850 - Divine Liaisons
“So, was it like, totes good for you?”
The sound of his beloved’s voice brought a smile to Lex’s lips. Glancing over, he took in the sight of Sonata’s flushed face, relishing in the languid grin she was giving him as she drew the rumpled bedsheets up over the two of them. Her mane was in disarray – unsurprising after how vigorously they’d just celebrated their reunion – and he nuzzled her as he lifted a claw to fix it, gently making sure that his talons didn’t damage her silken strands the way he had the bed during their...their...
His brow furrowing, Lex turned to look at the bed, seeing that the mattress and the covers were undamaged. But that shouldn’t have been possible; not with how sharp his claws were now, or how unrestrained he’d been while they were...
That was when he realized that he couldn’t remember what the two of them had just been doing.
In fact, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten back together with her in the first-
“Because I have to tell you, your performance just now was the worst.”
Aria’s voice caught him off-guard, turning his head to take in the sight of the pigtailed mare lying where Sonata had been as she gave him her usual sardonic expression. “You know there’s more to doing a girl than just going at her deep, hard, and fast, right?”
Lex barely heard the cutting remark, suddenly aware that he didn’t recognize his surroundings. Sitting up, he realized that the bed he was lying in was huge; the size of an expansive swimming pool at the very least. Rather than a single blanket and set of pillows, varieties of pastel cushions were scattered in between a series of thin blankets. At the edges of the oversized mattress hung a series of gauzy veils, just thick enough that they obscured everything beyond them, not having the slightest gap from where they stretched between the bed and the mirrored canopy, in which Lex could see the reflection of himself lying beside...
Nosey.
“Don’t get me wrong!” blurted the blonde unicorn as she adjusted her glasses, glancing up at him before looking away with a blush. “Your new body’s, er, ‘equipment’ is really something else. Not just the size, but the, you know...” She waved a hoof in the air, turning redder as her voice dropped to a whisper. “...construction.” Gulping, she shook her head slightly before pouting at him. “But you still could have done more!”
In the fraction of a second it took him to look away from the overhead mirror and back to the mare lying next to him, Nosey was gone, and in her place was Thermal Draft, the pegasus wearing the familiar form he’d grown used to rather than the insectoid appearance that had since become her real body.
“For instance, there’s a lot of ways you could put your tongue to good use,” suggested the pegasus casually, as though she was asking him to give her another lesson in spellcasting. “Especially since it’s kind of rough and scratchy now-”
But Lex was no longer listening as he realized that he couldn’t access any of his magic.
It was all gone, this thaumaturgy, cryomancy, dark magic; he couldn’t even sense Solvei or Nenet. It was enough to remind him of what had happened when he’d died, which in turn made him think of Soft Whisper, a memory that itself pulled in associated knowledge about other gods, which made him think of-
“Kara.”
“Aw!” Putting her hooves to her cheeks, Thermal Draft stuck her tongue out at him. “And here I was hoping we could enjoy role-playing a little longer. You might not have much technique, but it was still fun seeing how you treated each of your girls.”
“What is this?!” demanded Lex, backing away from the goddess as he kicked the blankets away, rising into a crouch. Distantly, he noted that his clothes were also gone. “Where are we?! What do you want?!”
“Your pillow talk needs some work too,” drawled Sonata, rolling her eyes. “For realsies.”
“Stop that!” snarled Lex, glaring at the doppelganger deity. “Change back into your natural form!”
“Or what?” sneered Aria, flipping over so that her backside was pointed toward him. “You’ll spank me? Because honestly, that’s something else you could try doing.”
Choking down a biting retort, Lex whirled in place and made for the edge of the bed, intent on getting out of here...wherever “here” was.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came Nosey’s voice from behind him. “And from a shapeshifter goddess, that’s saying something.”
Ignoring the warning, Lex raised a claw as he reached the veils. A single swipe was all it took to slice them to ribbons, and he didn’t hesitate as he plunged through the opening he’d made-
And was torn to shreds in an instant.
