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.
Lex was in a foul mood from the moment he woke up.
His nightmares had been worse than usual, revolving heavily around Sonata abandoning him after he informed her what had happened with Aria. That had been followed by subsequent breakdowns of everything he was trying to achieve, both professionally and personally. While none of those scenarios were particularly new – the disintegration of his relationship with Sonata was one that he experienced quite frequently – the knowledge that a difficult conversation was looming in his immediate future had lent his nightmares vividness beyond what they usually possessed. Nor was that the only reason that Lex had to be upset when he opened his eyes.
The sun was shining in through the windows, and the smell of food was filling the lobby of the train station. Nor were Nosey, Aria, or Sonata next to him, their voices instead coming to him from a short distance away, chatting amicably with a fourth mare whose voice he identified a nanosecond later as River Bank’s. Despite the entire scenario being unexpected, Lex had already figured out what had happened as he sat up, and the knowledge served only to irritate him further, frowning deeply as he looked at where the voices were coming from.
On the other side of the lobby, a large blanket that had been spread out on the floor. All four mares were sitting on it, partaking of various foodstuffs that had been laid out; even as Lex watched, Sonata took a large bite of a piece of bread with some sort of blue spread on it, while Nosey sipped from a bottle of something. Aria was nibbling on a frosted confection of some kind, while River gestured without looking at the maid she’d brought last night – standing silently off to the side, and now clad in a traditional black-and-white outfit (though the skirt seemed a bit short, flashing a glimpse of her cutie mark as she moved) – who immediately trotted forward and shelled a walnut for her, stomping on it just hard enough to break it open without harming the edible part within.
His eyes narrowing at the sight, Lex rose to his hooves, causing Sonata to look over at him. “Hey sleepyhead!” she called cheerily. “Guess what? River brought us a picnic breakfast! Isn’t that nice?” She punctuated her statement with another large bite of her jam-covered bread, getting some of the blue substance on her face. “Ith weawwy gooh!” she cooed.
“We saved some for you,” added Nosey with a timid smile. “There’s bread, blueberry and raspberry jam, yogurt, oat and raisin cereal, t-tarts…” That last one made her stammer, turning red, and Lex could only imagine that she was thinking about last night, though he had no idea why a pastry would have reminded her of that.
Aria, by contrast, looked no different from her usual self, save for the fact that she was a pony now. “There would have been more,” she sneered, glaring at Sonata, “but somebody – oh, excuse me, somepony – just had to eat all the crepes.”
“Huh?” Sonata tilted her head at the accusation, baffled. “What’re you looking at me for? All I had were those really thin pancakes.”
“It’s quite alright,” chuckled River. “I can send Feather here back to my manor for some more. It’ll just take a few minutes to-”
“What do you think you’re doing?!” hissed Lex, baring his teeth as he stalked toward them.
All four mares froze, glancing at each other uncertainly. Even the maid, hanging in the background silently, went rigid at the furious tone in his voice. Sonata, however, recovered a moment later, finishing her jam-covered bread before climbing to her hooves and trotting over to him, all smiles. “Aw, did the bench-bugs bite somepony while they were sleeping?” Leaning in closer, her voice lowered to a whisper. “They totes got Aria! Just look at her neck!”
The comment – audible to all present despite Sonata’s attempt at discretion – made Aria smirk, giving her mane a toss so that her neck was plainly visible. Sure enough, the bite marks he’d left on her last night were still there, causing Lex’s stomach to tighten at the sight. Off to the side Nosey winced, and when Lex glanced at her she gave a pointed look at Sonata before shaking her head a little. Oblivious to what was going on around her, Sonata tried to pull him toward the blanket. “C’mon, you’ll feel, like, a bajillion times better once you’ve eaten something.”
But Lex refused to move. “The ponies in this camp were starving a few days ago!” he seethed, shoving thoughts of last night away in favor of focusing on the travesty that was happening right in front of him. “Our current stockpile of food is limited to the point of rationing, we’ve barely managed to convince the surrounding farms to start coming here to sell their produce again, to say nothing of how difficult it’s been just to procure funds to buy what they are willing to sell, and if we can’t get them a new supply of rainclouds soon there’s going to be a drought throughout the entire region! So what,” he boomed, almost shouting now, “are you idiots doing?!”
