Five Star Service – Choice and Consequence

By Five Stars of Manehattan
Special to the New York Life and Manehattan Post magazines
May 4 issues

Dear readers:

As seems to be a habit now, I have another letter to share from an old flame—or in this case, two old flames. This time, however, I’m going to save it for the end of the article instead of the beginning. You’ll see why as you read.

You know, one of the more frequently asked questions I get from human readers is why these articles are so explicit. I touched on this a bit in the last issue, but let me expand on it here as both magazines, I understand, are still under heavy fire despite restricting access and being threatened with obscenity prosecutions, especially after my last article.

For humans, as I was admittedly warned, the explicitness of my writing itself appears to be the issue; though I hear some rumblings about promoting ‘immorality’ as well. Have to say, I really don’t get it—I’ve seen some of your films and shows. The level of violence and profanity in many of them is off-the-charts, and yet it’s sex that’s taboo and people need to be protected from? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. In the end, all I can say is this: if sex itself is anathema to talk about, then take it from a formerly uptight pony when I say you really need to collectively loosen up. You’ll be a lot happier as both individuals and societies in the long run if you do.

Now for ponies, it’s different—what I’m writing isn’t lurid so much for its explicitness as its themes—foals outside of herdlock, casual encounters with stallions (pony or human), potion use (and abuse), interspecies sex, discussions of the problems of herds… these topics have been anathema in Equestria for far too long.

So the short answer is… I’m actively seeking to challenge existing orthodoxy, and that means offending certain sensibilities on both sides of the portal. For ponies, that means a frank discussion of herds and taboo subjects like gentlemen or having sex out of herdlock. For humans, on the other hoof… it means frank and direct descriptions of sex and mating, both the good and bad of it. Sex shouldn’t be hidden away behind closed doors or ‘firewalls’, whatever that is. If we’re to have a real dialogue and discussion about our respective cultures and societies, these topics cannot be taboo.

Humans and ponies—as well as all other Tellus races—are only going to move closer over the years and decades to come. If we’re to integrate our societies more fully—and it will happen whether we want it to or not—these are discussions that need to be had. I said before that I’m a very direct pony, and I daresay it was part of the reason Platinum Corona selected me to write this—because she knew I would take these topics head-on.

Actually, Five Stars, there were several reasons why I selected you, but the main one was your history of failed relationships, which read like a litany of herd horror stories and would be a tale to which far too many mares could relate. I saw you as representative of why Gentlemen for Mares is necessary, and in your story of how a high-class hotel concierge became a trainer of Gentlemen an excellent way to both explain and promote us.

But yes, your directness and willingness to tackle these topics head-on is certainly an asset to the cause. The fact that you write so well doesn’t hurt either. I personally have no issue with the explicitness of your stories and would simply note to your many readers that you do it to teach as much as tantalize… though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the latter part of it!

And though they may be afraid to speak up, I’m sure there are many out there, both human and ponies, who agree with me when I say once again…

Carry on, Five Stars! And do not let the neighsayers silence you.

—Platinum Corona

I stand corrected, Platinum. My thanks again for the trust you’ve placed in me, and all the support and encouragement you’ve offered. I’d also like to thank my readers for all the support and encouragement I’ve received, for the many letters and missives from both sides of the portal telling me how much my articles are appreciated, everything from mares telling me I speak for them to humans saying that I’m helping take the stigma out of human/pony relationships, even for those who aren’t Gentlemen.

In fact, I’m told by Platinum that since these articles started running, we’ve seen a substantial uptick in not only requests for Gentlemen from newly interested mares… but from human males asking if they could be one.

Well, I’m afraid I can’t give away our exact recruiting process, but I can say that there are many months of preparation and orientation involved, and not every human completes it or even passes the initial assessment. We screen our candidates carefully, both for attitude and aptitude, and yes, we do require at least a modicum of good looks and a high level of physical condition. Many gentlemen end up being surprised by the strenuous physical requirements of the job—satisfying a mare is not always easy—and the ability to do so is ultimately not something that any potion can grant. Ultimately, that takes training—my job—and months of practice and physical conditioning before a new Gentlemen is deemed ready to receive clients.

For me, writing these articles has been a long walk down memory lane. I’ve enjoyed immensely the retelling of my favorite encounters; with Cayenne, with Braeburn or my dentist friend. But it’s also forced me to remember the bad as well; the feelings of failure and loneliness, of repeatedly losing lovers and herds…

Or of being lied to; being pressured into taking an illicit potion and having the best night of my life turn into one of the absolute worst.

The Hangover

When I fell asleep that morning snuggled between my two new (and soon to be ex-) herd stallions, I had thought that if I died then, I would die a very happy mare.

The following day, it very nearly came true.

