“There is more going on here than you know. Bond with Nisha and you can escape.”

Sanguine Disposition was telling him how to get out of Mare Occultum.

The question now was why.

But although it would take time to figure out the answer to that, Lex knew that it had to fall into one of two categories: either the vampire was laying a trap that was insidious in the extreme, or he was genuinely trying to help.

Neither were a reason to stop fighting.

Straining against the chains of light binding him, Lex let out a roar as he threw the full force of a titan against them. The glowing links shuddered under the assault, and for a moment it looked as though his efforts were for nought, but an instant later their light began to flicker, and Sanguine Disposition leaped back, just managing to avoid being hit by the scattered chunks of light as the chains broke apart.

“Aw, you’re never any fun!” The chorus of voices that came from the leather wing’s remaining illusory doubles was thick with laughter. “Seeing you all tied up, wriggling and helpless would have been a dream come true for me.”

“And what I’m about to do to you has been a dream of mine,” snarled Lex, feinting right – just far enough to be outside of what he’d estimated was the area of whatever Sanguine Disposition had done that was disrupting his magic – before casting a spell and rushing inward, claws raised.

Holding his spell at the ready, Lex had a moment’s vindication as the warping effect that the vampire had laid down failed to manifest. Then he was tearing through the remainder of Sanguine Disposition’s images, each one ripped apart like paper as the vampire gave ground, doubtlessly preparing a spell of his own...

Lex was faster.

Tearing apart the duplicates, Lex rounded on the remaining Sanguine Disposition in a wild fray of talons, having the satisfaction of feeling them sink into the leather wing’s desiccated flesh. Immediately, he released his spell, and Sanguine Disposition gave a pained shriek as the flensing that Lex had dealt to his shoulder suddenly spread across his entire body, large patches of dried skin peeling away from the leathery layer of muscle that covered his bones, the wounds gaping and bloodless.

Whether or not Sanguine Disposition’s coded message was trustworthy, their battle needed to continue. If the vampire’s message was true, then the fact that he’d transmitted it so obliquely – even if the Night Terror or some other listener had overheard and decoded it, Sanguine Disposition would have some level of plausible deniability by claiming that the acrostic nature of the code was pure coincidence – meant that he had to hide his true intentions, necessitating that they keep fighting in order to maintain his cover.

And if his advice was simply another of his insidious tricks, meant to serve as a distraction or cause hesitation, then ignoring it in favor of fighting back was the correct option anyway.

Except that both of those scenarios are predicated on my being unable to leave, Lex knew.

Unless he brought down the cube of force that was preventing him from falling back, or found a way to bypass it, then his time to figure out Sanguine Disposition’s intentions was limited.

Particularly since their battle so far had been raucous enough that Steel Soul and Grim Darklight had to have noticed by now, and so were likely on their way.

Having to fight both of the Night Mare’s other champions at the same time wasn’t something Lex wanted to deal with, and while Grim Darklight wasn’t in the same league, there was a significant chance that he’d renew whatever binding he’d used on Nisha before.

Unless I bind her to me first.

That wasn’t something Lex wanted to do.

That Nisha had quite literally begged for it the last time they’d met was irrelevant in that regard. Joining his soul with someone else, forming an eternal bond that would last even beyond death, and which – thanks to Kara’s blessing – would undoubtedly become a romance, wasn’t something he wanted to share with a complete stranger. He owed Nisha recompense for how he’d treated her before, and he still felt guilty over the abuse she must have suffered at Grim Darklight’s hooves despite knowing that wasn’t his fault...but neither of those warranted joining with her in such a profoundly intimate fashion.

Except that if Sanguine Disposition was telling the truth, then joining with Nisha might be the only way for them to get out Mare Occultum.

But how?

If I just knew the answer to that question, then I could find some other way of effecting that method of escape!

Snarling, Lex continued to press his advance, capitalizing on the wounds he’d dealt to Sanguine Disposition as he dragged his talons across the vampire’s face-

Only to hear Nisha scream in agony behind him, with no warning from his foresight.

“As much as I love having your undivided attention, you really should take more notice of that wolf,” laughed Sanguine Disposition, sounding none the worse for wear despite the wounds he’d taken. “Or did you save her just to ignore her?”

Lex didn’t answer, already moving back toward Nisha. The fact that his trans-temporal sense hadn’t registered her agonized cry meant that Sanguine Disposition had done something, used some sort of spell without him noticing, and now-

Now she was whimpering as she cradled her head in her paws, multiple bloody gashes dripping down her face...in the same location where he’d just slashed Sanguine Disposition.

Some sort of sympathetic link to mirror wounds, growled Lex inwardly. Another coded message, telling me to bond with her!

That, and it was also likely a reminder that he couldn’t waste any more time. He either had to bond with her now, find a way to retreat, or be ready for this to become a three-on-one fight.

