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.
In the wake of the girls’ departure, Lex found himself feeling surprisingly numb.
It wasn’t how he’d expected himself to react. Having alienated all three of the people that were most important to him, he would have thought that he’d be seething with indignant rage or drowning in self-loathing. But while both of those emotions were there, they were strangely muted, as if conjured up purely by force of habit rather than being authentic reactions. Even his bewilderment at his own indifference was anemic, to the point where he couldn’t bring himself to care very much one way or the other. His attempt to clarify his relationship with the girls had failed, the consequences for it were almost exactly what he’d expected, and now it was time to move on to other things.
Even his shadow seemed to agree, or at least it didn’t disagree, since the tulpa that dwelt within it was completely silent as Lex made his way toward the door. Of course, that was no surprise at all. Without his usual cascade of negative emotions to feed it, and with him refusing to rise to the few barbs that it had thrown at him immediately after Nosey and Sonata had left, the spiteful thing had quickly fallen quiet. I might not know what made it come to my aid before, Lex noted, but at least I know how to starve its antipathy. That was enough for now.
Stepping outside, Lex was greeted by a sudden yelp of fright. Glancing to his left, he saw the maid that River had left him – Feather Duster, he reminded himself – sprawled out on the ground in a rather undignified position. The sight earned a frown of disapproval from Lex. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry!” Scrambling to her hooves, Feather Duster frantically tried to fix her uniform, smoothing her skirt down from where it had ridden up almost to her waist. “I didn’t hear you come out, and then I saw, er…” She trailed off, her eyes looking nervously at where Lex’s shadow was stretched out along the platform in its typical defiance of how the light was falling, its path taking it right past where she was now. “I, um, I wasn’t trying to stand on it, I swear,” she whimpered. “Please don’t be mad. I promise it’ll never happen-”
“Shut up,” ordered Lex flatly, not so much as bothering to look at her as he moved toward the edge of the platform. His own shadow notwithstanding, the angle of the sun made it clear that he still had a few hours left before his noon engagement with the alicorn princesses. That gave him enough time to retrieve Severance and prepare a few more spells for when he declared Celestia and Luna criminally negligent in their duties and arrested them both. The thought brought a thin smile to Lex’s lips, pleased at the thought of indicting those two fools for how they’d mismanaged-
“Um, sir? Mister Legis, sir?” came Feather Duster’s voice from behind him.
Ceasing his stride, Lex turned his head just enough to glance back at her. “What is it?”
Taking a hesitant step toward him, Feather Duster gulped, needing a moment to find her voice before she continued. “Y-you, um…you know the Night Mare, right? I mean, you’re her friend?”
Lex let out a snort that might have been a humorless laugh. “My relationship with the Night Mare is nothing so sanguine,” he replied darkly. Still, the query was unexpected enough that he turned back around, giving his maid his full attention. “What of it?”
Cringing, Feather Duster swallowed before answering. “I just…I’m not complaining or anything, but, well…did she really give my daughter a pet snake?”
Lex frowned, eyes narrowing. “What?”
“She said it was her spirit animal,” continued Feather Duster. Apparently deciding that the die was cast, she plunged ahead, the words almost jumbling together in her haste to get them out. “And that it could talk to her but only she could hear it, and how the Night Mare made it for her, or from her, I think? And that it was making her a healer, with magic powers-”
“What are you babbling about?” interrupted Lex harshly. “Your daughter is one of those foals who defied the Royal Guard last night, is that correct? The so-called ‘Night Mare’s Knights’?” He remembered seeing Feather Duster throwing herself tearfully at one of the fillies in that group after the hostilities had ended.
“Y-yes.” Biting her lip, his maid nodded. “Her name’s Cleansweep.”
