“You win again,” announced Mei Li, smiling warmly. “You truly are skilled at this game, Younger Sister Nisha.”

The black wolf in question – still in her hybrid form – grinned widely at the praise. “What can I say? I guess I’m just more skilled than some other wolves I could name,” she snickered, shooting a sly grin Solvei’s way, causing one of the white wolf’s eyes to twitch from where she sat on the other side of the game board.

But Nisha’s joy in her petty jab faded a moment later as she heaved a wistful sigh. “I just wish Master was here to see that for himself...”

She turned and stared at the far wall then, and though the point she was gazing at might have seemed random to anyone else, everyone in the room could understand the significance of it, also being able to sense which direction Lex was in.

“Can we play again?” piped up Nenet, her voice hopeful. “This ‘maque’ game is a lot of fun!”

“I still don’t get how we’re supposed to match up these little pieces,” groused Solvei, picking up one of the tiles are glowering at the writing on it. “I can’t even read the runes they’re inscribed with!”

“It’s not what they mean, Eld-, Solvei,” replied Mei Li as she shuffled the tiles. “It’s what they represent.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” muttered the white wolf.

Nisha blinked at that, her longing expression being replaced with a sneer as she looked toward Solvei, opening her mouth-

“Before we deal the tiles,” interjected Mei Li, “I have something I wish to say.”

She waited until all eyes were turned toward her, and then turned in place so that she was facing Nisha...

...and bowed down, touching her forehead to the floor. “Younger Sister, I must ask for your forgiveness.”

A shocked silence fell then, and Mei Li didn’t hesitate to fill it. “As your senior wife, it is my job to make you feel welcomed into our husband’s household, and in this I have let you down. Rather than celebrating that our husband has found someone new to love, and who loves him so dearly in return, we made you see something unsightly as we aired our grievances toward him.”

“Hang on!” protested Solvei, standing up.

Nenet cringed, shielding herself with her wings. “But that wasn’t...”

But Mei Li didn’t reply to either of them, instead maintaining her apologetic posture as she continued. “As your Elder Sister, it was my job to make your welcome into your new home a joyous one. Instead, to my shame, I was too caught up in my own feelings to properly consider yours. I should have embraced you with the camaraderie of one who loves the person you love, instead of making you watch as I lashed out at them. For this, I can only say that I deeply regret my actions, and hope that you will see fit to forgive me for them.”

Staring down at her in confusion, Nisha frowned and pointed at Solvei. “What’re you talking about? She’s the one who-”

“I’m sorry too!” yelped Nenet suddenly, causing Nisha and Solvei to both look at her in surprise. “I, um...I wasn’t thinking about your feelings either. I know what it’s like to grow up feeling unhappy and...having a mother who wasn’t there for you...” She shivered then, hugging her wings around herself tighter. “But even after you told us about everything you went through, I didn’t say anything...”

Swallowing, she gave Nisha a hopeful smile. “Do you think maybe we could start over? Please?”

Now it was the black wolf’s turn to fidget in place, looking uncomfortable. “I...”

Putting a hand to her temple as if nursing a headache, Nisha’s expression turned sour as she looked at Solvei. “Let me guess, you’re going to apologize too?”

Solvei opened her mouth, only to shut it abruptly, drawing in a deep breath through her nose before exhaling slowly as she closed her eyes.

“I’ve known Lex longer than anyone here,” she said after several heartbeats had passed. “And it’s been hard. Developing feelings for him, understanding how he felt about me, making peace with having to share him, all while we’ve been fighting to survive...it’s been the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, as Solvei or as Akna.”

Opening her eyes, she gazed directly at Nisha. “But it’s also been the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done. Meeting him, falling in love with him, and knowing that he loves me back...I don’t regret any of it. The things we went through together frightened me more than once, and there was a lot of pain – I even died at one point – but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change any of it.”

She clenched her hands into fists then, though she kept them in her lap. “Which is why I won’t – why I absolutely will not – apologize for how I acted before! Because even if it was selfish, or childish, or embarrassing, it was my honest feelings: that I want the one he looks at to be me! That no matter how many wives or girlfriends or concubines he has, I want to be deeper in his heart than anyone else! That if crying and screaming makes him hold me close and tell me that I’m his Solvei, then it’s worth it, even if it makes everyone else mad at me!”

Taking another breath, this one considerably less steady, she wiped the corners of her eyes before giving Nisha a challenging look. “If you really love him as much as you say you do, then you should be able to understand that.”

Long moments passed as the black wolf stared at her white counterpart in silence.

Then, slowly, Nisha grinned.

“You know what?” she drawled. “I do. And trust me, you’re going to have to do a lot more crying and screaming to get his attention from now on, because my love for Master won’t lose to yours, or anybody else’s!”

Snorting at the unsubtle challenge, Solvei met her grin with one of her own. “We’ll see about that.”

“Darn right we will!” laughed Nisha, tail wagging as she looked at Nenet. “I’m fine with starting over or whatever, because the end result’s going to be the same: Master will love me more than anyone!”

“I-I won’t lose either!” piped up the sphinx, a smile worming its way onto her face as she glanced at Solvei, wings flapping at the approving nod she received in return. “But, um, I hope we can get along while we compete, just like in this game!”

“Works for me,” shrugged Nisha, still giving a toothy smile.

“Then, am I correct in assuming that my Younger Sister has forgiven my unseemly behavior?” asked Mei Li, her face still pressed to the floor.

“I guess I won’t hold it against you,” snickered Nisha. “I mean, if I’m going to be the one Master loves most, then letting this go is the least I can do for you.”