I woke up early the next afternoon to find I was very cold, shivering violently and uncontrollably despite the two warm bodies snuggled against me, and in a great deal of pain. Any movement hurt, even breathing, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air. I was covered in a cold sweat and knew in my fluttering heart something was very wrong with me.

Royal Flush and Blackjack initially tried to brush it off as ‘a hangover’, noting they had headaches too and encouraging me to eat something—they’d ordered room service—and take a shower with them. In fact, I couldn’t even keep water down. I tried to get up to walk to the shower, only to collapse to the floor in agony, curled up in a fetal position, crying with pain and a severe craving I couldn’t identify. I felt my heart start to falter, couldn’t catch my breath and had the terrifying thought that if I passed out, I’d never wake up again.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms. Just that one vial of potion had addicted me to the point that I—quite literally—could not live without it, and if I didn’t get more of it in me, I was going to die.

Magic 101

Magic is something humans seem both uniformly fascinated with and frightened by, I’ve noticed, being unable to wield it themselves.

Leaving aside the fact that human technology is as much magic to us; magic is a fact of life on Tellus, an energy that suffuses our planet and is harnessed innately by the races of our world. Unicorns can directly manipulate it through their horns in the form of spells and enchantments, Pegasi utilize it for flight and to manipulate weather; it grants Earth Ponies our great strength and stamina as well as our ability to work the land. Magic has the power to both hurt and heal, in the hooves (or talons) of a skilled practitioner.

A spell is little more than an expression of a unicorn’s (or mage griffin’s) will through magic, while a potion is simply a spell-infused liquid; one that contains one or more incantations and enchantments that cause very specific effects to the one who takes it. Magic is both an art and science to the Tellus races, and it’s therefore not surprising that over the many millennia we’ve been harnessing and studying it we’ve come up with spells and potions that are… fertility-related or otherwise sensual in nature.

Sexual boosters are not in themselves illegal. In fact, there’s a valid purpose behind each part of that potion I took: regular, run-of-the-mill boosters enhance sensitivity and stamina, others exist that reduce inhibition and increase desire, and you can even find ones that increase the size/receptiveness of your sexual organs. You’d take mood-altering ones if you were trying to get past certain hangups or emotional issues regarding intimacy (by prescription only and under strict psychiatrist supervision), and size-altering ones if you were trying to mate a zebra or Saddle Arabian, which have larger stature. So you can in fact get all the individual effects of that booster potion I took legally in separate potions; it’s when you cobble them all together into one mega-potion and then kick them up another notch with additional magic power there’s a problem. Magic has its costs, the same as anything else, and can be abused.

Such was the case here. When you layer spell after spell on a single potion as that one did—there were eighteen separate enchantments on it according to the doctors who tested it—you exponentially raise the risk of interactions, side effects, and addiction with the accompanying severe withdrawal symptoms afterwards. These risks are further raised when you haven’t had the individual parts of that booster before and your body isn’t used to them, like Royal Flush and Blackjack were.

Thus, there are strict legal limits on what can go in to these potions in terms of number and types of enchantment and overall energy levels, and there are very strong warnings against combining them. The upshot is that for somepony like myself who had never so much as had a regular booster before, it was instantly, highly, and almost fatally addictive. The boys and their mares could take them because they had built up a tolerance to various boosters over time; they’d get away with nothing more than a bad hangover afterwards that would last a day or so. But for me…

Not long ago, we had a report of a Gentlemen, one whom I personally recruited and remain very fond of, have a bad reaction to taking a double booster dose. He took it to satisfy a mare in heat; it was a legal potion and he’d never had any problems with magic in the past. But he’d also never taken a booster before and a double dose was simply too much for him—he suffered a bad reaction to it the day after; ending up temporarily addicted and out of commission for a couple weeks. To treat it, they had to give him more of the booster and then step him down off it gradually over a period of a several days (and to his handler—I’m STILL upset you didn’t let me see him!)

Now imagine what happened to him, but with a much more powerful and illegal potion that broke all the rules and limits on what you can put in them…

The memories of the crippling pain and cravings still give me nightmares to this day. In truth, I don’t recall much of the hours that followed, of being rushed to the hospital or treated, but maybe that’s for the best. The last thing I DO remember clearly is hearing a frightened Blackjack frantically calling to me, his wings and forelegs wrapped around me trying to warm my shivering form with his own body while Royal Flush flew out the window to get help.

And that’s why I’m now passing my virtual quill over to somepony who remembers it all too well.

Greetings to the readers of the Manehattan Post and New York Life magazines. I am Rising Star, manager and now majority owner of the Mystique Casino Resort in Las Pegasus.

Yes, before anypony asks, Rising Star is my real name—Five Stars asked for and received my permission to use it. Truthfully, it would have been hard for me to hide—I’m a well-known figure in Las Pegasus and the greater music worlds, as my record company sponsors many singers that are now well known on both sides of the portal. A simple check of records would have revealed where Five Stars worked and who her manager was ten years ago, rendering any attempt to conceal my identity futile.

