Five Star Service – False Starts

By Five Stars of Manehattan
Special to the New York Life and Manehattan Post magazines
August 10 issues

New York Life Chief Editor’s Note:

As many of you know, we won a major court victory this past week. With summary judgment granted on our motion to the dismiss the obscenity charges and unfreeze our bank accounts, our regular magazine issue is once again rolling off the presses. That is not the end of our court battles, of course, but it was a resounding win that marked the end of a very difficult several weeks. But more than that, we have all been heartened and are extremely grateful by the crescendo of support we have received over that time, to seeing all the people and ponies outside our offices standing in solidarity with us.

We were especially gratified by the many members of all species who went so far as to offer us protection, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies watching over our homes and offices; even some griffin veterans of the Cloven War stationing themselves at our doors, telling us they would now watch over us as human soldiers had once watched over them!

I don’t mind saying now it was touch-and-go there for a while and there were points we honestly thought we were going to have to close shop and silence our printing presses forever. But it is said fortune favors the bold, and our refusal to yield combined with public opinion turning in our favor seems to have carried the day. Accordingly, Five Stars’ articles will continue to be run in our regular issues, and we have decided that as a gift to our subscribers and supporters, we will offer a special compilation of her articles upon their completion.

And a special note from our staff to Five Stars herself: we understand you were feeling guilty over what was happening to us. Please be assured, we do NOT blame you for any of this, and we hope you will do us the honor of visiting someday.

—Kalido Tenna, Chief Editor, New York Life Magazine

Manehattan Post Owner’s Note:

My regular presses are rolling again as well with the discovery of the mastermind behind the attacks, and the end of the organized harassment campaign against me and my vendors. I wish I could say all was well and I’m as jubilant as my staff, but I’m not.

My favorite Gentleman was among those who had his identity exposed, and quit G4M as a result. If he was specifically targeted to hurt me, I’m sorry to say it succeeded. My Gentleman disappeared after his name and address were publicized, leaving only a letter of resignation behind. I’m taking a leave of absence from the magazine to find him, and will be turning over the magazine to my deputy, Extra Edition, for the duration.

—Hot Topic, Owner and Founder, Manehattan Post Magazine

Dear readers—

I’m relieved to say the news is considerably better this week on both the Terran and Tellurian fronts, with arrests made on the ambush of our Gentlemen in Las Pegasus and the harassment campaign in Manehattan. It was not, however, the police or authorities who broke the case.

It’s said it takes a thief to catch a thief, and in this case, it took two ponies who knew the Las Pegasus underworld and still had contacts there to snare the assailants behind the attacks. Aces Up and Double Down went undercover to root them out (for which I thank you from the bottom of my heart, boys), springing a trap on them with the help of a very brave Gentleman, setting up a ‘secret date’ between him and a mare known to be involved with the attacks.

In the end, their efforts resulted in the capture of nearly two dozen ponies, among them being the stallion who menaced me during my vacation there a couple months back, and a unicorn mare who, I’m sorry to say, insisted she was just trying to ‘expose the deceivers’ among us and ensure that no more ponies would get hurt… by hurting humans, apparently. They’d been recruited by an influential Canterlot stallion upset at having one his mares leave him for a human, gathering disgruntled Gentlemen clients and angry colts alike, using his station and money to organize a harassment campaign against G4M that included finding and airing the identities of not only Gentlemen but their clients and workers at the Manehattan Post. And there’s evidence he was involved in protests on earth as well, spreading around some precious gems and magical artifacts to stir up trouble. They’re still trying to figure out how he smuggled them across the portal.

In the end, he preyed on the jilted and emotionally vulnerable, forming a group he called the Harmony Equestrian Reclamation Division, or HERD for short (imaginative, huh?). Among their tenets were a dislike of humans and any perceived affronts “to the existing Equestrian order,” which included not only interspecies couples in general and Gentlemen in particular, but anypony that promoted them, including my articles and those publishing it.