“I thought so.” Lex rolled his eyes, certain that he knew what was going on now. This was the same nonsense that Fruit Crunch had been taken with, being so thrilled with how their adventure had ended that they were already looking for more. But whereas the colt was itching for another dangerous situation to intervene in, this Cleansweep girl was doubtlessly playing with some of the local wildlife and engaging in an elaborate game of make-believe in order to pretend like she was on some sort of goddess-given quest or something equally insipid. “The idea that the Night Mare would have any interest in your daughter is one that I can’t bring myself to take seriously,” announced Lex. “Nor should you.”
“R-really?!” Feather Duster almost gasped the word, slumping in relief. “Oh, I’m so glad! I mean, I knew it was preposterous, but she was so insistent! And that snake really was obedient too! It must have escaped from a pet shop in the city…”
“You should know better than to entertain a child’s fantasies,” snapped Lex, no longer considering this conversation to be worth his time. “Now, when noon comes, I’m going to be otherwise engaged, so I’ll need you to distribute food to everypony,” he added, turning back around as he nodded toward the large pile of food near the end of the platform…and stopped in his tracks, realizing that wouldn’t be viable.
His noon meeting with Celestia and Luna was here, at the train station. Having everypony come right up next to the same building where he planned on battling the two alicorns – as well as their guards, if they decided to bring them – would put them unacceptably close to harm’s way. While he planned on confronting them inside the building, and the food he’d purchased was outside on the platform, that left only a single wall between everypony and danger. All it would take would be a single spell of sufficient power, dodged or deflected or otherwise sent toward the wall, and the conflict could very well spill over and engulf innocent ponies.
But there was an easy solution to that. I can just delay passing out food, decided Lex. Except, he realized a second later, that wasn’t a acceptable solution. Even if nopony was near the train station when the battle occurred, the food itself still was, and it remained a resource of critical importance. With the nearby farms only just now starting to engage in small-scale commerce again, Lex knew they couldn’t afford to lose even a small portion of the food that he’d purchased from Coal Hopper. Their situation was still too close to the precipice of disaster to make any such risk justifiable.
That left only moving the food that was here to a more remote location – which, Lex knew, would take too long, considering how much of it there was – or changing the venue of his meeting with the princesses. The latter was a feasible decision, but tactically unsound; he’d wanted to battle Celestia and Luna indoors so as to prevent them from using their wings to the fullest extent. But if he declared the train station unsuitable, that left no other building in the immediate vicinity that he could use. Certainly, River’s manor was unacceptable, since she’d made it plain that her staff was currently living there, and he couldn’t even begin to think of how he could lure the princesses into some building in Vanhoover…
“Sir?” Feather Duster’s voice was back to its usual timid tone. “You said you wanted me to be the one handing out the food to everypony?”
“Be quiet!” hissed Lex, his unusual calm beginning to crumble. The realization that his plan to confront the Royal Sisters carried unacceptable risks to the ponies in his care was enough to make him clench his teeth in frustration. I can fix this! he swore silently. There has to be some way of negating the danger to everypony else, at least long enough for me to subdue those two! Once they’re defeated, they won’t be able to exercise any further influence over Equestria because they’ll…they’ll be…
Lex’s eyes widened as he realized he wasn’t able to finish that thought. Once he’d successfully defeated the alicorns in the inevitable altercation, then what exactly would he do with them? It wasn’t as though he planned on killing them. Celestia and Luna were severely misguided in their approach to rulership, but they weren’t evil; and even if they had been, they were still ponies, which meant that their lives were sacrosanct.
Nor could they be easily imprisoned. Lex couldn’t imagine that any of the local buildings would be able to contain them once they’d recovered from the battle; the glimpse of Celestia’s magical abilities that he’d gotten last night might not compare to his own, but by Equestrian standards it was still formidable. Even if she couldn’t teleport, he had no doubt that she and Luna would likely be able to find a way out of almost any jury-rigged prison. Tartarus was likely the only place that could hold them, and its only entrance was at the base of the mountain on which Canterlot sat, many hundreds of miles from Vanhoover. There weren’t even any guards that could keep them in line; Severance probably could, but he’d need to withdraw it from them eventually in order to recharge his magic.
