“...and then Master, driven by love and the promise he’d made, rescued me and asked me to marry him.”

Still in her hybrid form, Nisha finished her story with a dreamy sigh, hands clasped together and tail wagging as she gazed at Lex, the very embodiment of a lovesick puppy.

Or at least, that was how it looked to Solvei, who found herself slightly unnerved by how utterly smitten her master’s newest wife was.

She wasn’t like this at all, the first time Lex summoned her. Back then, Nisha had been just as submissive and fawning as she was now, but there’d been a distance in her attitude toward Lex, a sense of formality – or maybe it had been propriety – in how she’d acted. But now she was like a little girl having her first crush, except much more intense.

Then again, given how alone she’d been for virtually all of her life, maybe that was only to be expected.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Solvei rubbed the bridge of her nose, putting Nisha’s past out of her thoughts as she instead turned her attention to what was next:

We’re FINALLY going to talk about our future together!

It was what she’d wanted to discuss for some time now, eager to figure out their relationship after what had happened several nights ago. Especially in light of the theory she’d come up with about that creature Lex had merged with back in Darkest Night. Because if he was struggling with some sort of inner conflict, then that was something she – and his others wives – needed to know.

As much as Solvei understood and appreciated that Lex wanted to protect them, Solvei was thoroughly sick and tired of how that repeatedly involved being pushed away, left behind, and kept in the dark. After this, there would be no more misunderstandings, no more secrets – Drafty’s pregnancy notwithstanding, since Solvei knew that wasn’t her secret to tell – and, hopefully, no more girls!

Which was why, when Lex had returned after just over a hundred heartbeats with Mei Li in tow, leading them out of Branwen’s room and into an empty one where they could speak privately, Solvei had insisted that they finally talk...and Lex had agreed.

But only, he’d made clear, after he informed them about what had happened on his return to his goddess’s realm.

Despite her impatience, Solvei had found herself captivated by the tale, alternately shocked at the Night Mare’s abduction at the hands of The Author – dimly recalling that was the goddess that Spinner, from Fail Forward, worshiped – and horrified that her “avatar,” the Night Terror, was so bloodthirsty as to try and kill Lex when he refused to go along with her plan to try and dominate the other pony gods.

Nor had Lex stopped at telling them all that.

Instead, he’d immediately insisted that the five of them exchange personal histories.

Solvei had been ready to protest then, but Lex had explained his reasoning before she’d been able to get a word out. “I want all of us to understand each other better,” he’d explained in what had struck Solvei as an uncharacteristically thoughtful manner. “The most important thing to remember isn’t just that each of you is sharing my life now, and always will be, but that you’re doing it together. You can’t do that if you’re strangers to each other.”

And then, before Solvei could grumble about how much sense that made, Lex had begun telling them about his own life.

Although Solvei had learned a lot of what he’d told them from talking to Drafty, she’d still found herself listening raptly, drawn in as he opened up to them.

Then it had been her turn, needing some time to explain the two lives she’d lived before meeting Lex.

Once she’d finished, Nenet had gone, and Solvei had been reminded of just how young the sphinx really was, her life’s story needing only a few dozen heartbeats to describe.

By contrast, Mei Li’s story had been longer, describing her life in Panas – the name of her home country – before her clan’s fortunes had waned and they’d been forced to relocate to a place called the Thousand Kingdoms, where their luck had continued to decline. Unlike the fox-ruled lands that they’d been forced out of, the Thousand Kingdoms was a mishmash of different races, and while violence wasn’t the norm there, the clash of different beliefs, values, religions, and numerous other aspects of life meant that the place was – at least according to Mei Li – in a state of perpetual low-grade anarchy.

It was that anarchy which Mei Li blamed for her having ended up on the Plane of Ice, sent there when a stray spell during a fight between two of her neighbors – one which created a spray of prismatic beams, the violet one having struck the kumiho by chance – leaving her with no choice but to acclimate to the plane in order to survive, an act which had left her vulnerable to Kryonex’s domination.

Finally, it had been Nisha’s turn, and now that the black-furred wolf had told them about the life she’d lived – growing up with no one except her mother, who had grown distant and cold after a childish mistake on Nisha’s part, followed by losing her to a monster, and then going to Darkest Night in an attempt to find her father that would not only fail, but see her tortured by White Wraith and then, after Lex had rejected her, by Grim Darklight – Solvei had found her ire toward the purple-eyed wolf had lessened considerably.