“My Younger Sister is very kind,” murmured Mei Li as she sat up at last, polite smile in place. Only the pronounced swishing of her tails suggested that she was anything besides completely placid. “However, I should inform you – and my Elder Sisters – that our husband’s third wife, who honors him in all that she does, shall be the one held highest in his esteem.”

Nisha snorted, Solvei hmphed, and Nenet gave a nervous giggle, to which Mei Li continued to smile politely as she began to deal the maque tiles.

“Well then,” she murmured as she passed them to the other three. “Let the game begin.”

“Lex? Is everything alright?”

Ceasing to borrow Nisha’s senses, Lex nodded in response to Agapay’s question, making no outward display of the relief he felt at what had just passed between his wives. Although he couldn’t understand why that exchange had seemingly brought them closer together, that was less important than the fact that it had, all four of their emotional states registering happiness. “Continue.”

The angel nodded. “Well, like I was saying before, I’ve never actually met Mihr, so I don’t know how much help I can be.”

“Anything you know of him is fine,” answered Lex. “Regardless of how inconsequential or irrelevant a given point of data may seem, I want to be made aware of it.”

“Alright, well...let’s start with the obvious, I suppose,” murmured Agapay. “He doesn’t care for chasmalim angels like myself in general, or Mistress Agrat in particular.”

“Despite her being the public face of the Council of Wings, which champions reconciliation between empyreals and fiends,” noted Lex.

Agapay gave a wan smile at that. “That’s because empyreals – whether staunchly lawful or thoroughly chaotic – are dedicated foes of the idea of evil. A few of them agree with the Council’s idea that reconciliation can lead to less antagonism, the but for most that ideology sounds too close to apologism; that there’s merit in the harm evil does. That’s not something they can accept. Even Mihr thinks that friendship is a means of, basically, ‘starving’ the fiends of new recruits, since-”

“-since if friendship during a mortal’s life leads them to pursue virtue, they’ll incarnate in the Upper Planes after death, leaving fewer souls to migrate to their opposite.”

“That’s right,” nodded Agapay, “but that’s just why Mihr doesn’t like the Council of Wings, rather than Mistress Agrat personally.”

“Go on,” urged Lex. He’d already secured standing permission from Agapay – along with the other emissaries – to read their thoughts as he wished, and he made good use of that privilege now, querying numerous futures for her answers to possible follow-up questions, allowing him to learn a great deal more than what she was telling him in the present.

“As the Archangel of Friendship, Mihr believes very strongly in its redemptive power. Friendship, as a bond that transcends family, race, age, and any other barrier, can not only prevent someone from falling to evil during a moment of weakness, but friends can also help someone to rediscover their better self, believing in them even when they can’t believe in themselves.”

“And this puts him in opposition to Agrat?”

Biting her lip, Agapay nodded. “Mistress Agrat is the Archangel of Prostitution. She also believes in redemption, having fought so hard for her own, but she has a different philosophy of how to reach those who’ve fallen into darkness. Rather than guilelessly reaching out to someone as a peer, she offers a service to potential customers. Instead of encouraging altruism through living up to the expectations of someone you care about, she teaches that good deeds can be purchased. As an alternative to kind regards and warm feelings being their own reward, she leads others toward such things with temptations of sexual congress.”

“All of which is to say that they agree on what they want to achieve, but have incompatible strategies for how to achieve them,” concluded Lex.

Agapay shrugged. “If I’m being honest, that basically summarizes the differences between all of the different camps of empyreals. Angels, archons, agathions, and so many others all have different philosophies of how to help make the cosmos a better place. Their differences never come to blows or undermining each other, but they’re enough to make large-scale cooperation between them...tense.”

A faint smile crossed Lex’s lips at that, remembering how the celestials who had interrupted his communication spell before it had reached Equestria hadn’t been angels, despite serving under Mihr. “A point well worth taking note of.”

He continued talking to Agapay for almost fifteen minutes. During that time, he continued to check on how Nisha was getting along with the others, watching as they played, talked, and even – as time passed – laughed together.

After so many frustrations and setbacks, it was heartening to witness...and somewhat bittersweet.

The significance of how they were able to grow comfortable with each other so quickly, while he could only watch from afar, wasn’t lost on him.

It was just like what he’d experienced in his youth, when he’d seen his neighbors and classmates do the same thing.

But whereas the reminder of his deficiency would have angered and embittered him before, now it caused only a twinge of remembered pain. The Night Mare had shown him the truth about himself, forcing him to confront the fact that the flaw which he’d spent so much time trying to correct had ultimately come to define him, and that correcting it would have made him unrecognizable to himself. That realization had almost destroyed him, but he’d persevered, emerging stronger than before.

Friendship – the defining characteristic of both Equestria and Mihr – would never be a part of his life.

But that didn’t mean his life couldn’t have meaning. Far from it. And once he overcame the self-righteous fools who were – in the name of “friendship” – intent on preventing him from returning home and carrying out his moral duty to uplift his homeland and his people, he’d achieve that meaning at last.

But for now, there were other tasks that required his attention.

Dismissing Agapay once he was certain she’d told him everything she knew of Mihr, Lex strode down the halls of his extradimensional mansion.

It was time to introduce himself to his new concubines.

Author's Note

Solvei, Nenet, and Mei Li manage to make peace with Nisha, as Lex begins researching Mihr!

Will he find a way to overcome the Archangel of Friendship without having to fight? Or is there no hope of a peaceful resolution?