Absolutely not!

Solvei flinched at the snarl in Lex’s telepathic voice, her heart sinking as he reacted exactly like she’d thought he would to what Kara had said.

Lex, there’s no other way, she protested. Or at least, no other way that either of us wants to be a part of!

Going to Kara’s realm is completely out of the question! snapped Lex. I just faced a hostile deity in their lair, and was barely able to escape even with a god-slaying weapon! Under no circumstances am I going to allow you to put yourself in the same situation!

I understand the risk, but Kara’s our ally, right? She’s helped you out before-

Kara doesn’t have allies, only people she hasn’t betrayed yet, interrupted Lex. Everyone she’s dealt with – Sonata, Thermal Draft, Sanguine Disposition – has come to regret her influence in their life. She’s useful to me only to the extent that I can keep her machinations in check, and that’s hard enough to do without you giving yourself over to her as a willing hostage!

Then what’s the alternative?! Solvei could feel herself getting frustrated, forcing herself to calm down before continuing. Lex, you’re meeting with Mihr sometime in the next three days. Even if it’s supposed to be a peaceful negotiation, the reason you agreed to take me with you was because you were planning on having Kara grant me Fenrir’s power beforehand. This was YOUR idea!

It was my idea that you should be given some remnant of that creature’s power, corrected Lex. It was Kara’s idea that she be the one to oversee the process.

I know, but you still agreed to it, pressed Solvei. I understand that doing it in her realm means that I’ll be at her mercy, but that’s going to be the case anyway! If this is anything like what you told me about when the Night Mare made you a titan, she’s basically going to be taking me apart and putting me back together. If she wants to do something to me, she’s going to have that chance whether it’s here or in the Quiv-, her realm!

She couldn’t bring herself to say the name of the place, either out loud or in her thoughts.

Shaking off her embarrassment, she kept pushing. The only difference is that this way, she can at least get the job done without us having to kill anyone or having a debauched sex-party with every girl here! I’d rather take my chances with her than go through either of those!

Letting out a slow breath, she finished with what she knew was her best chance of convincing him. Lex, remember what we talked about before? That your love for me means accepting that sometimes I’ll put myself in danger for your sake, rather than hurting me by insisting that I stay safe?

Solvei...

She could hear the conflict in his telepathic voice, the anger that was imperfectly covering up the guilt and the worry. It made her feel sick to her stomach to use the heartfelt moment they’d shared against him like this, but it was the only way. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to become strong enough to stand beside him in battle, which meant that the next time he put himself in danger, she wouldn’t be able to do anything if his luck finally ran out.

Lex, Master, please, she begged. Please let me do this!

He didn’t reply immediately, and she held her breath, daring to hope that she’d managed to convince him.

But that hope died a spectacular death a few heartbeats later.

I agree that the alternatives are unpalatable, announced Lex at last, his voice flat and emotionless, but so is you going to Kara’s realm.

She slumped in place, a whimper escaping her throat. Lex-

The entire reason to keep Kara at a distance while she’s merging Fenrir’s power with your own is to keep her influence in check, continued Lex. Whether by disrupting the ceremony or incapacitating her avatar, I can ensure that she only does what she’s supposed to. That won’t be the case in her divine realm, where she can not only bring the full scope of her power to bear, but is at her strongest. Even if I were to accompany you, there would be very little that I could do to stop her if she decides to take liberties with how she’ll modify you.

Solvei rubbed the bridge of her muzzle, suddenly reminded that she’d never taken that nap that she wanted while Lex had been in Mare Occultum. So that’s it? You can’t trust Kara, so we just forget about making me into the new Fenrir?

No. I’ll devise something – a ritual or a spell; perhaps a magic item – that will let me perform the procedure myself.

And you’ll design it, test it, and put it to use all within the next three days?

If that proves unfeasible, then I can always-

Take someone else with you when you go to talk with Mihr?

-cancel the meeting altogether.

Meaning that your return home will take even longer, she concluded bitterly. Because of me.

I’ll come up with an alternative, reiterated Lex. In the meantime, you are under no circumstances to go to Kara’s realm.

And just like that, he ended the conversation.

To Solvei’s mild surprise she didn’t feel angry. Nor did she feel sad. Instead, there was just a numb sense of disappointment, the same one she’d felt whenever she’d failed to get through to him about something important.

It was just like he’d said before. When there was a conflict between what the two of them wanted, his wishes won out. For all his talk about how it hurt him worse when she was upset with him, and that his love for her meant that he wanted her to be happy with him more than he wanted her to be safe, he was still treating her like someone he had to protect, rather than someone he trusted to risk her life for him the way he did for her.