They had become quite well organized in a very short period of time and their members included the two ponies noted. The stallion was just a drunkard who spent more money on the gaming tables than on his herd (and then wondered why they left him), while the mare was not only the pony who’d been vandalizing our advertising signs, but also turned out to be the same one involved in an incident regarding one of our best Gentlemen in Neighagra a few months back.

Upon hearing the news, said Gentleman immediately went to see her, accompanied by his handler. I have no idea how he could forgive her after all she’s done—it appears she specifically targeted one of his friends directly in the first round of attacks just to hurt him—but forgive her he did, going down to Las Pegasus to see and speak with her directly. I don’t know what happened or what was said between them, but she turned on the group and pled guilty to all charges, giving up vital information on its members and methods. Word is that a mutual friend then spoke on her behalf during the sentencing phase, reading aloud a letter asking for leniency and offering her own heartfelt plea. I’m told there wasn’t a dry eye in the courthouse by the time she was finished, including the defendant, who bawled her eyes out afterwards…

He denies he asked that mutual friend to do it, but he’s fooling nopony.

In recognition of her difficult circumstances and in return for testifying against the nascent group she’d joined, she was given a three-year sentence. Believe me when I say that’s a very light punishment—the usual penalty for a mare attacking a stallion under such circumstances would be five times that.

As for the Gentlemen in question, I’m still amazed he was willing to help her after all that. That’s one of the reasons I find him so special and consider recruiting him among my greatest accomplishments. He’s a better person than I am a pony, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’d have it in me to forgive her…

And perhaps fittingly, the next part of my story will involve an instance where I had to find it in me to do just that.

Meanwhile, on Earth… the New York Life scored a huge court victory when the judges ruled that publishing my articles did not amount to obscenity and ordered the freezes put on the bank accounts of the magazine workers by the city and province (county? state? I don’t get all these human territorial distinctions) lifted. The ruling was immediately appealed, to be sure, but I’m told by those who understand the justice system there that it’s not likely to be overturned. The threats against the magazine workers there continue, unfortunately, but there’s also been a huge groundswell of support and counter-protests, hundreds of humans and ponies alike forming physical barriers to protect the magazine offices and their workers, even going so far as to stand guard over them at night. And I was stunned to see that at the head of one of those protests, perched on a light pole leading a group of demonstrators in a pro-magazine chant… was none other than my first herd stallion, Cayenne Kick!

So before I do anything else, let me thank him here, publicly: Cayenne, I saw the video of you, including the ‘TV interview’ you gave. I heard things from you I never dreamed I would, and I mean that in the best possible way—you said that interspecies relationships were a good thing, that humanity in general and Gentlemen in particular ‘were necessary for the evolution of Equestrian society’, that my articles needed to be heard, and that you’d ‘learned a lot’ from your time among humans about how to be a better stallion. When the reporter asked in what way, you answered by sweeping a nearby woman off her feet and kissing her on camera, to cheers!

Well, I have to say, Cayenne… we didn’t part on good terms, but I’d very much like to go see you again at this point. I’ll even admit I was a little jealous when I saw the picture of you with that woman, how you apparently took her breath away and then hearing her say that she was your girlfriend. Oh yes, and that “Yankees” ballcap you were wearing backwards? Nice touch. If that was any indication, I’d say you’ve gone native over there!

I’ll write you privately again later, but for now… it’s time to continue my story.

Sweet Tea, Sour Taste

My third herd, readers may recall, was an attempt to build a new herd from scratch from the midst of five good friends and coworkers at the Longshore Inn—myself, an earth pony barmare named Sweet Tea, an earth pony groundskeeper named Juniper Berry, and an existing unicorn couple from our Inn’s kitchen named Sea Salt and Red Pepper. Best of friends after a year or so working together, we decided we formed a natural group, and a herd would be the logical next step for us.

