Once upon a time, there were two friends who ran a farrier shop in Canterlot. The oldest fed the forge and used his earth pony magic to produce strong steel shoes, which the younger enchanted with his powerful unicorn magic. They worked together in harmony, creating beautiful shoes for all who visited until one day they met a young mare in their local bar. She was a mysterious creature, overstressed by her job in the palace and needing the company of two friends far more than she realized.

Until one night, when her sister returned during the Summer Sun Festival…

Created as a Collaborative work between Georg and Tek, who made all the good parts.
Editor: Snaproll

Cover art Horseshoe and Rose by public domain clipart, edited in Paint3D
Now featured on Equestria Daily

Having your housemate call the plumber is pretty normal.

Having a changeling show up as the plumber is significantly less normal.

Inspired by Admiral Biscuit's writing challenge.

Special talents.
That thing that sets ponies apart from each other and gives them a path in life. The one thing that they excel at, broadcast to the world by their cutie mark.
The spectrum of special talents is as wide as the day is long and twice as varied as you think it is.
But, interesting talent or mundane, everypony needs a job to put food on the table and not every talent lends itself to one.

After all, not everyone can be blessed with specific high-demand talents like "growing plants" or "cleaning" or "flying". Even less often does a pony get a particularly nebulous concept or multi-faceted skill like "magic" or "partying" that can apply to any number of jobs.

Sometimes, no matter how good you are at what you do, it's just not something you can make a career out of.

But for those unlucky few, there's a group filled with other ponies who face the same problem that they do.

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Editted and proofread by the wonderfully helpful NecroHorse!

Shortly after a changeling drone leaves her egg in the human world in a last-ditch effort to save it, a young man named Eventide Oath finds himself struggling to decide what to do with a newborn changeling nymph. He has no idea what it is, where it came from, or anything else about it. But with a little help from a good friend, he commits himself to take care of the little guy. Who knows? Maybe the small, bug-like equine will be just what he needs to make his life a little bit brighter.

(Inspired by the original premise and opening chapters of "I Am A Pet Changeling," with some smaller sources of inspiration coming from the anime movie, "Wolf Children."
This story is also the spiritual successor to 'The Bug in The Herd,' which was the first multi-chapter Fanfiction that I wrote that I also managed to see all the way to completion.)

Now with a reading!

(Cover art provided by the absolutely wonderful AureliaCharmCutiees. Go and show her some love!)

Editing now provided by Mister Hypothetical!

Featured on 8/7/2018, the same day I posted it! Glad to see people like it!

Spear Hook, a local fisher pony has stumbled across something on his daily walk to work along the sandy beach.

This story is a sequel to Breakfast with Rose

Spurred on by a class presentation and an unexpected—but not entirely unwelcome—new day job, I began to more seriously consider how I might fit myself into pony society.

Manual labor provides plenty of time to think, and strips away facades.

I wasn’t sure that I was ready for that, but I couldn’t put it off forever, either.

Vanilla Torte lives an unassuming life outside of Canterlot, never thinking much about the huge city above.

Then something lands with a thunderous crash in his garden.

Stalwart Drone has been a Night Guard for a little over two years, and now he's being reassigned to the Crystal Empire, forced to leave his home and his talent behind only to have to readjust to living up in the frozen north.

Ruby Swift, conversely, has been in Equestria for most of her life, and recently she's taken a... darker look on life.

Forced to live in the same house as one another, the unlikely duo are going to have to live with what they fear.
At least, for now anyway.

Cover image can be viewed in its full resolution by clicking on it (or right-clicking and opening it in a new tab.) Spent a couple days working on it and I'll be uploading it to my DeviantArt gallery soon.

Let me give this to you straight. I'm a doctor. My title says 'Nurse', but I'm a doctor. I deal with sick and injured ponies daily, and give both treatment and advice to them with trust and confidence. That includes a certain six friends and their own medical needs.

If the rest of Equestria actually knew that disaster was one missed pill away, I don't think 'riots in the streets' would be sufficient to cover it. But I'm bound by Doctor/Patient Confidentiality, so I guess I'm the thin red line between civilization, and eternal enslavement by some horror from beyond.

That eternal enslavement thing sounds better every day, mind you.

*Cover image original artwork credited to mysticalpha

For as long as she could remember, Strix has lived in the depths of the infamous Everfree Forest, the lone owl-pony resident of its shade and gloom. As an omen of ill fortune, as well as her unique appearance, she's since become an myth that parents tell to their foals to get them to behave, something that Strix is not overly fond of. Tired of being alone, she ventures to Ponyville to find acceptance, and hopefully, a partner that will love her for who she is.

Written for the 1st Monster Mare Story Competition (Unpopular Monsters) Contest