As Derpy finishes up a busy holiday season, she reflects on herself, her life, and her experiences on the cold trip home. Little does she know, however, that a Hearth's Warming surprise waits for her.

Set during the Hearth's Warming depicted in S8E15 "The Hearth's Warming Club."
The first in a series of one-offs exploring the world through the crossed eyes of Best Pony. Enjoy!

When Chrysalis reappears with an army of unturned changelings to challenge Thorax for the throne, the Changeling Civil War begins. Of course, being close allies with Thorax's Kingdom, Equestria enters the war on his side, and the Wonderbolts are called into military service. On a routine scouting mission, Rainbow Dash goes down behind enemy lines and the changelings bring her to a prisoner-of-war camp, already full of captured ponies and turned changelings. Naturally, being a hero of Equestria, a veritable symbol of the nation, leads to her captors taking out a lot of aggression on her. Nonetheless, Rainbow Dash's will to return home to her friends and loyalty to her nation keeps her strong, and, with the help of a sympathetic changeling guard, she plots a daring escape to freedom. All the while, Spitfire is determined to track down and rescue her best flier--and her close friend.

Since this is November, and Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day is around the corner, I'd like to give a big thank-you to all those who've served/are serving, especially our dear military bronies. You folks aren't only brave enough to serve your country and put your lives at risk, but also to openly enjoy a show about small, rainbow-colored horses? That takes guts.

In addition, I'd like to warn everypony that while this story doesn't stray too far from the MLP world we all know, it does take place during a war, and in an internment camp. And some of the things that go on inside POW camps are not very pretty. The things that staying in one can do to your mind are even less pretty. Rainbow's gonna see some sht; readers, you've been warned.

A lot of the information I got about prison camps, how they operate, and how to survive and escape one came from the book SAS and Elite Forces Guide: Prisoner of War Escape & Evasion by Chris McNab. It's a very interesting book if you'd like to learn more, and I thank him for writing it.

Just a quick note about tags: "Teen," in addition to the following, encompasses some occasional sex jokes and innuendoes. Will add the appropriate tag if the audience finds it necessary. "Violence" and "death" because it's set during a war and there are depictions or references, though "gore" will only be occasional (because I don't particularly enjoy viscera), and "profanity", well, I don't plan on having too much thrown in, because the characters, to me, don't seem like ones who would curse too much, but certain words (namely "damn") will get used in-text or in-speech as intensifiers.

Twilight decides to build a statue garden and fill it with sculptures of various mythical beasts, including a long-forgotten creature called a ziz. Little does she know that an actual ziz still lives in Equestria, and he's never seen his own image. He travels to Ponyville to look upon Twilight's statue, frightening everypony except for her. The two intellectuals soon realize they've much to learn from one another and form a friendship, much to the chagrin of the villagers. When the time approaches for the beast's semiannual meal, the ponies fear that they might be on the menu, and encourage Twilight to take drastic measures to rid the town of her new "friend"...

A ponified retelling/adaptation of Frank R. Stockton's The Griffin and the Minor Canon, one of my absolute favorite short stories. All credit goes to Stockton for the basic plot of the story; I just spruced it up a bit and threw in some pastel horses. Couldn't use an actual griffin, since MLP already has those, so I decided to adapt an equally awe-inspiring ruler of the sky: the Ziz, described as the king of all birds who quells the battle between Behemoth and Leviathan... sound familiar, Pokémon fans?
I also changed the statue's placement from a church to a garden, since the ponies don't seem to have much in the way of organized religion.

I hope you all enjoy my first-ever Nightmare Night story! While it's not particularly scary or grim, the original tale has sort of a gloomy atmosphere over it, especially towards the end, and I tried to capture that in my retelling; not to mention, Stockton first published the story in October, 1885.

The Griffin and the Minor Canon is a story I really love, and watching the 2002 animated adaptation done by the West Virginia PBS (I'm The Mountaineer Brony for a reason) inspired me to retell it and share it with the fandom I love. It's a great tale, one that really deserves more attention, so if you like my adaptation, I encourage you to seek out Stockton's original story.

Cover art done by my friend Alex "Kirbachu" Everett. He's pretty awesome!

Princess Celestia sends the Elements of Harmony to Zecora's homeland as friendship ambassadors, and she gets asked to tag along as a guide. But Zecora hasn't been home in many years... and with very good reason. A terrible, mysterious incident from her past ushered her into exile. But upon her initially cold welcoming reception, she learns that her land is in danger, and she becomes determined to help save it. Along with her Equestrian friends, a young zebra with faith in her, and Princess Luna watching from her dreams, Zecora finally gets a shot at redemption, both in her people's eyes, and in her own.

After a chance encounter with a bat species she's never seen before, Fluttershy gets bitten, and strange things start to happen. All normal food tastes foul to her, and instead, she thirsts for blood. As she slowly becomes more animalistic, her instincts heighten, and suddenly the feelings towards Rainbow Dash she'd been suppressing slowly begin to manifest. After a failed attempt to seduce her in order to feed, Rainbow Dash becomes committed to helping Fluttershy get well again while keeping her friend's dark affliction a secret.