She knew full well what it was like to lose family.

And I’m not the only one, she realized a moment later. This is what Lex was talking about; he wants us to realize that being his wives isn’t the only reason we’re all in this together.

“So...what now?” murmured Nenet.

Realizing that Nisha had finished, Solvei immediately blurted out the question that had been on her mind for the last several days, not willing to put it off any longer. “Why did you run away from us after, you know...after you made Mei Li your wife?”

She’d expected him to give some sort of technical answer, one that was verbose and almost impossible to understand. Or for him to suddenly decide that he needed to go check on how well Mei Li’s clan were settling in. Or if the village was still safe. Some excuse not to talk about what she wanted to talk about most.

But instead, Lex looked her right in the eye, his features softening just a little. “Because I was ashamed of how I’d acted.”

“My husband, I told you-”

“Why?!” yelled Solvei, not caring that she’d cut Mei Li off. “Because the way I remember it, Nenet and I were both telling you that we weren’t angry about what happened, and Mei Li was in the middle of thanking you! So what did you have to be ashamed about?! And don’t say it was because you thought that we weren’t in control of ourselves because of Kara! I’m sick to death of hearing that!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Solvei could see Nisha scowling at her, starting to rise, only to halt in mid-motion as Lex raised a talon, sitting back down a moment later.

The near-interruption only drove Solvei onward. She’d never been the type – either as Solvei or as Akna – to be able to sit on her feelings, and having been forced to do so for days at a time had hurt more than she’d imagined, everything she’d wanted to say exploding out of her now.

“You accepted my feelings for you! You said you felt the same way! That means that you don’t get to keep acting like you’re taking advantage of me! And you know that! You have to know that! Otherwise you wouldn’t have kissed me when I confessed how I felt!”

“You’re right.”

Somehow, his quiet agreement was more upsetting than if he’d gotten angry and started berating her.

“I KNOW I’M RIGHT! THAT’S NOT THE POINT! The point is that you don’t get to play that tired old ‘I’m ashamed of myself for taking advantage of those poor little girls who don’t realize that they aren’t really feeling what they’re feeling’ garbage anymore! So stop hiding behind that excuse!”

This time Nenet stood up, and despite the sphinx’s having said before that she’d also been hurt and angry about Lex’s having left them, Solvei could see the conciliatory expression on her face now, clearly wanting her to calm down.

But Solvei had no intention of doing that, not until she’d finished.

“Because if this is really about what happened to you in Darkest Night, then you should have just said so!”

“...I know that I should have.”

Gnashing her teeth at his continued refusal to so much as bat an eye at what she was saying, Solvei stamped a foot. “So you’ve been carrying that around ever since we left the Shrine of the Starless Sky and not saying anything?! Because that’s not what people in love are supposed to do, Lex! They’re supposed to trust each other, to share what’s going on with them because they know that the people who love them will help them through it! How is it you were willing to put your life in my hands when we fought Sissel together but couldn’t tell me – ME! The person who knows what it feels like to reconcile having two souls inside of you! – that sometimes you turn into that...that...whatever it was?!”

She hated how she could feel herself starting to tear up, not wanting to cry. “I could have helped you! I could have told you what it was like for me, how I got through that! You wouldn’t have had to suffer so much, and then I wouldn’t have had to suffer because I thought you were running away from me when it was really-”

She marched right up to him then, snarling as she got in his face.

“-that you were running away from yourself!”

Her breath was coming fast, muscles clenched as though she expected him to try and hit her for what she was saying. She almost hoped he would, so that they she could lash out in turn, even as his cutie mark on her hips gave a warning tingle at the treacherous thought. But she didn’t care, wanting desperately to keep her anger brimming-

Faster than she could follow, Lex suddenly stood up and raised his claws to her.

But not to strike her.

Instead, he pulled her into an hug.

It was the last thing Solvei wanted, and she cursed and screamed and struggled to break free. “Let me go!” she roared. “LET ME GO!!!”

“No,” answered Lex simply, holding her closer.

