Five Star Service – A Time to Heal

By Five Stars of Manehattan
Special to the New York Life and Manehattan Post magazines
June 29 issues

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the eight weeks since the last article, we have reached an uneasy truce with our critics, who have demanded strict access limits to the articles (which we have already implemented) and ‘equal space for opposing views’ as a condition for ending their attempts to have our papers prosecuted. Our editorial pages have always been available for such things, but in accordance with our agreement, such articles will now be published alongside those of Five Stars.

Dear readers—

Long story short, I’m back. After an… eventful few weeks out west, I’ve finally returned home to Manehattan. I apologize for being coy about my whereabouts during that time, but I was trying not to attract media attention to either myself or those I was trying to visit… an effort that was not entirely successful as I’m sure most of you know by now. I also see there has been continued controversy regarding the articles while I’ve been away. I will have more to say on that once I’ve gotten caught back up and have sorted through the small mountain of reader mail that accumulated in my absence.

For those that are curious, I began my vacation with a swing through Appleloosa, where I saw Braeburn for the first time since that fateful New Years’ Night ten years ago. I’ll admit it was a slightly surreal experience seeing him again, meeting him in his cowcolt element and realizing that unlike the first time we met, I was now well out of mine! I got a good fill of frontier life and hospitality, where I was welcomed as family (though somewhat strained in the case of his Ponyville cousin) and thrown a feast using all locally-grown produce washed down with some very potent cider and buffalo whiskey.

They initially tried to keep my visit low-key, but word soon got around—I simply stuck out too much, even dressed in a vest and cowpony hat—and both human and pony press began descending on the town. In the end, I couldn’t go anywhere without having a microphone or camera pointed at me—a treatment I’m sorry to say was not spared Braeburn either—and I had to be smuggled out in order to get to my next destination unseen.

Wages of celebrity, I guess. I never dreamt writing these articles would grant me a measure of notoriety to say nothing of outright fame. I handled it all as best I could, granting a couple interviews and photo-ops to the reporters I found least objectionable—it amazes me how some ponies and people seem to have nothing better to do with their time than eavesdrop and invade the lives of others.

Regardless, I was there to see Braeburn and experience his town, not dodge a pack of paparazzi who shadowed me wherever I went, seemingly trying hard to catch me in a compromising position with Braeburn or anypony else. They ended up disappointed, as Braeburn and I did not engage in any more ‘authentic frontier experiences’ aside from a couple kisses. There were several reasons for this, not the least of which was the complete lack of privacy we had from all the press, but even aside from that, he’s taken and I’m not into stallions so much as men now. But you don’t need to have sex to have a good time, and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay despite the presence of the press… though if I learned nothing else, I learned that despite being an earth pony and wearing Braeburn’s old vest and a new hat, I really didn’t fit in and I’m definitely not cut out for frontier life!

I left with new respect for him and a mutual promise to keep in touch in the future, promising to repay his hospitality, give him the royal treatment in return if he ever came east. After a week in Appleloosa I was whisked out in the wee hours of the night, taken by a private thestrel-pulled Chariot to Las Pegasus—thank you, Platinum Corona—and was deposited out front the Mystique where I was met by Rising Star.

She’s still there nine years after I left, quite happy with her life, her relationship with Limelight and the occasional evening out with her favorite Gentleman (the one I originally recommended to her, no less!), still going strong and having no plans to retire despite now pushing sixty. We had a good lunch and talk before she teleported us both over to Palisades to bypass the gathering media again, where we met Limelight and I checked out the new G4M offices she and Rising Star had helped set up there.

That was a fun afternoon, and something I was very happy to see. I was reunited with Gentlemen I hadn’t seen in months or even years, ones I’d recruited or trained, now hard at work helping other mares. And I’m pleased to report they had absolutely no lack of business; the biggest surprise that greeted me was seeing placards being pulled by earth ponies on The Street and pegasi overhead advertising them!

