Servile

I came to on the floor of my living room, feeling as if every breath I took was the equivalent of swallowing gravel. The insides of my throat produced a raw, gritty feeling as I swallowed, opening my mouth and taking the first deep breath of air since my esophagus had been so mercilessly abused. The sweet taste of seed reignited in my mouth the moment fresh air entered, and I nearly fainted again at the pungent odor. My senses tingled from how thick the musk was; it lingered in my mouth and nose, pushing any other stimulus away as there were still thin rivulets of it bridging the gap between my lips. I licked them away, shuddering at how good it tasted, marveling at how fast I’d grown accustomed to the thick coating of it on my tongue. I almost burst into tears again, realizing how much I hated the fact that I was enjoying this. The irrefutable truth of it was that, secretly, and as much as I hated it, Solaris had done more than taken advantage of me. He’d made me enjoy myself.

Almost the moment I thought of him he trotted into the room, the expression on his face infallible. He was carrying two cups of hot tea, the golden glow of his magic surrounding the drinks. The moment he saw me his face softened, as if he’d been thinking about me the whole time I’d been asleep. I winced and sat up, my limbs protesting from the stiff position I’d passed out in. His horn flashed and he picked me up by my wings, handling me gently as he levitated my delicately dressed frame onto the couch. I didn’t have the energy to protest, so I hung limply in his magical grip until he set me down among the cushions. I averted my gaze from him as he sat down on the other end of the couch, tucking his four long legs underneath him and sighing as if it had been just another long day.

“You should drink, Felt.” He insisted, holding the cup and saucer out to me. “It should help get the taste out of your mouth. Not to mention soothe your throat… I know I was none too gentle.”

I looked at him, more confused than ever. Here we were, in the aftermath of what I held to be the worst thing that ever happened to me, and he was acting as if we were two friends enjoying each other’s company. I took the cup and saucer with shaking hooves, now accustomed to listening to his commands, although with no end of self-loathing. I took a sip, not taking my eyes from him lest he make another movement in my direction, considering he held me to be, in all aspects, his property. I winced at the bitter taste of the drink, recognizing the sour flavour of green-tea leaves, with a trace of ginseng in the aftertaste. Although the beverage was undoubtedly bitter, there was no denying that it eradicated the sultry, lingering aroma of semen from my nostrils. My throat gave me a grateful confirmation that, indeed, the prince had done no small amount of damage to it with his lustful neglect. Although it hurt to swallow, I did so gratefully, if not with slight indignation that I was officially having tea with the very pony whom had dressed me in a maiden’s skirt and straddled my head a mere three hours before.

I attempted to speak after I’d finished taking a sip of my tea, but words wouldn’t come. My vocal cords refused to make a sound, and I realized that I probably would have trouble vocalizing for a few days after how badly they’d been crushed. Finally, after a few more sips, I managed to say, in a voice that hovered on the edge of a whisper.

“W-why are you being nice to m-me?” I breathed, feeling as if my neck was screaming in protest towards my speech. “You just… did those things to me and now we’re having tea together…”

The Prince of Light blinked at my question, as if he’d been hoping that I wouldn’t bring it up how peculiar it was. He appeared to have been secretly wanting to forget he event of three hours ago, to pretend as if they hadn’t happened. Or perhaps had played out in a slightly more consensual manner. Either way, he sighed and set his cup of tea down, opening his wings in a gesture for me to come closer. I stayed where I was, not wanting to accept any sort of affection from him until I had an answer. He’d violated me, and now I wanted to know why he was doing his best to overlook his own transgression. The prince folded his wings again, seemingly hurt by me not reciprocating his gesture.

“I… I apologize.” He said, his voice contorting around the word. I could tell that he hadn’t said that word in quite a long time. “There is… another reason that I sent Magpie to spy on you, as well as volunteer to come here today. I doubt you will understand, and I don’t expect you to after what I did, but… hear me out, if you have the will to.”