The worst part was that she knew that Lex wasn’t wrong. All of the options Kara had laid out were bad ones, and there was no reason why they had to rush. Yes, Lex was eager to go back to Equestria, but there was no reason to think that his meeting with the archangel would necessarily lead to that, or even that it would turn into a fight. In all likelihood, he was going to be stuck on Everglow for a while longer. It was perfectly logical for her to sit back and wait patiently, letting him take his time until he’d found a safer way to give her Fenrir’s power.

But no matter how hard Solvei tried, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that.

Something else would happen. Something always did. The Night Terror would come looking for revenge, Burly Brawl would show up and demand a rematch, Gwynharwyf would try and kidnap them again, or some other calamity. Solvei had no idea what the next disaster would be, but she was absolutely certain that it was coming. It was only a matter of time.

And when it struck, there’d be no telling if it was more than Lex could handle on his own until it was too late.

Taking another slow breath, Solvei glanced at the side table where Lex had laid Fenrir’s eye and Gleipnir. They were still there, the cloak draped over the orb, Lex having left them with her when he’d exited the room so she could talk to Kara by herself. All that power, within arm’s reach and yet completely denied to her.

Unless...

Unbidden, the last part of her conversation with Kara ran through Solvei’s mind.

“Now, like every girl, I don’t let just anyone come inside the Quivering Depths,” explained the goddess, and Solvei was glad that their telepathic communion meant that Kara couldn’t see the way she was cringing. “But since I want you here, it’s pretty easy. All you need to do is open a portal to the Plane of Ice-”

“What are you talking about?” sputtered Solvei. “I can’t open portals!”

“Oh, sweetheart, you really need to experiment more,” chuckled Kara. “You’ve summoned ice elementals before, right? Just do it like that, except in reverse.”

Solvei opened her mouth at that, then closed it again.

As Akna, summoning an ice spirit had been part of her shamanic training, and the cryomancy she’d gained since becoming soul-bound to Lex had raised that power to new heights. Now, she could summon ice elementals of incredible power in great numbers, but it had never occurred to her to try and do the opposite, opening a pathway that she could take to their home rather than calling them to hers. And yet Kara sounded like she was absolutely sure it was within her power.

But that raised another question in turn.

“Wait, so...your realm is on the Plane of Ice?”

Kara let out a hearty laugh at that, her voice tinged with derision. “Are you kidding? I’d have to rename the place the Shivering Depths if I made my realm there! Seriously, sweetheart, I get that the cold is part of your nature, but for most people freezing temperatures are a huge turn-off. Not to mention how the Inner Planes are all stiff and rigid, and I don’t mean in the fun way; it’s so much harder to make a realm there than it is on the Outer Planes.”

“Then why...?”

“Just listen, sweetheart. Open a portal to the Plane of Ice, and say my name out loud so that I’ll know that you want me to take care of the rest. Once you do, I’ll go grab the other end of the gateway and move it over to my realm, and voila! You just step inside – and make sure to bring Fenrir’s leftovers with you – and leave everything else to me.”

At the time, Solvei had been overcome with relief that there was a way to receive Fenrir’s power that didn’t involve sex or death. Now, she found herself in a much more pensive state of mind as she considered what Kara had told her.

If I go there after Lex told me not to, he’ll just summon me right back...

Except, according to what he’d told her and his other wives about Mare Occultum, that might not be the case. The Night Terror’s lair had been cut off from the rest of the planes – with the sole exception being the Dream Realm, which Lex had only been able to reach by bonding with Nisha, granting the black wolf the power to let them physically move through dreams and escape – which meant that if the Quivering Depths were the same, Lex wouldn’t be able to yank her back to his side before Kara could grant her Fenrir’s power.

Of course, the love goddess’s offering to move a portal there meant that her realm clearly wasn’t cut off from the planes, but somehow Solvei couldn’t see that as being a huge obstacle for a goddess in her own home. Maybe she could change how her realm worked at will – the Night Terror hadn’t seemed to be able to, but they’d just been an avatar – which made sense since she was the one who’d built it in the first place. So maybe she could simply make the place impervious to summoning after she’d arrived.

Or maybe she wouldn’t even need to go that far, sighed Solvei. Paska used some sort of spell to stifle my connection to Lex. If Kara has some sort of god-strength version of that, she could do the same thing. Either way, she was certain that nothing would interrupt the process if she did it in her realm, so she wouldn’t let me be whisked away like that.

Solvei spent several more minutes thinking about how Kara could stop Lex from summoning her back before she realized that she was stalling.

