You remember Canterlot. You remember the taste of victory. Across a thousand years and a hundred lives, it was the greatest joy you had ever felt.

And then, in a flash of heat and unbearable light, it ended.

Now you are alone. The rest of your kind are dead or scattered, and you cannot hear their thoughts.

There is a void inside you. A gnawing, endless hunger you cannot escape. It is killing you.

You need love to survive, but there is none of that here. Not for you. You can only steal it from them, these ponies for whom we are hungry.

[My entry in and winner of the "Most Dangerous Game" contest."]

This story is a sequel to The Trial of Faux Pas

This is not a story about tolerance. This is a story about caution.

When Cheerilee gives her class the assignment to set up a little business, Apple Bloom and her friends set out to sell apple juice. Everything looks like it'll go smoothly, until the new kid in town starts selling a drink that's insanely popular with the help of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

And Apple Bloom doesn't like it one bit. She thinks Lyra and Bon Bon have adopted a poison mixer out to brainwash Ponyville.

And no, it's not just because he's a changeling.

A/N: Yes, this is the sequel to Trial of Faux Pas, but the prologue pretty much tells you everything from that story you need to know. It's not required reading and it won't offer spoilers to this.

Note: this story has both comedic scenes and dark themes. However, since neither of these dominate in the story, they are not added as tags. This is meant to be occasionally funny, but the subject matter can get pretty dark, a little darker than what we've seen on the show.

The scenes in this story are not meant to remind you of racism, but apparently they might. This is not the author's intent nor is it the author's problem. If the notion of racism among ponies makes you uncomfortable, either avoid the story or finish it.

You have been warned.

Also, avoid comments for massive spoilers.

Pincer is a changeling, a proud soldier of Queen Chrysalis. After the failed invasion of Canterlot, he finds himself trapped and at the mercy of Princess Celestia's Royal Guard. Believing that Celestia sees his species as nothing but soulless monsters, he prepares himself for the worst. The weeks crawl by, marked by an endless series of questions he will not answer for fear of endangering his friends and family at The Hive. As his nerves wear down and his interrogators learn just how ruthless he thinks they are, they have nothing to report but his belief that they will kill and destroy his kind without mercy.

Celestia steps in to prove him wrong, and what Pincer learns leaves him questioning everything he has ever known — but also gives him hope for what he'd never thought possible.

Cover art commissioned from http://www.demonkings.com.

Now with a TVTropes page.

Lickety-Split has sold out Ponyville to an evil frost fiend for the secret of delicious ice-cream and is about to bring about a frosty apocalypse. This can only mean one thing: It's Saturday, and there's only 22 1/2 minutes to save the world!

Only... Lyra's been having a dream. The same dream, again and again all of her life. There's something coming. Something terrible coming from out of the darkness, and it is going to destroy everything. Princess Luna seems very unwilling to do anything about it. Lyra's on her own.

It's Ponyville. Nothing bad ever happens in Ponyville.

But there is an old story. Perhaps the oldest story ever told. Even in Arcadia, there am I.

Entry for the More Most Dangerous Game thing.

Derpy just wants to bring ponies their mail. She's not trying to save the world.

It's funny how things work out sometimes.

My "More Most Dangerous Game" entry (7th place). Thanks to Axis of Rotation and AugieDog for editing. Drawing of Derpy is by Celebi-Yoshi. Wasteland by lindbalk. Reviews by InquisitorM, Titanium Dragon, Burraku_Pansa, and Pen Stroke.

Octavia has finally been promoted to first chair, unfortunately for her, that chair is in the new (and as of yet unformed) Royal Ponyville Orchestra. Now, the best cellist in Equestria (Her words) is being sent to the cultural gulag of Ponyville (Also her words) to form and lead the Royal Ponyville Orchestra to greatness (Princess Luna's words).

Now has a sequel, Princess Luna's Academy of the Arts and Sciences.

And an online reading.

Credit goes to jlm123hi for arranging the cover art
Vectors used:
The stage
Vinyl
Lyra
Fiddlesticks
Octavia

Bonus: Have some fan art made by GamingMelody I found when I accidentally typed my username into Deviant Art's search tool instead of logging in. It's cool someone liked my words enough to draw them, and I hope anyone who does so in the future will send me a link so I can plug them in whatever way I can.

When Applejack and Rainbow Dash wake up, hungover and in the same bed, they've only one question: how can we get even? A day spent tormenting their friends by turning one of their hopes on its ear pays off, but not quite in the way anypony expected.

The subjunctive is the verbal mood of abstractions and possibilities. To ponies and their indicative-based language, it is a frightful mood, awkward and unwieldy. To changelings and their language of nearly inaudible shrills, it is indispensable.

Equestria’s inhabitants are a diverse race, no two the same color, who speak a language of concretes. But to Errenax, a changeling linguist well-versed in both languages and fascinated by their dimorphism, everything about them intimates a singular notion: that this division of moods and language is perhaps deeper than it initially appeared.

Thank you to my editor, Golden Tassel.

Mystery. Love. Magic. Murder. Truth. These are all important elements in the murder mystery Fluttershy has written, and is now asking Twilight to read. But the novel stars 'Twilight Sparkle', and she wrestles with the metafictional dissonance involved in reading a novel about herself and her friends. Twilight must do her best to solve the mystery, reconcile her own feelings about this ordeal, and figure out just what Fluttershy is trying to say by writing all of this in the first place as the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

This is a thematic crossover with the visual novel 'Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.' No prior knowledge of Umineko should be necessary.
Cover art commission done by SynCalio

Twilight has always loved mysteries. Researching them, dissecting them, and finally, solving them. Almost nothing could compare to the joy she feels when finding an answer to a question no pony knew.

But there are mysteries with answers better left unheard, truths that aren't meant to be known. Now Twilight has solved a mystery with an answer she doesn't want, an answer she can never forget.