And that’s fine. I don’t mind having my name known or attached to this story. Though I don’t subscribe to the theory that ‘all publicity is good publicity’, we’ve certainly had an upsurge of bookings and interest since her articles started to be published… particularly over New Year’s, I can’t help but note.

I knew Five Stars from the ten months she spent in Las Pegasus as a worker at my casino. Over that time, I came to love her as my own daughter, perhaps seeing in some ways a younger version of myself and a mare of much potential; a pony born to serve others and a natural successor for me when I finally decided to retire. Things did not work out that way… in large part due to the story I will now relate.

Before I begin, some disclaimers: first, I am writing this at Five Stars’ request. I will not pretend to be as good a writer as she is, but I’ll do my best to live up to the high standards she’s set. Second and more importantly, I am not only a supporter of Gentlemen for Mares—myself and Limelight helped establish their Las Pegasus office at the Palisades—but I’m a regular client as well. I would emphasize that I’m not the typical lovelorn mare you’d think of when you imagine the stereotypical G4M customer; I had a herd I was happy in… until my herd stallion died nearly sixteen years ago. Our foals grown, our herd broke up soon after, but out of loyalty for the love and appreciation he showed me and my herdmates, I have never been with another stallion since. Human gentlemen have allowed me to enjoy male company again without feeling like I was betraying his memory.

A loophole? Perhaps. But one I and many mares are only too eager to exploit. And I have Five Stars to thank for introducing them to me.

But that’s a story for another time.

My first indication something was wrong that Saturday afternoon was the wail of ambulance sirens over The Street.

That’s not in itself an unusual occurrence; it seems like there’s always somepony—or dragon or zebra or minotaur or griffin—who overindulges or does something stupid (and as it turned out, such was the case here). I’d be immediately notified if we had an emergency at the Mystique, so I knew they weren’t headed for us; I just watched curiously from my office balcony as the ambulance chariot was pulled by two pegasi paramedics towards the tall spire of the Strotosphere at the north end of The Street, where I knew Five Stars, Royal Flush and Blackjack were spending their honeymoon.

I didn’t think much more of it until a griffin courier flew up and hoof-delivered a message from Hard Eight, the pegasus stallion manager of Strotosphere, telling me there’d been an incident in their honeymoon suite and Five Stars was being rushed to Daybreak Hospital.

I had a very bad feeling as I read the note, wondering what trouble she and the boys had gotten into. I wasted no time after that, informing my ranking floor boss that I was heading for the hospital and he would be in charge for the duration, mustering my magic for a long-range teleport. It’d cost about a third of my power to do so over that distance, but if Five Stars was in trouble, I wasn’t about to wait for a chariot.

Arriving at the hospital entrance in a flash of light and a moment of dizziness, I hurried to the Emergency Room—there are enchantments that prevent you from teleporting directly inside as a security measure—where I found Five Stars thrashing about, being held down by several earth ponies and unicorns while the medics tried to attend her; I wasn’t encouraged by the bewildered and worried looks I saw on their faces.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked one of the doctors, very alarmed at what I saw.

“Overdose! Some kind of exotic booster! We’ve never seen a reaction of this intensity before!” the earth pony mare told me. “She needs more of it, but we don’t know exactly what she took! If we could figure out just what was in it, we might be able to cobble something together from our own stores, but…”

“Let me probe her memory,” I offered, stepping forward, willing to do whatever I could to help despite the potential danger to myself—entering a pony’s mind when they’re in that state isn’t exactly safe for either party. “She knows me and won’t fight me.” I hope, I didn’t add, knowing if she did, we could both end up hurt.

The doctors glanced at each other and then nodded and stepped back, allowing me to approach her, unicorns trying to hold her still with their magic. I lowered my head and touched my horn to her forehead, calling to her mentally, letting her hear my voice in her mind and feel my familiar aura around her.

To my relief, she calmed down instantly and accepted my presence, clinging to it like a foal to her mother. I sensed her agony and need, her fear and confusion over what was happening; my heart broke at her begging me to make the pain stop. Dulling it as much as I could, I asked her with my thoughts what had happened and was immediately assaulted by a series of memories of the night before—her night out with the boys, the show, their move to their suite at the Strotosphere, and then…

You’ll forgive me if I’d rather not recount what I saw. All I will say is the more memories of that night she replayed, the madder I became. With a parting assurance that I was there and she would be fine, I broke the connection to tell the doctors what she’d taken; my heart sank when I was told that giving her regular boosters was out of the question—that for something so potent, she needed the exact potion she’d taken, or she would likely die of her dependency on it within the next hour.

Their options were few, and Royal Flush and Blackjack were nowhere to be seen; I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d skipped town after realizing what they’d done. If they have and left her to die, I swear to Celestia I’ll~!