Wrapping one claw around Nisha, Lex concentrated on healing her even as he enlarged the wall of black crystals that he’d made to grant her cover, raising its height while simultaneously widening it, until it completely bisected the area inside the cube, with Sanguine Disposition on the other side.

That wouldn’t hold him off for long at all, but hopefully it wouldn’t need to.

Hopefully.

Give me something to deal with that force field! Lex screamed at his tulpa. NOW!

Acknowledged, it answered immediately.

It wasn’t the best use of the thing, but he’d already queried the future for if his tulpa would be able to produce something which would be able to let him and Nisha escape Darkest Night altogether, and he knew that it would answer in the negative. But for this...

A moment later, the dust-covered shroud he’d foreseen appeared in his grasp.

It looked as though it had just come out of someone’s grave, and with his mystic senses blinded, Lex couldn’t see anything special about it. But with no other disintegration spells prepared, or stored in his spell-embedded diamonds, it was either use his tulpa or cut his way out of the cube of force with Belligerence...and despite how bad the situation had become, having other options available meant that using the void weapon wasn’t going to happen.

Behind him, the wall of black crystals shuddered from a heavy impact, cracks starting to spread through it despite Lex having toughened them beyond their normal resilience.

Despite the flesh of her face being almost completely healed, Nisha was shaking as Lex picked her up again, rushing toward the boundary of the forcefield. It was only large enough for one of them, and while he could enhance the power inherent in magic items – since that was what this had to be, even if he couldn’t see into the magical spectrum – he couldn’t increase how voluminous it was.

But at least he could foresee what would happen when he donned it.

Listen to me very carefully, he instructed Nisha as he stopped at the edge of the invisible wall, the straight line of debris from his fight with Sanguine Disposition marking its edge. This cloak will allow whoever’s wearing it to pass by the barrier in front of us. I’m going to use it-

She drew in a sharp breath, looking up at him with wide eyes as her trembling grew worse.

-and then I’ll pass it back to you. When I do, don it immediately and join me on the other side, do you understand?

Y-yes, she answered hesitantly. I just...forgive me, but I don’t understand/comprehend/know why you’re doing this...

She didn’t finish the sentence, but his foresight told him that if he prompted her, the words “after you threw me away before” would follow.

A second impact came from the black crystal wall, shards of it tinkling softly as they hit the ground.

I was wrong to treat you the way I did, admitted Lex. Your request was impertinent, and you deserved to be rebuked for it...but not as harshly as you were.

The admission was a bitter one for Lex, knowing that it was shades of the same mistake he’d made with Panuk, and with Garden Gate before that. Each time, he’d been correct in determining that an injustice had occurred, warranting punishment, but not one so severe as what he’d seen fit to dole out. And in each case, it had been obvious to everyone except him that he’d been overly punitive, only realizing in hindsight what everyone else had known at the time.

It was more proof of what the Night Mare had told him, time and again, about needing others in order to become stronger. As much as Lex didn’t want to think that he’d have turned Equestria into another Eigengrau, where even a minor offense warranted public shame and degradation, on his own, the fact was that he’d repeatedly needed others – Sonata, Nosey, Fruit Crunch, Feather Duster, and numerous others – to let him know when he’d gone too far in condemning others for not living up to his standards...something that he himself had repeatedly failed to do even after gaining power unto a god.

Given how obvious that particular failing had been to everyone around him, there was no reason not to admit it now, to the person he’d wronged.

I am truly grateful for how kind/gracious/considerate my lord is, murmured Nisha, her tulpas causing her voices to overlap.

Lex nodded once, then paused as something occurred to him.

Tulpas...Nisha had tulpas, just like himself.

His own tulpa was able to manifest items, such as that shroud, by dragging them out of the dream realm and into the real world. That was why they didn’t last very long before vanishing; they had no true substance, being formed of compressed ether, the substance of the border region of the Ethereal Plane that lay between the physical realm and the Color Curtain that made up the dream realm, itself the boundary between the borders of the Ethereal Plane and its deeper reaches, according to the Libram of Ineffable Damnation.

Except the Ethereal Plane wasn’t accessible from here; he’d used his foresight to see what would happen if he’d tried to use his plane-shifting spell to reach that plane – to reach any plane – from inside of Mare Occultum, and it had definitively showed that such attempts would fail. So why had his tulpa succeeded?

Following that line of thought across thousands of hypotheses at once, Lex silently crossed the border of the forcefield, passing the shroud back through the cube’s edges – the dusty cloth moving through the barrier as though it wasn’t even there – to Nisha, who quickly wrapped it around herself and rushed to join him.