I sidled closer to him, sensing the heartbreak in his voice. I knew that he was about to get emotional, so I did my best to make sure I was in the best place to glean every ounce of reasoning from him. He put a wing around me and visibly relaxed as he touched me, smiling in a way one would expect a stallion to towards his mate.

“I suppose I did what I did out of… frustration. Jealousy played a factor as well. Somewhere in there was an ounce of lust and just maybe… a tiny grain of love.” He said, staring into my eyes. “I’d give you a long sob story about how I’ve been quite alone for the last hundred years, or that it is increasingly hard to find a pony with tastes related to my own nowadays, but I’ll let you decide. You were the one who had to suffer the results, after all.”

“The long story.” I said, wondering just what would have driven such a proud stallion to perform an act so depraved. “I want to hear it all.”

“How did I know you’d say that…” He sighed. “Since you insist. I suppose I’ll isolate the most base of my reasons. Simply put, I haven’t found a pony that has a suitable personality in a hundred years. That doesn’t seem like much since I’ve lived quite a long time, but keep in mind as well that I’ve forgotten almost everything from two-thousand years ago and everything beyond that is just one huge blur of events. I’m also a pony, despite what most would tell you, and I do have needs… ones that grow harder to satisfy each passing millennium. I don’t expect you to understand this, but back when I was a colt there were certain things that ponies expecting of their mates, male or female, that ponies today don’t seem to have, nor understand. One of those things is that a pony should have an immense amount of love for the pony that they are with, as well as be able to relate to one another with comparable attitudes and lifestyles. This makes finding a pony for a four-thousand seven-hundred and thirty-two year old stallion quite difficult, no matter how broad your choices of suitors are.”

He paused as if he was musing, then continued. “I’ve looked among many pools of sentient creatures for something that shared my pursuits, as well as my deep-seated love of complex matters such as calligraphy and science. I wanted a pony that had knowledge of these things… but lived simply. I searched amongst dragons and dragonesses, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies, griffons and once I even grew so desperate that I began to seek the company of Changelings. Nopony in this era had such traits… then, just when I think that my search was fruitless and that I should settle with some petty concubine that I had nothing in common with to satisfy myself, my brother’s guard comes strutting down the hall, gossiping with another mare about how Lune found a colt. A colt that reads books such as ‘Among Strigaformes’ and guides to veterinary science, and enjoys tea every morning. Yet this colt is satisfied with the life of a masseuse, living in a small house in a relatively ignored part of Equestria.”

The resentment in his voice was so easy to hear that I’m sure even the most clueless pony could tell that Solaris was upset merely at the prospect. I ran a hoof over his shoulder in an attempt to calm him, which it did to an extent. Although he still seemed quite annoyed as he continued.

“Here he is, my younger brother who has only been back on earth for a year as opposed to my record of over four-thousand, and he’s found a pony for himself that is, in essence, perfect for me. The way that Magpie described you made me furious to say the least, knowing my younger brother, who hadn’t even began to look for a suitable mate yet, stumbled across somepony for himself. A certain somepony named Felt Feathers, whom I have everything in common with, whom I’ve done my absolute best to alienate and disturb in the whole time I’ve known him…” He trailed off, obvious guilt sinking its teeth into him. “The way she made you sound was… quintessential. Untainted with the usual unattractive qualities that most young ponies have. I suppose… when I saw you sleeping there, in bed, I couldn’t help but want you to be mine. Even though I know that you were Lune’s.”

I struggled to interpret what he was saying, and make sense of it with my current image of Solaris in my head. From what I’d just heard he was only a heartbroken stallion who’d wanted somepony he wouldn’t be afraid to love and share his life with, but the pony that he’d put on display three hours ago was a domineering, cruelly intelligent and lustful stallion who would do anything to put me under his control. A small war waged in my head, trying to decide what to believe in the wake of this new information. Was he simply a sad, lovesick soul who became overzealous in his search or was he a masterfully deceiving, dominating pony who wouldn’t stop until he had me blindfolded and waiting for him to return to the bed I was tied to? My views of him slowly merged, and slowly a more complete picture unfolded. On one side of the coin he wasn’t afraid to be that cruel, carnally-driven pony, but on the other side that he showed far more often, he was a kind stallion who’d been left out in the cold, waiting for somepony he could love to arrive for far too long.