As if on cue, there was a sudden commotion in the back and I heard a pair of familiar, and very frantic voices. Royal Flush and Blackjack burst through the door to the Emergency Room, security ponies hard on their heels. Royal Flush was cradling some kind of package in the crook of his foreleg while Blackjack was running interference for him, keeping the guards off him long enough to deliver his precious cargo.

They were a mess, with hoof-shaped bruises on their chest and backs, what appeared to be still-bleeding talon slashes on their faces and flanks, a couple missing secondary feathers from their wings, and a slew of singe marks all over their mane and fur from what had to be unicorn spellcasting. They looked like they’d both been through the wringer and had a near-panicked look in their eyes when they saw me, flaring their wings hard to skid to a stop right in front of me. “R-Rising Star!” Royal Flush got out, panting hard.

I gave their beaten bodies barely a glance, more interested in the small box he was carrying. “Is that more of the booster she took?” I guessed without preamble, giving myself a rebuke for my earlier thought. The boys were many things, but they were categorically NOT cowards.

At the first sign of a nod, I yanked the package out of his grasp and quickly picked the enchanted lock with my magic—there were multiple sealing and concealment spells on it, but I’ll say without any humility that I’m a very strong unicorn and you don’t live in this town as long as I have and reach my position without learning a few tricks. A magical tweak here, a spell there, and… the lid popped open to reveal six vials, all filled with a glowing orange liquid.

I snatched the first one up in my magic and brought it over to Five Stars. I could tell just by holding it in my aura how potent it was; there had to be at least a dozen separate enchantments of various intent and intensity infused into it. Incredibly illicit. And unbelievably dangerous to give to a first-time user. And they gave her THIS? I couldn’t believe Royal Flush and Blackjack had been so selfish and stupid. “Thank you. Now stand aside,” I ordered, glaring at them as I passed the vial to the attending doctors.

They wanted to first test the potion to see exactly what spells were in it, but with Five Stars fading fast, there was no time. So they gave her half the potion intravenously, speeding it into her system. To my great relief her vitals began to stabilize, and ten minutes later she was pronounced out of immediate danger.

With that, I turned to my soon-to-be-former poker and 21 pit bosses, my wrath quickly rising. “I hope you enjoyed your night out,” I began ominously; I felt my eyes start to glow and quickly moved away from anything combustible—powerful unicorns like myself can sometimes manifest elemental magic like fire when we’re extremely angry. “Because for what you did to her, that was the last one you’re going to have for a very long time!” I announced, pronouncing sentence on them both. “You two are fired. And I’m turning you both over to the police.”

“But… for what?” Blackjack asked in a tone like a petulant child.

I gave him a disbelieving look. “For HER!” I said, pointing at Five Stars, who was still shivering and unconscious despite the infusion of fresh booster. “I trusted you. She trusted you. And THIS is how you repay it?” I told them both, my mane starting to smoke and my body feeling ready to erupt in flames—that had only happened once before in my life, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again in a hospital if I could help it.

Their eyes went wide in fear at my display but neither moved immediately. “Excuse me? Are you looking at us?” Blackjack finally stepped forward, showing off his injuries, wild-eyed and lip trembling. He spat blood on the floor to emphasize the point; when he opened his mouth I saw he was missing several teeth. “Do you realize what we had to GO through to get these to her?”

I didn’t want to hear it, struggling to keep my surging anger and emotion-fueled magic under control. “Nothing compared to what she’s going through.”

“Dammit, listen to us, Star! We did everything we could to save her!” Royal Flush insisted, wincing like he had broken ribs, one of his eyes blackened and nearly swollen shut. “When we realized she was addicted, we called the ambulance and then went to our supplier for more of that potion but she tried to extort us! Demanded 50,000 bits to save her life! We had to go in and steal it, then fight our way out!”

“And she’s still after us!” Blackjack added, making a point of looking over his shoulder. “And so’s probably the other half of her gang! What the buck else do you want from us? We did it for HER!” he pointed a hoof at Five Stars.

I was completely unsympathetic, and judging by the disgusted looks of the attending staff and security, I wasn’t the only one. “Oh. And now you want a medal? You think that makes you heroes given it was you who PUT her in that state?” I snarled, feeling my mane start to smoke again. “You two are going back to jail for this. Don’t even think otherwise.”

“But… we weren’t trying to hurt her! Just show her a good time like you said!” Royal Flush insisted, near tears. “She said she hardly got any action in her last herd, so we wanted to make sure she did in this one!”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “Do you call THAT a good time?” I exploded, my mane and tail erupting into bright yellow flame as I pointed with a hoof again at my protégé’s shivering, disheveled form. “You nearly KILLED her!” My hoof came down hard enough to crack the floor tile.