Every aspect of himself was cut apart and separated, dismantled and deconstructed as though he were being dissected, able to sense every single part of his physicality and mentality and spirituality as they were reduced down to their component materials in a manner that completely overwhelmed his ability to recognize what was happening as though each nerve and neuron was overloaded by the sensations and yet were unable to shut down anditwasquicklybecomingunbearableilrnwbxwrpmfidw-
With a sigh, Thermal Draft pulled him back onto the bed, the veils fixing themselves as he landed on the mattress again. “Told you.”
Several moments passed before Lex was able to find his voice. “...what...?”
“There there,” soothed the pegasus, slinking over to wrap herself around him, sliding one of his back legs between her own as she nuzzled him. “Just think of this as a pleasant dream-”
“Watch yourself, harlot.”
The voice that interrupted Kara was cold and unforgiving, and Lex immediately recognized it as belonging to the Night Mare, looking up just in time to see the impression of the goddess in the veils, as though she’d pressed herself against them from outside, before it vanished.
“Ugh, fine.” Huffing, Aria waved a hoof at their surroundings. “Think of this as a mindscape that I created so that your consciousness wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of the Night Mare’s reconstructing you.”
Still dazed from what he’d just experienced, it took Lex a moment to process that. “Reconstructing...?”
“Um, yeah,” giggled Sonata. “You, like, made a god’s power your own, and even if it was just a teensy-weensy bit from an itty-bitty demigod, that’s totes not something a mortal can handle.”
“So now that you have it,” explained Nosey, “she’s making it so that you can use it.”
It was only then that Lex fully recalled what had happened: reattaching his spine, healing his wounds, Adagio’s magic failing, and then...
Then everything grew confused, his memory devolving into fragments and vague impressions. Profound cold. Severe isolation. Losing himself, then regaining what he’d lost. Struggle. Recovery. Loss. Memories. Determination. Triumph.
And then the Night Mare’s words coming back to him, promising...
“Immortality,” Lex breathed, realizing what that meant. “She’s making me into a god.”
Next to him, Thermal Draft burst out laughing. “A god? Really? Is that what you think?”
Her reaction made Lex frown, as much in confusion as in irritation at the goddess’s antics. “You’re suggesting that what I’m undergoing now isn’t apotheosis?”
“Oh, that’s adorable!” Wiping a fake tear away as she finished chuckling, the pegasus gave him a lazy grin. “Let me tell you something, stud: there’s a very large middle ground between mortality and godhood, and that piddly little amount of the divinity you managed to conquer isn’t nearly enough to bridge that gap. Especially since the Night Mare is expending most of it to upgrade you.”
Lex sat up at that, glancing back toward where he’d seen the goddess’s outline in the veils. “What?”
“I thought you were supposed to be a genius,” snickered Aria. “But fine, I’ll explain it in a way that’s easier for you to understand. Think of that godsblood as a big pile of money. There’s too much for you to just shove in your pockets, which means you need something to carry it all in. So you have to buy a cart. But it can’t just be any old wagon; it has to have tough walls and a thick covering and a sturdy lock. Which is fine, except you need to spend some of your money to get all that, which means that there’s less for it to hold once the purchases are finished.”
“The good news is that the Night Mare’s doing a very efficient job,” finished Nosey. “To extend the analogy, she’s using locally-sourced materials to keep the costs down. Which is to say, she’s giving you the trace amounts of aristeia that are in those old dragon bones to reduce the amount of godsblood that’s wasted on rebuilding you.”
Sonata shrugged at that, one hoof coming up to rub the side of her head. “I mean, she totes could have just given you another blessing if she wanted to help you out that much, but she’s got that whole ‘your reward is what you earn for yourself’ thing going on, you know?”
Lex scowled at that, suddenly reminded of something that had been bothering him for a while. “Remove your blessing from me!”
Sonata cocked her head. “You said what now?”
