832 - Folie à Deux
“What do you mean, a bond?”
Not for the first time in his life, Lex found himself wishing he could read the unspoken reactions of others.
Right now, he had no idea if Nenet’s reaction to his proposal was one of interest, disgust, or something else, and so he couldn’t modify his approach accordingly. That was bad, since she was currently the only one who knew where her mother’s hideout was, let alone had information about her plans, battle tactics, magical abilities, and most crucially, her weaknesses.
While Lex knew he could probably force that information out of Nenet with his remaining uses of the Charismata, he and Solvei were in no position to act on whatever she told them. The adlets were in no shape to do so either, and Lex doubted they would have even if they could. Fail Forward might have taken on that task, but even if he hadn’t sent them away, Lex knew they lacked the strength necessary to succeed. Paska alone would likely be more than they could handle.
The only viable course of action Lex could think of now was to make Nenet into his servant the way he had Solvei. Doing so would not only grant her considerable power – power which would also, if Solvei’s cryomancy was anything to go by, be his to command – but it would also make her loyal to him, giving her both the means and the desire to act on the knowledge she already possessed and retrieve his stolen vertebrae.
But that would only happen if she agreed to become his. Lex didn’t know if he could put a piece of his soul into her against her will, but that point was moot; forcing her into eternal servitude – whether directly or through coercion – was so utterly unconscionable that he couldn’t bring himself to seriously consider the prospect.
Desperation would not erode his moral code of conduct; not when it was the last piece of himself that remained inviolate.
Which meant that he needed to convince her to become his eternal servitor of her own free will.
Given that he had a phenomenally poor track record when it came to talking others into doing what he wanted, that prospect seemed only marginally less difficult than slaying Hvitdod had been.
“A permanent connection between the two of us,” he answered after a moment’s consideration, deciding to eschew embellishment, “formed by my placing a fragment of my soul within your own.”
Nenet’s eyes widened. “A familiar? You want to make me into your familiar?”
“The specifics are different,” noted Lex, briefly thinking of Woodheart and Littleknight, “but that’s essentially correct.”
But to his dismay, Nenet was already shaking her head and backing away. “I can’t. Mother would be furious. Worse than furious. She’d never forgive me, and then I’d never find out who my father is.”
Tension shot through Lex at her refusal. “Whatever promises your mother made you, I will endeavor to fulfill.”
“Mother is the only one who knows the identity of the sphinx who sired me,” pointed out Nenet. “She said that she’ll tell me his name when I’m older, but only if I keep serving as her backup spellbook. And the way she made it sound just now, she really needs the spells she had me memorize.”
“Nenet-”
“This could be my big chance to learn who my father is!” Nenet’s eyes opened wider, as though she had only just realized what she was saying. “If I do a good job now, Mother might not make me wait anymore! I could go and find my father right away, and he’ll pass on everything he knows to me, and I’ll become a real sphinx! I can-”
Lex, however, had heard enough, cutting in as he saw the flaw in her logic. “Nenet, your father is almost certainly dead.”
She froze at that, giving him a wide-eyed stare. “Wh-what?”
“Sissel told me that the one you call ‘Mother’ is in some sort of debt to the daemons.”
“What does that have to do-”
“In order to pay down her debt, she’s been sacrificing souls to them. Both of the ponies she had Grisela capture, and of any of her children who die, which I have no doubt includes you.”
“Mother wouldn’t-”
“If she’s depraved enough to sell out strangers and her own children alike, why would she ever have let your father live after she bedded him? I don’t know how much value the daemons would place on the soul of a sphinx, but I doubt they’d find it to be of little worth.”
Lex paused, letting her digest what he’d told her. It was entirely speculative, but was in keeping with everything he knew about Nenet’s maternal figure. Hopefully his logic would help the sphinx realize that she was wrong to put so much faith in her mother’s promises.
For a moment he dared to hope that the way Nenet had gone wide-eyed and started shaking all over was a good sign.
“N-no! NO!” shrieked the sphinx at last. “You’re wrong! You have to be! Mother wouldn’t do that! She wouldn’t!”
Or perhaps not.
Master? Is everything alright? A short distance away, Solvei was looking at him from where she was tending to Yotimo, her eyes darting between him and Nenet.