“But… she enjoyed it…” Blackjack offered weakly. “If you ask her, she’ll tell you…”

Either from my fiery mane or glowing red gaze, the look I gave him was enough to make him take a step backwards—and several nearby security staff members, who were all watching me warily. With effort, I forced the flames out, knowing a hospital was a bad place to lose my temper. I didn’t lose my eye glow, though. “I don’t have to. I looked in her memories, Blackjack,” I told him, causing him to cringe. “And that’s how I know you didn’t help her. You helped yourselves,” I told them ominously, lowering my head and flattening my ears, beginning to approach them slowly, almost like a predator, smoke still coming off my mane. “She said to both of you—twice!—that she wasn’t ready but you pressured her into it.”

“B-but…” Blackjack started to stammer.

I cut him off with a fiery glare. “Now, I can forgive trying to help her past a minor case of cold honeymoon hooves, and yes, I did see that she enjoyed it while it lasted. But what I will NOT forgive is your selfishness and rank stupidity—that you not only gave her something so dangerous without even asking if she’d used boosters before, but that you didn’t tell her what was in it or everything it would DO to her! You also didn’t listen to her when she said no to going beneath the tail,” I recited, my anger growing and internal temperature rising with every word I spoke to the point I wondered if not just my mane but my entire body would alight—it’s an intimidating spectacle all right, but it’s also very dangerous to both me and those around me. “You two bucked up. And you bucked HER up very badly!”

“We didn’t know it would do that to her! Nopony ever reacted to it like that before! We swear it won’t happen again!” Royal Flush pleaded. “Please don’t turn us in…” he got down on his knees, lowering his head and presenting his wounded wings in a sign of pegasi submission. “Give us another chance, Star… let us make this right!”

My mane and tail erupted back into fire at the question, even hotter than before—how DARE they ask for such a thing! “No, I will not…” I stood up and stalked over them, a fury in my voice and heat in my body that could melt steel as I entertained some decidedly… inharmonious thoughts going through my head. “Because you two are going back to prison for this. And even when you get out, if you EVER bucking do that to another mare…” my horn flared and both Royal Flush and Blackjack suddenly stiffened, genuine fear in their eyes as they felt my aura focus on the base of their testicles, closing in like scissors around them.

I let them stand there sweating for a bit, my magic threatening to relieve them of their malehood right then and there—and I swear to Celestia that as angry as I was, I came within an ace of doing it. “I give you my word that I. Will bucking. Geld you,” I spoke quietly but showed my teeth; between that, my glowing eyes and fiery mane I was later told I looked like a spirit of vengeance right out of the old myths. “Now get out of my sight!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” They both barely croaked, and both collapsed to the floor when my aura released them, shaking badly as they both stumbled out of the room and into the waiting clutches of the police. Completely broken, they didn’t resist as wing and hoof cuffs were placed upon them and were led away.

Slowly cooling off, I stayed at Five Stars’ side after that, knowing she still had a rough road ahead—booster addiction isn’t easy to break under the best of circumstances, and an illicit, multi-headed mega potion like that made it exponentially more difficult.

Even with a fresh dose of the booster, she wasn’t out of the woods yet. As she said, the only way to both save her and break the addiction was to keep giving her the booster but slowly step down the dose over a period of days, let her body gradually adjust until we could finally wean her off it entirely… praying that we could do so before the additional potion the two boys procured ran out.

The problem was… the cure was in some ways worse than the disease. Giving her a measured dose of the booster took care of one craving but traded it for another—and she got very, shall we say… needy. Sexual cravings were another side effect of a very illegal potion, so I stayed at her side for the next several days and… did what I had to, holding her in my arms and giving her relief with my tongue and magic when she needed it.

I’m not going to detail it because I’m not at all proud of it; I can safely speak for both of us when I say it’s not something we would have done otherwise. Now, I readily admit I’ve been known to occasionally tuck a younger mare—and yes, before anypony points this out, I did make a pass at Five Stars on New Year’s Eve, backing off when it became clear she wasn’t comfortable—but by Celestia, not like THIS! Giving her relief like that was quite simply the only way she could get any rest and her body could heal, and the hospital staff looked the other way when I did so… though there were a couple times she repaid the favor to me while under the influence of the booster. I couldn’t say no under those circumstances without hurting her fragile psyche and to my mingled shame and pleasure, she did get me off more than once. By the end of it, I was no longer fighting it, if for no other reason than to protect my own psyche.

She got better in fits and starts as the doctors slowly stepped down the dosage. Sometimes she was almost lucid, other times she cried and called to me like she was a foal and I was her mother. So I fulfilled that role, holding her to me and lending what comfort my body and magic could… even letting her suckle me when she wanted to, going so far as to cast a lactation spell to enhance the effect.

It did help. At first, she needed to be serviced sexually every hour or so. Then every couple hours as the dose was lessened. Then every few hours. Then twice a day. Then once a day. And then finally… out of potion, we took her off it completely and hoped for the best.

