Lex had found it unexpectedly soothing to watch Mei Li serve tea.

After bringing the earth mares inside the demiplane – taking them to the same room where he’d been flirting with Agrat only a short time ago – his third wife had excused herself, going to collect the herbs, cups, kettle, and other items she’d need. The time she’d been gone had been sufficient for Lex – Nisha still clinging to his side – to give Fail Forward an abbreviated summary of what had happened after they’d parted ways...though he’d also made sure to leave certain things out.

There was, for instance, no reason for them to know about what had happened to the Night Mare.

As it was, what he had told them had been enough to leave the four mares stunned into silence, struggling to process the fact that he’d not only dealt with the enemies that had been giving them so much trouble before, but had subsequently slain an ancient dragon, become a titan, and killed multiple gods. All in the few days since he’d parted ways with them.

But while it had irritated Lex to wait for those four to come to terms with what they’d been told – his foresight telling him that it was the only way he’d be able to get any useful answers out of them – Mei Li had returned and begun preparing the tea.

Her every movement was composed and collected, her eyes downcast and expression demure as she performed each action with deliberate care and precision. Mixing the tea leaves into the water with a small straw whisk. Pouring it into the kettle, then placing it on a small stand and lighting a controlled flame under it. Waiting for the water to boil. Straining the leaves and pouring seven cups. Serving him first, then herself, then Nisha, and then the earth mares. Finally returning to her place on his left and quietly waiting, hands folded in her lap, for him to take the first sip.

By itself, the entire process meant nothing to Lex. If anything, it was a tremendous waste of time; he no longer required sustenance, and with his enhanced senses it was obvious to him that the mares of Fail Forward weren’t in need of any at the moment. Even if they had been, he had the power to make foodstuffs of virtually any kind – let alone something as simple as tea – appear before them with a thought.

But it hadn’t been the actions that Mei Li had undertaken so much as it was state of mind she’d had while undertaking them which had brought Lex an unanticipated measure of calm.

Across their bond, he’d registered the contentment coming from his fox as she’d gone through each step in the process, every action seeming to evoke serenity from her. Although he didn’t actually experience her emotions – their bond only informed him of his wives’ state of mind, rather than letting him feel their feelings – it had still been notable enough that Lex had listened in on her thoughts as she’d sat back down:

This is what a proper wife is supposed to do for her husband.

By any measure, it was a small act of subservience on her part, to the point of being inconsequential. But her thoughts made it clear that she’d done so out of a desire to be useful to him, as a “proper wife” should. In that regard, she’d done more than simply prepare tea; she’d demonstrated the truth of what she’d said before: that she was a vixen who wished to be controlled.

It didn’t alleviate the loathing that Lex felt toward himself, hating how he needed to dominate someone in order to love them.

But knowing that at least one of the people he cared about was happy to be treated that way made it just a little bit easier to bear.

That thought in mind, Lex took a sip of his tea. Thank you, my wife.

Although her expression remained impassive, Mei Li’s cheeks reddened, and he sensed joy across their bond. My husband honors me.

With his foresight telling him that Fail Forward was coming out of their daze, Lex turned his attention back to the earth mares.

“So,” gulped Woodheart, looking him over uneasily, “you’re a god now?”

“A titan,” he corrected. “Not a god.”

“But they’re pretty much the same thing, right?” pressed Valor. “Sort of like how Makwa is a spirit in service to the Sun King?”

Knowing better than to get drawn into a discussion about the nature of his anagogical evolution, Lex bit back a sigh. “As far as you’re concerned, that’s close enough.”

“And you’re reading our thoughts right now?” muttered Shadow, her eyes narrowing as she revisited what Lex had told them upon entering the demiplane.

The action didn’t go unnoticed by Nisha, who shot a dark look the masked mare’s way. “Master already told you that if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”

“No, she’s fine with it!” interjected Spinner quickly, giving each of her friends a pointed look as she nodded. “We all are, right girls? We’re absolutely okay with the god-killing titan with the unimaginably powerful magic peeking at our thoughts, aren’t we?”

She didn’t wait for an answer before giving Mei Li a too-wide grin as she lifted her cup. “And this tea is absolutely lovely by the way! My favorite kind!” She threw back a large gulp then, only to squeal a moment later, her eyes bulging as she made herself swallow it down. “HOT HOT HOT!!!”

