The Last Days of the Heartspire
They were such a tragic love story, everypony said. She was in love with power, and he was in love with sadness, and neither had room in their hearts for another. And yet, time and time again, they found themselves wrapped in each other’s legs. For he was a great wizard, and she coveted his powers for herself. And she cared nothing for him, and every time they lay together, he would realize it anew, and a stabbing pain would blossom in his heart.
Or so everypony said.
Three times, the White Queen anointed him a master. First at sixteen, when he reanimated the dead. Second at twenty-four, when he stole the secret of shapeshifting from the changelings. Third at thirty-two, when he plucked a hair from Celestia’s tail.
Each was an attempt to be rid of his lover. At sixteen, he challenged her to a duel, and with his powers of necromancy struck her dead. But her ghost would not leave him be, and in time she compelled him to bind her spirit to the body of a beautiful virgin mare. At twenty-four, he used the power of shapeshifting to take the form of a waifish filly, and thereby to hide from her. But she could not be deceived, and stole the power of shapeshifting from him in turn, and thereafter became a charming and forceful stallion. They made love in public view.
At thirty-two, he wove the hair from Celestia’s tail into a ring, and with it proposed to his childhood companion. She agreed at once, and they were married in a lavish ceremony. But the mare who would be his wife was not strong of spirit, and heeded the whispers of those darker than herself. True love they said, was selfish, and she had always been a generous mare. And so, she gave her husband permission to cheat on her, and abandoned him to his fate, as his lover dragged him screaming into the darkness.
The wizard’s name was Far Star. His wife was Surplus. His lover was Violet Shroud. They all lived in the Heartspire, a mighty tower so vast it contained an empire. It was a monument to the superiority of the unicorn race, from which the White Queen ruled over the only parts of the world that mattered.
“Attavey, Far Star!” Surplus called. She was a petite unicorn mare, with a blue coat and a wild white mane and eyes as golden as the sun. When she found him, he was in the form of a frail, unkempt young stallion, seeking to hide from those who might otherwise recognize him.
“Attavey, Surplus,” he answered, hanging his head as she approached. “How did you find me?”
“Your powers of shapeshifting avail you not,” she said, making herself at home. She wrapped herself around him, nuzzling against his neck and into his mane. “I would know your eyes anywhere. You are the saddest unicorn in all the world, my husband.”
“I meant, how did you find me here.” And it was not an unreasonable question. The cafe around them occupied but one fifth of a floor, being rather low in the tower and not an institution of exceptional breeding. The chairs were made of silver instead of gossamer, and the tea made from boiled leaves rather than etheric essence.
“Why, I was stretching my legs,” her tone was light and mellifluous, like little chiming bells given life. “Here I am out for a walk, when what do I behold but my favorite wizard in the whole of the Heartspire, sitting alone in some quiet cafe. And I thought,” she lifted a hoof, “he wants company.”
“I do not.”
“You do, husband,” she grinned ear to ear, “now turn into somepony handsome and kiss me.”
He did, taking the form of Force Bolt, a powerful unicorn warrior who he had seen his wife flirt with on occasion. She sighed and groaned appreceatively, but did not prolong his torture, releasing him after only a few moments and taking a seat opposite him at the table.
“You make me happy, you know,” she told him, her voice sweet and sincere. But she did not afford him the chance to reply, instead demanding: “I want tea and biscuits. Why haven’t they appeared?”
“The table isn’t enchanted. You have to call for a waiter.”
“Oh, you do love slumming it, don’t you?” She turned to the waiter, an emaciated earth pony who stood in the shadows under the cafe’s main awning. “You! Mint tea, biscuits, wine, butter. Chop chop.”
The earth pony leapt into action as though he had been whipped, vanishing into the back. “They don’t have wine here,” Far Star said, and after a moment, he materialized a bottle and a crystal glass.
Surplus poured herself a glass, sniffed at it experimentally, then swirled it and took a sip. “It’s terrible,” she pronounced, “you’re a better wizard than a sommelier. But, thank you for trying.” She downed her glass anyway, and immediately refilled it.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“You haven’t been to our home in weeks. And, I was going to invite some friends over.” The waiter appeared, bearing a tray of butter and biscuits, and a pot of mint tea. It was piled so high it might have weighed more than he did. “You should come.”
“I know what our house looks like. I don’t need to be reminded. And your friends know I don’t actually live there.”
“I’ve been improving it while you were away,” she says, feigning hurt. “I added a hot-tub that uses metastatic clouds instead of water. So you can touch them like a pegasus. It’s warm and light all at once, far better than a regular bath. You must try it.”
“I never cared for public bathing.” He looked at the table in an attempt to deter her.
“It won’t just be my friends. Your peers will be there. Mmm?” She leaned her head down and tilted her face to catch his eyes. “I acquired a seven dimensional object from some changeling traders. It’s a rubik's cube! I’m no deep intellectual, but I do need some way to keep the clever ponies happy. You love those puzzles, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t want to make anypony wait for me while I solve it.”
“Have you done cocaine? You have, haven’t you? That’s right, I made you try it.” She thought a moment, then grinned. “We’re going to have a pile of it.”
“And for our guests who don’t enjoy cocaine?” he asked, with biting sarcasm.
“Oh, you do know me!” Her grin widened. “We also have opium. And wine too. Good wine. Better wine than this.” She finished off her glass, and again refilled it. “We have a wine fountain now. It actually makes the wine. Out of the thin air, like you did! Attavey indeed, no? You’ll love it.”
“I don’t like crowds.”
“For you, my clever stallion, I’ll kick out every other guest. We’ll make our own party. Just you, me, an empty house, and every object in it you want to bend me over.” Her tail wrapped around and under his, the tips of the hairs flicking some particular parts of his anatomy.