She had a rough couple nights, but, now cognizant of what had happened to her, she toughed it out and broke the remaining addiction. I knew that she was going to be fine when she finally asked for food eight days after that fateful night, having been fed intravenously for the duration.

Upon hearing that, I hugged her and cried.

As for Royal Flush and Blackjack, I didn’t see them again (or want to) until their trial. They didn’t contest the charges, looking just as broken and forlorn as they’d been after I put my proverbial hoof in their plots. In return for a slightly reduced sentence, they gave up all the information they had on their supplier of the booster, who had skipped town long before—I should note they were also given consideration for having pretty well trashed the griffin-run gang responsible in their efforts to get the potion to Five Stars.

That’s my boys. Have to give them credit for that much at least—they bucked up but went through Tartarus and back to save her, and perhaps because of that, I found I could eventually forgive them. If I saw Five Stars as my daughter, I saw them as my (slightly wayward) sons, and the mother in me did give them the second chance they begged for once they’d served their time.

But that lay in the future. For the time being, I had to deal with the wreckage of a broken workplace herd… but that I’ll allow Five Stars to explain.

Thank you, Rising Star. I know this probably wasn’t easy to remember or write down.

Reading through your account now, though, I’m learning several new things. I didn’t know the lengths they went to get me that potion, and I certainly wasn’t aware that you threatened to geld them. Considering how they turned out, I’m very glad you didn’t.

I only have very vague memories of those first few days; I don’t really remember you probing my memories but I do remember calling for my mother, hearing an answer and being held by you. You did reach me and your presence was a lifeline I clung to. And for that I am forever grateful.

As for the rest… like you said, you did what you had to do. I’m not going to go into it either, even if my memories of it weren’t too hazy to recall. It’s just not something I want to remember.

It was an ugly situation, and in the end, nopony escaped unscathed.

For violating the terms of their probation, to say nothing of the fresh charges resulting from my overdose on an illegal booster potion, Royal Flush and Blackjack went back to prison for two years, losing their jobs and half their herd. I couldn’t stay with them after having my trust betrayed like that, and I wasn’t the only ones—Cocktail and Windfall also left them over what they’d done to me, while Bluegrass and Madcap stayed but blamed me for it happening, saying they’d never had a problem with the boosters themselves and I was in effect punishing them just for having a bad reaction to it the brothers couldn’t have foreseen.

Foreseeable or not, I annulled our union as soon as I was able. As Rising Star said, it took over a week before I was fully free of the addiction; a week more before I was well enough to leave the hospital, and it would be many months before I could even think of having sex or look at another stallion—or mare—again.

I couldn’t stay in Las Pegasus after that. There was no way I could have the same relationship with Rising Star after what she’d done for me, no way I could continue working at the Mystique with coworkers whispering about me behind my back or in the face of the anger and resentment of Bluegrass and Madcap, now deprived of their herd and herd stallions. Nor was working elsewhere in the city really an option; I found that everywhere I went now reminded me of that night... and the ordeal that followed.

Thus, I left Las Pegasus less than three weeks after my abortive honeymoon. Rising Star understood my need to leave but was still very sorry to see me go, giving me a generous severance package and a glowing letter of recommendation, asking me to keep in touch with her and let her know where I settled. I was sorry to leave her as well; she was a mother to me and a mare I’ve respected like no other before or since… but after how she’d helped me in the aftermath of the addiction, it was simply no longer possible to maintain our relationship on those terms. Addiction or no, there was no guarantee I wouldn’t eventually end up in bed with her again, and the inappropriateness of sleeping with my manager aside, I didn’t want to cause trouble between her and Limelight.

Before leaving, I did ask her to do one more thing for me, though. The very day I got out of the hospital, I found a letter from Willow and Snow Lily waiting for me. Cayenne’s herd had finally, inevitably crumbled and my former herdmates were now without a job, fired by Autumn and blacklisted by her from working in Manehattan. So I asked Rising Star to find them work in Las Pegasus, and especially for Willow, help her relaunch her singing career. That’s never easy to do, even in this town, never mind the fact she was a thestrel. “Just make sure you don’t tell anypony they’re my friends,” I had to instruct her, fearing that the disfavor that had settled on me would fall on them as well. She said she would not. I met Willow and Snow Lily halfway at the train station in Canterlot and told them what had happened. We shared a good cry for our hurt and failed herds.

