A month after Gallus' attempt to delay the other students from leaving instead of just telling them his problem, Fluttershy decides to hold a special session on sharing your feelings with your friends. What follows is a series of confessions and discussions by the students about the things that bother them.

This is me experimenting with Slice of Life and Drama, which I've always felt was a place I needed practice. This idea went through my head after watching The Hearth's Warming Club, and I finally decided to sit down and write it so y'all would have something for the Hearth's Warming season, AND because there's not enough of the Young Six, who have become some of my favorite characters in the show.

Trigger Warning: May Contain Feels.

As this story hit 100 likes in 3 days, a sequel is now being planned.

Ocellus has been having some conflicting thoughts on her place at the School of Friendship. She loves her time there, and the friends she's made, but she can't help but wonder if there's anything more to it than just friendship. So she does the sensible thing and asks her guidance councilor.

This story is a sequel to Winning Pony: Road Not Taken

Years before the events of Winning Pony: Road Not Taken, Sparkler didn’t know her big sister. She didn’t have one.

For as long as she could remember, Sparkler had been in a foster home, under the care of Equestria’s Foal Services. It hadn’t been perfect, but life had been pretty good while she waited for somepony to adopt her.

Thirteen years is a long time to wait, though, and she had all but given up on ever leaving. Given up, until she found everything she knew suddenly and violently pulled out from under her. Hurt, scared, and alone, she’s found herself in a sea of new faces. Some help, some smile, most just fade into the background.

None of them seem interested in her, though. Not enough to take her home.

Have you ever heard strange voices in your head? Have you ever felt like your life is being observed or controlled by some omnipotent being? Twilight Sparkle has, and it's driving her up a wall; the FOURTH wall! Watch the hilarity ensue as Twilight hears the soothingly manly voice of yours truly!

Applejack steps out of her barn to discover that her home is gone, and the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres has been transformed into a beach. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash is opening up a juice bar on her front lawn, Pinkie Pie's dancing the hula, and Big McIntosh is getting his groove on. And she soon realizes that her troubles have only just begun.

At the start of every storm, Pinkie Pie forsakes the safety and comfort of her home to gallop out into the rain and the lightning, and sit on the tallest hill in Ponyville. Everyone writes her behavior off as her "just being Pinkie Pie". That's true, though. She is being Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie would do anything to show a friend that she cares, and she knows one friend who is closer to the storms than anyone else. She knows that by showing her love for the storms when no one else will, she's showing her love for the pony who makes those storms.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack grow old together. Rainbow Dash has a problem with that.

She doesn't want to grow old.

What does it mean to be immortal? Celestia has lived for too long. Her memories are old. She has seen many ponies, and many places, and many times, and many stars, and many dreams. She wakes one night to find she does not know the ponies and the stars of today from the ponies and the stars of any other day she has lived. She no longer knows what was real and what was only dreamed.

She desperately searches for the one pony she knows could not have been a dream.

Applejack travels alone down an old, dusty, well traveled road. The end of her long journey is near. Soon, she will finally be able to lie down and rest with her friends and family. She only needs to climb one final hill, so long as she can find the strength to reach its top.

But she just feels so tired.

Long ago, the founders of Equestria built a magical portal on sacred ground, hiding their greatest secret on the other side. Generations of leaders stepped through the portal so that they might emerge as the equal of their forebears.

Celestia and Luna were the last to enter. For a thousand years, the portal lay forgotten, its purpose lost.

Luna thinks it is time that Twilight learn what it means to rule.

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