Ant Mill is a college student, stuck in a dead-end internship she took just to fulfill her requirements. All she does is doodle and wish she was somewhere else, but when she has a chance encounter with the Princess of Friendship herself, she gains a new perspective.

Written for the Title Drop writeoff event. Edited by the illustrious Cold in Gardez.

Now with a reading by Dr. Wolf!

The history of war may be written by the winner, but the Royal Historian is the one who provides the notes and background to the writer. The recent events that some have called ‘Mare Wars’ or ‘The Invasion of the Barracks’ are no exception. The Royal Historian has painstakingly compiled this folder of notes and background material on what should more accurately be called, ‘The Opening of the Guard.’

Please remember to return the folder back to the Royal Historian when you have completed reading, in the event we gather more material that needs to be included.

Musty Pages, Royal Historian

Source for inside photo
Featured on Equestria Daily and the Royal Canterlot Library
With sequel, The Night Guard - Night Mares
And an interview by Benman

Where there's life, there's change.

Be that comforting or terrifying, it remains true. Equestria has been unchanged for a long time, and now the gears come unstuck with a single, mighty blow. One age ends, another begins.

But even after tragedy impossible, life continues on the streets. In the grand scheme, a single pony will be remembered only by the mark they leave, be they a ruler of the world, a faithful student thrust suddenly into the light, a soldier loyal to a vanished master, or a simple cellist with a run of bad luck.

For just as life begets change, so do the living beget the future.

Tied to Letters to the Sun, but both stand independent.

Special shout out to Benny for pre-reading/editing and coming up with the title. His brilliance is more astounding than the sun.

This story is a sequel to Unfinished

In the aftermath of the Nightmare's near-victory, Twilight Sparkle struggles with her status as an alicorn and the lingering gulf between herself and her senior Princesses. Love inspires awesome and terrifying things, but the path to harmony and friendship may leave her more broken than before. Beneath it all, a lingering memory refuses to be ignored.

Dusk Shine still lives, and he wanders the wasteland of unfinished stories and forgotten dreams at the bottom of the universe, attempting to put his world back together. The price to remake his home may be greater than he can bear, but one name still guides him: Twilight Sparkle.

Two paths draw close once more, not to run side by side, but meet each other head-on.

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Check out this amazing fan comic by Bypenandhoof!

Side Story to The Demesne of the Reluctant Twilight Sparkle

When Doctor Princess Twilight Sparkle got Ponyville and the surrounding lands as her exclusive demesne, she knew it meant changes and stuff. Glittering opportunities. Dire crises. Friendships gained and imperiled. The dawn of a new age for Ponyville. A renaissance of the arts and sciences. A great test of her abilities as a leader and as a friend.

The brewing civil war took her by surprise, on the other claw.

The Princesses and their allies in Canterlot are working to change the laws, disband the new militias and ensure a lasting peace, but they need time. Soon, this cold war of arms and intimidation will heat up, and all the laws and decrees in the world ain't stopping it.

Doctor Princess Twilight Sparkle will buy them time. She will do what it takes to keep her friends, her family, and yes, her demesne safe.

With the help of a handsome griffon security professional—that's me, by the way—a devious illusionist, a ruthless athlete, a bored noble, and a pair of boater-clad con-ponies, she'll stop the damn war herself if she has to.

Touch wood I'll live to tell about it...

Big McIntosh has a unique way of appreciating music, and Octavia certainly provides an experience. Octavia would love to get in touch with her earth pony roots, and Big McIntosh has the deepest roots around. They could learn so much from each other about why they do what they do, and they just might gain some insight into their own simple gifts in the process.

Featured on Equestria Daily!

Reading by Goombasa.

Diplomacy has failed. Six years have passed Equestria's crowning of the princess of friendship, ushering in a supposed unprecedented age of peace and harmony. The concept of warfare is, to most ponies, nothing more than an unfathomable legend. They have let their guard down.

An unknown enemy has seized the opportunity to attack Equestria with terrifying new weapons of war, bent on taking the fertile land and restoring an ancient order. The valiant efforts of the Royal Guard have given Princess Twilight and her arcane scientists time to research and develop a response to their attackers, and the time has come for that response to be implemented. Utilizing weapons and tactics borrowed from another world, five squads under the command of Princess Luna will infiltrate the forests of the Equestrian Northwest to destroy a revolutionary magical matrix that Twilight refers to as the "radio" - a tool that allows enemy ponies to communicate across vast distances instantly.