My hatred for him fell apart under his new knowledge, all inhibitions towards serving him dissipating. Suddenly his character was a lot less one-sided and I found it a lot harder to say that I was only Lune’s. What right did I have to reserve myself from him, who’s waited for a lifetime to meet somepony like me? I shook myself mentally, straining to keep myself loyal to Lune despite all that had happened. What was I supposed to do? Crush Solaris by telling him that I was already taken when he’d been so patient, and even unbent his monumental amount of pride to apologize for me? He was serving me tea, and doing his best to ask my forgiveness. I wished that it was as simple as turning him down, and have him tell me that it was okay. That there were plenty of fish in the sea. Sadly, for an alicorn, he didn’t have that option, and it didn’t matter how many fish there were in the sea when he was confined to a pond.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, reaching for an answer I didn’t want to find. “I can’t leave Lune… he’s the one I fell for. But you… you did all those things to me… and now I just don't know..."

He looked at me in shock, as if he’d hardly expected me to admit my feelings. At that point I had no more censor, I couldn’t just pin something relating to him inside anymore. He’d genuinely forced me to fall into a strange form of infatuation with him, in a vastly different way than Lune had, but now I felt much the same dependence on him that I did for the Prince of the Night. I felt like a turncoat, betraying Lune by confessing my emotional attachments to Solaris. Shame racked me as the next words parted his lips, bringing to light what I’d been dreading.

“I suppose you can only tell Lune and pray he smiles upon you favorably… unless of course you become my personal servant, and spend most of your time with me… but then you’d have to avoid him. Even then he would probably infer that I stole you away from him.”

“What do you suppose the chances of him looking at… um, what you did to me and being okay with it?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

“Slim, to none. A long shot. Some astronomical percentage. More phrases expressing extreme improbability.”

All of the sudden we both heard the sound of a fire roaring and, with a sudden spark of light, a letter appeared in front of us on the coffee table. I noticed the black and blue seal on the scroll and balked, knowing that it was my summons to Canterlot Castle, and it was probably written by the one stallion that I’d just spent the last half a day being disloyal towards. I reached for the scroll and picked it up, dreading facing Lune again after having betrayed him so brutally. I broke the wax seal and opened it, seeing that it was indeed from the Prince of the Night.

‘Dear Felt Feathers

Enclosed at the bottom of this letter is a simple enchantment that has the ability to teleport you to the front doors of my tower whenever you are prepared, as well as anything within your immediate vicinity. You can move out of your home in Ponyville whenever you feel you’re ready, and the rooms I’ve prepared for you are all furnished in a way that I hope will make it easier for you to adjust. I eagerly await your arrival, as do the other princes. Solaris has been away on business this afternoon, so I hope that you’ll excuse him if he isn’t here when you arrive.

I hope to see you again soon.

Lune’

I looked back to Solaris, unsure of what to do. I didn’t want to confront Lune about all of this, and I especially didn’t want to talk to him about my rooms off of his as if I hadn’t been guiltily partaking in a cup of post-coital tea with his brother a mere few hours beforehand.

“You’d better pack your things.” Solaris said to me, getting up from the couch , stretching his long legs as stood. “I’ll be there when you arrive, don’t think you have to go alone. I’ll explain what happened, if you’ll only forgive what I did.”

“I already forgave you.” I informed him. “It means a lot that you’ll help me, though.”

