89 - Mind Games Ponies Play
“Can I, like, talk to you outside?”
Sonata’s voice was tight as she spoke, and she didn’t wait for an answer before turning and marching out of the hole where the door once hung. Giving a glare at Aria as she caught her eye, Sonata walked in the other direction, having to fight the urge to stomp her hooves in frustration. Finally, when she was almost twenty feet away, she turned around, ready to give Lex a piece of her mind.
Instead, she paused as she saw him still almost ten feet away, hobbling towards her slowly. Normally, the sight of him in such obvious pain would have caused her anger to dissolve, but now it only increased it, making her grit her teeth as he finished approaching her. “If this is about what I just said…” he rumbled, his tone and expression both threatening.
That was it. The very idea that he had any reason to be mad at her was all Sonata could take, and she blew up. “What the heck are you doing?! Did you get hit in the head too many times in that fight or something?! You go back in there right now and let Cozy heal you!”
“Absolutely not!” snarled Lex. “I don’t need her help, or Lashtada’s, or anypony else’s!”
“So what about those doctors that were looking at you, huh?” countered Sonata. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with them!”
“That’s different!” hissed Lex. “I’m the one who brought them here in the first place! That makes them an extension of my own resources, to be utilized how I see fit! Making use of their abilities at my discretion is therefore not an indictment of my ability to weather a crisis!”
“What does that even mean?! You’re the one who, like, brought Cozy and the others here! Doesn’t that make them ‘resources to be utilized’ too?!”
“Not when her magic comes from such a contemptible goddess it doesn’t, to say nothing of being one with whom I have no working arrangement!”
“Who cares about that?! Do you not get that you’re hurt really bad?! Just go back in there and get healed! I can totes promise you that Cozy and Lashtoodles and everybody else will still think of you as a colossal jerk who treats everyone badly even when they’re really worried about you!”
Lex’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What are you babbling about? First of all, my refusal to compromise on my principles is not ‘treating everyone else badly,’ and second, the Night Mare cares about that! Accepting aid from Lashtada would affect my standing with h-”
“FINE!” yelled Sonata, unable to listen to him anymore. “You know what, just…just FINE! You win! Have it your way!” Not wanting to hear another word, she rushed past him, almost knocking him over in the process, and ran back inside the shelter. Ignoring how all eyes were on her – the broken door meant that much of their conversation had been audible to the others – and practically threw herself onto her sleeping area, Nosey moving over to comfort her a moment later.
For his part, Lex was left outside to sulk, cursing the inscrutable hysteria had come over Sonata. He had explained to her why he wouldn’t accept Cozy’s healing magic, and he was obviously not so injured as to require it to survive, so why couldn’t she accept that? If he was fine with his decision, where did she get off criticizing him for it? Plus she hadn’t even listened to his other reasons.
Holding up his left-front hoof, Lex examined the barbed wire inextricably bound around it, taking note of the drying trail of blood. The very prospect of Cozy using her healing magic on him had caused the gruesome ornament to shift slightly, opening up the smallest of cuts. If that had been ordinary wire, such an injury wouldn’t have been surprising, but this had been placed there by the Night Mare herself, and it had never caused him any discomfort or injury prior to now. It wasn’t a coincidence that it had right at that moment, he knew. Although he suspected that most other ponies would have been upset by such a thing, Lex felt reassured by it. That the Night Mare’s attitude so closely aligned with his own only served to reinforce his confidence that he had been right to forge a pact with her.
Nodding in satisfaction at having reaffirmed the faultlessness of his actions, Lex started back towards the door, but paused as he heard a rasping noise. Frowning, he glanced over at Aria, and realized that she was laughing. Her cruel grin widened as she saw him looking at her. “Very smooth, tough guy,” she jeered. “You really swept her off her hooves.”
Lex frowned, and a moment later his horn’s aura flared, a matching one surrounding Severance as he grabbed the blade from where it was hovering over her head and swung it down near her throat. “Now seems like as good a time as any to deal with you,” he said darkly.
Aria’s laughter was instantly replaced with fear. “H-hey! No need to be so upset!”
“Shut up,” replied Lex calmly, moving closer to her until he was right in front of her. As he did so, he moved Severance so that the blade was pressed to the back of her neck, and then slowly brought it down, causing Aria to lower her head in order to avoid being cut. He kept the motion going until she’d pressed her head against the ground, only then ceasing the scythe’s threatening descent.
“You,” he said in that same calm tone, “tried to kill me. You tried to kill the ponies under my protection. You even tried to kill Sonata.” Despite his display of self-control, his eyes suddenly blazed green, sprouting purple contrails from their corners, causing Aria to gulp at the intimidating display. “And that’s just what I know about. So…the only real question is what sort of punishment you deserve for your crimes.”
“That’s not fair!” she sputtered. “I told you, I didn’t have a choice! It was work with those monsters or be eaten by them!”