[And to that idiot reporter who wrote to ask me where the Longshore Inn is, claiming he couldn’t find it… that’s because it doesn’t exist. That name is a pseudonym. I have more reason than usual to protect identities with regards to my third herd, as you’ll see shortly.]

The initial suggestion to form a herd had been made in jest late in the spring, but before long, me and my friends found ourselves agreeing to do so and began working on fixing up a house that would become our collective home. And indeed, after a few months of work, the new cottage was shaping up nicely, thanks both to our efforts and my older brother’s, a dock worker and jack-of-all-trades who I think was as much trying to hasten the day that I would move out of his flat as help us. I can’t blame him, given I’d now been bunking with him for over a year and probably seriously overstayed my welcome.

Our prospective new herd, however, was already showing signs of strain. ‘On paper’ as I’ve heard humans put it, we made an ideal group, with the perfect mix of personalities and roles. Red Pepper and Sea Salt were a practical, easygoing pair that loved to cook and would form the nucleus of our new herd. Juniper was an outgoing pony who loved to have fun and had a prankster streak; she would keep things interesting and the rest of us from being too serious all the time. Sweet Tea was a pony who could defuse tensions and would always be there with a comforting drink or word if the rest of us needed a pick-me-up or sympathetic ear.

And myself? I would be the Voice of Experience and organizer, similar to my concierge duties, handling finances and other matters.

All well and good, but in real life things rarely work out so cleanly. The main problem was centered around one particular individual, who was already causing some issues in our group.

We had agreed going into this, at my request, that there would be no lead mare; the memories of how one abused my first herd were still fresh in my mind. Normally that role would fall to the stallion’s first or current mate, which in this case was Sea Salt, but as laid back as she was, she had no more interest in such a role than I did.

“Oh, come on. Can you seriously see ME as a lead mare, Five Stars?” she asked me with a wry grin when I broached the subject, and we all shared a good laugh.

What we did seem to have was a potential problem with Juniper Berry, an outgoing earth pony mare with a wild side that would have given Aurora and Corona, the two changeling servers from the Mystique, a run for their bits. We hadn’t officially formed our herd yet, but she seemed to think that being in one meant all sex all the time, and that she could basically bed anyone in it she wanted to, whenever she wanted to…

And that she didn’t actually have to wait until our herd was official to do so.

She was in for rude awakening. So were we all, for that matter. Juniper was the kind of pony who could be a wonderful, fun friend, a pony who was good at getting laughs and making sure that everypony else had a good time, but she also had a real problem with respecting boundaries and wasn’t good at such messy concepts as responsibility and commitment. Outgoing and sexually aggressive, she could get away with things that nopony else could (and often did), but when she bucked up, things blew up pretty spectacularly…

As happened almost immediately when she got wind of the fact that Sweet Tea was still a virgin. In truth, I blame myself for what followed. I told the others that Sweet Tea needed to be handled gently, preferably by me, since I already had some experience breaking in a pony with Cruise Control.

To what should have been no surprise, Juniper took that as a challenge and set out to beat me to it.

First Times to Forget

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that, human or pony, first times are a very dicey thing.

I was very lucky in that I had a stallion who gave me exactly the first time I needed, and I was in turn able to give a good one later to Cruise Control. It was a lesson, I’m sorry to say, that I later had to relearn regarding humans as well… that pushing someone to have sex before they’re well and truly ready causes more harm than good. A good first time opens up a new world to you; a world full of wondrous pleasure and possibilities. A bad first time, however… can cripple herds and end friendships, and taint the pony (or person) on the receiving end for a very long time.

The first indication something was up happened when Sweet Tea suddenly didn’t show up for work one day. Or the day after. Juniper, however, was smug and insufferable, especially around me, though she wouldn’t explain why except to say in an offhoof manner that she’d ‘beaten me to the prize’. Busy with my work—it was the middle of the vacation season so we were all pulling extra shifts—I didn’t give it as much thought as I should have.

