To a child, a dare is one of the most powerful known forces of compulsion, second only to a mother's command. A dare has the power to make a filly do things that they would never dream of doing normally. It has the power to make a foal do anything from mounting on a great quest, to eating a particularly nasty bug. Most of the time, the outcome is not so bright for the pony on the receiving end of the challenge.

Of course, sometimes those dares pan out in unexpected ways. Sunny Days never expected her dare to turn out in such a way that could leave an impression on her for a lifetime.

Neither did the Manticore.

A collaborative effort with FamousLastWords.

Ember expected to get a few admirers when she became the new dragonlord. Well, more than a few.

She didn't expect that a large number of them would be ponies that she had never even met.

And she really didn't expect them to write physically impossible stories about her and Spike.

She's got a lot of misconceptions to correct. More than she ever expected.

Applejack is 200 years old, making her middle aged for the long lived earth ponies. Since her friend Twilight mysteriously vanished 160 years ago she's done her best to build a new life, working with Celestia's new students and the new Elements of Harmony to defend Equestria in the modern world... Now Twilight is back, and she has no clue what to do.

Making matters worse, a monster of a stallion named Slice is carving his way through the city of Ponyville, stealing dangerous magical artifacts. Can AJ lead her new team of heroes to victory with her old leader staring over her shoulder and reminding her of all she's lost?

I've never been sure if I envied ponies for their cutie marks.
On one hand, it's awesome to have your main passion as a permanent magical tattoo, but it has got to be slightly frustrating to know that the meaning of your whole life can be represented by some dumb apples, a silver spoon or even a big ugly snail.
I appreciate not having the meaning of my life plastered all over my butt, anyway. I'm like a blank flank, whose special talent could be just about anything: playing piano, writing books, announcing, or even solving disappearance cases!
Really, I think what I like the most about cutie mark is how great of an excuse it is for peeping at some flank.
This amazing story is not a dissertation about playing music, writing or announcing.

A griffon is a creature that has the head of a bird, the hindquarters of a feline, and many of the character traits of both mixed in. Some of those traits show more obviously than others, especially one side more than the other.

And guess who, as Gallus's roommate, has to put up with them?

Cover art credit goes to Evergreen-Gemdust

Featured as of 3/13/2020

This story is a sequel to Daring DONE!

The princesses need to take a week off to argue about important issues.

Luckily, Twilight is there to rule Equestria while they're gone!

There's absolutely no way this can go wrong.

As it's a sequel to "Daring DONE!", Twilight Velvet is the writer of the Daring Do saga and our favorite Indiana Jones homage is still a fictional character. That's what the AU tag is about!
(yay featured)

Special thanks to my prereaders and proofreaders:

• Selbi
• DaRandomPony
• Chivalry
• PheerthaniteX
• Chaotic Note
• MissingLink
• Super Trampoline
• Outcast4Ever
• Abcron
• Bookworm S

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone here...

Audio reading courtesy of TheArchitect
Audio reading courtesy of joehighlord

As the centuries pass, cutie marks come and go. Some are common: the healing cross, the basic compass rose, the courier bag. Others are extinct: no more mercenary companies, no more mercenary marks. A few are incredibly scarce, coming along once a generation or less: the mark for luck falls into that category. A number only manifest when the call for them arrives: train tracks didn't appear until it was railroading time. But for the most part, ponies take their mark with its associated talent and magic as a blessing in their lives -- no matter what that mark turns out to be. And they accept it as they accept themselves.

Luna, in her first truly open palace session dealing with the public, is about to meet the exception: Joyous Release, a pony who wants nothing more than to be rid of her mark forever -- and every bit of the talent which comes with it.

But marks are permanent...

(This story takes place shortly after A Total Eclipse Of The Fun.)

Cover art by Harwick.

Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Pinkie should really start reading signs more often. Anti-Earth Pony meetings are no joke.

Echo is a high ranking changeling officer. The Canterlot invasion was going perfectly, and her battalion had personally defeated the Elements of Harmony. Suddenly, she finds herself far flung from Canterlot, crashing into the Everfree forest. Now she is faced with a difficult reality - her hive, the only family she's ever known, no longer exists, and she must adapt to life as a pony. What she finds out about herself, though, will surprise her.

Rated Teen for occasional suggestiveness and language, tagged gore for brief violence, particularly in later chapters.

Dark because later chapters get pretty ... well, dark.

---

Addendum 5/29/2018

This story is now, as of this addendum, five years old. It is getting more attention as I put out new chapters on the sequel.

I recognize that this story has problems, and that some of them by their nature carry over to the sequel; please remember that when I started writing this, I was not yet even old enough to legally drink in the US. A lot has happened and a lot has changed, and there are many things about this story I regret including, but which it is now too late to change. Some of those things I have simply done my best to ignore and make irrelevant, but some of them are errors from a 19 year old me that will haunt me until the sequel is finished.

In short, please be gentle.

"Unicorns have magic, Pegasi have the sky, and Earth ponies have the ground beneath their hooves. Though they are all different, they share a common trait amongst themselves. All of them have the ability to earn a cutie mark. So, where do I belong?"

Soapbox -- a donkey born into a pony family -- tries to understand where he fits in since he can't use magic, fly, have the strength of an earth pony, or earn a cutie mark.