For a brief instant, Lex considered having Solvei join the conversation. She was more personable than he was – though that could be said of almost anyone – and she was a living example of what it meant to be soul-bound to him. If anyone could speak to the benefits of what he was offering Nenet now, it would be her.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He knew that was a tactical error, knew that he needed Nenet to be convinced, but his guilt over how Kara’s warped influence had driven Solvei to almost commit suicide for him – and how he had yet to make her aware of the goddess’s twisted blessing was affecting her – was still undiminished. Using her to draw someone else into a situation that she herself didn’t fully understand wasn’t something he could countenance.
We’re fine, Solvei. Take Yotimo back to the others.
She glanced between them one last time, and Lex registered reluctance from her, but after a moment she nodded, standing up as she laid one of Yotimo’s arms across her shoulders. Alright. Please don’t hesitate to summon me if you need me again.
Lex watched them go for a moment before he turned back to Nenet. He’d half-expected the sphinx to run after her outburst, but instead she’d curled in on herself, nubby tail swishing as she curled her wings around her middle. “Nenet, I need you to think logically-”
“I won’t do it!” she blurted, her eyes squeezed shut and her paws curled atop her head. “I won’t become your familiar! Even...even if you break my wings, I won’t!”
The comment made Lex recall the first time he’d seen her, when he’d broken Sissel’s illusion. “Your wings were broken before. Did your mother do that to you?”
Nenet shook her head. “Mother never hurt me! It was only Grisela who did that, and sometimes Sissel, and Blat if I ever upset him...”
“But your mother knew about it, didn’t she?” This time Nenet didn’t answer, and Lex took that to be an affirmation of his suspicion. “You can’t possibly believe that someone who exhibits so little interest in your welfare can offer you a better life than I can.”
Nenet didn’t answer him this time, except to curl up tighter, a whine coming from her throat.
Lex had to fight down the urge to answer it with a growl. The animal inside of him didn’t understand what was going on, but knew that the weak creature in front of him was defying him, and it didn’t understand why he wasn’t repaying that with violence. Already, he could see that the edges of his umbral form were whipping back and forth in a frenzy, and only the fact that Nenet’s eyes were closed kept her from seeing the indication of his anger.
Taking a moment to force his instincts down, Lex tried a different tact. If Nenet’s goal was to become a sphinx, then she had a desire to improve herself. Perhaps an appeal to that was in order; fortunately, power was something he could offer her in spades.
“You should be aware that a bond with me is more than just a personal connection,” he informed her, doing his best to keep his voice level. “You’ll gain powerful magic of your own, and quite likely physical enhancements as well. And that’s just the beginning. Solvei received all of that, in addition to telekinesis akin to a unicorn’s. Her mind is now virtually impossible to assail now, and she can create powerful armor using the same black crystals that I control. She...”
He trailed off, suddenly disgusted with himself. What was he doing? Only a moment ago he’d sent Solvei away because he didn’t want her involved in his attempt to sway Nenet to his side. Yet now he was using her as an example in the hope of enticing the sphinx to join him. Worse, he was presenting only what she’d gained as a result of their connection, showcasing the benefits without mentioning any of the drawbacks.
I’m no better than Prevarius.
The contract devil had been a loathsome creature, using half-truths, convenient omissions, and word games in order to trick Thermal Draft out of ownership of her own soul. Was what he was doing now any different? He’d made up his mind that he wouldn’t force Nenet into anything, but that wasn’t good enough; her consent needed to be informed it was going to mean anything.
And if she still refused him, then it wasn’t as though he’d have lost anything for being honest with her. With how she was still tense and trembling – apparently, if her statement about breaking her wings was anything to go by, she was still under the impression that he was going to beat her for refusing him – it didn’t seem like his enticements had worked anyway. So why not tell her the whole truth?
“She loves me, you know.” He’d lost sight of Solvei by then, but thanks to their bond he knew exactly where she was, turning his eyes toward her even though he couldn’t see her. “That’s another effect of our connection; I’m aware of her emotions at all times. I don’t feel them myself, but I always know her state of mind...and I know how she feels about me.”
