To Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, it is a simple surprise visit to Canterlot. To the ponies of the Equestrian Civil Service, it is twenty-four hours of chaos, politics, weaponized dessert, politics, underhooved manipulation of media, politics, and things batrachian and tentacular. Who said bureaucracy isn't exciting?

We all know the story of Hearth's Warming Eve, but the simplified legend all ponies remember belies how close we came to losing it all. Now, the discovery of the lost diaries of the survivors transports us back to that harrowing time when the world balanced on the edge of a frozen knife, and the heroism of eight adventurers pulled us back from the brink, laying the foundations of the diarchy we know today.

(Compatible with Canon and inspired by Nyx's Family)
Now available in audio format.

February Write-Off Third Place Winner! It's just a normal day in Ponyville when Pinkie's Pinkie sense alerts her to an impending Mary Sue fanfiction. Things take a horrifying turn for the worst when Ponyville is invaded by not only not only one of the obnoxious characters but two! Now the very fabric of reality is in danger as the two OC ponies fight for dominance and only Pinkie can save the integrity of the fourth wall. We're doomed.

(Had to be shortened to from 10.3k to fit the contest parameters. If this becomes popular enough I might post the full version after the contest. Is actually only about 9.6k words on my computer so I'm not sure why it's so much higher here.)

A great evil has risen. Again. Equestria is in danger. Again. The Mane Six must face their greatest challenge yet. Again. It's the same old story, told by a thousand writers the world over. A story of gratuitous darkness, of love in the most nonsensical of places, of unimportant side characters pushed into the spotlight by fate. Dark secrets are revealed that change everything. Good characters snap under the pressure. There's a big, climactic finale. Nothing you haven't read dozens of times before.

Let's not alter that formula in any way. In fact, let's kick it into overdrive.

Dedicated to the past two years of editing fanfics. I love you all, ya crazy weirdos.

"Once upon a time," said Fluttershy, "there were two sisters who lived with their mother in a cabin in the woods. They loved each other very much."

Audiobook by The Living Library

PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE: DEAD AT 18

TELEPORTATION INVARIABLY FATAL, WARNS LEADING SCHOLAR

One look at the headline of the Canterlot Times and Twilight knew that she should have slept in today. But at least none of her friends would be silly enough to believe she was killing herself every time she teleported, right?

There is now a Spanish translation of this story, courtesy of Spaniard Kiwi

In the aftermath of her battle against Tirek, Twilight Sparkle is unwell. She wants more. She needs more. And she is afraid of what others might think of her.

But even in the midst of her growing despair that she has betrayed everything she stood for, she learns something about friendship and what it means to be an alicorn.

They say that Equestria was a paradise. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wanna believe it. There sure ain’t one in this piece of the ‘Verse. Maybe we coulda built one if it weren’t for the damned Confederation. Those bastards wanted every planet in the system under their hoof and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The outer planets fought ’em, and we lost.

It’s tough to get by these days with Confederation lawkeepers looking for an excuse to crack down, bandits and thieves crawling everywhere the Confederation’s not, and the Jesters prowling around the edges of civilized space. Honest work’s hard to come by, and honest folk are twice as rare. Still, a mare has to make a livin’ somehow. So that’s what I do.

Find a crew. Find a job. Keep flying.
– Rainbow Dash, Captain of Tranquility

This story is a sequel to On the Courtship Behavior of Swamp-Dwelling Chimeras

Learning to read is rather challenging under normal circumstances, but it doesn't help when your other two heads would rather be courting or hunting. So far, though, Agatha has risen to the challenge admirably under the tutelage of Twilight Sparkle herself—or at least she did before the day she and her sisters walked into Ponyville to discover the burnt-out husk of the library tree. Worst of all, though, was that even though few of the books survived, the bastard who committed this unspeakable crime is still alive....

For now.

Artwork by Page Turner

Pinkie Pie tries to fly internationally. What could possibly go wrong?

Inspired by personal experience.