Okay, second-biggest surprise. The biggest surprise I’m reserving for later in the article.

It seemed my fame preceded me in Las Pegasus as well. I was both humbled and honored when several mares and men recognized me from my articles and asked for my autograph, thanking me for my G4M role and writing. I was also privileged to see a wedding between man and mare at one of the many Las Pegasus wedding chapels. I actually had mixed feelings about that, knowing how Las Pegasus weddings usually end up, but wished them well. The bride looked very happy, and the groom seemed genuine as well. I hope they make a go of it.

Against that, I did catch some dirty looks from a few ponies and people during my stay, and there was at least one instance I got confronted by a rather drunk stallion who complained he’d lost two mares to human men, and blamed me for it. Rising Star’s security teams were having none of it, collaring and hauling him off when he got too belligerent, where he ended up cooling his hooves in the city jail.

Return and Reunions

I was given a private suite at the Palisades for my stay, since even after nine years I really wasn’t comfortable being in the Mystique again. Too many memories and two certain stallions that were still there, after all…

That discomfort could apply to Las Pegasus in general. My worry going in had been that seeing the place again would cause me flashbacks, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Thankfully, I didn’t give myself enough credit. I did have a couple shaky moments here and there, one when I first saw the Strotosphere spire and another a little later as you’ll read shortly, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

In fact, I was surprised to see the city had changed much in my absence—some old Street stalwarts like the Sand Dunes were gone and new ones like the Symphony were now in their place—so much so that long stretches of The Street were completely different than before. There was even a joint human-pony venture underway, twin towers of stone and steel going up not far north of the Mystique—the Sonata and the Tarot. There was also the fact that this time I was coming for the reason most Las Pegasus visitors do—as a guest on vacation, there to have relax and have fun…

Though there would be a couple potentially not-so-fun moments along the way.

Meeting Rising Star and Gentlemen I knew had been wonderful, but my next visit promised to be somewhat less so. A few days into my stay, after I’d had time to acclimate and get myself more or less on good terms with the city, I kept my promise to meet Aces Up and Double Down for the first time since… you know. Rising Star arranged for us to have a private dinner well away from the press and other ponies, with Rising Star herself present at my request.

I was very glad she was there. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the boys, it was just… well, I still didn’t trust myself not to have flashbacks when I met them, and wanted Rising Star there to steady me in case I needed it. Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary. Again, I didn’t give myself enough credit, but in all honesty… I didn’t give them enough either.

I won’t lie—seeing the boys again was awkward and uncomfortable at first, but that quickly changed with the introduction of their shared five-mare herd and four foals. Their two newest, red-and-blue-haired Pegasus twins barely two months old were named Royal Flush and Blackjack—turned out they’d been named for the original aliases I’d given their daddies! They were unquestionably adorable, and seeing how their fathers loved and doted on them did much to lighten my mood and dispel my remaining doubts about the pair. I’d been told they’d become good herd stallions and papas, and here I finally saw it firsthoof—they really had changed!

I was happy for them, but if I’m being honest, I was happiest for myself—for it meant the ordeal I went through had not been for nothing; that they had indeed learned their lessons from what had happened to me.

We parted on good terms, but not before the boys—yes, I guess ‘the boys’ is the way I’ll always think of them despite the fact they just turned forty—did what they’d waited ten years to do. They got down on their knees before me and opened their wings in pegasi submission, presenting their vulnerable undersides. They told me how very sorry they were, swearing that they would never let what happened to me happen to another mare—or woman—again.

In reply, I told them directly I forgave them, and that as long as they continued to be the best herd stallions and sires they could, I would be proud to consider them my friends. We shared a heartfelt hug before parting; a few tears were shed… though Double Down tried to insist it was just his allergies.

When I left, I felt like a burden I wasn’t even aware was there was lifted—that with this meeting and reconciliation, I was finally, fully at peace with them. It was a good feeling.