Standing up, she let out a shaky breath as she picked up the ice cloak, folding it over her arm. Then, grimacing at the sight of the oversized eye, she gingerly picked it up, surprised to find that the surface felt smooth and firm rather than wet and squishy like she’d expected. After examining it for a few moments, she wrapped it back up in the jagged folds of Gleipnir.

And now all that was left...

Swallowing despite how dry her throat suddenly felt, Solvei started walking, leaving her room and striding down the hallway toward the extradimensional mansion’s exit.

She couldn’t open a portal here. Much like what the Night Terror had done to Mare Occultum, and what Solvei was betting Kara had done (in some fashion) for the Quivering Depths, Lex had reinforced the demiplane he’d created against planar intrusions (save for himself and those he designated, hence how Nisha had gotten them back), which also stopped anyone from leaving the same way. That had been why Dima, looking to send a message to one of her comrades back on the Plane of Water, had been leaving when Solvei had bumped into her.

At the time, Solvei had been glad for the wards around the place, worried that Gwynharwyf or someone else would show up.

Now she felt far less pleased with them, taking slow deep breaths as she made herself keep a sedate pace as she marched toward the exit.

Lex was elsewhere in the extradimensional mansion, but with every step she took she expected him to suddenly appear in front of her, furious at what she was about to do. She knew he could sense her emotions from anywhere, but she wasn’t sure if his ability to read her thoughts – he’d mentioned that he was going to give himself permission to do that to everyone he came into contact with from now on – had a similar range.

And yet he failed to appear as she grew closer to the exit. No invisible bands of power suddenly wrapped around her. No sudden tug of magic brought her to his side. No angry voice reached her ears or her mind. There wasn’t even anyone else walking around to slow her down.

Soon enough, the door to the outside was looming in front of her, growing closer as she forced herself not to break into a run.

And then she was through.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, her bond with Lex ceased measuring their distance in terms of how much space was between them. Instead, their link simply informed her that he was on another plane, which was the same thing he’d be aware of now: that she was on another plane.

But not which other plane.

Maybe I’ll be able to do this and come back before he even knows what’s happened!

The thought made a terrified giggle escape her lips, suddenly feeling the way she had back when she’d been a teenager sneaking out under her grandmother’s nose to go to Ujurak’s nighttime birthday celebration. Of course, that hadn’t worked out, as she’d drunk a little too much and had made a racket trying to sneak back in. But this time she wasn’t trying to avoid ever being found out; she’d tell Lex what had happened after she got back, and take comfort in the fact that no matter how furious he was, it’d be too late to change anything.

She’d have Fenrir’s power, and she’d be able to be the one protecting him for a change.

Nodding to a few of her neighbors as she strode through the village, Solvei made her way to her old house, hoping against hope that her parents weren’t there. It was the middle of the day, which would normally mean that they’d be out helping to gather food or assisting with the village’s upkeep, but with how Lex had everyone on alert in case there was another attack, it was possible that they’d decided to stay at home.

For once, luck was with her, as she reached her old dwelling and stuck her head inside, only to find an empty house.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she hurried in, her nervousness growing in spite of herself. She was all alone now, with no one around and no reason to delay.

Even so, she hesitated, second-guessing herself now that she was standing on the brink...

And then caught sight of the pile of blankets she’d been sleeping in a few nights ago.

“Mm, oh wow,” groaned Solvei as she stretched, yawning blearily. “I just had the best dream-, ah!” She blinked then, jolted awake as she winced slightly, looking between her legs. “M’sore?” she muttered under her breath. “Why...?” She trailed off, sitting up as her nose started twitching.

The memory brought a snort of chagrined laughter to her lips, only for her amusement to die away as she recalled what had happened next.

“Lex, talk to us,” she pleaded, putting a paw on his side. “What’s wrong?”

“I...I have work to do.”

And then he’d simply up and left, saying nothing else except for a brief telepathic order to stay in the village.

Just like now, when he’d ordered her not to go to Kara’s realm.

Her expression souring as she took in the similarities between then and now, Solvei drew in another deep breath as the last of her hesitation vanished.

“Kara,” she murmured, raising one hand and concentrating on opening a portal to the Plane of Ice.

She had no idea if she was doing it right, but she felt the magic flow through her a moment later, and stifled a gasp as what looked like an upright whirlpool made of snow formed in front of her, not sure if the love goddess had heard her.

But a moment later the gateway turned green, and a familiar voice drifted out from the other side.

“Right this way, sweetheart.”

Not giving herself another chance to lose her nerve, Solvei stepped through the portal.

Author's Note

Defying Lex’s orders, Solvei takes Fenrir’s remnants and goes to visit Kara in the Quivering Depths!

Will the love goddess keep her promise to make Solvei stronger? Or does she have some other reason for bringing Lex’s beloved companion to her realm?