“Duress might have been a valid excuse for your actions,” replied Lex instantly, “except that you weren’t in imminent danger of being killed by those creatures during our fight just now. You could easily have flown beyond their reach and fled at any point while I was dealing with them, but you didn’t. Instead, you only tried to leave after they were dead.” Severance’s tip pressed pointedly against the back of Aria’s neck. “Those are the actions of a collaborator, not a hostage.”
Despite the implicit threat, he had no intention of harming her. If his theory about the Sirens being mutated ponies was correct – and he was very invested in the presumption that it was – then killing her was absolutely out of the question, and even lawful punishments couldn’t be cruel. But there was no need to tell her that.
“That’s easy for you to say!” Aria’s whisper came out heavily, strained by her mounting anxiety. “The sahuagin Mighty Ones have magic of their own, and it’s not just them down there! There are other creatures too, ones that they tolerate because the Great Lord of the Deep orders them to! Some of them have their own magic, and I was worried that even if I ran, they’d have found me, and then it would all have been over! That’s the only reason I didn’t take off! It’s not like I wanted to stay there!”
Lex narrowed his eyes, but slowly removed Severance from her, causing a relieved shudder to go through Aria’s body. She was finally starting to reveal some useful information. “I’m inclined to believe you,” he admitted.
“Really?” Aria looked up, hope written all over her face. “So you’ll let me go?”
Lex raised a brow coolly. “Go where? I thought you just said that you were afraid to run because they might find you.” Privately, he doubted that Aria had much to worry about. She had been in relatively close proximity to him during their fight, which meant that if any scrying spells had been focused on her, they likely would have caught him as well. But he knew that hadn’t happened, since the counter-scrying spell he kept on himself at all times hadn’t been triggered.
Oblivious to what Lex was thinking, Aria shook her head, a bitter expression creeping over her features. “I don’t have any other choice now. They punish failure severely down there, especially if you’re not a sahuagin. My only chance is to run far enough away.”
“That’s one option. The other is that you let me protect you.”
Aria blinked, looking at up Lex incredulously. “…Sonata was right. You did get hit in the head one time too many.”
Lex ignored the barb. “I can keep you safe from those creatures,” he insisted.
“Oh please,” scoffed Aria, her belligerence returning now that she no longer felt threatened. “You almost died out there with just three opponents. I’ll admit that Lirtkra and Monitor were a lot stronger than your average sahuagin, but there are several other powerful fighters down there. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t have a lot of faith in your protection.” She glanced around warily. “They’re probably watching us right now.”
“Unlikely,” retorted Lex. “As long as you stay inside of this area,” he waved a hoof to indicate their immediate surroundings, “they won’t be able to detect you with any sort of scrying magic. As far as the rest of their fighting force is concerned, I have Sev-” He stopped talking suddenly, eyes locked on the scythe hovering above her, causing Aria to look at him curiously. A moment later he frowned deeply at the weapon. “What does that mean?” he asked sharply.
Aria couldn’t help but snort in amusement at the sight of him arguing with a weapon. That the thing was apparently alive was weird, but was the only thing that made sense, since he’d already told it to watch her. Besides, if Sonata could get an actual boyfriend, anything was possible. “Do you two need a moment alone?” she asked sardonically.
His eyes slid back to her, and there was anger there, but he smoothed it over a moment later, restoring his mask of calm. “As I was saying, as far as the rest of their fighting force is concerned, I’ll find a way to deal with them.”
“Right,” she drawled. “So let’s just say that you can somehow miraculously pull all this off. Then will you let me go?”
Now it was Lex’s turn to snort. “Don’t be ridiculous. You have magic that far and away eclipses what most ponies are capable of, and everything I know about you suggests that you won’t hesitate to use it to victimize others for your own benefit. You can’t be allowed to go free.”
Aria grit her teeth, and it wasn’t completely out of anger. Queen Iliana, back on Everglow, had said something very similar before ordering her throat to be cut. Why did it always come to this?! “So what, then? You’ll protect me only to kill me when it’s all over? Or find some new way to maim me before throwing me into some other world?”
“Neither. I want you to work for me,” responded Lex simply.
For a moment, Aria just stared at him, then rolled her eyes in disgust. “So I get to go from being the sahuagin’s slave to yours? Gee, thanks so much. How could I ever refuse such a generous offer?”
But she went rigid at what he said next. “Serve me, and I’ll restore your voice.”
“Wh-?!”
“And,” he continued, “I’ll make you into a pony.”
It took Aria several seconds to process that, her mind still swirling with the prospect of getting her voice back. A moment later, his second promise sank in, and she gave him a confused look. “A pony? Why would I want to…oh, I get it.” She grinned at him again, and this time there was a sultry element there. “You want to trade up from your current girl, is that it?”