I stood in front of Lune’s tower doors four hours later, when the sun was setting on the horizon and a stark breeze was darting through the castle. I shivered, half discomforted by the brisk cold that penetrated the sweater I was wearing and half deathly afraid of what I was about to do. One is probably wondering why I simply didn’t lie to Lune at that point, as I was beyond the point of all retribution. It honestly crossed my mind right then, to blatantly shove my tongue in my cheek and say that I hadn’t met Solaris before. To be quite honest, though, I was very disillusioned towards the eldest alicorn by then. He and I hadn’t just forged a relationship that could be reignited at any given point in the future, with no contact in between now and then. Solaris had made it very clear that he wasn’t to be ignored, and that the day we’d shared back in Ponyville had truly meant something to him. He wanted to have days like that at least once a week, if not more. If I lied to Lune about that I would run the risk of Solaris simply coming out and saying it himself, making me look like the unfaithful harlot for keeping the truth concealed.

Solaris at the moment was looking down at me with an expression of mild amusement, as if the hardest thing I had to do in my life was a mere waif of a problem. I hesitantly held up a hoof and knocked at the massive, ornate oak door, knowing very well that Lune would be there and I would have to look at him with the knowledge that I’d let his brother indulge in me before he’d had the chance. I fixed my eyes on the large moon carved into the door as I waited for the prince to answer. The prince beside me laid a hoof on my shoulder encouragingly. Through his touch I knew what he was trying to tell me, and it went something along the lines of ‘what’s the worst that could happen’. I knew very well the worst that could happen, and it involved being banished to the celestial body of my choice for being a whorish, ungrateful colt who took the affections of an honest alicorn and tore them to pieces like they were tissue paper I’d used to kindle a bonfire.

After what felt like forever Lune answered the door, trotting out and picking me up with magic, wrapping me in a huge embrace. Despite my guilty conscience I returned the gesture, wrapping my hooves around the Night Prince in a hope that it would make the blow I was about to deliver so much easier. Lune let go of me and I fell back to my hooves, looking back at Solaris with a nod. He blinked to tell me that he’d gotten the signal, following me and Lune as we went into the castle. We’d worked it out that he should deliver my luggage to my room all at once with magic, then join me and Lune once I’d broken the unfortunate news. I tagged after Lune as he headed into the main chamber of the tower, a massive living room decorated with a thick azure carpet with traces of black along the edges. As I stepped farther into the chamber my eyes widened in awe as the blue carpet turned a bright white-pink where my hooves fell, then slowly faded back to navy as I left my hoofprints behind me. A chandelier lit the interior of the space far overhead and a collection of windows supplemented the light in the room, illuminating the darkly shaded slabs of stone that made the walls of the tower.

There was a large staircase behind the main floor of the living room that led upwards to his personal chambers, and there was a large hatch in the floor behind the couch over to my left that led to what I could only presume was the basement. The Night Prince smiled and sat down on one of the couches, which were arranged in a semi-circular pattern with the entrance of the hemisphere facing the doors of the tower. Solaris slinked off upstairs, his horn already glowing in preparation to move my things. I bit my bottom lip, preparing to do the hard part of this whole meeting. I sat down across from Lune, hoping he wouldn’t banish me on the spot for my infidelity.

“I hope your week away from me wasn’t too dull.” Lune began the conversation, smiling pleasantly. “I know I could hardly focus on anything that didn’t relate to you, especially after what happened in the spa…”

“Lune… what is your opinion on a pony not being dedicated to just one pony?” I asked, veering the discussion into a crash course with the news that I had to break. “Of a pony being with multiple ponies, or maybe sharing a relationship with two ponies at the same time?”

Lune blinked, pausing to reroute his train of thought to comply with what I’d just said. After a moment of reassembling his composure he asked, his voice both curious and also suspicious. “I suppose it is fine if all the ponies involved are in agreement… but why are you asking, if I may? I mean… that was quite the random question, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Because… I had to ask you since I… I mean, I really didn’t mean to let it happen, but it kind of did when…” I kept trying to restart my sentence, flinching every time I almost said it only to begin again. “See, he kind of made me…”

“He’s asking,” Solaris said, trotting up to sit in the center of the semi-circle of couches. “Because when I went to his house today in order to finish up his paperwork I grew a little… overzealous. One thing led to another, at least for me it did, and I ended up taking control of the situation in a way that… at the time he didn’t appreciate. Although he’s forgiven me for my transgression I may have done a little more than indulge in his overly obedient lips. He’s enamored with me now in the same way that he is with you, and now he’s emotionally conflicted on whose partner he is.”

