In a shared dreamscape, Twilight asks her fellow immortals: what gives meaning to an endless life?

Featured 08/05/2021 - 08/07/2021!

It's a wicked life, isn't it, Trixie?

That's how you really feel, isn't it, Trixie?

You'd like a different life, wouldn't you, Trixie?

Trixie, Trixie, Trixie... if only it were that easy.

Everypony has to live with their mistakes, after all.

Why should you get to be any different?

Thank you to Ice Star, Gay For Godot, and Themoontonite. Love you

Coverart edited from batshaped.

We all dream of beautiful lives.

Shady Blossom need no longer dream; she has everything she ever wanted. Stepmother to Babs Seed and her sister, mother of two foals of her own, aunt to Applejack and Apple Bloom. Her life in Manehattan is all she could have wished for.

When Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders come visit to open up the Manehattan Branch of their club, however, it turns out that the past is not so easily forgotten.

Sometimes, the things that haunt us just won't stay buried.

Fourth place winner of the Time and Time Again /fic/ mini-fic competition. Originally, I wrote this over a period of 48 hours. After the end of the contest, I expanded it to better fit my original vision, and to fix its broken ending. Now, it's something I feel I can be amazingly proud of.

In her dreams, it was always the same. A world of mirrors.

A gift for Snow Quill
CW: Some violence, themes of mental illness, blood

Plenty of ponies had their ideas about what fear was, but most of them were wrong. King Sombra knew what fear was. 

Entry into the Colourful Characters Contest - Spike for the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Group. Thanks to TheLegendaryBillCipher and Flashgen for their notes during the contest.

A filly waits in a small white room. Waiting for her friends to visit. "Hi! I'm Silver Spoon and I'm the Perfect Patient! What medical symptoms would you like to treat today?"

Winner of the Magic Fades and Science Grows contest on Quills and Sofas.

TW for lots of gore and emotionally cruel treatment of a child. Read with care, and if emotional child abuse is something you've experienced perhaps steer clear of this one. I think my initial trigger warning wasn't extensive enough, so apologies if anyone was disturbed by the content. This is a grimdark look at sentience, souls, and the way people/ponies treat things they perceive to be inhuman.

Winner of Scampy's Sunflower Shipping Contest!
Go check out the other stories here.

This story is a sequel to Through the Well of Pirene

Pirene stretched and emerged from her cave, shaking off the heaviness of her long slumber like a raiment. The fields of her home were saturated in sunlight, and her children played and laughed and sang in the light, their green eyes bright. Of them, one trotted forward to nuzzle at her, her mane thickly curled and black. "Hello, Mother."
"Good morning, Aurora. How are things going with Daphne and her friends?"
"I haven't checked the Well in a bit," she admitted, twitching her tail. "Our umpteenth-great granddaughter is probably in trouble, though."
"Let's have a look, then, shall we? It's been far too long."
With that, the two of them settled near the Well, and watched what visions poured from it, the stories, struggles, sorrows, and triumphs of nine and a half worlds that flowed like water, like imagination.

These are those tales.

This story is a sequel to Through the Well of Pirene

Equestria Daily Post
Hardcopy Available for Order

NOTE: I wrote this before the 2020 BLM protests and my learning more about policing. I would have written it differently after, but I won't be changing it. Just keep in mind that the depiction here is of another world and another species from a different perspective.

In the City of Dreams, the City That Never Sleeps, a wistful heart walks the lonely streets, searching for answers to questions no one else is willing to ask. A reluctant pilgrim arrives from a long journey, weary but determined to make his mark. An old warhorse, his soul cracked and bleeding, saddles up for his last battle.

A noir tale set in Manehattan, fifteen years after the events of Through the Well of Pirene. Three people over the course of three nights weave and unravel a tale of anxiety, pain, and hope under the lights of the greatest city in Equestria, and the watchful gaze of a green star.

Once upon a time, Silver Spoon's life made sense. She had the right friends, the right house, and the right school for a young lady coming up in the world. Once upon a time, Silver Spoon lived amongst proud towers in a vibrant, bustling city that never slept.

Now she lives in Ponyville. Not so terrible once one gets used to it. Silver's learned to appreciate some ponies, harbor grudges for others, and tolerate the rest. But sometimes, she wonders if one pony in particular is as popular as she thought.

Preread and edited by Autumn Wind, Cthuluigi, and SaddlesoapOpera

Chinese translation by hehelover