A curse, then. Something to limit their power, like I did to Fencer. But no, that wouldn’t work either. Any curse that inhibited their capabilities would likely cripple their ability to move the sun and the moon. Even if his magic outstripped Celestia’s, Lex had no illusions that he could move the heavens the way she and her sister could, not when they had cutie marks that were quite obviously providing them with additional power devoted solely to those tasks.
But I haven’t tested that theory yet, he thought grimly as he looked over his shoulder. Glaring up at the sun, Lex ignored the confused look Feather Duster was giving him as he reached out with his telekinesis, gritting his teeth as he forced additional magic through his body and into his horn. Straining, he pushed against the glowing orb, grunting with effort as he tried to change its position even just a little-
Only to abandon the attempt a few seconds later, realizing it was futile. While telekinesis didn’t provide tactile feedback, there was always a commensurate strain involved when attempting to move objects. In this case, the strain had easily exceeded the motive force he was capable of bringing to bear, even after he’d augmented his telekinesis with additional magic. For all his power, he hadn’t come close to performing the feat that Princess Celestia did every day; pushing himself further would likely have injured him before he came anywhere close to succeeding. The boost she’s receiving from her cutie mark must, he realized, be considerable. That, or the glimpse of her magical prowess that he’d gotten had been more incomplete than he’d thought.
Or both.
Or something else altogether.
There was simply no way to be certain, not without studying their magical abilities further. He could do that, of course; boosting his circlet with additional magic would make it easy, but it wouldn’t be a quick process. Certainly, not something that could be done in a few minutes, particularly since he doubted that Celestia and Luna would let him physical manipulate them to get a better view of their bodies’ magical channels the way he had Sonata, Nosey, and Aria…
Lex winced, and not only because the thought of the girls suddenly brought forth the regret he’d expected to feel earlier. His plan…no, it couldn’t even be called a plan with how little thought he’d put into it. His hasty, haphazard decision to confront Celestia and Luna overly relied on incomplete information, would put too many ponies at risk, and had no appreciation for the long-term consequences. There was no choice, Lex knew, but to abandon it.
Ignoring Feather Duster's confused call, Lex trudged down from the edge of the platform, going to retrieve Severance. He could still prepare a few spells between now and noon, but it would be purely as a precaution. The meeting he was about to have would be just that: a meeting, and nothing more.
There'd be no violence when he met with the alicorns.
Lex turns his attention to his upcoming conference with Celestia and Luna, and decides not to try and take them on.
Does this mean that Celestia's vision of the future was wrong? Or is something unexpected getting ready to happen?
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Ponies have waists? Where exactly is that?
Good. He's realized what a fools folly confronting them in combat would be. Although it makes me sad to see the battle isn't going to happen.
9557280
It's right here:
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/9/93/Princess_Erroria_and_Cotton_Cloudy_impressed_by_Apple_Bloom%27s_moves_S2E6.png/revision/latest?cb=20121230181742
That scene is from The Cutie Pox (season two, episode six), and includes the line:
Isn't going to happen? Luna seemed pretty sure that Celestia's visions were never wrong...
9557288
Well, it's not going to happen now, and that's the important part.
24 hours are taking... 20+ chapters
Wow
Again, confronting them in physical or magical combat at all is stupid, Lex. You really want a method to make them step down without endangering anyone, you need to wage a battle of public opinion first, as I've said before.
Celestia has been in power for over a 1000 years and Luna has her approval. Any attemp to overthrow them violently, at least if done without public support, is just going to end up having the rest of the country turning against him. And at this point he probably doesn't even have the majority of the Vanhoover refugees on his side.
Honestly, I'm starting to think it's only a matter of time before Lex's plans shatter entirely. I'm not even sure if Sonata and Nosey were to come back it would help, since he basically ignores their advice most of the time anyway. His inability and refusal to understand how other ponies think and to really listen to outside ideas or advice is going to cost him everything.
