A chance encounter with a mysterious stranger and a card game leads Applejack down a winding and shadowed path, deep into the murk of history and legend. Cursed to wander through time and space, she criss-crosses the history of the pony tribes in search of the true stories of creatures' lives, discovering things that shake her understanding of what came before to its foundations.

As she begins to understand the stories ponies tell themselves and each other, she confronts the difficult and painful task of ensuring that the important ones are heard, understood, and remembered, weaving them into the great tapestry of tales that, in the end, is what Equestria is built on. And in the end, maybe she'll find that glorious place every creature she meets talks about, dreams of, and journeys onwards to find, where the water tastes like wine.

A crossover with Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.

Update 7/2023: On hiatus due to unemployment and other real life issues, but I fully intend to return to this work.

Many thanks to Scribblestick for proofreading and to Plumicorns for the amazing artwork! And a very honorable mention to Anonixar, although things didn't wind up working out (which was absolutely no fault of theirs), I want to acknowledge all the time and effort they put in and their very kind and generous attitude.

Maud Pie is a simple pony in a complicated world filled with nearly-impossible-to-understand creatures. Why don't others just say what they mean instead of using all those unnecessary words? Why don't they understand her when she says exactly what she means? If she tries to provide proper context to help them, they get bored. Still, she tries her best to be clear and make herself understood, even in the face of questions whose context is most of her life and the geological history of the world. In those little pauses before she speaks, Maud thinks fast. This is one such question.

Proofread by the wonderful Scribblestick

Glorious artwork and many others are from SambaNeko

Winner of Bicyclette's Maud contest!

With a never-before seen unicorn owl having been sighted near Ponyville, everypony in town is competing for the opportunity to get a sighting and a picture of this suddenly-legendary avian. The only defense against the obsession and madness of the citizens is, as usual, Twilight Sparkle, but will even her mighty scientific acumen and academic discipline be enough to restrain the amateur ornithologist hysteria before it's too late? Will she be able to save her friends from their misconceptions and mistakes about the scientific method? Of course not. But dear Celestia, she will try.

Takes place between 'Luna Eclipsed' and 'A Canterlot Wedding.'

Inspired by the creature of the same name from the Red Green show, and with many thanks to the kindness of ScribbleStick, who provided some truly excellent pre-reading services. And additional thanks to EverfreePony for the artwork.

The past can be a great teacher, or so the theory goes. Twilight means to put the phrase to the test and see if there are any lessons on friendship she might have missed that took place between her friends in the years before she arrived. Making up for lost time is hard work!