No important political meetings to attend? Check! No letters to answer? Check! A magical and child-safe gift for Flurry Heart that she's sure to love? Check!

Her schedule was clear. Shining and Cadence were off on vacation. She'd prepared all her materials. Twilight Sparkle was more than ready to spend a fun-filled weekend babysitting her favorite niece.

But she wasn't prepared for King Sombra's return. Nopony could prepare to be trapped with him inside a storybook of fairy tales.

And nopony's ever ready for an unhappy ending...

Proofread by: Alicornpriest

Winner of November 2017 NaPoWriMo: Goal of 50k smashed!

Now Featured on Equestria Daily - First hit the Featured Box on April 28th!

Once upon a time, there was a young unicorn who was scarred and battered by the cruel world until he was forced to retreat behind the walls of a solitary life as a bitter and spiteful creature. As he grew up, he remained a lonely recluse, with only his best friend for occasional companionship.

Until one day when he found something the world had treated even more callously and cruel than himself. She was a changeling, badly wounded and crushed until she hung onto life by a slender thread. The only chance she had for surviving her injuries was love, but that was no chance at all, for she was a monster in pony society.

And who could ever love a beast.

Rated T for references to sex, crude language, obnoxious behavior, and weathervanes.
Editors: Peter, docontra, D48 and Tek
Cover picture FIM Sleeping Changeling is courtesy of Avarraptor at Deviant Art.
(Gypsy the Changeling is so cute.)

Applejack is chosen as The Nightmare's new host.

It really isn't that big of a deal. Until it is.

Sunset Shimmer is having the worst day of her life. She used to be important. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia. She was a future leader of Equestria. She was the kind of mare that everypony envied.

Today, it's all crashing down around her.

Alternate Universe: What if Sunset Shimmer hadn't gone through the mirror?

Everypony enjoys myths and ponytales, even if they know such things aren't real. Alicorns fighting against a spirit of chaos? An ancient princess trapped in a library under a tree, waiting to be found? Quite enchanting and fantastic tales yes, but nonetheless as fictional as Daring Do and other such stories. At least, that's what Rarity used to think.

She doesn't anymore.

Dedicated to Annuska for being as amazing a writer as she is a friend.

Now a physical book!!!
Patreon!
Based on an old oneshot.
Chapter Art by Arctic Waters // Graphic Design and Typography by Swan Song.

The plan, he thought, was perfect. Instead of returning to the mortal world as a shade of his former self, King Sombra would transmute his soul into the body of his greatest foe, using her influence and power to destroy Equestria from the inside and take vengeance on the Princesses that stole his beloved empire.

There's just one problem: after her fight with Tirek, Twilight Sparkle changed her address. This turns out to be a much bigger problem than Sombra thought. A Dinky-Doo-sized problem, to be precise.

5th-place finalist in the More Most Dangerous Game contest.

Cover art crudely Photoshopped by me from this and this. I am art and so can you.

Reading by Neighrator Pony

Twilight Sparkle broke time when she got her cutie mark. Now Twilight and Sparkle are sisters from another time. Twilight is hailed as the potentially greatest light magician of all time, and already has a reputation as a hero by the time she goes to Ponyville. This isn't her story, not primarily.

Sparkle is an orphan - her dark magic killed her parents. She lives with her brother in Canterlot's industrial sector because they can't afford anything better. She can't leave either. She's a natural dark mage; while Sparkle won't go mad like Sombra, her reputation is hardly any better. Worse, the law doesn't see her as a good pony.

The fact that the dead don't stay dead around her, or that Thorn - Spike's double - is an undead, soul-eating abomination, are other matters altogether.

(Also has some Slice-of-Life, but fimfiction tags won't let me put it with Adventure.)

Has an ask blog to go with it: Ask Sparkle and Thorn.
Also has a TvTropes page: Split Second Tropes.

Featured on EQD.

Cover art by Swirling Line.

Exiled from Valhalla during a battle against an invader, Sleipnir finds himself in a strange world with no easy way home. But with the help of his new friend, Prince Blueblood, he'll adventure across Equestria in search of a way back to his own world... and along the way, make new friends and teach Blueblood what it means to be a hero.

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 sci-fi, and somewhat different to regular FIM stories.)
Aneki's world was small. It was spherical, and it only took a day to gallop from one side to the other. She had been taught nothing existed outside the sphere, but she wasn't so sure about that. Perhaps her world was a bottle, a container in which ponies had fled to live. A time would come when she gained the opportunity to investigate these things first hoof, if she lived that long.