Well, upside is that Lex is going through with his foolhardy plan, even if it was only due to the logistical nightmare of carrying it out rather than any fear of the potential backlash but at least he figured it out on his own. And not to mention he found a temporary solution on how to keep the tulpa quiet until he can devote his time to conquering it.
However, those victories ring as hollow as his feelings or lack of them after the girls' departure. While Aria's return is questionable, I have hopes for Sonata and Nosey's return.
Still, with the chances of Lex instigating a fight with the Princesses pretty much snuffed out, I'm starting to wonder who sparks it off. I can imagine Aria doing it to spite Lex but that's more Adagio's things.
Though with this new info, I'm starting to question if the conflict Luna saw was really between them and Lex at all.
On a side note, looks like the Knights have a lot more to do if they want Lex to acknowledge them.
Huh, Lex denying the providence of the spirit animals might make things tougher for the Night Mare Knights. We shall see.
My guess is Lex pacifies the princesses as best he can while he spends his magic analyzing them in as much detail as possible. He can always battle them later, it's not like they're hard to find.
So now the prophecy is self-fulfilling, since Luna's going to confront him?
9557413
Again why prophecies are bullshit. Either some asshole decides it's destiny and sets it all off on purpose, someone tries to actively prevent it but their actions set it off anyway, or they ignore the whole thing only to also stumble into causing it.
Seriously, what's the point of infallible prophecies anyway if you can't do anything about them other than the mystical force giving it out to get a good laugh out of watching the mortals stumble around trying to make it come true or not? Especially since they usually cause themselves just by existing because they're vague as fuck or they show you just enough to know shit's going down, but omit any useful details to tell you how it gets there.
Lex realises the thing that most everyone finds out only after the event they dreamt of all their lives.
Now What?
Maybe Lex should check out the children and wild animals to make sure they havent picked up something poisonous, infected, or such?
9557348 Yeah, but isn't it really ratcheting up the dramatic tension, waiting for the conflict to erupt?
All joking aside though, I do understand the nature of what you're saying here. The issue of pacing is one that I've been very aware of since I started writing this story, and the issue of how long it can take to cover a short period of time (particularly when moving towards a conflict that's been telegraphed ahead of time) is something that's been raised before. To a degree, this is intentional; I want to cover details and developments with the depth that I think they're due.
The flipside to this, however, is that I have a tendency to overcompensate for what I perceive to be (I can't really say whether or not it actually is) my own worst impulse as a writer: the desire to skip straight to the "good parts." I'd love to just go right from one epic battle scene to another, writing out high-octane fights where Lex and everyone else are engaged in pitch battles, watching the action go back and forth in point-counterpoint as everyone tries to pull out a victory. I enjoy those scenes in general across various media, and so I find them to be fun to write.
But I don't trust that instinct, and rightly so I think. A character that's presented as nothing more than a collection of high-powered special abilities is one that leaves me utterly cold, because without any context I can't relate to them as a character. Hence, a character whose initial presentation features only what they can do, rather than who they are (in terms of their motivations, hopes, fears, goals, regrets, quirks, foibles, etc.), is a character I find boring and so don't particularly want to read about. If I'm going to be impressed by what they can do, it needs contextualization not only in terms of the setting and the nature of how things work, but also with regards to why they're fighting.
To that end, I've been very cognizant to make myself keep the characterization aspect of the story first and foremost. When things happen, I want the characters to react to them, to have a sense that they have their own opinions and values and takes on the events unfolding around them, and showcase what those are. When things happen that they care about, be it with regards to their relationships or their goals or anything else that they'd conceivably take an interest in, that shouldn't just be skipped over because I want to rush to the next instance of everyone casting spells at each other while things blow up. Doing so makes those events feel flat and the characters feel one-dimensional. So to that end, I'm making sure to keep a strong focus on how Lex and everyone else is reacting to each and every new development that comes their way.
