Description: Returning from Zebrica, Rainbow Dash finds her lot cast in with the brilliant and eccentric detective, Rarity, as they unravel a crime most foul.

Starring Rainbow Dash as Watson, Rarity as Holmes and Fluttershy as Lestrade.

Originally posted on Equestria Daily here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-study-in-rainbows.html

Spanish translation: https://www.deviantart.com/spaniard-kiwi/art/Un-estudio-en-arcoiris-999961891

She never expected to see a golden chariot flying over Ponyville. She never expected just how much her life would change. She never expected Twilight Sparkle … and Twilight Sparkle most certainly never expected Pinkie Pie.

Sometimes, you just can't take the chance of telling somepony you care about her. A Twishy story, because there aren't enough of those.

Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is famous across Equestria as a center of academic excellence. Only the best and brightest unicorns are offered places, selected by their academic merit, magical ability and passion for study. To make the admissions process as fair and reliable as possible, all candidates are given three exams by different teams of examiners, who then meet in private to decide which students are most deserving of a place.

Winner of the December 2014 Writeoff competition: Behind Closed Doors.

Sometimes, things work out better than expected. Sometimes… they don’t. And sometimes you need a little help to make it all work out in the end.

The Mage. The Farmer. The Daredevil. The Party Pony. The Animal Caretaker. The Fashionista. They're always there. What spirit takes on each role can change. Some combinations work out even better than the world where Twilight Sparkle became an alicorn. Some combinations work out much, much worse. Princess Luna guards the places between - and so do all the other Princess Lunas. When one calls out for help, another responds.

Xenophile sociology applies, and a version of Lero did get found in the Everfree in both of these realities, but don't plan on seeing HiE.

After coming to live in Ponyville and discovering the joy of having friends, Twilight found a new appreciation for Hearth's Warming and its story about companionship keeping the cold at bay. It would come as a surprise to her to learn that anypony could think she's forgotten the spirit of Hearth's Warming, but the new Princess of Friendship has a habit of sometimes missing details, even when they're right under her snout.

On Hearth's Warming Eve, Twilight is visited by three ghosts who take her on a journey across time to show her what she's almost missed.

My entry in the TwiJack group's Hearth's Warming Contest.

Editing by Formerly Committed.

It's one thing to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It's something quite different to worry that it doesn't have a right side anymore. Stuck in an artistic rut, Rarity has to rely on an unlikely friend to understand who she is, and in doing so, discovers that what we want may not always be obvious, even to oneself.

There may or may not be an excess of hats involved, and fabulosity is guaranteed.

Words could not do justice to the sheer joy that Rainbow Dash and her friends felt on the day she had finally gotten a letter of approval from the Wonderbolt Academy. It was a dream come true. Congratulations echoed loudly from Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle almost harmoniously with one another. What made it all the better was the smiling glance Dash had shared with Rarity at that moment from across all of her other ecstatic friends.

Neither of them needed to say a word. It was a moment of mutual acknowledgment that only the two most ambitious ponies amongst the six of them could share. There was more to it, however. Dash could never forget what Rarity had done for her that one night, which now seems so long ago. In hindsight, it was a little embarrassing to think about, but she'd never let go of that memory for anything. Who could forget when the least likely among your friends becomes not only your driving source of inspiration, but somepony with whom you could share a connection altogether deeper?

Mystery. Love. Magic. Murder. Truth. These are all important elements in the murder mystery Fluttershy has written, and is now asking Twilight to read. But the novel stars 'Twilight Sparkle', and she wrestles with the metafictional dissonance involved in reading a novel about herself and her friends. Twilight must do her best to solve the mystery, reconcile her own feelings about this ordeal, and figure out just what Fluttershy is trying to say by writing all of this in the first place as the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

This is a thematic crossover with the visual novel 'Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.' No prior knowledge of Umineko should be necessary.
Cover art commission done by SynCalio

On repeated occasions, Rarity has tried to strength a weak friendship with Rainbow Dash, only to be turned down on every occasion. Defeated, she begins to question herself, but realizes she just might be wrongly examining the situation.

Perhaps there is a reason she has missed the whole time.