What if Cadence and Twilight arrived a couple of minutes later to stop Chrysalis?
What will the changeling queen do when she discovers that her marriage with Shining Armor is legally valid?

This story takes place short after the Crystal Empire arc and before 'Too Many Pinkie Pie'.

Inspired by http://csimadmax.deviantart.com/art/married-again-325751862 , all credit for the image goes to the autor.

Now with it's own spin-off: here.

As always, costructive critic is well accepted.

After being rejected by Rarity, Spike falls into a state of depression. There he becomes friends with an unlikely pony, Diamond Tiara. As they become better friends, Spike finds himself drawn to Diamond Tiara in more sinister ways.

Spike x Diamond Tiara ship. No foalcon.
Officially approved by the Diamond Cutters!

Braeburn Apple has always been raised in a conservative household, as a member of the Apple family.
Throughout his life, he's been taught what's 'wrong' and what's 'right', who he was allowed to love, and who he wasn't. Above all, he was told what to be, and how to be it.
When he meets a certain blue Pegasus stallion buying pies at Sweet Apple Acres while he just so happens to be staying there, he discovers feelings he never knew he had.
Unfortunately, they happen to be the same ones he was always taught to suppress.
Can Soarin convince him that it's not wrong to be in love, and that, sometimes, in order to be happy, you need to break out of your comfort zone?
A story about discovering who you are, and being that person, no matter what others tell you to be.

WARNING: M/M, SoarinxBraeburn Coltcuddling! Touches up on some serious social issues in the real world, but with ponies, and at least 20% cooler.
If you don't like it, please do not read it.

Featured on EqD!

Cross-posted to FanFiction.NET.

Rated T for alcohol references, crude humour, and slight language.

Cover image is by Mn27 on DeviantART.

Edited by many people, included Carcer, LunaUsesCaps, and Diexna, but none have contributed more than the amazing Smayds, who has been my main editor for almost every chapter.

My unicorn parents called me a worthless mud pony. They pushed me every day to overcome my lowly status. When I woke up one morning with my cutie mark, I thought they would love me. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

It was not destiny or enjoyment that led me to discover the cello and composing. My parents made that decision, deciding before I was born I would continue their family legacy of famous musicians.

They did not realize what that decision would cost them.

Special Thanks and Links:

Cover Art: Dreampaw. The inspiration for the story.
Dramatic reading of Act I-III by Malao567. June 2013
Reading with music by ObabScribbler. June 2014
Song: Hooks and Strings by Reverb Brony. May 2014

Style inspired by H.P. Lovecraft
TypeWriterError: Editor & Rating Board
Gage of Grandiloquence: Editor
The11thWonder: Pre-reader
Nharctic: Pre-reader
Breath of Plagues: My Pinch Editor.
ArgonMatrix: Bad Grammar Exterminator
Daemon of Decay: Advice, also inspired me to write fan fiction. Blame him!

Twilight and Spike grew up and did everything together since forever. But following the events of Magical Mystery Cure, Twilight is now a princess. She grew up first. Spike realizes he needs to catch up, and so makes a choice to do the same.

All the while, there is a secret, one that involves Princess Celestia, our favorite little dragon, and a certain sense of heritage.

She was once a great mare, the pride of Equestria's rulers.
The sole wielder of the element of magic...
Now but a shell of her former self after just one tragic night... and the long months that followed.

Because what would it be like to have your closest friend violently taken away from you?
Even after a full year with no sign of him, would it ever seem possible that he would ever be seen again, or that he was even alive?

Twilight Sparkle, with the help of her friends, attempts to rebuild her life from the ground up after a full year of dwelling in the past, and trying to find any trace of her former assistant.
Spike's gone, but does Twilight have what it takes to bring herself back from the same void?

Discord's reformation has left him both elated and confused. He didn't really know how to be anything other than a villain. Wandering around the castle one day, he experiences a flashback of his life before he became the villain, when he was just a silly teenager in love with a woman far out of his league. His flashback paralyzes his body and causes him to whack his head off Celestia's throne, concussing him and leaving him bedridden until he recovers. He requests a visit with his only friend, the pony who reformed him, Fluttershy. As Fluttershy tends to Discord's wound, Discord starts to feel a strange tug in his heart that he thought he'd never feel again. It doesn't make any sense to the draconequuis, but then again.... What's the fun in making sense?