She wanted to try and stab him with the ice magic he’d given her. She wanted to turn into a giant and break out of his grasp, or to surround herself in her black crystal armor and punch him right in the nose. But the mark on her hips was almost burning at the thought, and she couldn’t seem to translate any of that into action...

And all of a sudden her anger was gone, and all the misery it had been protecting her from – the uncertainty over why he’d left, the heartbreak at seeing her coming back with so many new girls, the worry that he didn’t want her the way she wanted him, and so many other awful feelings – crashed over her, leaving her sobbing in his embrace as he cradled her.

It took almost three hundred heartbeats before she finally pulled herself together, sniffling. “Lex...”

“My Solvei,” he murmured, leaning in to brush his lips across her forehead before letting her go. Stumbling back to where she’d been sitting, Solvei almost collapsed, recalling again how tired she was.

“Each of you has, in the time I’ve known you, saved my life at least once. And I’ve rewarded you with mistreatment and neglect. For that...I know that an apology is too small of a thing, but it’s all that I have to offer, besides my earnest wish to do better going forward.”

He waited until Solvei sat back down before continuing. “I said before that I left, that night, because I was ashamed of myself, and that’s true. Allowing my instincts – and they are mine, since that creature is well and truly part of me – to rule me like that, and for it to not only happen in front of you, but to turn what should have been special into something that wasn’t...I couldn’t bear to face you after that. I knew you wouldn’t have held it against me, but I held it against myself.”

“Mas-, Lex...I know how you feel.”

Nenet’s words were enough to make Solvei glance over at her, and she wasn’t the only one.

Flushing, looking surprised at what she’d said, Nenet shook her head. “I mean, not exactly how you feel, but...I know what it’s like to not want anyone to see the ugly part of you.” She curled her tail around her, the bony protrusions almost getting caught in the carpeting. “But I think, I mean, after talking about it before, to you and Solvei and Mei Li, I feel better about it now, in a way that trying to hide it never did.”

“Elder Sister Nenet is correct,” added Mei Li. “In my culture, revealing that I had turned myself into a being of ice would have been a shameful confession, and I admit that I was considering never returning home lest I bring shame to my clan. But it was that same act that allowed me to meet you, my husband, so even though you removed that taint from me, I cannot in good conscience repudiate having done it.”

A smile crossed her lips then, as small as it was wry. “In truth, my upset has more to do with you having taken a fourth wife without consulting the rest of us. Even if it was motivated by necessity, a husband should always gain the approval of his existing wives before taking a new one.”

Solvei couldn’t help but chuckle at that, and Nenet couldn’t help a giggle, clearly appreciating the lightening of the mood.

Nisha, however, didn’t seem to agree.

“You know what I think?” she announced, glaring at the other three. “I think you’re all a bunch of-”

“Nisha,” cut in Lex. “Do not chastise them. Their grievances with me are entirely legitimate.”

A disturbed look crossed her face at that. “But, Master, you’ve done so much for all of them – and for me – and all they can do is complain that you haven’t done more!”

She pointed at Solvei accusingly. “You saved her family, twice!”

Then she directed her finger at Nenet. “You saved her from her family!”

Finally, she indicated Mei Li. “And you basically adopted her family just a moment ago! That’s not even counting how you saved all of their lives! And this is how they thank you?!”

Standing up, she practically threw herself onto Lex, nuzzling him before giving the others a look of disdain. “The next time you all want to whine and complain about how you’re not enough to satisfy him, maybe take a minute to remember exactly where your lives were headed before he found you-”

She didn’t have a chance to finish as a knock came from the door.

“Your Highness?” came Carnelia’s voice from the other side of it. “You have a visitor.”

Solvei frowned. The interruption was coming after they’d gotten the most important part out of the way for once, but that didn’t make it any more welcome. They still had a lot of things to talk about! “Tell them to go away!”

“With all due respect, Lady Solvei,” came the brachina’s reply, “I would strongly advise against that.”

A moment later, the redheaded devil let herself in, closing the door before continuing.

“Your Highness, Lady Agrat is here to see you. She says that she’s finished the assignment you gave her.”

Author's Note

Lex and his wives say things that need to be said, only for Agrat, the Archangel of Prostitution and one of the lesser titans that Lex bedded, to suddenly make an appearance!

What assignment did Lex give her? And what does her having finished it mean?