Their grief, at least, was short-lived. Rising Star was as good as her word, and I soon received word that the two were settling in, Snow Lily in her new job at the Palisades spa and Willow…

Well. I got a picture of her as a lounge singer at the Strotosphere, dressed and dolled up like I’d never seen her before. Have to say she looked VERY happy, that thestrel server mare I’d seen before on one shoulder and a griffin eagless on the other, finally in a place where she wasn’t alone; where her looks made her exotic and desirable instead of an object of suspicion and shunning…

She’s still there now, and with Rising Star’s help and coaching, she’s become a singer and entertainer of considerable repute, even starring in the Las Pegasus production of Albtraum über dem Opernhaus. So at least I can say there were some happy endings to this whole affair. Snow Lily is likewise still there, now running the spa at the Palisades and her own potion business on the side; she and Willow remain as inseparable and in love as ever even as they joined a new herd… and are now raising foals.

But that lay in the future, and I would play no further role in it. It was time for me to start over yet again, and it wasn’t any easier to do than it was before. There were tears in my eyes as I boarded a train to leave Las Pegasus for the final time, this time with Rising Star and few other staff members to see me off. My destination was Baltimare. This time, I would start over on familiar turf, with the support of my siblings… like I belatedly realized I should have done before.

As for Royal Flush and Blackjack… they served their sentence, got out, and like me started over for a second time.

It took a few years, but they eventually regained their old jobs and rebuilt their herd; I got regular reports from Rising Star on how they were doing and trying to atone. They wrote me a few times, saying how very sorry they were and what foals they had been, giving me their solemn oath they would never let what happened to me happen to anypony else again. I wrote them back just once to say I wished them well, but I preferred not to hear from them again. The pain of broken trust was just too great and the memories of the addiction and agony too fresh.

To their credit, I have it on good authority from Rising Star and some others whose word I trust that they’ve kept their promise. In truth, I daresay it took fatherhood to finally settle them down; a decade later they’ve sired five foals between them with a sixth on the way. From the reports I’ve gotten, they’re devoted daddies and in my eyes they did redeem themselves for it… though there was one final shock regarding those two to come, which I’ll explain in a future article.

Given that, there are times I wonder if I shouldn’t have stayed and given them a second chance they both begged for. But even now, looking back on it from nine years later… I think the answer is ultimately no. If I had, the lesson wouldn’t have been driven home for any of us and the same mistakes would likely have been made again. Certain things should have severe consequences, and slipping me that booster without telling me what it was or giving me the full choice is one of them. It’s not even so much what it did to me, or what I did while under its influence… it’s that I wasn’t fully informed about it and like Rising Star said, was pressured into it.

Now, if they’d told me what it was at the start; what it would do and the potential consequences of it… if they’d left it my choice whether to take it or not… that would have been one thing, even if I still ended up in the hospital. Then it would be my choice and my responsibility. Perhaps also it would have been fine if I’d built up to it as they and their other mares did; let my body adjust to it…

But as Cayenne once said… that’s water under the bridge now.

Boosters have their place. They can increase fertility; provide a little extra oomph or the energy for an occasional night of endless fun. They’re fine in moderation—say once or twice a month or so. But they can be addicting and only too easily abused; you can become dependent on them for sexual pleasure. I don’t want that, and having had such a close call, I’ve never taken another booster, legal or otherwise, since.

This has become a cautionary tale I tell all our trainees. Accordingly, we make sure gentlemen are fully appraised about the effects of boosters and other magics, potion or otherwise, the risks and side effects of them, and to make sure their clients are as well—we’ve actually had instances of Gentlemen leave clients because they were uncomfortable with the magic they were being asked to submit to; anything from a potion to temporarily transform their organs into a stallion’s to a unicorn mare who I heard wanted to magically give her gentlemen a second phallus in order to…

Well. Use your imagination as to both what she intended… and what could have happened if the spell went wrong or the Gentleman in question had a bad reaction to an untested incantation.

Magic can accomplish miracles, anything from curing insomnia to opening portals to other words. It has its place and purpose. But it also has risks and can be overused, even addictive if you’re not careful. You can become dependent on it for one thing or another. I guess the main lesson here is… there is ALWAYS a trade-off; a price you have to pay for its boons. I daresay the same is true for human ‘magic’; your technology is equally miraculous to us in many ways—case in point, I’m dictating this article on a human ‘tablet’, editing it by holding a ‘stylus’ in my mouth, tapping the screen to move words around on it—but we’ve seen the costs of it as well, in terms of pollution, chemical addictions and some absolutely horrific weapons.

It’s little different here, ultimately.

Before I sign this article off, I made a promise that in return for telling this tale, I would allow Royal Flush and Blackjack the chance to address my readers themselves. I now present their letter here, without editing or redaction:

Well, Five Stars…

We knew this was coming; you warned us. But that doesn’t make this any easier for us to read. In allowing this story to be told, we only ask that you publish this letter so we can at least apologize to your readers the same way we tried to apologize to you.

After agonizing over what to say in this letter for days, we’ve settled on simply this: we’re very sorry for the hurt we caused you, and we can only hope that we have in some small way atoned in your eyes. We do appreciate your efforts to hide our identities, including the aliases and false descriptions you gave of us (for those who want to know, we’re actually white stallions with dark red and blue manes), but in reality… there’s not many ways you can hide a pair of card-playing pegasus brothers who run the poker and 21 rooms at the Mystique. Ponies—and some humans—have already approached us, asking if we’re the ones Five Stars talked about.