Old Times

The rest of my vacation in Las Pegasus passed in a whirlwind for me.

I visited separately with Willow and Snow Lily (who have given me permission to use their real names, but I’m going to hold off on that for a bit. Why? You’ll see). That weekend I watched the long-running musical Alptraum über das Opernhaus, starring Willow. And I have to say, as good a singer as she was at the Shemareaton, she was phenomenal now—Rising Star had personally trained her and it showed; her performance garnered a standing ovation from the audience, human and pony alike. I was especially surprised when she took a curtain call at the very end and invited me on stage, introducing me and saying she was dedicating the performance to me!

The show was dark the next day, so we had the chance to catch up properly; she and Snow Lily taking a break from their herds, jobs, and even foals to reconnect with me and catch up on ten years apart. On the subject of foals, Willow had her first last year while Snow Lily’s now pregnant with her second and starting to show; I have to say, motherhood and herd life really seems to agree with them both. They’ve balanced their personal and professional lives quite nicely and having found a herd with good stallions, a herd where everypony is on good terms and pitches in has helped a lot.

I guess it’s worth noting that this is an example of a successful herd, something I never experienced, or perhaps what my first herd could have been if not for… circumstances.

(Stop it, Five Stars.)

We had a really good time, doing something we hadn’t done since our original herd days, and even then it had been rare with our work schedules never synchronizing—we had a girls’ night out, hopping from bar to bar, club to club, even gambling a bit, playing games of dice, cards, or just plain dodging the paparazzi that kept hard on my heels. Didn’t win at any of them (except for managing to lose the press one or twice), but I remembered my lessons of Las Pegasus well—you don’t gamble to win money, you gamble to have fun… and we definitely did! As it turned out, in fact, Snow Lily and Willow had a surprise planned for me. Or rather, a pair of them.

First, that evening, they treated me for dinner and then took me to see another show, an Earth import they swore was a must-see—The Lion King over at the Andalusian Bay. Admittedly, I was a bit dubious given the premise they described—nothing more than the simple story of a lion cub coming of age?—but after seeing it all I can say was… WOW!

It was an amazing story and performance by its all-human cast; the music was magical, the costumes and sets incredible, and the show doubly amazing for the fact that it was done without any magic whatsoever; just some clever props and machinery. And I’m told it’s actually based on an ‘animated’ movie? Interesting… I might have to see if any Gentlemen I work with have a copy.

The End…

When the show let out towards midnight and our night out was ending, Snow Lily and Willow revealed their second surprise—a night in over at the Strotosphere. They explained they wanted to take me back to the place of my honeymoon and give me a proper one, in a manner of speaking.

As you might well imagine, I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect, terrified of heights and of flashbacks—if anything would bring them all back full force, it was staying at the Strotosphere—and the fact that having all the human stallions and male attention I could ever want, I wasn’t really interested in mares any more. But they insisted, saying the choice was mine but they wanted to help me overcome the negative associations I had with the place… and my remaining bad memories of Las Pegasus in general.

For them—and only for them—I acceded, though I insisted I wasn’t interested in intimacy. I let Lily cast a cloudwalking spell on me, and we took a chariot up to the top of the tower, where the pegasi manager, Hard Eight (said to be named for both his favorite dice bet and his shaft size!), was waiting to greet me personally, giving me a kiss on the hoof and offering up their best suite for our stay. Despite his efforts to put me at ease, I was definitely feeling some anxiety, my pulse and breathing quickening as I stepped out onto that cloud surface and memories of the last time I was there kept trying to rear up… but with my best friends at my side to steady me, I persevered. Instead of heading right up, we first had a nightcap at the Alicorn Aerie, only retiring to our suite when I was said I was ready. It was pretty much as I remembered it, with a Prince-sized cloud bed and crystal furniture, magical fireplace, a bowl full of flowers and chocolates, and a view out in the big bay window looking right down The Street.