Nosey winced, as did Sonata, backing away from him with a guilty look on her face. River bit her lip, shrinking back as though preparing to bolt. But Aria only snorted, and as Lex looked at her, she met his gaze without flinching. “We’re getting what we deserve, that’s what,” she sneered. “Yeah, everyone outside has it rough. Boo-freaking-hoo. We fought a zombie army and they didn’t, so they can stick to the cheap seats until they start working as hard as us.” She followed her statement up by tossing the last bit of her pastry in the air, leaning back and catching it in her mouth an instant later.
Or at least she would have, had Lex not caught it in his telekinesis first, slamming it back down onto the plate in front of her. “You’re entitled to exactly as many privileges as I say you’re entitled to, and nothing else,” he growled darkly. Normally Aria’s blatant defiance of his wishes would have fanned the flames of his anger, but after last night he didn’t dare let her provoke him again. Clamping down on his rage, he turned to the mare that had brought all this here. “River-”
“I was trying to help!” she blurted, rising to her hooves. Licking her lips, she gave him an earnest look. “I know that you’re rationing food here, and I thought that if I could bring a little extra, that would save you whatever portions you were going to use for yourself and everypony here, so that there’d be more to go around for everypony outside.”
“A wasted gesture,” pronounced Lex. “I can create more than enough food for the four of us with my magic that we don’t need to partake in our stockpile.”
“Ugh,” groaned Sonata, rolling her eyes. “You mean go back to that gruel and water stuff you make? Like, thanks but no thanks.”
“If you’re going to do that,” added Aria. “You should at least go all-out and create a banquet again.”
“Aria!” yelped Nosey, horrified. “How can you say that?! You know that almost killed him!”
Ignoring the girls, Lex kept his attention on River. “You’re going to give me a full accounting of how much more food you have at your manor,” he ordered, “as well as all other assets at your disposal. I’m giving you until the end of the day-”
“Don’t need it!” announced River, her nervous expression turning into a pleased smile. Another quick nod was all it took to make Feather Duster trot forward, handing River a small folio. “I’ve prepared-”
“Have you eaten any of this?” interrupted Lex, his gaze turning toward Feather Duster.
The pegasus mare froze in place, her eyes going wide. “N-no! I swear!”
“She hasn’t,” added Nosey. “She just stood there and served us the entire time.”
Sonata nodded. “She’s been, like, a really awesome maid! Except she didn’t ask me if I wanted fries with my order.”
Feather Duster blinked at that, giving Sonata a distressed look. “But, but that’s not-”
But she was cut off by Aria’s groan of exasperation. “Don’t bother. She thinks that question’s the mark of good customer service. She once asked the mailman why he didn’t say that when asking people to sign for packages.”
Nosey blinked. “What’s a mailman?”
But Lex had heard enough inanity. “All of you, be quiet!” All conversation immediately ceased, and he turned his attention back to River. “Continue,” he ordered her. Off to his side, Feather Duster slowly crept back toward the wall, still pale from her sudden interrogation.
Trying to regain her equilibrium, River coughed into her hoof. “Er, yes. As I was saying, I’ve prepared a fully itemized statement regarding my available wealth, both liquid and otherwise. I had to make some educated guesses due to the current state of the city, but I believe you’ll find this to be an excellent summary of everything I can help with.” Her smile was firmly back in place by the time she was finished, holding the ledger out toward him.
Lex grunted at that, taking the book in his telekinesis and bringing it over to him. Flipping through the pages, he skimmed them only briefly before closing it again, storing it in a saddlebag. “We’ll go over this in depth later. For now, there’s another issue I want to address.” He glanced out the window as he spoke, judging the time from the angle of the sun. His noon meeting with the princesses was still several hours away from the look of it, but he knew he needed to ask the girls what they’d spoken to the princesses about last night before he moved on to more personal topics. At least that way he’d have the relevant information if he upset one or more of them enough that they stormed off.