And… we’ve already received some hate mail and outright threats over it.

Now, you know us—we can take care of ourselves and don’t usually give a buck what other ponies think of us outside of Rising Star, our casino patrons, and our herd. But what’s different now—and what that whole disastrous episode taught us in the end—is that we can’t just think about ourselves any more. We have mares and foals we’re responsible for, and we have to put them first. Fatherhood has indeed mellowed us in ways we’ve found surprising but wouldn’t give up for either world now. It’s made us both better ponies.

That said, please understand that some things about us will NEVER change—we like to push boundaries and bend the rules. It’s who we are; both Rising Star and our mares understand this as well. But we’re a little more selective about when we do it now; we realize that there’s a time for it and time not. Maybe that was one of the things that originally attracted us to YOU, Five Stars—in many ways, you’re the same; you like to push boundaries too between what we’ve read in these articles, to say nothing of how you train human Gentlemen.

Can’t say we’ve had any experience with them (aside from seeing a few at our tables entertaining clients), but we HAVE had some encounters with human women (with the permission of our mares!) No, we haven’t used those potions on them, nor would we—not just because we remember what happened to you and haven’t touched them since, but because, quite frankly… if we had to resort to them, we wouldn’t be the ‘smooth operators’ (a human term) we like to think ourselves as.

But therein lies both our greatest fault and asset: our pride. We always saw ourselves as kind of these Robin Hoof figures who stole from the casinos and gave it back to the servers and greater public… maybe spending a little on ourselves in the process. In our minds, we lived life large and helped other ponies (and now in some cases, people) to do the same; we always prided ourselves on the fact that nopony ever got hurt by our escapades… until you.

And in hurting you, we hurt ourselves. And Rising Star. And the other mares of our herd. Can’t tell you how many times we’ve wished we could have that night back and undo everything we did to you. We honestly did want you in our herd and then to not only lose you but nearly KILL you through our own foalish selfishness and stupidity…

Saying we felt awful afterwards would be putting it too mildly. It was a very bitter pill to swallow for us both, but you’re right—your leaving us was probably the only way we were going to learn that certain things just aren’t acceptable; that our choices have consequences. And when it came down to it, Rising Star was right as well, no matter how much we tried to convince ourselves otherwise—we gave you that potion more to help ourselves than help you, and ended up hurting you very badly in the process. Some things you just never live down, and we’ll carry the shame of what we did to our graves.

Making amends for this has not been easy, either in prison or after we got out. Cost us you, half our remaining herd, and it took a long time to get back into Rising Star’s good graces since we’d lost that most intangible and valuable of qualities—her trust. For the record, you’re not the only pony who sees her as a mother figure; the thought that we’d disappointed HER was almost as unbearable as the knowledge we’d hurt you.

We don’t have any right to ask this of you—or your readers, now—but please forgive us. We wronged you in a way that we know we can never fully atone for or take back. So if you’re ever willing… we would very much like to see you again to do what we were unable to do back then—apologize directly. And a couple old friends of yours would like to see you as well.

Signed,

—Aces Up, a.k.a. “Royal Flush”
—Double Down, a.k.a. “Blackjack”

Thank you for the letter, boys. In return, let me say this to you and all my readers. Something I’ve never said until now:

I forgive you.

As I have watched from afar via Rising Star and those old friends in particular, you have proven in word and deed that you’ve changed, that you’ve learned from your mistakes—which is more than I can say for some ponies I’ve met over the years.

Stallions who seek the forgiveness of mares always earn extra consideration in my book, and you two went above and beyond the call, both in obtaining the additional booster and later becoming the best fathers and herd stallions you could. I wasn’t actually aware of what you went through to get more of that potion until I read Rising Star’s account. Thank you for that. And yes, I believe that at this point, I would be willing to see you both again.

So I would ask of all my readers: please do not trouble these two. They bucked up, and very badly. But they’ve done their damnedest to make up for it as well. They are, at heart, good ponies who want to do right by others. For them and the sake of their mares and foals, please leave them be.

Choices have consequences. If there's any lesson I wish more people would learn, it's that. But I also believe in redemption and second chances, though they must be earned. I struggled with the identity and personality of the twins for a while, but I like what I finally came up with and, like Rising Star, ending up having a soft spot for them. You haven't seen the last of them, either.

But if nothing else, I do hope this chapter brings the Las Pegasus arc of this story to a satisfying conclusion and gives the previous chapter a bit more meaning beyond some very gratuitous clop.

Thanks once again to Permanent Temporary for the pre-read. And lest I forget... thanks to Still Waters for the very nice cover art!