Lily gave me her best, most relaxing massage, bringing all her magic and skill to bear on my body while Willow talked with me, held my hoof and occasionally fed me chocolates and flower petals with her mouth—they’d even remembered my favorite brand and breeds!

They’d planned it all well, and by Celestia, it was working! I slowly relaxed, giving in to the familiar and remembered touch of my friends. The feedings from Willow started to turn to kisses and Snow Lily’s massage grew gradually more sensual; she slowly dimmed the lights and turned them from a soothing blue to a more suggestive pink and red hue and I soon found myself having flashbacks of a different kind, this time to our herd days when I’d let the pair double-team me.

Much to my surprise, I was indeed reacting to their efforts—my breathing quickened, my marehood moistened, and I began to make out with Willow in earnest, recalling well the feel of her muzzle against my own. Shortly thereafter I rolled over on my back and spread my legs to feel sharp thestrel teeth working down my neck while a very practiced tongue began making its way inside me, causing my breath to catch.

I couldn’t believe it. It had been ten years since the last time we were together, but those two hadn’t missed a beat. They remembered all my weak spots and everything I liked, and didn’t stop until I was well and truly sated—in fact, if anything they’d gotten even better in that time! Suffice it to say, the night was wild and wonderful, and it was a very good feeling, waking up between them the next morning—feeling the warmth of their love and friendship, both inside and out.

Just like old times. Remember how I said before that given the choice between a mare and stallion I’ll take a stallion every time? I may have to rescind that now. Deep and abiding friendship, like I have with Willow and Snow Lily, lends itself well to intimacy regardless of gender. I trust those two implicitly, and that counts for an awful lot. In the end, they did what they set out to do—broke the remaining hold Las Pegasus and that night had over me, healed what remained of that wound. And that alone made this trip worth it.

I guess the reason I’m telling this story is so readers understand that there was a time I thought I never would be able to enjoy sex or intimacy again—and that was the weeks and months following my abortive honeymoon. And now that you know the end of my healing from that horrible night, it’s time for me to go all the way back to the beginning. So to reset the scene, I’m now going back nine years, to my departure from Las Pegasus following my honeymoon horror story.

The Beginning…

Leaving Las Pegasus under the circumstances I did was necessary but no less wrenching for it, as I found myself subjected to the same emotions and more as when I left Manehattan ten months earlier. My body had more or less healed by the time I left the hospital but my psyche had not; by the time I arrived in Baltimare I felt myself falling into a deep depression.

I thought distance from Las Pegasus and what happened there would lessen the pain of what was my second failed herd, but I quickly found out how wrong I was. The city was over two thousand miles away, and yet, its hold over me simply did not weaken. My nightmares were unending; my panic attacks were severe—no joke, I went through a period where even looking at a stallion could cause one.

Fortunately, I had family—my siblings and especially my older brother—who were there for me. In fact, they were the reason I chose to come to Baltimare. I moved in with my brother and leaned on him heavily for the next few months, trying to come to terms with what had happened to me. He was always there to listen and comfort, always present to hold and steady me. In fact, there was a stretch I went through when I didn’t want to be touched by anypony except him; he became my only connection to the outside world during the worst of it.

But as the anxiety attacks intensified and I became increasingly withdrawn, it became clear I needed more help than he could give me. He begged me to go into counseling, recommending a therapist he’d seen after the death of our parents. Finally recognizing my downward spiral, and with him there to hold my hoof, I broke down and went.

He was right as usual; it was the one of the best and most important things I ever did. My therapist, who I’ll call Helping Hoof, understood at the start that healing would not come quick or easy for me, and there was one thing she said up front that has stuck with me to this day—“Sometimes we have to help others heal in order to heal ourselves.”

I didn’t understand what she meant at first… but I would in due time. Even with her now helping me, it was not an easy time, and not really a period in my life I care to dwell on. It lasted eight months, the first of two major depressions in my life.