It was only when Sweet Tea didn’t show up for a third straight day and even Juniper started to look worried that I went to go see her after I got off duty. I knocked on her door only to receive no answer… except a faint sobbing when I put my ear to the door. “Sweet Tea?” I called to her, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I put the pieces together. “It’s Five Stars. Are you okay?”

My only answer was a fresh, half-strangled sob. Worried, I let myself in (ponies don’t generally lock their doors) and went through the living room to her bedroom where I found… “Sweet Tea!” I screamed, immediately going to her as I beheld the shattered wreck of my friend and future herdmate.

She was a mess. There’s no other way for me to describe her. Her limbs were trembling, her mane was in shambles and her eyes sunken and darting like she was struggling to stay awake; it she looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. I tried to help her up only for her to shriek and pull away, screaming not to touch her. I had never heard her raise her voice before, and when I asked her what was wrong the story spilled out of her uncontrollably.

Three days earlier, she had gone to our new cottage to work on it, as it was her turn to do so. Juniper had joined her and immediately went to work on her, rubbing up against her, flagging her tail, and generally flirting with her. Surprised and uncertain, Sweet Tea had twice tried to leave but Juniper had played on her insecurities and coaxed her into staying. And then…

And then is academic, but suffice it to say, it involved things Sweet Tea was not ready for or comfortable with, despite Juniper’s promises that she ‘would love it’ and telling her that ‘no pony should be a virgin at 25’ and ‘it was time to grow up’. She crumpled easily under such pressure in the face of the confident and aggressive Juniper, and did whatever the other mare wanted her to do, giving only meek, half-hearted protests as Juniper had her way with her and then some.

To be sure, she admitted she’d never actually said no, but that was hardly an excuse to me; anypony who knew Sweet Tea knew she had a serious problem asserting herself or declining a request… a fact that Juniper had availed herself of fully, taking advantage of this poor mare and pressuring her into doing things she wasn’t ready for.

Severely distressed, she’d tried to get away afterwards, but Juniper followed her home. Sweet Tea was too scared to tell her to leave, so they’d ended up sleeping together and doing things almost hourly; she told me that each time felt like ‘claws raking her guts’ and all she could do was pray for morning to come so Juniper would leave. After she’d done so—and not before forcing a parting kiss on her—Sweet Tea had broken down and cried.

Saying she was traumatized by the experience would be putting it far too lightly. She couldn’t go to work for fear of encountering Juniper, she couldn’t eat because her system and psyche were so upset, she couldn’t sleep for fear of nightmares; she couldn’t even use her own bed again for the memories and flashbacks it caused…

Her innocence lost, her home and very sanctuary had been tainted, and our entire herd along with it.

Recognizing that she was in bad shape, I summoned an ambulance chariot and went with her to the hospital. Once she was sedated and hydrated, I sent an emergency summons to the others without telling them why. They arrived within a half hour, and the moment I saw Juniper…

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so mad, not even at my sister on Hearth’s Warming. The mere sight of her made me snap; all thoughts of harmony and my innate pony aversion to conflict fled me as I slammed her hard against the nearest wall, ready to pound her into the pavement with my hooves, and by the time I showed them Sweet Tea and explained to everypony what happened I wasn’t the only one. Sea Salt was livid as well, magically hoisting Juniper by her mane, and Red Pepper told her to give him one good reason why he shouldn’t buck her right out of the herd—to say nothing of her job—right then and there.

Initially bewildered and defensive at the anger being directed at her, it wasn’t until she saw how badly Sweet Tea was hurt for herself that Juniper broke down—I’d never seen her cry before—claiming she’d been trying to help her, not hurt her. I responded forcefully by saying she hadn’t helped her, she’d helped herself—which, looking back, echoed exactly what Rising Star had told Aces Up and Double Down in the emergency room after my overdose. Wonder if I actually heard what she was telling them and remembered it here…?