Ignoring how the bard was frantically waving her hoof at her tongue, Woodheart cocked her head. “Actually, I wanted to ask-”

“This is Mei Li, my third wife,” interrupted Lex as he gestured to the kumiho, wanting to move things along. “And this is Nisha, my fourth.”

Four pairs of eyes widened at that, with Shadow being the first to recover. “Third and fourth wives...?”

“May the Sun King smile on your union!” grinned Valor, lifting her cup and making a salute. “The sun cats practice polygamy too, and welcoming a new wife is always a joyous occasion for the entire pride.”

“Congrathulathuns,” winced Spinner, before casting a minor healing spell on her burnt tongue. “So, um, is Solvei one of your other wives? Because I didn’t see her with all the rest of the, er, super-sexy ladies that we passed on the way in-.”

“Solvei is indisposed at the moment,” cut in Lex, not wanting to discuss his first wife. That and his foresight was warning him that Mei Li was about to inform Fail Forward that those other women were his concubines, which would touch off a much louder discussion. “What about Mystaria? Why isn’t she with you?”

Silence was his answer as the earth mares all glanced at each other.

But their thoughts told him what he wanted to know. “I see. Her grandmother died.”

Wincing slightly, Valor gave a mournful nod. “It happened night before we left to come here. Perennial Stock – her grandmother – didn’t show up for breakfast, and the servants discovered her slumped over her desk in her room; she’d been writing a new will that left everything she owned to Mysty.”

“The clerics said that it was all the excitement of finding out she had a granddaughter,” added Shadow, swirling her teacup listlessly. “She had been deliriously happy ever since Mysty knocked on her door, and since she was over eighty years old they think it was too much for her heart.”

“They even tried resurrecting her, but it didn’t work,” added Woodheart, wrapping her hooves around Littleknight and pulling the almiraj away from where he was trying to climb onto the table. “Apparently you can’t return someone to life if it’s just their time.”

That wasn’t news to Lex, having studied life-restoring magic enough to be familiar with its limitations.

Resurrection spells didn’t work when someone had died of natural causes, simply because “natural causes” meant that their body had deteriorated to the point of being unable to hold a sufficient amount of positive energy to act as an anchor for their soul. While a resurrection spell repaired most forms of physical harm, it was designed to reset the body to how it had been in the moments before dying, making it useless if the subject’s physique was too aged to retain its life force.

“That cleared up any suspicion of foul play, since if she’d been murdered the resurrection would have brought her back, but Mysty was still completely devastated,” finished Spinner. “I’ve never seen her so heartbroken. She’d just found out that she had family, only to have them snatched away from her. She said it felt like being orphaned twice.”

“Please allow me to extend the condolence of not just myself, but also my clan, the Pimao Jingzhi, on your friend’s loss,” murmured Mei Li.

Lex, however, had more immediate interests than platitudes. “Is the stasis spell she cast on Thermal Draft still intact?”

Shadow Star’s head snapped up. “We tell you that Mysty just lost the only family she had, and that’s the first thing you say?!”

“It’s a fair question, Shadow,” rebuked Valor gently. “Mysty’s grandmother is in a better place now, but that won’t be the case for Drafty if her soul degrades away to nothing.”

“Luckily, Mysty is the sort of pony who puts others before herself,” added Spinner. “She checked the spell around Drafty first thing, and said that it was fine. Apparently it’s set up to be self-sustaining.”

“She wouldn’t even let us stay to help comfort her,” sighed Woodheart. “She insisted that we go ahead and find you immediately.”

That was enough to get Nisha’s attention, hugging his foreleg tighter. “Why? What happened that Master needs to know about it?”

One of Shadow’s eyes twitched at her use of “master,” but she kept her mouth shut, even as she reached into one of her pouches – one which, Lex knew thanks to the aura it gave off, was enchanted to be larger on the inside than the outside – and pulled out a small metal coffer, placing it on the table.

The item caused Mei Li’s eyebrows to rise, and Nisha to grimace, while Lex regarded it coolly. Wrought of black iron, the small chest had been fashioned to appear covered in skulls, and had a faint necromantic aura about it. There was no lock on the front of it, but instead a simple latch that anyone could open.

“We felt bad about crashing at Mysty’s grandmother’s place for free, so we offered to do some work around her manor to pay for our keep,” explained Valor. “Perennial Stock said no at first, that any friends of Mysty’s were welcome in her house for as long as we liked, but after we insisted she eventually gave in.”