Had he been corporeal, he’d have kicked something then. “It’s a lie. I don’t know if you know who Kara is, but she’s the goddess of love in the pony pantheon. She gave me a blessing – one that I never asked for and don’t want – which causes people to fall in love with me. It doesn’t work on everyone, and I don’t know what the criteria are for who’s affected and who’s not, but I’m guessing that a soul-bond qualifies...and because of that, Solvei has died for me, more than once, all because she thinks that her feelings for me are real.”
His eyes blazed then, glowing brighter as he continued. “I should have told her all of that by now. If I had, she could at least try to fight what Kara’s influence is doing to her. But I haven’t, because...”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it, the admission caught in his incorporeal throat.
“Because why?”
Nenet’s question caught him by surprised, so wrapped up in what he was saying that he’d almost forgotten why he was saying it. A glance at the sphinx showed that she was still in her defensive crouch, but at least now she was making eye contact with him.
“I was listening before,” admitted the sphinx, “when you told her not to hurt me. You said that you’d killed someone named Panuk, and that she wouldn’t be wrong if she resented you for it.”
Lex looked away. He might not have been able to read others’ body language, but he could see where Nenet was going.
“But if you really felt that way, you’d have told her about Kara’s blessing, since you know that it makes her love you no matter what you do,” continued the sphinx. “So why haven’t you?”
“...because I don’t want her to resent me. I want her to love me back.”
It took him a moment to realize that he’d said more than he’d meant to, the word “back” somehow having slipped out of its own accord.
But it wasn’t as though he’d said anything untrue, he realized. He’d known how he felt ever since she’d died for the first time, outside of the Shrine of the Starless Sky. He simply hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, convincing himself that he regarded her as something like a cherished pet or a prized possession. After consistently losing everyone he cared about, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to admit that it was more than that, especially since that knowledge had come to him right as she’d died.
Once she’d come back to life, however, his deliberate misreading of his own emotions had rapidly come undone. From his worry that Akna’s becoming a part of her meant that her affection for him had faded, to his growing guilt over not being able to tell her about Kara’s curse, to not wanting her to regret killing Nenet the same way he regretted killing Panuk, he’d slowly been sliding toward a full understanding of what he already knew.
He loved Solvei.
And that horrified him, because he knew he shouldn’t, and not just because she wasn’t a pony. Now that he knew about Kara’s blessing, he owed it to Solvei to bury those feelings, so that he could better help her resist the love goddess’s mental tampering. Anything less was a betrayal of his duty as her master.
And yet all evidence to date suggested that he couldn’t bring himself to correct that betrayal.
Worse than that, there was a strong likelihood that he’d compound that betrayal if Nenet agreed to become his.
After all, if knowing about Kara’s interference hadn’t changed his feelings for Solvei, then was there anything to suggest that it would stop him from coming to feel the same way about Nenet when she invariably began to love him?
“The same thing will happen to you,” he muttered bitterly. “If we form a bond, you’ll come to love me just like she does.”
He turned and floated away from Nenet then, done with this entire idea. While it was difficult to say for sure how long he had before his dark magic ran out, he had a vague sense that it was at least several hours. Perhaps even a full day. He’d use that time to figure out an alternative course of action. There had to be some way-
“W-wait!”
Frowning inwardly, he glanced back at Nenet. She was still huddled in place, but she didn’t look like she was shielding herself anymore. Instead she was just curled up loosely, sniffling as she looked at the ground. “Do you really think my father’s dead?”
“The chance strikes me as exceedingly high,” replied Lex tersely. “Everything I’ve heard about your mother suggests that she’s as selfish as she is murderous.”
Nenet bit her lip then. “If...if I were to become your familiar...”
“Forget that I made that offer,” cut in Lex. “I’ll think of some other plan.”
Nenet jumped up from her crouch. “Wait! If I became your familiar, would you resurrect him for me?”
“I don’t have that power. Right now I’m barely able to keep myself alive by staying in this form, and that will wear out in a day or so, at which point I’ll be dead again. And if you have part of my soul in you, then there’s a very real chance you’ll die too when that happens.”
“But what if you don’t die?” pressed Nenet. “That’s why you’re asking me to become yours, right? So that I can use that magic you said I’d gain to get your spine back? If I do, and you survive, will you resurrect my father for me?”
This was his deal with Rarity all over again, the unicorn having pleaded with him to bring back her donkey lover. “I can’t promise that I’ll ever have a chance to do that.”