Regardless, guess I now know just how mad Rising Star really was as I got in Juniper’s face again and point-blank asked her if she’d also thought that we were in some sort of competition and by bedding Juniper before I did, that she’d be showing me up or beating me somehow. Her reflexive denial couldn’t hide the guilt in her gaze, and the only thing that stopped me from attacking her again was Red Pepper acting the part of a herd stallion, stepping between us to prevent it.

For human readers, physically interposing themselves in the middle of a conflict is a simple trick Equestrian males can use to defuse potential fights between herdmates. Mares will sometimes go after each other but they’ll never do anything to endanger a male; keeping their stallion (or any stallion) safe is paramount and an innate instinct all mares share. Such it was here, not that it lowered my anger level any. I couldn’t turn my mane or tail to flames like Rising Star, of course, but I swear to Celestia I was just about ready to put Juniper in a hospital bed of her own after what she’d done; the physical and emotional damage she’d wrought on this poor mare.

Sea Salt and I wanted Juniper out of the herd right then and there, but Red Pepper said it would be up to Sweet Tea to decide her fate, and in the meantime, ordered Juniper to “get the buck out of his sight” before he did something he regretted, and not to come back to work until he told her to.

Devastated, she ran out of the room. It would be a week before any of us saw her again.

The Aftermath

Sweet Tea was discharged within a couple days, after she’d been sufficiently nourished and had an impromptu counseling session or two. But we all made sure she was never alone after that, both to keep her company as she slowly recovered and to keep Juniper away until Sweet Tea said she was ready to face her.

After reading this, some might wonder why we thought it was a good idea to invite her into a herd. I touched on this earlier but there were two reasons, actually, and she demonstrated them both when we finally went as a group to see Juniper, who looked about as bad as Sweet Tea when I first found her.

The first was that, true to her alias, she was very sweet, always there with a comforting drink or word when you needed a pick-me-up. Her special talent as a barmare was selecting and mixing drinks perfectly; knowing instinctively what our patrons needed and how they liked it. An odd but powerful gift, and one that served us all well on more than one occasion. The second reason was that she wouldn’t hold a grudge no matter how badly she’d been hurt and wronged; and as such, she was very good at defusing tension with her mere presence—after all, who would wish to raise their voice or exchange ill words in the presence of this kind, sweet earth pony who didn’t have a mean bone in her body? I guess the best word that would describe her is peacemaker, which most relationship self-help books will tell you is an essential role in any herd.

Such it was here. I’ll give Sweet Tea this—for all her trauma, she did something I never had the courage to do with Aces Up and Double Down after what had happened to me on my honeymoon (and the fact that this had happened almost two years to the day after that incident was not lost on me. I was honestly starting to wonder if that time of year was cursed.) She faced Juniper and told her in characteristic understatement that she’d “done a bad thing,” saying “I forgive you but don’t know if I can be in a herd with you now.”

Had it been anypony but Sweet Tea, Juniper would probably have been unrepentant. But since it was Sweet Tea… her already fragile psyche shattered, sobbing, unable to apologize enough. An emotional wreck after a week of stewing in her own guilt and having to live with the knowledge of what she’d done to her friend and future herdmate, she swore she’d learned her lesson and begged us all for a second chance.

Despite her apparently real remorse and haggard state, neither myself nor Sea Salt wanted to give it… but incredibly, Sweet Tea did, not wanting anypony to be in trouble on her behalf. Red Pepper deferred to her, and after a long private chat with her and each other, we relented and said Juniper could stay but was basically on probation, and that Sweet Tea was off-limits to her. If she broke the rules again, she was out, no ifs ands or buts. She would have to earn our trust back, and it would be a long time before she would.

While she headed out of town for a monthlong self-imposed exile, Sweet Tea headed into counseling—I went with her to the first few appointments, taking her to see my therapist. Her road back, as it turned out, would be even longer than mine was; she had issues that predated what Juniper did to her. Out of respect for her, I won’t go into them here, but suffice it to say, Juniper had bared an old wound fully and it would take a long time for her to heal from it.