“She already had a bunch of servants,” broke in Spinner, “and it’s not like any of us can do domestic chores worth a damn anyway, so we were trying to figure out how we could help when one of the servants told us that a ‘pest’ had gotten into their quarters and was driving them crazy.”

“We thought they meant a rat or something,” admitted Shadow. “And that Woodsy would be able to take care of it-”

“Don’t call me Woodsy,” interjected the druid.

“-but instead it was this ugly little green thing that was trying to beguile people, enchanting them to give it their jewelry, telling them that it was a small price to pay in exchange for learning ‘news of upheaval in the realms beyond.’”

“We chased it all over the manor,” continued Valor, “and eventually Mysty caught it in that box.”

“It’s one of her grandmother’s magical trinkets,” added Spinner. “Apparently it’s supposed to be some sort of safe way to store noxious materials. Anything put inside of it is placed in stasis, just like what she did for Drafty...who’s not in a box, I should mention. She’s actually tucked in a bed in a nice room in one wing of her mansion.”

“What does any of this have to do with Master?” huffed Nisha.

“It’s what it told them before they caught it,” answered Lex, hearing the answer to his fourth wife’s question in Fail Forward’s minds. “It was talking about me.”

Shadow gave an uneasy nod. “It said that ‘the unicorn with the bloody horn had kidnapped the Autumn Queen, and now the King his vengeance shall bring to make his honor clean.’”

“We were worried that it had something to do with that ‘Mother’ person Sissel and her siblings kept mentioning,” explained Valor. “So we set out to bring this creature to you so you could question it yourself. Luckily, we were able to retrace our steps from before, so we made good time-, hey, wait!”

Lex, however, had already thrown the latch on the box, tossing the lid open and grabbing its occupant with his telekinesis.

Roughly ten inches tall, it – or rather, she – looked like a finely-crafted doll that had come to life. Clad in an ankle-length dress of rich blue silk and wearing enough jewelry to feed a family for a year, her green skin looked smoother than her outfit. Exquisitely-coiffed blonde hair rose up above her head in a beehive style, leaving her long pointed ears obvious to any who looked at her. A moment later her eyes opened, revealing orange irises as she gasped, realizing who she was looking at.

“Fer sure’n you be da unicorn wit da bloody horn!” she squeaked, her Ponish having a thick Siolbhan accent.

“I am,” answered Lex, bringing out the Autumnal Insignia and holding it up to her, causing her eyes to widen even further. “And I’m also a marquis of the Autumn Court. Which means that I can order you...”

He trailed off as his foresight told him what was about to happen.

“That won’t work,” announced Branwen as she stepped into the room, once again clad in her armor. “This one is beyond your authority.”

The sight made everyone except Lex and Mei Li leap up, shocked by the metal-clad figure’s appearance. Already, Fail Forward were reaching for weapons as Littleknight growled, Nisha falling into a crouch as she readied her magic-

“Stop, all of you,” ordered Lex, his tone making it clear he would brook no disobedience.

In his telekinetic grasp, the little green woman squeaked in fear, thrashing in a futile effort to get free. “L-Lemme go! Fer sure’n I’ve-a done nae wrong to ye, ner giv’n aid ner comfort to yer foes!”

Lex ignored her, instead frowning as he looked at the vilderavn. “You should still be resting, Branwen. You haven’t fully recovered yet.”

“I shouldn’t have recovered at all,” she replied. “I was pierced by Gwynharwyf’s scimitars, and the wounds were fatal. How am I still alive?”

“Because I wished you to be,” answered Lex, telepathically giving her a brief recap of how he’d used Love Slave and the Soulsaver Halo to revive her. He’d used the first artifact in front of the other emissaries, as well as Sanguine Disposition, and the latter in front of his wives, but as far as Lex was concerned those were also things Fail Forward didn’t need to know about.

“Now,” he commanded once he’d finished his explanation, “what did you mean about this creature being beyond my authority?”

Turning to regard the trembling creature, Branwen snorted at the sight of it before she looked back at Lex.

“This pathetic little gossipmonger is a danthienne,” she explained. “One of the Wyld fey.”

Crouched behind the chair she’d been sitting in a moment ago, Spinner perked her head up. “Wyld fey?”

Branwen nodded.

“The third faction of the faerie realms, beholden to neither the Seelie nor the Unseelie.”

Author's Note

Fail Forward’s reason for seeking out Lex is revealed, only to raise yet more questions!

What are the Wyld fey? And how do they know about Lex and the Autumn Court?