“Tr-, no!” Lex yelled, and his reaction caused Aria to blink. He had been calm and collected the entire time while talking to her, but that had fallen apart in the face of the tiniest bit of flirting? This warranted investigating…
She shifted her posture lightly, so that she was lying in a more suggestive pose, and gave him her most seductive look. “So you want both of us at the same time, then? You’re pretty bold, trying for a sister sandwich.”
Lex couldn’t help but turn bright red at the imagery. “Th-, I don’t-, do NOT toy with me!” he sputtered, his composure falling apart completely.
It was all Aria could do to hold back her laughter at the sight. All of a sudden his tone-deaf response to Sonata’s worrying over him made perfect sense, and it was hysterical. This stallion, who could take on multiple powerful enemies at once and win, had no idea how to deal with girls! It was hilarious, but even better was that it was a weakness that she could exploit. That it would drive Sonata nuts was a bonus. All that, and he’d fix her voice, too? All of a sudden his offer wasn’t looking quite so bad.
“Alright,” she smiled at him. “We have a deal.”
Lex frowned, not sure if she was being serious or not, but after a few moments he nodded. “So be it, then. Now, I have questions that you’re going to answer.”
“Anything you say,” she nodded back, fighting down a smirk.
For the first time in a while, it looked like she’d be able to have some fun.
Stats
Page generated in 0.165 seconds
Total duration
769 users online
1,167,566 hits today, 2,561,572 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.®
If Lex is having this amount of trouble with Aria, its a good thing Adagio is no longer around to really screw with him.
8061534 You make a good point.
Aria, fundamentally, has a weak personality. While she can be bitchy and unpleasant, she has virtually no talent for managing others, let alone executing plans. We know that she wants to lead (thanks to that one throwaway line in Rainbow Rocks, right before the "Battle (of the Bands)" song, when she says that she should lead...only for Adagio to smack her down), but she simply lacks the drive or administrative abilities to make that happen. At the end of the day, she might dream of being a leader, but she's just a follower.
Adagio, however, doesn't have that flaw. She's used to having to manage and direct the other two, and so knows how to leverage people that she finds difficult to get along with. She can come up with plans, proactively work execute them, and adapt to changing circumstances all the while. She has a strong, forceful presence, and knows how to put it to best use.
Sonata is dumb, and Aria is weak (even if she tries to disguise it), so Lex is capable of handling both of them with relative ease - though that doesn't help him when trying to communicate with Sonata from a place of emotional intimacy, or when Aria uses his insecurities against him - but he'd find Adagio to be a formidable challenge indeed.
...which makes you wonder if we'll ever see her again in this story.
Seeing Lex flustered is rare and a treat to read, especially if it's at Aria's hooves. And it seems Lex will have a source of information with which he can prove if his hypothesis is correct, and a willing test subject to experiment with when he's certain of it.
Of course, with Sonata upset with Lex's unwillingness to be healed because of his stubbornness(from Sonata's view anyway), I doubt she'll like seeing Lex spending more time with Aria. Almost similar with her and Fireflower though unlike Fireflower, Aria seems intent on messing with both Lex and Sonata.
8062544 Aria correctly diagnosed that Lex has no idea how to interact with girls; while he's slowly learning how to manage being in a romantic relationship, thanks to Sonata, he still has no idea how to flirt or the proper way to react when someone shows interest in him. That's really the apex of his social ineptitude, and Aria knows that now. Given that Lex is currently in the metaphorical doghouse with Sonata at the moment, one can see all kinds of drama brewing in the future.
That said, I'm quite pleased that you noted the real reason why Lex said he'd turn Aria into a pony. He made that offer because he needs his hypothesis to be true, that Sirens are fundamentally ponies themselves, and it was very important to him that Aria give him a chance to prove that. Now that he's acquired that, he can try and make headway on that front...though in the meantime he has more pressing issues to deal with.
EDIT: Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the scene of Lex being flustered and off-balance. That was fun for me to write.
8066598
OH, I thought that binding applied only to sapient creatures, not magical ones.
And here is the very first grammatical error in the entire story. Very well done.
8246996 Thanks! Though I have to give most of the credit to everyone here who's helped point out the errors I've made up until now (particularly James Fire, even if he has been slacking off a little bit lately - I kid, James!
).
That grammar error has now been fixed.
It would seem that the error that was reported earlier is the only one.
Well, he seems... Narcissistic? It reminds me of a quote from Albert Einstein. "If you are not smart enough to explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough." While using big words is nice and all, there is a point where it just seems like you are pulling words out of a thesaurus. This seems like one of those times.
8285885 The thing is, insofar as Lex is concerned this is explaining it "simply." His definition of "simple" tends to be very close to his own level, which is why he's so typically frustrated with how no one else seems to understand him. Hence his perpetual frustration, since he has a hard time understanding why he's so hard to understand.
That aside, I'm honestly not sure what words in that passage you think were pulled out of a thesaurus, with the possible exception of "indictment."