a short-term solution, but the thing about taking yourself hostage is that no one else can really rescue the person being held captive.
9922433 Quite right, particularly since Aria is going out of her way to leverage Lex's moral code against him, i.e. by trying to put him in a position where he does something he knows is wrong anyway, because the only other alternatives are worse.
9922801 The question now is whether or not this will work. The Sirens have just thrown down the horseshoe; will Lex be able to respond in kind, or have they finally gotten one over on him?
9924548
Here lemme Long term it
Use an iv drip and then tie them up. For good measure, wrap them in a sheet and make it tight
9925119 Even without getting into the issue of what constitutes cruelty in terms of taking extraordinary measures to prevent someone from harming themselves, what you're describing isn't something Vanhoover's current resources would seem to allow for.
9925141
Hen I dunno just call them idiots?
9925160 Well, that part seems like a foregone conclusion.