Turning to Nosey, he decided to start with her. “After you spoke with Princess Luna last night, you said there was information that I needed to know…”
By the time Nosey, Sonata, and River had finished filling him in, Lex’s eyes were blazing green and purple. Although there had indeed been several salient pieces of information, there was only one in his thoughts at the moment. “Fundraisers and charity drives?!” he snarled. “That’s the extent of what they’re going to do for Vanhoover?! They saw with their own eyes what’s happened here, they had you give them firsthoof accounts of what these ponies have been through, and that’s all the action they’re willing to take?!”
“They also might hold a concert!” cheered Sonata, sitting on her haunches and clapping her fore-hooves together. Grinning, she turned to Aria. “Wouldn’t that be great? I totes bet we could go on tour!”
Aria rolled her eyes, but didn’t have a chance to answer as Lex kept ranting. “There’s no excuse for this level of negligence! If they lack the will to use their authority to step in and command the resources necessary to fix what’s happened here, then they don’t deserve to have any authority at all!” His jaw clenched, Lex found himself returning to his earlier speculation about arresting Celestia and Luna for how depraved they’d become in their dereliction of their duties to their people. It would mean a fight, of course, but the very fact that they’d fight to retain their positions as princesses while refusing to use those mantles for anything other than mere celebrity influence, even after learning what had happened to Vanhoover, was enough to make Lex’s blood boil. I should never have agreed to limit myself to just this city! he raged silently. I should have gone with my original plan and overthrown them!
But that was a mistake that he could rectify now. In just a few hours’ time, he'd have the opportunity to make sure that Equestria wouldn’t have to suffer under Celestia and Luna’s mismanagement any longer. But for now…
“Hey, Lex? You’re making crystals grow all over the place again. You mind knocking that off?”
Sonata’s voice reminded him that there was another topic he needed to deal with. For a moment he considered putting it off, but decided against it. He wanted this done, so he could give his full attention to what was about to happen. Forcing himself to choke down his righteous anger, Lex turned his attention to the others. “River, you may leave. I’ll contact you about utilizing your wealth later. And you,” he glanced at Feather Duster, who flinched in response, “wait outside.”
River nodded, but neither mare said anything, perhaps realizing that in his current mood, the less of his attention they commanded the better. Once they’d exited the lobby, Lex let out a slow breath, readying himself for what was about to happen before turning to the other three. Or rather, to one of them in particular.
“Sonata, I need to talk to you about something that happened last night…”
Lex takes everyone around him to task before deciding to forcibly overthrow Celestia and Luna! Is this how Celestia's vision unfolds?
And what will happen when he tells Sonata what happened between him and Aria last night?
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One step forward and potentially twenty steps back if things go awry, more depending on Sonata's reaction to his confession. While Nosey is admirable for supporting Lex in her own way, Sonata is still Lex's primary motivation to do things more genially...well, as close as he can do so. And if she does get upset and leaves(as Lex already fears), Lex will have to rely on Nosey to act as his spokespony in her absence since Aria would undoubtedly cause problems if given that role.
And if Sonata decides to stick by her man, she'll be watching Aria and potentially Nosey as well as Feather Duster like a hawk, especially if she noticed her outfit.
I'm still thinking this chapter is one of Lex's nightmares.
While I actually half agree with Lex here, he's falling back into his 'everything has to happen now' mode of thinking that's only going to likely end with everything he's done falling apart.
Rather than going for the whole pie of Equestria at once, which is more likely to result in his capture at best (a friendship rainbow to the face when the mane 6 get involved at worst), the better plan would be to publically call the Princesses out on their lack of willingness or ability to do anything more than token measures for Vanhoover, then utilize the authority they supposedly gave him and banish them from the city they apparently aren't willing to do anything to meaningfully help.
From there he goes back to the plan of setting Vanhoover up as an example of how his way is better, and assuming he succeeds, encouraging the rest of the country to follow suit.