Now, it's certainly possible to take that too far, and I might very well have done so. But I'd like to think that's less egregious than not taking things far enough.
9557986
So you're trying to be goldilocks?
YMMV but I feel that its slightly long
Sorry
9557399 You're half-right here.
The problem with waging a battle of public opinion, besides the fact that Lex is terrible at that, is that it's hard to rally public opinion around a series of reforms if the public perceives the status quo to be acceptable. In the case of Equestria, most ponies seem fine with the state of their society, excepting disaster areas like Vanhoover, and so aren't inclined to understand Lex's frustration in that regard. That's not surprising; measuring something that hasn't happened isn't easy under most circumstances, especially if there's no particular basis for any sort of expectations in that regard. Most ponies simply can't conceive of the idea of an active, engaged government that goes out of its way to prevent problems and continuously improve the public condition via a robust infrastructure, since they've never seen nor heard of such a thing. To most ponies, a dirt road doesn't need to be paved, food doesn't need to be inspected to ensure its health quality, dirigibles and zeppelins don't need to be inspected for safety, etc. There's no perception of such things being needed.
Making an appeal that such things are needed might be helpful, but that'll likely be an uphill battle. Prevention efforts against things that might happen tend to draw less support than relief efforts for things that already have, especially if the prevention efforts require shared sacrifices on the part of the public. Hence why in the real world taxes tend to be historically unpopular (even when they're regarded as legitimate); no one wants to give up some of their hard-earned money to pay for upkeep on a road somewhere that they might not ever use and which might still be serviceable for another fifty years; does it really need to be repaved now?
That's without even taking into account that ponies seem more passive than humans, and more inclined toward submission than rebellion. Even if they were convinced that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna needed to do more, it's difficult to conceive of the general public becoming so disapproving that they'd want them removed from power anyway. The closest we've ever seen to that happening is in Princess Spike (season five, episode ten) when Fancy Pants led an angry mob toward Princess Twilight's quarters to protest "her" bad scheduling...and even then they weren't violent, and were easily talked down and mollified with an apology. Ponies don't seem inclined to distrust anyone who so much as acts pleasant, let alone has established goodwill in the local community...and the alicorns are the apex of that.
The flipside to this, of course, is that if Lex were to take over via a coup, the public would almost certainly never "turn against him." Of the many political institutions and ideologies that never developed in Equestria (or developed only anemically, e.g. democracy being limited to schoolchildren choosing their "Student Pony President"), the idea of consent of the governed as a basis for political legitimacy seems to be near-universally unacknowledged. Rather, what we see in Equestria is much closer to the divine right of kings, with only a few modest tweaks. Twilight is a princess because she's an alicorn and/or because Princess Celestia said she was a princess. That's it; there was no popular referendum that we ever saw, nor any sort of public input on the idea of a fourth princess being crowned. She's a ruler because of who and what she is, not because everypony else accepts her.
Lex is aware of that, of course, and has every intention of leveraging it to his advantage. While he believes that political legitimacy must be justified by actively serving the public good, its conferral is purely a question of a ruler's ability to assume and exercise power, not in winning recognition from the body politic. That's really not all that different from any other unelected sovereign, of course, but Celestia and Luna's refusal to exercise power softens this, whereas Lex wouldn't hesitate to tell someone else directly to their face "I have authority over you, and you will comply with my laws or face the consequences."
Now, that could still result in a politically viable government; a state's exercising power via its monopoly on the (justified) use of force over its citizenry is the basis for virtually every government in our world, after all. But to the ponies of Equestria it would certainly feel unpleasant enough that it would probably cause him to be challenged by the Mane Six and other local "heroes," even if the populace wouldn't put up too much of a fight when they realized that his rule wasn't actually very oppressive, all things considered.