Lune’s expression went from a smile to a look of pure alienation and disgust, then to one of pity and sadness as he turned towards me. The question he asked me with his eyes prompted me to nod, slowly raising my head and letting it fall again. I refused to meet his gaze as I sat there, shaking my head in just the right way to hide my face from view with a properly located lock of my mane. Lune looked back towards his brother, his expression going from pity to righteous fury in a millisecond. His horn gave off a spark, threatening to rip his older sibling’s wings off if he didn’t explain himself.

“You see, Lune.” Solaris said, putting an embarrassed hoof behind his head. Despite being thousands of years old, it was still hard to directly meet the gaze of his younger sibling, who was quite ready to bring the ceiling down on his head. “I’ve been looking for a partner for myself for a while, for the last hundred years in fact… you know yourself how hard it is to find a pony who shares our outlook on life. When I found that you’d met a pony who met just the criteria I hold to be the perfect pony, in the one measly year that you’ve been back here on earth, I was slightly… upset. Frustrated at my inability to find somepony for myself, I sort of… took advantage of Felt’s unique disposition.”

“What do you mean, ‘unique disposition’?!” Lune shouted, his horn giving off another irate jet of sanguine magic. “He’s just like any other pegasus!”

“I’m actually… not.” I confessed, drawing his anger away from Solaris. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but whenever I touch a pony I can see their immediate wants, and I automatically want to fulfill those wants, no matter what they are or how much I don’t want to. His will was so strong I couldn’t deny him, so when he started onto me I found it really hard to… say no… and I did whatever what he wanted of me.”

“And now… even though he took advantage of you… you like him in the same way you liked me?” Lune asked, his wings and ears falling in an expression of despair. “And you don’t like me in the same way anymore…”

“No!” I protested loudly, jumping up and crossing the semi-circle with a single flap of my wings. When I was directly in front of the stallion I’d originally fallen for I stared up at him, resolve steeling my nerves as I stood up to my full height, attempting to be brave even though I was still almost a whole head shorter than Lune. “I fell in love with you, and nothing else can change that now. But Solaris made me fall in love with him, too.”

I jumped up onto the couch between the alicorn brothers and planted a kiss on Lune’s cheek, then turned to Solaris and did likewise, causing both of them to blink in surprise. Both of them looked at me in their confusion, as if they’d honestly expected me to choose one of them and tell the other that it wouldn’t work. What I’d just done expressed my opinion on the situation quite clearly, and I prayed that they accepted my view of the circumstances we found ourselves in. I crossed my hooves indignantly. The brothers refused to look at each other, instead directing their questions towards me.

“Well you can’t be both of ours at the same time!” Both of them shouted at once, still trying to force me into making a decision. “You’re only one colt!”

“That isn’t fair!” I cried, staring at my hooves, unable to meet their flustered eyes. “Solaris made me fall in love with him by making me feel like the filly I am, deep down, and Lune made me believe that I was special in a way that bonded us in a way that can only be love. Both of you made me discover parts of me that I didn’t know existed, so both of you are on equal footing as far as my favor goes. I refuse to pick one of you over the other. Solaris said it himself, I signed up to be every alicorn royal’s servant, not just Lune’s. Why can’t you two just… let that be the case? Why can’t I belong to both of you?”

“Because we have vastly different opinions of how you should be treated.” Lune attempted to make me see what he believed was keeping them from reaching an agreement. “If you were with me I’d treat you like a prince, preen your wings every morning before you get out of bed, give you your own set of armor to make others respect you and kiss your lips before I leave the tower every morning.”