TL;DR, Lex's plan to try and depose the Sisters now is extremely ill thought out and short sighted when he could easily turn this info to his advantage to cement his control over Vanhoover.
River:Let them eat cake.
Lex:
i so would love to be a fly on the wall during this talk.
9539799 Typo fixed, thanks for catching that!
Lex is making two very big gambles here, the first being Sonata's reaction to his indiscretion with her sister, and the second being his apparent desire to resurrect his plan to take over Equestria by force. Both have major potential to go sideways, and result in fallout that could be devastating for him in myriad ways. If Sonata's reaction is as bad as Lex fears, then I suspect that he'll be devastated, even if Nosey and Aria stay by his side. Moreover, it's doubtful as to whether either of them could serve in her role as a spokespony. Nosey seems to have some aptitude for it, but she lacks Sonata's overwhelming personal charm, even if she is smarter. Aria, of course, is completely out of the question.
As for Feather Duster, even with her short-skirted outfit, I doubt Sonata has it in her head that she's any sort of romantic threat. Remember, she doesn't think that anyone fools around with maids; that's one of her many bright ideas, along with wondering why Feather Duster didn't ask her if she wanted fries.
9540057 It's not, but it could very well turn into one if he screws this next part up...
9540065 You're not wrong, but this gets back into Lex's weaknesses. Simply put, he can't see why anypony else needs convincing; to him, it's fairly obvious that the Royal Sisters are being so unbelievably negligent in their duties that they need to be removed from power for everypony's good. The idea that anyone else would actually need to be convinced, at this point, would likely leave him aghast. After all, if this doesn't make it clear that they're holding Equestria back, and hurting the general populace in doing so, what would? So he sees no reason not to take decisive action as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that most ponies would agree with him. While some of the Vanhoover ponies might (Fencer and her crew certainly seem to), most of the rest of Equestria would likely be horrified by what he's planning. The very idea of punishing someone for doing something seems to be one that has little traction in Equestria, and punishing someone for what they haven't done is likely even more of a stretch. Such things simply seem to be repugnant to traditional Equestrian values, and Lex's contravening them would likely not sit well with more than a few ponies (though them doing anything about that is something else altogether; ponies really don't seem to be inclined to rebel or fight back, but simply either run away from or submit to anything that threatens them). So it's not likely that Lex's plan would go as well as he seems to think it would.
Hopefully the girls will run pass-block for him again...if he doesn't ruin their relationships with what's about to happen, first.
9540153 At least he let her keep her head.
9540328 Well, let's see what happens next...
He's making the same mistakes a lot of others who have come for Celestia have made: A)Who's going to raise the sun? Maybe a whole bunch of unicorns eventually but it would be impossible to organize them before the planet starts cooking. B)All the people who will come after you if you succeed. A group of six adventurers with a major artifact that shoots rainbow lasers that never miss and don't seem to require a save. And if you beat them, you just pissed off a Protean Lord once one of those adventurers misses their Tuesday tea.
But let's talk about something more important: Will River realize she needs to have a chef constantly slicing potatoes and frying them, and will Feather Duster learn the magic words to gain an ally among Lex's court?
9540057
._.
0_0
O_O
What if the ENTIRE story is a nightmare?
(Insert total recall ending)
9542300
As long as it is entertaining.
9542263 The issue of who'll raise and lower the sun and the moon if Lex overthrows Celestia and Luna is an awkward one, for several reasons. The first is that we're not entirely sure how he means to subjugate them; there don't seem to be any real prisons in Equestria (notwithstanding the jail we see in Appleoosa's Most Wanted, season five, episode six). So unless he's planning on throwing them into Tartarus (which we can't rule out), the issue of what to do with them after he defeats them remains an open question. Maybe he'd use a curse to somehow keep them in line?
But beyond these is an even more salient issue: as we see it in the show, the sun doesn't really transmit heat. Or if it does, then not enough to make much of a difference in Equestria's temperature.
