In the distant past, several years after Luna's Banishment, political instability and a widespread power struggle leads to dark times in Equestria. When two regiments of Luna's own nightguard rise up against the Solar Crown, Celestia is forced to do what she must for the good of her country.

This story is a sequel to The Blue Mage

When Apple Bloom, Daring Do, and Trixie discovered an alicorn prison dating back to the time of the alicorn purge, they were shocked to find it held two seemingly innocent alicorn fillies. Leaving them with Twilight, Spike revealed that they weren’t just any alicorn fillies; they were the daughters of the most dangerous alicorn to ever live. Now they must find their way in a world far different from the one they knew.

Meanwhile Twilight, with the help of Daring Do, begins checking on the remaining alicorn prisons that are hidden throughout the land, both within Equestria and beyond.

This story follows directly after The Blue Mage, and has a lot to do with the Alicorn Imperium and the Alicorn Purge that was introduced in Child of Misery, so reading both will be necessary for this story.

While renovating her home, Sunny Starscout stumbles upon a hidden letter from her father atop an old worn book.

Now with an audio version!

Arcane Word has an unusual profession among Equestrian ponies: a necromancer. After a lifetime of creating characters and telling stories, she's in the perfect position to provide relief to first-generation ponies with holes in their family. For every pony unwilling to ask for Celestia's help to fill in the gaps, she is the perfect pony—she even lives in the abandoned city of Wintercrest, surrounded by appropriately spooky decor. The authenticity of her results were always secondary to the satisfaction they produced.

At least until a particularly troublesome client arrived, flush with resources from Equestria Online's distant borders and megastructure expansion. What would it take for Equestria to bring a pony back from the dead? What about everypony who had ever lived?

Arcane Word could never turn down such a tempting job. The impossibility of the task was only ever a minor setback.

Updates Daily

This story was written for the print anthology of Friendship is Optimal stories I'm currently publishing. Every time I make a print book, I like to include something that has never been published before, this is it. If you'd like to get a copy of the book for yourself, you can order it here: https://igg.me/at/recursive-iterations

Thanks to Bitera and Sparktail for editing. Zutcha did the cover.

Leaving home meant losing many of Orson's old friends, separated by time and distance. But they weren't willing to give up one thing: their old tabletop game. After trying and rejecting each of the online tools for roleplaying games, they stumbled on a novel solution: Equestria Online.

The game was unlike everything else on the market, an entire procedural generated world ran by a mysterious curator artificial intelligence. But Orson and the others didn't care about any of that--they just needed somewhere with a game table and some dice. The AI happily obliged, and soon they transitioned all their games to E.O. Equestria Online had its own host of benefits, bringing the GM's images to realistic life before their eyes, and even letting them visit and interact with the characters between sessions.

That was only the beginning...

A Friendship is Optimal story. I suggest any readers who are unfamiliar with that universe read the Original first, or FiO: Futile Resistance before reading this one. None of my other optimalverse stories are required to understand this one.

Written as a Patreon reward for Sparktail, though we stole the idea from Silver Wing.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail, cover by Zutcha.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

Uplifting an entire species from a biological existence to a fully digital one is never straightforward, even for a incomprehensible superintelligence like CelestAI. Humans come in many variations, with a wide spectrum of desires, values, and needs. A statistically significant majority respond to standard methods. But there are always outliers that require a personal touch.

An anthology of optimalverse flash fiction. Reading the original or my own first take on the universe is suggested before reading this one.

This story was created to hold the oneshot commissions I received as part of printing my hardcover Optimalverse anthology. But I've always wanted a place to hold short stories in this world, since I've had plenty of little ideas that wouldn't make it as novellas or novels of their own.

Now that I have this thing, I'll probably add new chapters here and there. Even so, it has no regular update schedule, and will grow whenever I have something fun to toss in here.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha

Twilight Sparkle was used to a lot of strange things. So when she pursued the strange unicorn who had stolen her crown through a portal, she thought she could handle whatever came her way. Unfortunately for her, she finds herself involved in a war far greater then she could have imagined. Thankfully, she's got a cute boy to help her survive. Fifth war/EQG 1 mixup.

Cover art: by Alex-kellar

Spike takes care of Twilight the best he can. She's sick, but he knows she'll get better and everything will get back to normal. But first, he needs to feed her.

Thanks to my editors Cerulean Voice and Soundslikeponies for all their wonderful help!

For many long years, Twilight Sparkle worked to try to reform Cozy Glow. She'd be released from her stone prison periodically for a new reformation attempt, and she'd inevitably end up trying to conquer Equestria again. Being turned into a statue became a regular habit for her over the years. There were always more chances to conquer Equestria, always another attempt to reform her, and she wasn't aware of the passage of time each period she was committed to her prison.

Until one day, she was released again—only to find no one was there.

Cover Art by Shaslan

It was a major shake-up for most ponies: the loss of magic from Equestria. But for Cozy Glow, it just meant swapping her enchanted stone prison for a normal ball-and-chain one. Besides, that was ten years ago. What does she care of the humbled world outside? Or that it just delivered her an uppity new cellmate?

Luster Dawn cares. A lot. It's why she's here.

(Takes place between The Last Problem and Gen 5. AU Tag because these events are probably gonna get invalidated by canon someday.)

Second place winner of the 3rd Annual Cozy Glow Short Story Contest, double-dipping prompts with "Cozy's got a secret!" and "Cozy makes an unusual friend."