“Why won’t you take no for an answer?” he demanded, his voice turning sharp. Notes of genuine anger entered his voice, and he lifted his head to glare at her.
“Because you’re crying,” she said, reaching out to brush the tears from his eyes. He had not even noticed them there. “And I’m worried about you. I may be a terrible, faithless wife, but I am still your friend. I do not like it when you are sad, and I would miss you if you were gone.”
“Really?” he bitterly demanded.
“Truly,” she said, and she reached a hoof out to rest it over his.
It hurt her, to be silent for so long, to make such a tender gesture. And as the quiet hung between them, he could see the strain on her face, the pinching at the edge of her eyes. She was as a slave lifting a great load, their knees trembling with the exertion.
He could not bear to see her suffer, and so he rescued her. “The tea is best if you drink it hot,” he said, “it’s not nearly as good once it cools.”
She didn’t bother with the cup, but stuck her muzzle right into the teapot, and managed to consume the whole of it in a few terrifying moments. It was like watching a snake eat a mouse, or a wasp hollow out the inside of a paralyzed rodent. The teapot fell to the ground and shattered, and she let out a sigh of relief. “So you’ll come?” she asked.
“I’ll come,” he agreed.
Ponies sometimes wondered why a great wizard three-times honored by the White Queen would lower himself so far as to marry a creature like Surplus. She was ill-bred, ill-thought of, generally giftless and tastelessly debauched.
The answer was that he respected her. And in many ways, he envied her. She never turned to face that from which she fled, and he thought her better for it.
Far Star and Surplus’s home was on the 347th floor. Not the highest, but high enough to inspire their peers to sweet jealousy. It occupied the entirety of the floor, and would have been a castle by the standards of the lesser races, having thirty-seven rooms, plus the greenhouse. Twelve earth ponies were worked to death in its construction.
Each of them had enchanted it in their own way. Far Star had done the proper things that a wizard and a husband should do; warding the building against harm, against evil spirits, against malicious intrusion. Surplus, whose unicorn magic primarily focused on toxicology, enchanted the building in another way, rendering it impossible to overdose within the walls.
Their guests could drink casks of wine, snort mountains of cocaine, inject inhale or consume whatever they wished, and so long as they slept on the grounds, they would suffer no more harm than mild indigestion the next morning.
Ponies said it was the only reason her parties were remotely tolerable, and when they said that, she drank until she forgot.
They stood by the door together, her with a glass, him with a smile, greeting their many guests as they arrived. “Doppler,” Surplus said, kissing a stallion on both cheeks. “Welcome. Wine’s in the back, orgy is upstairs. I don’t think it's started yet. Help yourself.”
She said much the same thing to Sapphire Daisy, Star Petal, Comet Dash, Dot Dash, Apple Road, Jade Ace, and a hundred or so other ponies whose names Far Star could not be bothered to remember.
Then came a young unicorn mare, who appeared to be unwell. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face sagging, her coat was turning patchy in places, the tops of her hooves bleeding with each step she took.
“Violet!” called Surplus, by that point so drunk she swayed on her hooves. “You slept with my husband you wretched whore.”
“And you stole my true love you drunken bitch,” Violet shot back. Then they both laughed and hugged. “Oh, you look great.”
“And you look awful.” Neither of them thought to address Far Star, who continued to stand there silently. “I thought the whole point of being a shapeshifter was to be pleasing to the eye. You look half-dead.”
“Oh, well that’s just it, I am.” She ran a bleeding hoof down her barrel. “This poor dear’s just about had it. I try to be gentle with her, I do, but she’s just so susceptible to necromancy. Dying from the inside out.”
“Awww,” Surplus sighed theatrically. “That’s so sad. Far, you will bind her to a new body, right?”
“Of course,” he said, dull.
“Perhaps somepony you two would find exciting?” Violet suggested, batting her bloodshot eyes at them. “We are family, after all.”
“Oh, we get to pick?” Surplus sagged against her husband’s side, casting her gaze up into the air. “Well, as the only one here who isn’t a shapeshifter, I have a bit of a preference for it being male. I can do either, it’s just easier to share you that way.”
“I’ll happily turn into whatever you like once I’m in a body that isn’t falling apart,” Violet said, “so I can do ‘male’ no matter what.”
“Does it even matter who we pick then?” Surplus wondered aloud. “I mean, is it just like, whatever?”
“Visually, no. But maybe something that would hold your attention. I could be a virgin again.” She made the offer sweetly, but Surplus rolled her eyes.
“We’re out of virgins,” Far Star said.
“We’re out of virgin unicorns,” Violet said.
That brought the conversation to a sudden halt. Far Star stared. Surplus dropped her glass, which shattered on the floor. “No way,” she said. “That’s a racial crime.”
“Sleeping with an earth pony is a crime, but I am a unicorn, regardless of whose body I happen to be using as a puppet at the moment.” She pressed a bloody hoof to each of the ponies in front of her. “Come on. I bet that’s something you’ve never done before.”
“Oh. Oh, she’s right. I’ve never done an earth pony before,” Surplus said, squeezing Far Star against her. “I’ve never even heard of anypony doing that. Oh, can we, please? I hear they’re weird.”
“Where would we even get an earth pony?” Far Star asked. “All the servants on the lower levels look worse than you do. I don’t want to sleep with a pony that can barely stand.”
“That’s just the domestics. The heavy laborers and ones that are bred as test subjects are kept in good health.” She looked up at him, imploring him with those bloodshot eyes. “Please?”
Under the weight of the two mares around him, he agreed.