“Your blessing!” snapped Lex, standing up. “The one that makes others fall in love with me! Remove it! Now!”
“Seriously?” sneered Aria. “I turn you into the protagonist of a harem game, and your response is ‘thanks but no thanks’?”
“I am not thanking you,” hissed Lex, stalking forward until he was within an inch of the shapeshifting goddess’s face. “And I don’t need your help finding someone to love me! I-”
He didn’t have a chance to finish as Nosey collapsed laughing on the bed. “You don’t need my help?” she cackled, rolling onto her back and kicking her legs in the air. “You don’t need my help?! Oh! Oh wow! And here I thought you had no sense of humor!”
Furious at being mocked over the angst that she’d inflicted on him, Lex reached down and pinned Thermal Draft’s legs to the bed. “Remove your blessing!” he demanded again.
“Will you smack me around if I don’t?” giggled the pegasus. “Or do I have to say ‘pretty please’ first?”
Lex glared at her, but when she simply grinned at him, he released her forelegs from his claws, knowing that there was nothing he could do to force her to comply with his wishes. Fuming, he turned his back on her, staring at the veils as he seethed.
“Aw, don’t be upset,” pout Drafty. “It’s not like it’s an indictment of you. I mean, you’re not completely hopeless on your own.”
Sitting next to him, Aria gave him a bemused glance. “Your looks, for instance. A solid six out of ten. Six-point-five, even.”
Turning, she walked around behind him, and Sonata appeared on his other side. “And the whole ‘big fearless hero’ routine is, like, a surefire way to totes moisten panties.”
“The problem,” tsked Thermal Draft, “is when you open your mouth. Because as soon as you start talking, it’s the cure for nymphomania.”
“Which is why you don’t just need my blessing,” continued Nosey, “which, by the by, I can’t remove even if I wanted to – since the Night Mare negotiated for it to be permanent – but you also need my help if you’re going to tame that faithless whore Adagio.”
Lex’s eyes widened at that, the revelation that the Night Mare was partially responsible for Kara’s blessing falling away at the mention of Sonata and Aria’s sister, recalling what Nenet had told him about the deals her mother had made in order to grow stronger. “So you’re the reason Adagio’s gained so much power.”
“Pfft, as if,” snorted Aria. “All I did was ask her for one little favor in exchange for having brought her and her sisters here from that Earth place they were stuck in-”
“You’re the one who did that?!”
“-and she totes stabbed me in the back!” fumed Sonata. “For realsies, I just wanted her to hang on to a certain book written by a certain little pink failure of a goddess for a little while! That was all! She just had to keep it so that I could totes say that none of my faithful had it! But instead, you know what she did?”
Between what he’d learned from the Auctoritas Caliginous and the Libram of Ineffable Damnation, Lex could see where this was going. “She read it.”
“She read it!” growled Thermal Draft. “No one told her to do that! Suddenly, she’s bargaining with prominent succubi, trading ‘favors’ with sidhe princesses, cutting deals with lamia matriarchs, and a bunch of others, all for her own benefit! She even traded that book away, and now it’s beyond my reach!”
“Which is where you come in,” finished Nosey, giving him a sharp look. “You have my blessing, which means that you’re technically my champion too. So you’re going to go to her and show that bitch that even daemons have no fury like a goddess scorned!”
Lex’s lip curled at that. “I am not your champion,” he spat. “And I have no interest in helping you with your petty vendetta. I’m going to confront Adagio because she needs to be stopped, and then I’m going to bring her back to Equestria and reform her, for her own good. What you want doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.”
“Aw, but didn’t you promise us that you’d make her love you?” whimpered Sonata, looking at him tearfully.
Lex managed to keep from wincing, but he couldn’t stop himself from clenching his jaw.
“Are you going to break your word?” Aria’s expression was stricken. “Even though it was the last thing we ever asked of you?”
“Shut up,” muttered Lex, looking away.