With one member under a cloud and a second in therapy, our new herd had been half-crippled before it even began. Nevertheless, we were determined to try and make a go of it… though perhaps we’d already been tainted beyond hope of saving.

False Starts

Dedication Day came in early September, and with it our promised date of making our herd official. Determined to go through with it, we went down to city hall and presented ourselves, registering as a new herd and officially changing our addresses to our renovated cottage. By taking formal herd status, there were various tax breaks and other benefits we could draw on, and we’d likely need them given our renovations were going over budget. There was a brief ceremony presided over by a Justice of the Peace, where we made our ‘vows of harmony’ to each other. The justice mare made a remark that stuck with me afterwards, noting that she’d never actually done a group ceremony where a herd was being formed all at once, only ones where a herd was taking a single new member.

Over the next few weeks and months we would find out why. We spent the first two weeks of herdhood trying to finish work on house and get everypony moved in and settled… all things guaranteed to cause frayed nerves and short tempers, even over and above our internal drama which still hadn’t finished playing out.

I wish I could say our mood was festive and happy at least for that one day, or that we had a big honeymoon planned, but in reality our first evening as a herd was rather subdued. Perhaps fittingly, our celebratory feast was take-out from the local Neigh-pon place, washed down with some cheap sparkling cider from the Inn—a far cry from the elaborate ceremony and expensive honeymoons that marked my acceptance into my first two herds. In truth, there wasn’t much for us to be festive about—Sweet Tea was in therapy and not sleeping well, Juniper was on a very short lead, tension was running high, and our cottage still wasn’t ready.

The smiles and laughter were a little forced as we toasted our new herd, and as we retired to our rooms and I bedded down amongst my still-unpacked possessions, I couldn’t help but have second thoughts and wonder if this entire venture was doomed from the start.

No, I told myself forcefully. We’ve had a rough start, maybe even a false one. But that doesn’t mean it has to end badly or we can’t figure things out. Our house will be finished, Sweet Tea will get better, Juniper will learn, and our friendships, though strained, will see us through. As long as we all keep sight of the bigger picture and I remember the mistakes from my previous herds, this one will be different! I promised myself.

Wouldn’t it?

Before I wrap this up, Platinum Corona returned with a proclamation from Princess Celestia that is going public today. Since the proclamation will be published throughout Equestria by time this article goes live, I’ll reproduce it here:

To my beloved ponies and our new friends across the portal:

I have followed with great dismay the news in recent weeks, seeing the hatred and xenophobia directed against our human guests and allies such as I never believed my ponies capable of. It saddens me greatly to see ponies resort to violence as a means to end, doubly so for it coming in the name of ‘preserving harmony’.

I am aware of the controversy surrounding Gentleman for Mares. I have avoided addressing it until now because I did not believe it was proper for me to do so. I am likewise loathe to interfere in local legal affairs, but as this now involves attacks on humans taking place within Equestrian borders, it has become a diplomatic matter that requires me to intervene.

Let me start by saying I have heard from those on both sides of the issue, taken counsel with my fellow princesses and read through the articles written by Five Stars of Manehattan. The story of her life and work may not be comfortable reading, but it is a story she has every right to tell… and the Manehattan Post to publish.

That some may find her work uncomfortable or the articles offensive for the frank depictions of interspecies sex is not sufficient grounds to silence them, nor any excuse to harass those who would publish or are otherwise associated with them. I would remind those who claim otherwise that the rights to free speech and press are enshrined in the first article of the Equestrian Unity Charter. As the High Sovereign Court of Equestria has ruled more than once, there is NO right to not be offended, nor should there be. For if we made an exception on that basis, all anypony would have to do is claim offense to silence speech they did not like.