9558025 Yeah, hence why I said I might be overcompensating. That said, even I sometimes think that certain parts of what's here are taking too long to get moving.
9557402 Well, Lex's "solution" to keep his tulpa quiet was that he was numb to what happened rather than being tossed in a maelstrom of emotions. Of course, that's not really surprising; remember, he had a strongly emotional reaction to what happened with Aria last night after he fled from her, and then again via a series of atypically vivid nightmares about what would happen if he messed things up. So naturally, when he did mess things up, there simply wasn't much fuel for an emotional breakdown; he'd used it up already anticipating this very thing.
As for what Lex's backing off of the idea of fighting Celestia and Luna means for the coming conflict, well...it's hard to say. Other than Celestia's visions (being said to be) infallible, we don't know much else. It'll happen, but so far the circumstances regarding how and the fallout that results from it are all mysteries. Likewise, we can only hope that Lex will patch things up with the girls and manage not to screw things up with the Knights...but I guess we'll just have to see how that goes.
9557410 Well, Lex was dismissing the idea of Cleansweep having received a "pet" from the Night Mare because he found the idea implausible. One wonders if he'll still feel that way if and when he comes into contact with them personally.
As for Celestia and Luna...hopefully you're right about Lex taking a subtler tact, but the problem of Celestia's prophetic vision remains...
9557413 Possibly, though from what we saw in Celestia's vision it looked more like Lex struck first. But then again, what can we really know from such a brief glimpse?
9557548 There's a good article on this topic over here.
That said, the issue with prophecies in the course of a narrative is that, if they aren't infallibly accurate, then they tend to be worthless. After all, if they can be wrong, then they're really not that much different than any other prediction about the future, are they? Sure, you might be able to couch something as "these prophecies are usually right, unless major effort is made to thwart them." But that doesn't really help anything, since "major effort" is going to vary wildly depending on how its defined, particularly with regards to the scope and scale of the prophecy in question. The d20 System tries to sidestep this by sharply limiting prophetic abilities (or at least, those available to PCs, such as augury) via a combination of vagueness and a percentage chance of being flat-out wrong. Unfortunately, this has all sorts of in-game implications (i.e. how they work and why they're sometimes wrong), as well as being of questionable practical value; if you're in a position where you're relying on a spell like augury for guidance, do you want to take the chance that you blew your percentage roll (which is made in secret by the GM)?
So really, the only way to use a prophecy in a story is to have it be unfailingly accurate...or at least, to have everyone believe it is. If it turns out that it can be subverted, then that can be the big twist to how it all unfolds, but in that case you need a damn good reason for why that is (which gets back into explaining how things work) and you won't be able to rely on prophecies anymore. Of course, a lot of stories have their cake and eat it to by fulfilling the terms of a prophecy in a creative way that subverts expectations while still matching what was foretold. But that's harder to do here, since we were shown what's going to happen but not the circumstances.
Fortunately, Celestia doesn't seem to have any control over this ability of hers, so it doesn't come up any more frequently than the story calls for.
9557605 Given that he's heading to retrieve Severance, which is where the children are, that might happen in the very near future...
9558081 9557548
Generally the use of infallible, unalterable prophecies is that you can prepare for whatever they show happening and mitigate the effects. Yes, the bomb is still going to go off and destroy the city, but all the people can be evacuated ahead of time. Yes, Nightmare Moon is going to escape her prison and banish you into the sun (or whatever), but the heroes you set in motion can defeat her shortly afterwards and free you. That sort of thing.
And this prophecy shows Lex attacking Celestia, but not the end of the fight or anything like that. So it means you can arrange to win.
That said, it's been a plot point in various stories that asking for a prediction of the future is dangerous because it fixes the results in place and they may not be what you wanted to have happen.
9558047
How Long until the Armageddon
(In chapters)
If that’s okay with you
9559980 Unfortunately, the best answer I can give is "(very) soon."
I just hope it will live up to your expectations when it arrives!