Time may heal all wounds, but some hurts take longer than others, and my aversion to intimacy stayed with me. Acting on the goading of my barely-sympathetic older sister who told me I just needed to “get over it”, I tried to challenge my fears and force myself to have sex a couple times, once with a stallion and earlier with a mare when I was in heat.

But I couldn’t. The foreplay alone caused severe flashbacks to my honeymoon and the agony of addiction that followed; I simply couldn’t get past the nightmares in my head.

The first time, I bolted from the bedroom and broke down crying, huddled in a bathroom when the mare in question offered me a booster. To her credit, she was profusely apologetic afterwards when I managed to explain why, staying with me that night and doing nothing more than holding me. A month later I suffered a massive panic attack when a stallion I’d been seducing moved to mount me, to the point that I bucked him off with all my earth pony strength, putting two ugly hoof-shaped bruises in his lower belly and doing some internal damage. He was understandably less forgiving than the mare, and I ended up paying his medical bills.

Despite such setbacks, the therapy helped a bit. Some of it was talking, some of it was an anti-anxiety spell or two that finally allowed me to sleep better, granting my body and spirit a little space to heal. But I still wasn’t making much in the way of real progress, just incremental…

At least, not until one fateful night in late winter.

Turnabout Nightmare

What really started my turnabout was a dream. A nightmare, in fact.

I was alone in a dark hotel room—it might have been the honeymoon suite at the Strotosphere—except it was dank and unlit, like a spooky forest, and I was locked in. I was thirsty and went to the bathroom to get a drink, but to my horror, booster potion started coming out of the tap instead of water, glowing sickly orange. In a panic, I tried to turn off the flow, but the spigot broke off and it began to overflow the sink and tub. Suddenly, potion was leaking, oozing from everything and increasingly leaving me with nowhere to go. Everywhere I looked were little rivulets glowing sickly orange, all seemingly flowing towards me, even forming into predatory creatures, scorpions and snakes, timberwolves and manticores, all rising up and reaching for me. I cried and pleaded for help, called for my brother, even my mother, but there was no answer.

I climbed higher and higher onto the bed, the nightstand and finally the dresser but the evil orange apparitions followed me until I was cornered and had nowhere left to go. I shook in fear, knowing the instant they bit me the addiction would return and I would be lost in a haze of want, pain and misery; I knew their sting meant fleeting pleasure followed by endless, excruciating agony.

I cowered. I sobbed. And finally…

I screamed!

It was then, when I’d lost all hope of escape or rescue, a shaft of light burst through my dreamscape like the moonbeam through a parting cloud, shining bright through the dark window into the recesses of my room… and my soul. A cool white light bathed me and wherever it touched the potion-creatures, they sizzled and evaporated, driven back until nothing of them remained.

Rise, dear child, a mare’s voice called to me and I could feel a presence at my side, taking me by the hoof and picking me up from where I was cowering in the corner. I could not see my savior except in silhouette; she was more ephemeral shadow than actual entity, and yet… she was real. She was there. I could feel her presence, feel myself being taken under a wing and a soothing touch on my mind, maternal and gentle. I clung to her, still crying and pleading for her to stay, fearing the moment she left the monsters that stalked me would return.

In reply, she held me and began to sing a lullaby to me, like a mother to her frightened foal. So much of that vision was lost, but I can still hear that hauntingly beautiful song as clearly as ever, and I’ve sung it to myself many times since:

Fear not this night, you will not go astray.

Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

Awaken from a quiet sleep, hear the whispering of the wind.

Awaken as the silence grows in a solitude of the night.

Darkness spreads through all the land and your weary eyes open silently.

Sunsets have forsaken all and must open their eyes and,

Nightmares come when shadows grow…

Ice glows and heartbeats slow.

Fear not this night, you will not go astray.

Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

And you can always be strong.

Lift your voice, with the first light of dawn.

Dawn is just a heartbeat away

Hope’s just a sunrise away.