“I must protest on one facet.” Solaris said, biting his tongue directly after interrupting Lune. “We must keep the fact that Felt Feathers is more than an assistant to us a secret. Although I’m sure that nothing ill would befall us as a result, it would cause quite of a bit of support for us to wane if it was discovered that either one of us were in such a relationship with not only one of our servants, but also a member of our own gender.” The prince turned his gaze to me shortly afterwards, smiling in just the same way he had shortly after waking me up a few hours previous. “On the other hoof, I would make sure that you knew that you were my favorite, Felt. There would be no restraints towards what I could do with you in the privacy of my own quarters. Think about that for a moment, if you’d like. We would be free to experiment at my leisure. Maybe you could be a filly with the right potion. The options are limitless when magic is involved.”

My cheeks lit up like fresh embers as he brought it up that, indeed, I did have a pension for pretending to be a filly while nopony was looking. Probably another personal detail he’d managed to glean from Magpie, who’d sorted through my wardrobe more than a few times during her midnight visits. Although the thought more than piqued my interest it wasn’t the best to bring up around Lune, who had yet to have a slice of my proverbial pie. The Prince of the Night blinked and looked down at me, his nerves being plucked by the fact that his older brother knew more about how to turn me on than he did. The expression on his face told me that I as in for an overdue slap on my flanks whenever we got a moment alone. I gave him a nervous smile, and he returned the same unamused stare he’d been giving me for the last few minutes, an eye tic acting up in his left lid.

“So, who will it be?” Lune asked.

“Both.” I replied simply, turning away from him and staring up at the chandelier.

“That isn’t an option. One mare cannot have two stallions under her spell at the same time. It leads to… problems. Both of us know that, Felt Feathers.”

“I know that full well, Lune.” I replied, still refusing to meet his gaze. “If you two can’t reach an agreement over this issue, two thousand-plus year old, mature stallions with plenty of relationships under their belts with both genders, then I see it as a shame towards your sense of diplomacy. That’s what being a good diplomat is, isn’t it? Finding a peaceful solution?”

Both of them shuffled their hooves, chewing the inside of their lips and rolling their eyes. Despite feeling a little underhanded, me taking a jab at their political knowledge, I knew that this would probably be the best way to solve the problem. To get them to look at me, not as a colt that they were struggling to gain the fancy of, but as a resource that they could share. Eventually both of them met each other’s eyes and nodded, reaching an agreement. I knew my face lit up ecstatically as I got them to coexist, since both of them gave a half-smile towards one another.

“I’ll take him today and tomorrow.” Lune said, putting a wing possessively around me. “Seeing as how you’ve already had your fun for the week, Dusk Shine will get him, then Cadenza, then afterwards you can have him.”

“Fine with me.” Solaris smirked, if only to pluck his younger brother’s nerves. “Besides, I’ve already indulged in him more that I care to tell. So, have your fun tonight.”

Lune’s eyes narrowed to irritated half-moons and he shoved a hoof towards the door, annoyed at his brother all over again for bringing up the subject they’d conveniently managed to skirt around during their negotiations. The fact that Solaris had engaged in a not-quite consensual oral coitus session with me, while Lune had yet to even see touch my flank, had been avoided like a bomb waiting to go off throughout the discussion. Mostly to avoid a full-blown magical duel between the two. Now that Solaris had brought it up, Lune wasn’t about to talk about it in detail. The elder of the two brothers took that as the signal to leave and stood, showing himself out of the tower. Once he was gone Lune looked down at me, his face still betraying inherent annoyance.

“I really didn’t have a choice, it wasn’t consensual. He moreover held me down.” I defended.

His horn flashed and I heard the door lock with a loud clunk of metal gears. He stood up and trotted briskly over to the stairs, heading up them before I could react. Seeing that I wasn’t following him, he shouted down at me.

“If you do not haul your plot up these stairs, I’ll take you on the couch instead of the bed.”

I blinked, my eyes widening. That was the most direct command Lune had ever given me. I jumped up and fluttered over to the stairs excitedly, having no idea what was in store. What I did know was that Lune was the stallion to please, and he wouldn’t be the one to leave me hanging the same way that Solaris had. Hardly contained eagerness pushing me up the stairs on winged hooves, I followed Lune, elatedly pondering what sensual surprises might await me. And how I might return the favor for my prince.