“She’s our only sister,” came a blend of their two voices from behind him. “Maybe the last one of us now...don’t you want to honor our wish?”
“That’s enough!”
“Or have you forgotten us already?” continued their voices in unison. “Is that it? You don’t care about us anymore now that you have your wolf and your sphinx?”
“They have nothing to do with this!”
“No? Because it sounds like you love them more than you ever loved us.”
“THAT’S NOT TRUE!”
Rounding on Kara, Lex pounced on her, forcing her down onto the bed as he pinned her down. “I LOVED THEM – I STILL LOVE THEM – MORE THAN ANYONE!!!”
And underneath him, Adagio – clad in the same thin lingerie that she’d been wearing when he’d scryed on her – grinned. “Then prove it,” she purred, fingers reaching up to slide over his flanks, one leg lifting to trace her toes along his tail. “Keep your promise to them, and when you find me, put me in my place the way only you can.”
Lex stared down at her, his thoughts awash with rage and lust, and for a long moment he didn’t react...
Then he leaned down and kissed her fiercely.
Underneath him, Adagio – or rather, Kara – laughed as she returned the kiss, waiting until his lips had left hers to give him a sultry smile. “Good boy,” she cooed. “Just listen to me, and I promise that by the time you head home, Adagio Dazzle will be desperately in love with you. She'll be your reward for all your hard work.”
Her fingers slid up to cup his face then, directing his attention lower on her body as she wriggled her hips, sliding her panties off.
“Now, let’s start with some lessons about how to use your tongue...”
Stats
Page generated in 0.105 seconds
Total duration
610 users online
942,021 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Reconstruction...will we see a return of Lex's original form? Or will we see something more? Either way, even if it's not godhood, immortality, even if diminished in his reconstruction, will still be a good thing overall, especially if the Night Mare is doing said reconstruction personally.
As for Adagio, now we know how she got powers neither of her sisters possess, as well as the capability to reproduce with other species. Lashtada's tenet of free love must have been very inclusive. Granted, it was probably meant for safe conception and birth between lovers of incompatible species or anatomy but Adagio twisted it to her own ends.
Though I wonder if Kara's revenge will involve her blessing forcing Adagio to love Lex instead of slowly affecting others over time. something that Lex would hate. Then again, I recall that the blessing was a minor one and thus not that powerful but as the goddess of deception, it doesn't mean Kara couldn't tweak her blessing or adding another to supplement it.
Guess we'll have to see what happens next.
I am benching the reconstruction for now. But wow. Kara can really push his buttons down anyway she wants. I guess this is why she is a goddess of love.
Doing the material recnstruction is always a problem, when low level mortals can ahve Create Water, and Create Food and Drink, which are complex compouns of fats, protiens, carbohydrates etc that have evolved to self assemble as logn as theyre not being prevented, and yet healing, regenerationa nd creation of new matieral is so expensive in resource requirements.
Just how much of that goodblood energy is being used to infuse Lexs body material with multilevels of caster equivalent support to make the effects permanent, given in Pathfinder, Level 20 alchemists get a free Philosophers stone every month worth 10 thousand gold?
Best match I can find is froma bout 1300 AD where a roof thatchers apprenticee recieved 1 copper piece a day (?) wage, at 240 copper pieces to the pound of silver, and the Kings banquet was easily 150 pounds weight of silver equivalent? This looks to be the closest match I can make between English money worth and DnD/Pathfinder money worth, at least in average village and town life consumables and wages.
Breath, sweat, spores, dander, fur, hairs, glands, theres many forms of compound creation and exudation created by even known life in the world so far. Kara has access to even more variations from passive mentalis to ultrasonics and infrasonics etc?
This went in a weird direction...
11642154 Given that Lex's merging with that aurumvorax was his personal show of inner fortitude to the Night Mare, as well as something he did after correctly realizing that Solvei and Akna had merged (which, we now know, was also the Night Mare's will), I'd consider it unlikely that Lex will regain his pony form. Given that the goddess is the one reconstructing his body, it strikes me as counterintuitive that she'd put him back the way he used to be, insofar as that went.
