note

This story was written for the Tropical Post-Apocalyptic Story Contest, but was cut down due to wordcount limits. I am currently working on a full-length expanded version of the story that will be the definitive edition, which I will link here when it goes up in a week or so. If you can be patient, please read that one instead! Or read this one and then read that one when it goes up.

longdesc

It was supposed to be an easy way back home. Jump into the quicksand pit, go through the portal to Equestria beneath it, get to Twilight's Castle's Basement, go through the Magic Mirror, and before she knew it, Sunset and all of her friends and everyone they rescued from that sinking cruise ship would find themselves on the manicured green lawns of Canterlot High.

Instead, they wake up scattered around the quicksand pit, still on the desert tropical island they were trying to escape. Only there isn't a portal to Equestria anymore. And none of them can get a cell phone signal.

And then Bon Bon's phone lights up.

ATTN AGENT SWEETIE DROPS: BRILLIG BLACK EVENT CONFIRMED. FOUNDATION CONTINUITY SCENARIO OMEGA-OMEGA-OMEGA. FINAL DIRECTIVE: ENSURE LONG-TERM SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

It turns out that Bon Bon was a secret agent for a secret spy organization this whole time. And they just told her that the world has ended, and no rescue is coming for them. Ever.

content

Note that this is rated T, that is, while things implied by the red tags will happen the story will not linger on them in graphic detail when they are depicted.

Spoil at your own risk!:

Overall: Gore, death, gory death, limb dismemberment, guns, being shot by guns, being killed by guns, suicide by gun, suicidal ideation but it's only one time, starvation, questions about the nature of humanity, questions about the relationship between humans and the animals they raise and slaughter, existential horror, body horror, existential horror arising from body horror, relationships in all sorts of combinations even including cis-hetero, one of those is Rarity x Ragamuffin, pregnancy so sexhaving is implied to have happened but is not depicted, one of those is Rarity x Ragamuffin, almost everyone in the world dying but it's not depicted and all offscreen so it's okay, gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlbossing

Chapter-by-chapter:
Chapter 1: Surprise death and gore. "Spring Breakdown" plot inconsistency lampshading.
Chapter 2: Death and gore, possibly of a child. Rainbow Dash no longer having a leg.
Chapter 3: Suicidal ideation. Implied offscreen apocalypse where everyone died.
Chapter 4: Discussion of corpse disposal. Discussion of cannibalism. Discussion of how many calories a human body has.
Chapter 5: Implied but not depicted gore. Funerals and grieving.
Chapter 6: No actual content warning here so this is just to pad out the spoiler bar.
Chapter 7: Physical effects of the early stages of starvation depicted. An animal in chronic pain depicted.
Chapter 8: Talk of creating tulpas and I guess that's called tulpomancy?
Chapter 9: Suicide mentioned as having happened. Contemplating the consequences of philosophical solipsism, the nature of happiness
Chapter 10: Underage drinking, pregnancy announcement, planning estrogen extraction from pregnant woman urine
Chapter 11: Gore. Death. A skull getting blown half-off which is pretty gory.
Chapter 12: Gore. Death. Suicide. Sucking chest wound, a body being riddled with bullets, suicide by shooting self in head.
Chapter 13: Death. Suicide. A mother shooting her daughter and then herself.
Chapter 14: Gore, by PTSD flashbacks to the events of the previous three chapters.
Chapter 15: Childbirth! I mean I tried to describe the events without going into vivid description even though it's a perfectly natural and glorious event.
Chapter 16: Unsettling implications of what the characters are saying but nothing graphic or anything
Chapter 17: A reveal that recontextualizes the previous events of the story with horrific implications. Nothing graphic tho
Chapter 18: Continuation of the above, plus physical violence and swearing.

info

an entry into Tropical Post-Apocalyptic Story Contest and the Sunset x Villain “Monster-Shipping” Competition. originally a May Pairings entry, but withdrawn due to going over the length limit

thank you to Crack-Fic Kai, Shrink Laureate, and Drider for prereading Chapters 1-6!

thank you to FanOfMostEverything for commenting so quickly on chapters when they were posted and thus being an inadvertent post-publication prereader for later tweaks.

The planet Equus will be inhospitable in just a few short years. All the creatures on it are preparing to leave for greener pastures. All, that is, except Spitfire.

This fiction is canon compliant. It takes place several years after "The Last Problem".

