In the distant future, a probe arrives in the skies above Equestria after a journey of five thousand years.

Once discovered, a mare's voice tells of a lost colony on the galaxy's edge, and begs for rescue before speaking these mysterious last words: "I am sorry... I hope this was enough..."

Submitted for the Science Fiction Contest #3, 2024.

Cover by OutterBozak.

Bioshock meets MLP in this psychological thriller, where Celestia's new faithful student, Siren Song, must discover the truth behind the city beneath the waves.

Beautiful, gifted, and faithful student of the Princess of the Sun, Siren Song has very nearly everything a pony could want. Sometimes though, in the twilight hours, Siren can see the sadness in her mentor's eyes. Once, ponies whisper, the Princess had another student named Twilight Sparkle, but she left Equestria, never to return. The pony who has a perfect life just needs one more thing—to convince Twilight Sparkle to come home so the Princess will smile again. But when Siren arrives in pursuit of Twilight, she soon finds herself trapped in a city of horrors, with only its monstrous denizens for help.

Now with a TV Tropes page!

Many years after sending her beloved protege to Ponyville, unease sits heavily on Princess Celestia's heart as her relationship with Twilight Sparkle seems to have cooled despite all they've accomplished together. On the advice of her sister, Celestia sets out to investigate and resolve the lost connection with her most faithful student. What does it mean to be a Faithful Student...or a Princess of the Sun?

Earned a six-star rating on Equestria Daily and featured on its very own TVTropes page!.

Warning: This story and this description both contain spoilers for the Web Novel: Worm. If you don't want to be spoiled, read Worm first, then come back and read this

The apocalypse had come at the hand of a god-like multidimensional alien entity. Taylor Hebert, a parahuman with power over bugs and bug-like things has her powers altered by a former enemy and subsequently uses morally questionable means to make everyone in existence with superpowers fight this evil deity, eventually defeating him.

This however came with a cost. Her mind was deteriorating as her power was subsuming her. Thus another cape decided it would be a mercy to put a pair of bullets in the back of her skull.

Another entity witnessed all of this. This entity, grateful for Taylor's role in stopping this alien god and thus saving countless worlds and thus countless lives, decides to intervene. It brings Taylor to Equestria turning her into a Changeling Queen in the process.

(Warning, Dark, Death, and/or Tragedy may be added to the list of tags in the future, depending on how things go. Furthermore, the Suicide tag is for the references to suicide in the description and in the first chapter. Suicide and/or self harm will NOT be a major theme in this story.)

(This is a crossover with the web novel called Worm by the author Wildbow. I highly recommend reading it if you haven't, it's a really good story!)

Welcome to Ponyville, Population One.

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.

This story is a sequel to Message in a Bottle

For numberless eons, Equus hosted primitive civilizations, ignorant of the proud achievements of their ancient race. In their simple lives, ponies and other creatures could grow without fear of alerting any of the terrible forces that grew in the galaxy beyond. All civilization had been extinguished by forces beyond comprehension. If they made too much noise, Equestria would be next.

Then came James Irwin, with the truth the Harmony superintelligence that maintained the vast Niven Ring had already known: the galaxy was safe again, and probably had been for many centuries.

Once the truth was revealed, Equestria again longed for the stars. Surely they could not be the only survivors of that galactic Red Tide that had swallowed all intelligent life. Their searching bore fruit: radio signals from a nearby system.

Felicity was the Alicorn chosen to captain that mission of discovery. She would bring the pony gift of friendship to a fellow survivor somewhere out there. That was the plan, anyway.

Unfortunately for Equestria, intelligence does not imply friendliness.

A tale of understanding and discovery set in the world of Message in a Bottle. Reading that story first is highly recommended.

This story was written as a Patreon commission for Lithl over the course of over two years now. It comes to fimfiction now that it is nearly finished.

Editing by Two Bit, cover by Zutcha.

Updates Weekly on Wednesdays.

No one in Ponyville is certain why the strange bug-pony is at the market, nor why he is talking to the silversmith. Or well, the bug-pony isn't doing the talking. Which is the strangest part of all.

(I had no better cover art really.)

(Featured on 2021-11-27. Thank you all.)

(The story was 1st on featured and passed 150 likes on 2021-11-28.)

(The story is still in the featured feed on 2021-11-29, I am super grateful for all your support.)

"Sub-Level Five doesn't exist." That's the official statement of the Stairway company.

Washing out from the Night Guard program is usually a death sentence to any similar career. When Astral Sentinel was asked if he was interested in a security job, the Thestral obviously jumped at the chance.

There was just one oddity about the job. Well, there were quite a few, but mainly just one.
He just never, ever could acknowledge the existence of Sub-Level Five.

When a complete lock-down traps the Thestral inside the odd facility, he has to break that one rule. As the security systems begin to eradicate all life inside the building, Astral has to venture down to the elevators that officially don't exist, to a floor nopony alive will speak of.

He soon finds out that some things are best left buried beneath rock and stone.

*Warning. Hitchhikers may be escaped convicts.

"This story is simultaneously horrifying and adorable." -Witchery

Takes place far after Season 9. Although, it could take place at any time...(or in the Radverse, as some people call it.) This thing took on a mind of its own.

Seriously.

Read on if you want to join Astral for the ride.
I hope you brought your crowbar.

In later chapters, loose spoilers for Timeless, Sunspots, and Cure for a Toxin
Warnings for creepy atmosphere, gore, violence, and brief mentions of sexual content/assault (nothing explicit, only implied.)

Despite this being a horror story with unpleasant elements, it's not grimdark or a depressing tale. Lots more ups and downs, but overall it's a positive read of good vs evil, love and fluff; those are the types stories I write, after all. I just want to let everyone know what they're getting into, and don't want any readers blindsided due to some of the content.
(Not a romance involving a 'herd')