Now, we know that Equestria does experience fluctuations in temperature (on what's presumably a regular basis). After all, in Tanks for the Memories (season five, episode five), we see Tank getting ready to hibernate just as Cloudsdale shows up to give Ponyville its supply of snow. So presumably the temperature is already dropping, signalling to Tank to get ready to go to sleep (and keeping the snow from melting). But the position of the sun and the duration for which it shines don't seem to be factors in this.
Why do I say that? Because of what we saw in The Cutie Re-Mark – Part 2 (season five, episode twenty-six). When Twilight and Spike end up in the timeline where Nightmare Moon won, they remark on how it's night out even though it should be the middle of the day. We later hear Nightmare Moon – whose motivation was always to create a kingdom of unending night – say that Celestia has been trapped in the moon "for years." So it's a fairly safe presumption to say that there's been unending night in Equestria for years. And yet, no one is shown to be particularly cold, nor is there any indication that Equestria has suffered for the lack of sunlight. The Everfree forest is still there, for example. And that timeline's Rarity presumes that Twilight and Spike are tourists, indicating that such a thing isn't unusual. Ergo, there's been no loss of temperature.
This honestly isn't that surprising. While Applejack might sing about "No easy task to clear the ground/Plant our tiny seeds/With proper care and sunshine/Everyone it feeds" in "Winter Wrap Up" (from the episode of the same name, season one, episode eleven), we see her flatly contradict herself during the musical sequence for "Make This Castle a Home" in Castle Sweet Castle (season five, episode three), where she grows plants indoors just by pouring some dirt on the floor, with flowers blooming immediately thereafter (I know there's at least one other instance of her actually holding some dirt in her hoof and making a flower grow from it, but I can't seem to find it).
In other words, sunlight isn't a necessary component for agriculture in Equestria. Earth pony magic – or, alternatively, ponies with agriculture-related cutie marks – is enough to make plants grow. That certainly explains why earth ponies were the ones producing food before the three tribes came together! Cold weather will still kill plants (though that might be because of the snow rather than the temperature alone), but sunlight doesn't seem to be an issue. Given how many other real-world meteorological, biological, and cosmological laws Equestria casually violates, the sun not being a heat source isn't really a big deal.
What it does do is redeem Nightmare Moon, at least somewhat. We now know that she was no longer neither an omnicidal maniac nor a blithering idiot. Her kingdom of eternal night wasn't a threat to all life; we've seen that directly. Messing with the sun and the moon's cycle doesn't have much impact on the local ecological condition. (And if we apply Occam's razor, we can dismiss the idea that the sun does transmit heat, and that Nightmare Moon has constructed some sort of complicated apparatus that's kept entirely off-screen and never mentioned in order to keep Equestria warm without having to raise the sun, or any other entirely-unsupported idea that tries to circumvent what's plainly shown.)
So why is it a big deal then? Presumably because of aesthetics. After all, Princess Celestia describes Discord's reign (in The Return of Harmony – Part 1, season two, episode one) as causing "an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness." Presumably a kingdom where the sun never shown was graded along that particular scale – as causing unhappiness – rather than any sort of genuine threat to life. After all, you'd think that repealing cause and effect relationships the way Discord apparently did would be seen as a threat to life itself, but if that's simply a matter of being unpleasant, then presumably a kingdom that's shrouded in eternal darkness would be considered much the same.
Now, that seems to make the Royal Sisters superfluous – since they're essentially just performing recurring acts of beautification by overseeing the day/night cycle – but is that really any different from how they act now?
it has nothing to do with neglect this is just a power play by lex.
He has no right to rule ince he is more likely to start wars on purpose or by accident due to his racism.
9569532 Any form of government that seeks to replace a previous form is a power-play, in and of itself. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily immoral or unjust. (Though I'm not sure where "neglect" comes into it?)
As for whether or not Lex would start wars "due to his racism," that's speculative at best. Many if not most of the other races we see in MLP:FiM don't have cultures with the advanced moral development that Equestria does, hence Twilight's deciding to open a school in order to teach it to them at the start of season eight. That's her deciding that pony moral culture is superior and needs to be exported to other races for their own good, a sentiment that Lex would likely agree with, even if he'd phrase and implement it differently.