Distant sounds of melodies calling through the night to your heart.

Auroras, mists and echoes dance in the solitude of our life.

Pleading silent arias gently grieving in captive misery.

Darkness sings a forlorn song and yet our hope can still rise up.

Nightmares come when shadows grow.

Lift your voice, lift your heart.

Fear not this night, you will not go astray.

Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

And you can always be strong.

Lift your voice, with the first light of dawn.

Dawn is just a heartbeat away

Hope’s just a sunrise away.

Once the song was done, she held me close. Fear not this night, my little pony, she told me again. Fear not this night, and fear not to sleep. These demons will haunt you no more, her voice promised me, and I could somehow sense the truth of her words and that she had the power to make it so. I cried my gratitude into what felt like a strangely intangible mane full of glitter and sparkles; she stayed with me until I had drifted back off. Kind of odd that you could fall asleep within a dream, but that’s exactly what I did.

My savior was as good as her word. For the first time in what seemed ages I slept long and hard, straight through the night and well into the morning—so long, in fact, my brother got worried and came in to check on me; he later told me he wasn’t about to wake me up once he saw the peaceful, serene expression on my face.

My dreams after that were benign, ranging from one about my parents to another about Cayenne, surprisingly, where I relived the night of our honeymoon. Later the scenes with Braeburn and my dentist friend replayed quite lucidly as well; I felt everything I did then—our foreplay, our fun, even the afterglow that followed.

In hindsight, it was as if I was being reminded—shown through my own dream-replayed memories—what love and lovemaking could be; remind me that the pain I’d felt from the potion addiction was not normal or something I should be associating with sex.

The dreams, which were very lucid and vivid when they happened, faded quickly. But aside from the song, there is one thing I remember from them quite clearly to this day. And that’s at the end of my initial encounter with Braeburn New Years Eve, looking up at Rising Star on her fourth-floor office balcony, expecting to see her but instead seeing…

Princess Luna!

She smiled and nodded at me and then retreated to the moon overhead, at which point the dream ended and I woke up, feeling more alive and refreshed than I had in a very long time. To this day, I still don’t know if she was real or I just imagined it all… if somehow, the Princess of the Night heard my cry for help and came to me in my sleep, helping me heal through my dreams.

But whatever the answer, knowing that somepony was out there watching over me helped immensely; I was no longer afraid to sleep for fear of the nightmares returning.

So, to our beloved Moon Princess: I know you’re studying on Earth right now, but if by chance you are reading this and that was indeed you who visited me that night, I’d just like to say, from the bottom of my heart…

Thank you.

This was not the end of my healing. In some ways, as you’ve already read, that would take ten years to complete. But it was the beginning. My road back was long, but I was finally fully on it. In time, I would learn to live and love again, and a very special pony would play a role in it. A pony I was shocked to run into towards the end of my stay in Las Pegasus, and who has now given me permission to tell our story and his name.

But that will be saved for my next article. For now, I’m home and looking forward to getting back in the proverbial saddle, doing the job I love:

Training new Gentlemen.

I'm back! As you can see, I decided not to include the extra section but will instead save it for next time, which means the next chapter should come out much quicker. Apologies for the delays, but life happens. And self-publishing isn't as easy as they make it out to be. I'd actually hoped to announce the book here, but still not quite there yet. It's coming, though. Hopefully within days.

Thanks to Permanent Temporary and Demon Eyes Laharl for the preread and especially the rapid turnaround time. You can thank them for me being able to hit the publish button so soon. And those of you familiar with the *other* work I'm involved with might spot a few references in here as well. The next chapter will bring forth a familiar character from that work as Five Stars continues her healing process. Until then... enjoy!

--Firesight

EDIT: It didn't occur to me at the time, but I published this chapter on the one-year anniversary of my jaw advancement surgery, which I undertook to fix severe obstructive sleep apnea. So it was A Time to Heal for me as well...