Star Sparkle, when she was young, had expected to court an understanding noble's son, write a few books and spend most of her life up to her belly in mud as she sought out the treasures and traps of some ancient Hindi temple or paleopony burial mound.

For a while it seemed as if her dreams had come true.

Life, unfortunately, has a habit of frustrating such plans, but Star is nothing if not adaptable. Never mind that Twilight Velvet was meant to have the foals, or that her stallion of nearly forty years turned out to be an irascible, if lovable lunatic, or that she has to share him with the mare who was once her closest friend, an erotic novelist, a ruthless businessmare, a brainless fashion model, a grasping socialite and the barren cast-off of a noble family that had once hoped to exploit a political marriage for more power. She's still mother to one of the most famous mares in recent history, she has the somewhat reluctant ear of the Princess, a well-paid job, a half dozen books to her name and all the time she wants for long archaeological expeditions to remote and exotic parts of the world. She has no regrets. At least, none she would admit.

That said, she does have two tiny problems:

She ran out of gin last night.

And her daughter is about to marry an ape.

A Xenophilia Side Story.