My ponies, we are better than this. I understand that humans have brought upheaval to Equestrian society and will continue to do so, but that alone is not grounds to shun them or assail those who may avail themselves of the opportunities they bring. As for Gentleman for Mares itself, I take no position except to say this:

If a company wishes to offer male human escorts, they may do so as long as they remain in compliance with Equestrian laws. If mares seek the company of human escorts, that is their choice; if humans wish to work for an escort service, that is also their choice. If magazines elect to publish articles by a longtime trainer of said escorts, that is likewise their choice, and readers may decide to buy the magazine on that basis or not.

There is no right, however, to impose one’s own moral choices on others, and the royal court will henceforth take a very dim view of further attempts to harass the company or expose the identities of their employees and clients. When protests against an accredited company turn into intimidation and harassment, a line has been crossed; when intimidation and harassment turn to actual attacks, something has gone very wrong. If you seek to change minds and make your voices heard, this is not the way to do it. If we are truly to make informed choices about our lives and our direction as a nation, we need to hear all voices, even ones that may be discomforting or dissenting… and yes, even if what they say may be hard to hear.

In conclusion, I offer the words of Queen Molyneux of the Gryphon Empire, a fellow royal and respected peer wise far beyond her years, who had this to say in an address to her subjects upon the latest news:

When the humans first came, I issued a statement—a statement that served as both a warning and a reminder for ourselves, and for the humans, our then potential enemies. Fear, it seems, is a natural response to change. Gryphons can relate. In the past few years, the humans have also been an herald of great changes. We feared how the balance of power would change when they first arrived. When we witnessed their weapons and their ways of waging war, we held our breath. As proud as we are, we knew if they regarded us as enemies, there would be little chances of winning.

Instead, when the enemies came to our gates, they fought with us. They bled for us. They died for us. And when they had helped us secure an overwhelming victory, they asked not for vassalage or our independence, but trade. The Gryphons are honored to have new allies and will stand by their side when they call on us.

However, even I have been surprised by the recent and disappointing news of both our human and Equestrian allies.

History, the cold and unfeeling observer, will remind us how we met our Equestrian allies. It will remind us of how blood was shed and how families were ripped apart. The Gryphons have been an instrumental change of shaping the Equestrian culture found today, and very few of us will forget that. The humans undoubtedly will do the same. However, it is my hope that we don't repeat the lessons of the past. I see no reason why blood should be spilled or violence be given. A great boon has been presented to the Equestrians. Fool of them should they let it be squandered.

Queen Molyneux speaks a great truth, and one I urge all ponies to heed. Humans have brought great changes to us, and will continue to do so. Not all changes may be for the better. Some may even be painful to accept. But change is a part of life, and acceptance of change is a path to harmony. Yes, humans will change us… but we will change them as well. We can either fight those changes or work with them… and become better peoples and nations for them.

Signed,

Celestia Daybringer, Princess of the Sun, Diarch of Equestria

I have to say… I never dreamed that my articles and work would catch the notice of Princess Celestia herself! Much to my surprise, she wrote me a private letter directly, which I am not at liberty to share but has already become one of my most treasured possessions. All I will say is she made some surprising observations and suggestions, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for the wisdom, kindness and compassion she has displayed.

I only hope I can live up to the standards she has set for us all.

Another month, another chapter. There are times I wish I could turn these out faster, as I'm sure most of you do. But writing like this doesn't really happen on a schedule. More to the point, life doesn't. Thanks to Permanent Temporary for the pre-read and to Demon Eyes Laharl himself for sharing some of his future plans so I could make sure this chapter doesn't conflict with anything he planned. He also wrote Queen Molyneux's address for me, which I am extremely grateful for.

The observant may notice I've done stealth edits on the earlier chapters with regards to the issue dates. I've backed them up about six months because I want these articles to run in the space of a single calendar year of story time, so she's done by Hearth's Warming or a little before. Why, you may ask?

Why will be the subject of this story's sequel. And look for a side story in the future regarding the events described in the beginning of this chapter--the rise and fall of HERD, told through the eyes of... you'll see.