“But you’ll try, right? You killed an ancient dragon that even Sissel was afraid of. Will you fight that hard to bring my father back?”
It was at that point that Lex recognized the irony in what was happening. In giving up on his goal, he’d somehow inadvertently achieved it.
The victory felt more hollow than he’d expected.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do it.” Gulping, Nenet slowly crept forward, not stopping until she was right in front of him. “I’ll become your familiar.”
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes before making one last request of him.
“Please love me as much as you do Solvei!”
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I cant remember the specifics for the Sphinx entry in the Beastiaries, though usually they are classed as Immortal Legendary Uniques? As in most often they are a deity crafted guard, often punishment, and so dont require the usual evolutionary, family associations needed for animal bases?
Lex might be able to make do with Bonecraft or fleshcraft for altering available material resource into a close enough approximation to body parts that Greater Healing or a combination of othe such spells might be passable? eventually he might be able to abuse the druidic tree merge and pass through rock or Greater Polymorph spells to use the general envoriment if reataching limbs isnt possible?
It's rather sad how Nenet is so starved for love that she'd accept a soul bond with someone who she was terrified of and likely still is to some extent. I suppose Lex unintentionally opening up to her about his feelings towards Solvei helped dampen her fear. And like so many others before her, she's banking on her future by siding with him though this one is more permanent and considering what she wants in return, it is wholesome and yet so sad.
However, I do wonder if Lex will be able to make a bond with Nenet since her mother has likely promised Nenet's soul to the demons just like she did with her other 'daughters'.
11592841 Ever since Dungeons & Dragons introduced the use of standardized keyword typing for monsters (starting with Third Edition, and used in other d20-based games), sphinxes have typically been classified as "magical beasts" (which just so happens to be the creature type Lex can use the Charismata on). That remained true in Fourth Edition, notably, though by 5E the term "magical beast" was retired, and the monsters that had previously been under that listing were split between "Beast" and "Monstrosity," with sphinxes being in the former category.
Having said all of that, the typical presentation for the sphinx doesn't present them as beings created by gods, instead being creatures which reproduce and go through life-cycles like any other (though they're still notably long-lived, and I think there's at least one entry somewhere which suggests that, much like dragons, certain sphinxes can defy aging and simply grow stronger/smarter/more powerful over time...though I also seem to recall that this entails them slowly petrifying as they astrally project themselves to other realms). The more notable bit is the sexual dimorphism involved, as male and female sphinxes are different enough to be separate sub-species, and that's barely scratching the surface...though I'll say no more about that for now.
As for Hvitdod's bones...it's certainly true that the skeleton of an ancient dragon of such vast power definitely has some uses for an enterprising wizard such as Lex. But unfortunately he's in no position to take advantage of that at the moment. His own vertebrae weren't just bones, but also nerves and ligaments, etc., so he needs it back as-is if he wants to have any hope of (somehow) restoring it before his shadow-form runs out. Simply shrinking Hvitdod's calcified bones won't be enough to make a viable replacement.
Of course, we've seen him pull off unusual plans before, so take everything I just said with a few grains of salt.
11592844 I confess myself gratified that my presentation for Nenet is being received the way I was hoping. She's been the victim of frequent abuse, and at this point is purely living for her dream of one day finding her father and coming into her own as a sphinx. To be told that her mother's promises are lies was a major gamble on Lex's part, and it's no surprise that she reacted as poorly as she did.
It's a minor miracle that Lex had the presence of mind to say "I'll fulfill your mother's promises to you" to Nenet. Fortunately, she was able to put two and two together in that, if Lex was right about her father being dead, he could conceivably bring him back (quite possibly because she realized that Lex and Solvei were themselves dead until a moment ago) and so might be able to give her what she wanted, since she appeared to accept that her mother never would.
Though as you say, the fact that she was willing to believe in him at all likely had something to do with the fact that he showed her that he was capable of acting with restraint (i.e. when he told Solvei to leave Nenet alone in the aftermath of Sissel's death), not to mention compassion, remorse, and even love. Given how desperate Nenet is for someone to treat her with care, I'd guess she recognized that same impulse in Lex.
Now let's hope she gains enough power from their connection that she can help him survive!