An entry into Science Fiction Contest III.

"In The Precocious Princeling's Guide to Diplomatic Relations, there are three rules for how a royal ought to conduct himself abroad.

1. A diplomat of Equestria must obey all local laws of the nation they are assigned to.
2. A diplomat of Equestria should advocate for the interests of Equestria to the best of their abilities.
3. Under no circumstance should a diplomat of Equestria get involved in the following: Political parties, popular uprisings, peasant revolutions, class solidarity movements, coups d'etat, or other attempts at regime change, violent or otherwise.

By the time I had finished my tenure in Saddle Arabia, I had broken all three."
-Prince Blueblood, First of His Name

As Rarity stepped into her workroom, her sewing machine stashed in the corner and half-finished designs chucked into an overflowing trashcan, she felt her already hollow heart somehow crumble further, still in denial over one simple fact: 

Rarity used to be a designer. A good one and a bad one all at once.

But... she wasn’t a designer anymore. 

And if she wasn’t a designer, then she had no use to anypony. 

And if she had no use to anypony, she was worthless.

And if she was worthless, she was better off dead.

Thank you to Maxima for the cover art, and to Jykinturah and RBDash for seeing the absolute worst parts of me as I went through hell last year yet staying with me as if it was the most natural choice in the world. Thank you as well to my supporters on KoFi and Patreon for having faith in me even when I didn't.

Five years ago, a disaster left low-Equus orbits swamped with orbital debris. The husks of dead ships careened through the aether, threatening any that might try to leave the planet. But now, it’s under control. Debris trawlers roam the skies, picking up those husks and carefully gathering smaller shards. Thanks to their efforts, bit by bit, space is becoming usable again.

Mesonox is a newbie on one of those trawling crews, recently hired to fly on DT Heavenly View. She’s aced the sims. She knows her ships. She knows her tools. She knows her techniques. And her crew just got assigned to grab a typical wreck. It’s a straightforward job: clean up the small debris, get the large debris under control to haul back to the scrapyard. The perfect task for a rookie like her.

Time to get to work.

This story is a sequel to Fluttershy, Royal Game Warden (?)

Ever since Rarity was a wee filly, she has always fantasized about the life of the nobility. The inestimable glamour! The fabulous balls and galas! The magnificent castles! Even after running roughshod into the very worst of highborn snobbery at the Gala, that little foalish tingle keeps dragging her mind back to that particular whimsy in the quiet times.

Incidentally, Luna needs some poor gullible idiot she can ennoble before throwing them into the very foulest political cesspit in Bitaly on a wild-goose chase for nine million bits. How convenient!

Reading the previous story is highly recommended, not only because this one won't make much sense without it, but also because it's a 100% certified banger. Obviously.

Idol Hooves holds a special place in Equestria. He's probably the only exiled changeling to serve in the Royal Guard, or at least, that's what he expects, as exiles don't really broadcast that fact. However, it's well known that Princess Celestia loves all of her little ponies, and her guards perhaps more so, and that makes it one of the best ways for a changeling to discreetly feed.

But how does a changeling even get there, let alone get exiled in the first place? For that matter, why would it ever go to Canterlot? Set a number of years before the series proper, before Luna’s redemption, Idol details how he was exiled, the ponies he’s met, and the series of misadventures that led him to joining the Royal Guard, and should continue a good ways into the series, as something of an alternate perspective.

Soon, he’ll have to deal with a boisterous new princess to serve and a royal wedding in the works bringing a third to power. Will his old instincts bring this new life crashing down around him? What precipitates Chrysalis’s ill-fated assault on Canterlot? Is it really so wrong for a changeling to enjoy good craftsmanship to an obsessive degree?

New cover art provided by the fantastic Carnifex

And a TVTropes page here.

And an Ask Blog of questionable canonity!
Out of Idol Curiosity

Fanart by Norad2! Major thanks! Short For a Royal Guard

Art by Egophiliac of Idol and his Daring Duckie Please don't tell him what that brush is meant for.

Rating updated to (T), it's a bit darker than (E)
Comedy Tag added as well
And changed the character tags a bit.

This story is a sequel to Mi Amore Influenza

Over the course of a week in the City-State of Cloudsdale, a frustrated Mi Amore Cadenza makes a series of bad choices that kind of make her into a monster.

Also, she becomes a dragon at some point.

(A continuation of the Cadance of Cloudsdale cycle.)