Nightmare Two is comprised of three foalhood friends who, rather than be separated from each other in the draft, volunteer to become one of the five Nightmare squads. With their bodies forever altered to suit the needs of their mission, the three young mares join legions of ponies armed with powerful weapons to partake in a horrifying new breed of warfare - Equestria's first in over one thousand years.

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Heads up, folks. If you wouldn't mind leaving a comment alongside the thumbs-down, I'd appreciate it. This is my first foray into fan fiction and although it's a hobby I nonetheless wish to get better. :)

Got some FAQ's for you guys as well!

- Alternate universe in which the events of "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" did not occur. (As much as I loved it! :D)

- Numerical age tends to vary with headcanon, but the CMC here were just getting started with their adult lives when the draft went into effect.

- The war is pony v. pony, utilizing firearms and the Equestrian equivalent of a tank. The underlying headcanon is that ponies used firearms similar to muskets and tracked armored vehicles akin to our tanks in times of old, and what the enemy currently employs is essentially the natural progression of these technologies.

- There are no real-world weapons or equipment i.e. "Panzer IV," or "M16 assault rifle." Particularly acute details such as the caliber of weapons are also absent.

- Technology is based on that of WWI with some WWII elements. Firearms are primarily bolt-action.

- The "radio" spell matrix functions as what we know to be a radio, but is not identical.

- All four of a Night Mare's legs are permanently replaced by the augments.

- Night Mares are female. Stallions proved unable to properly animate the limbs.

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Hold up, now - fanart? You guys rock. Like, for real. Thanks a lot!

1. A great YouTube video coming from The_Pegasus_Box. Thanks, bud!
Check it out!

2. Click here for the collection on DArt.

3. https://derpibooru.org/740375?scope=scpeac921b191f688d04521575f31608785cbc3bbaa1
[img]https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/10/10/740375__safe_anthro_apple+bloom_gun_artist-colon-pusspuss_night+mares.png[/img]

The immortal Sonata Dusk once believed she would never run out of time. But a strange encounter on a quiet back road will show her how precious life's moments truly are.

For on this night, Sonata meets Death himself.

* * *

An homage to Lordi's song-story "The Riff."
Thanks to Reia Hope for proofreading.
"The Ballad of Nasty Joe" is owned by the author, though he can't imagine why anyone would steal it.
Japanese Translation, by Haru.
Reviews:
Seattle's Angels
The Last Roundup
Titanium Dragon
PresentPerfect
The Royal Guard

Discord's the only creature in Equestria who can recognize the human for what he is -- not the long-lost Seventh Element that never actually existed and couldn't have existed before the human arrived, but a meta-reality warper, an entity far more powerful than Discord with the power to warp the minds of all around him and the very rules of magic to make sure that he's always the Big Hero. And the role the human's assigned to Discord is the Villain to beat down or kill.

Pre-reform Discord's fine with being the villain. But on his own terms. Not dancing on some alien interloper's puppet strings.

Without friendship, or even allies, Discord's going to have to find a way to defeat a creature who can alter fate itself and who can even mind-control him. Or he may just end up worse than dead.

Art by Tenchi-Outsuno. Progress Bar at my writing journal.

Trigger warnings: Mind control (magically induced love, magically induced friendship, magically induced stupidity, Discord being Discord), noncon/dubcon (magically induced love, other forms of highly dubious consent), rape (female on male), violence/gore (mostly against Discord), literally everything in chapters 19-21, humans not being presented as unilaterally wonderful and superior to ponies and/or draconequui.

I am Cold, swirling snow that turns ponies against each other, searing ice that freezes them solid. I am Survivor, the one the Friendfyre spell didn't catch, an exception that proves an impossible rule. I am Fear, Frustration, Anger, Hatred, every emotion my Creator has ever felt. I am her Future. I am her Past.

I am Demon, and Clover the Clever is my Master.

Winner of Equestria Daily's Outside Insight Summer Fanfic Contest.

Featured in The Royal Canterlot Library on March 6th, 2015.