As soon as she was clear, Lex once again picked her up and sped off into Mare Occultum, just as the sound of the black crystal wall collapsing reached his ears, meaning that Sanguine Disposition was likely pursuing them.

Except...

“...a dream come true for me.” That had been what Sanguine Disposition had said just now. That couldn’t have been a coincidence, not in light of the acrostic message he’d just given him. Given that his own tulpa was capable of reaching into the dream realm, a place that should otherwise have been inaccessible from here, that couldn’t have been a coincidence.

For that matter, neither was it insignificant that the one planar region which could reach into Mare Occultum – and, in all likelihood, all of Darkest Night – was Color Curtain that was made up of extant dreams.

The Auctoritas Caliginous had mentioned how the Night Mare hadn’t been a goddess of bad dreams until after the Noctem; her name before then had been figurative, not literal, being a comparison between the monsters who prowled in the darkness with the feelings of terror and helplessness that so often accompanied nocturnal visions of fear.

And if the post-Noctem Night Mare had recreated her old self as her avatar...

Is the Night Terror unaware that the dream realm is accessible from here? Or is she aware but unable to do anything about it? An avatar is never as strong as their parent deity, and if the Night Mare herself designed every aspect of Darkest Night...

Then perhaps Nisha’s being here was more than just a testament to his own excessive sternness.

Every logical impulse Lex had objected to that idea. While he didn’t know the full degree to which gods could see the future, or how well their intellect allowed them to guess at what would happen, the idea that the Night Mare could have foreseen this specific scenario when she’d originally sent Nisha to him wasn’t something Lex could bring himself to countenance. That would have required her to foresee how his fight with Kryonex would have turned out, to say nothing of that void creature’s emergence. She couldn’t have known that things would come to this...

At least, not any more than Odin could have known about the connection between himself and Long Road.

Had he still been mortal, Lex knew that his heart would have been hammering from the sheer incredulity of what he was contemplating. It made absolutely no sense, and yet there were too many factors to ignore.

Sanguine Disposition’s multiple coded messages. The dream realm being the only planar area accessible from here. His tulpa’s inexplicable ability to reach there despite the rest of the Ethereal Plane being inaccessible. Nisha’s unexpected return to his life. Odin’s hints about fate.

The logic that Lex had relied upon to navigate his entire life said that it had to be a series of coincidences.

But it was that same logic which had led to his being so wrong so many times before.

He had needed lesson after lesson from the Night Mare – the goddess who’d sent him Nisha in the first place – before he’d learned to have faith in her.

And now...

Nisha.

In his arms, the black wolf looked up at him. Yes, my lord?

...do you still wish to become mine?

She stiffened then, not even drawing a breath as her jaw dropped, purple eyes going wide. Wh-what?

Do you wish to serve me, body and soul, for eternity? he repeated, using the same words she had when she’d offered herself to him.

His foresight showed him her answer before he’d even finished asking.

Yes! Oh, my master, yes! That’s my fondest/dearest/greatest wish, now more than ever! To belong to you-

Then you shall, answered Lex, moving behind a particularly large stalagmite before putting her down, knowing that she’d have continued expressing her gratitude effusively if he’d let her. Wait one moment, and I’ll begin the process.

As you command/wish/desire, my master! She was trembling again, but this time her tail was wagging as well.

Lex made no further reply, instead turning his thoughts back to his tulpa. Give me something that will recharge the Charismata.

That was the one thing which couldn’t be avoided. His ability to bind magical beasts to him was an application of the Night Mare’s blessing, and he’d deliberately expended all of that when the Night Terror had made the wire in his foreleg go berserk when he’d accidentally communed with her. Although that had been hours ago, there was still some time to go before the Charismata would replenish itself, and Lex knew he didn’t have that long.

But if his tulpa could produce something like the Netherweave Dominion, which had briefly altered the Charismata itself when he’d fought that void creature, then he knew it could produce something which was capable of letting it be used once or twice more.

Acknowledged, came the reply.

A moment later, a strand of wire appeared in front of him...but unlike the material that made up his left foreleg, this one was composed of blue fire.

Nisha stared at it, wide-eyed as Lex grabbed it and wound it around the other wires of his foreleg, letting it sink into the spot where the original wire had been, back when his limb had been flesh and blood. A moment later, the glow spread out, diluting as it sank into the rest of the wire there.

And Lex could feel that the Charismata was ready to be used once again.

Turning to Nisha, he raised his foreleg toward her. “And now-”

AND NOW, shrieked the Night Terror as she leaped down at him from above, I HAVE YOU!!!

Author's Note

Struck by the convergence of so many improbabilities, and realizing again the futility of trying to do things on his own, Lex changes his mind and agrees to form a soul-bond with Nisha, only for the Night Terror to make her move!

Will Lex get a chance to bond with the black wolf? What prompted the Night Terror to take action just now?