As for Adagio, the reference to Lashtada's book was a(nother) lingering plot thread from the original A Dangerous Sparkle that was never resolved. While it did get a very brief mention in a later story (of David Silver's) as having ended up in the library at the temple to Luminace (at least, I'm fairly certain I recall reading that), there wasn't any particular mention of how that happened, since the last we saw of it in the original story was that Kara's followers had managed to acquire it. So this was my way of throwing in a bit more exposition, as well as nicely explaining part of what's happened with Adagio.
As far as Kara's revenge goes...well, she's pretty clearly manipulating Lex into being her instrument for that. But while I suspect he's extremely suspicious of that, he's just as likely having a hard time figuring out how, since all she seems to be doing is giving him advice on how to drive the remaining Siren sister wild in bed. Now, she's certainly making it sound like that'll make Adagio love him, but you have to wonder if that will actually work...
11642208 Being an evil goddess, whose portfolio of "love" sits right next to "shapeshifters" (which I think means that she's also a goddess of lies and deception), it's not hard for Kara to manipulate others to do what she wants, typically by appealing to their emotions in ways that they have a hard time reacting rationally to.
Lex has willpower sufficient to resist even the overwhelming strength of a divinity (albeit just a fragment of a demigod), but what Kara's doing now isn't a matter of willpower. That sort of indirect method is her bread and butter, whereas Lex has a much harder time with it.
11642411 Insofar as measuring what it means to "reconstruct" (in a method that upgrades) someone in this manner under the d20 System rules, it's not just an issue of simply comparing the clerical spell create food and water to altering a living creature. Even leaving aside the issue of whether or not the Night Mare's alterations to Lex can be taken as purely physical (which is iffy; remember, the battle Lex fought with that fragment of Kryonex was entirely spiritual in nature), there's a difference between creating a bland mixture of nourishing fare and making a complex organism that's able to sustain itself biologically...and that's before you take into account inherent magical abilities, cognition, etc.
As far as the philosopher's stone grand discovery that 20th-level alchemists can choose goes, that's not really comparable, since they're not making them out of nothing; the description of that power specifies that they simply know how to make one; it might not cost them anything (under the built-in presumption that they simply have the necessary materials on hand), but they're not simply conjuring it out of nothing (though it's worth more than 10,000 gp).
All of which is to say, what the Night Mare's doing now is likely to be far more than mere physicality or biology; remember, Kara said that she was also using some of Hvitdod's leftover aristeia, and that's already a power that makes someone "more real" than they were previously...
11642495 Kara's presence made this chapter take on a sexual overtone that ended up being more prevalent than my initial outlines (which is to say "my idea(s) for this chapter") suggested. The fact of the matter was that, as is so often the case for when I start actually writing a chapter, relatively minor points end up needing more coverage than I'd thought, and so wind up taking the entire chapter to present.
Part of the issue was that, as a goddess, it's somewhat hard to present Kara (or any other deity) in a manner that doesn't have them dominating a scene; they simply have too outsized a presence. While Kara can act subtly (it's kind of her thing), or keep herself removed from the action (such as when she was speaking telepathically to Drafty), in this case it served her interests best to take a direct hand (hoof?) in things...which meant that this chapter ended up becoming all about her. And being that she's a sex goddess who specializes in manipulation, her antics ended up monopolizing the entire chapter. That wasn't supposed to overshadow the fact that Lex has earned immortality, but at the same time it was hard to avoid.
For what it's worth, this chapter ended up cutting several scenes of Kara's acting out. One such instance was her chastising Lex for not testing out his new body by doing the mares of Fail Forward, with her going over the erotic appeal of each mare in turn. Another scene had her casually mentioning that the Night Mare was a virgin goddess, and snickering at how Lex's reaction to that earned a display of irritation from the Night Mare.