This story is a sequel to For Want of a Horseshoe

Shining Armor's younger sister is many things: studious, awkward, devastatingly brilliant, neurotic, and occasionally, the rebellion's unwitting premier magical researcher in the fight against Nightmare Moon.

What she is not, is an alicorn from the future.

No, this Twilight Sparkle is not Shining Armor's younger sister.

That doesn't mean he's not going to tease her mercilessly, After all, she is still Twilight Sparkle.

A side story to For Want of a Horseshoe. The events herein happen concurrently with Chapter 7. The other stories in this series can be found below.

1. For Want of a Horseshoe
2. A Big Brother's Duty <-- you are here
3. Healing

Love is certainly a funny, wonderful thing. Cadance never expected it to grow into something so painful for her.

Try as she might, she can't hide it forever, not from herself, and certainly she can't hide it from her husband...

As the Cakes make a very special gingerbread house the act reminds them of their lives together; hinting at those they loved, challenges they faced, and the struggles that continue even after lovers say "I do"...

Inspired by the image "Artist Training Ground Day 22" by Egophiliac. Used with permission.

Yesterday, the Cakes put Pumpkin and Pound on the train to head off to their first year at college.

Yesterday had been a very, very hard day.

Today will be worse.

Cup Cake knows what the pegasus mare is doing. She can see the way the filly is swaying her flawless body around Sugar Cube Corner. She can hear the flirty tones in the perfect voice as the mare sings her siren song to Carrot...

You know that feeling? You know, the feeling that you get when you realize you've forgotten something that is very, very important? It is 10:32 p.m. on Hearth's Warming Eve, and Twilight Sparkle has just gotten that feeling...

Trixie Lulamoon, the personal student of Princess Luna, has finally, through a combination of reasoning, pleading, and whining, managed to convince the princess to invest some real responsibility in her, and give her a chance to show off everything she's been learning while under the alicorn's wing. Luna has appointed Trixie to be the official representative of her Night Court to the town of Ponyville, which this year will be hosting the Longest Night Celebration. Trixie is additionally tasked with overseeing the preparations for that festival.

At first, things seem to be going less than swimmingly. The catering is way too many kinds of apples, the weather patrol is far behind, the musical maestro is nowhere to be found, and the decorations could use significant toning down. To top it all off, Trixie can't help but feel that this was less an appointment to a position of real responsibility, and more an informal exile from the Night Court. Still, things could be worse: a mad alicorn goddess of fire and hate could escape from her millennial imprisonment on the sun and try and conquer Equestria.

But what are the chances of that?

A prequel to Boast Busted
Part of the Lunaverse
Now has a TVTropes Page!

Berryshine is a simple mare from a simple town, and she has a simple wish.

A break.

Just one little holiday to recharge the old batteries, a nice, relaxing trip to someplace new, like maybe a reindeer town. Unfortunately, a 'minor' mishap up North means her train is commandeered for Shining Armour and Cadence's royal mission... with Berryshine still on it.

But hey, it's not like she needs to get caught up in anything, right? After all, the real heroes of Equestria are there to take care of business, and they never make mistakes.

Right?

“All unicorns build doomsday devices!” Those five words were words that Twilight Sparkle never expected to hear next to each other and in that specific order in a sentence.

King Sombra has returned, and upon discovering that Twilight Sparkle has not even considered building a doomsday device, has given her an ultimatum: Either she builds a device that has the sole purpose of destroying the world, or he starts defacing her books.

The clock is ticking: Will Twilight be able to get in touch with her inner mad science and save her imperiled reading material? More importantly, is she really destined to bring about the end of the world? Are unicorns really nothing more than a cosmic reset button, poised to bring a halt to all existence at a moment's notice even in the face of past evidence suggesting that they're not very good at it? Will Twilight succeed where all others have presumably failed? Does she even want to?

Join in as we follow the journey to answer the question on minds the world over: “Anypony for Doomsday?”

This story is a sequel to Unwell

Twilight Sparkle is not well.

After the incident in Ponyville, Twilight has been moved to the Canterlot Mental Hospital, a top of the line care facility. Rainbow Dash has moved to Canterlot as well, to be there to provide support to Twilight.

Along the way, she will learn things about Twilight that she didn’t even know she didn’t know, as well as meet important ponies from Twilight’s past.

Twilight Sparkle is not well. But there is a plan for her and she is recovering.

The thing about life is, it never quite goes according to plan.

This story is a sequel to my other story, Unwell.
As a result, it won't much sense if you don't read that one first.

Cover art by dreamingnoctis. Check out his user page here.