Ponyville faced an ordinary day, but then night came, and with it a massive gateway into another world. It closes before any action can be taken, but now the Mane Six and Canterlot nobility are tasked with finding out what they can about the gateway. Who created it? Where did it lead to?

And most importantly, did anything come through?

Takes place after Season 2
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Shattered Skies has lived quite some time. He had done well for himself over the past few thousand years; staying out of the public eye and remaining generally uninvolved from pony society while he tended his forests.

Who wouldn't want that, right?

His job came with excellent security and fringe benefits, but after he was betrayed by a princess he trusted, all he wants to do is to live a normal life even if the world tells him otherwise.

Oc disclaimer: The original characters that appear in the story that are not my own have been obtained from the original owners via written permission.

One lonely night, Vinyl decides to use her old two-way radio to relieve the tedium. In doing so, she stumbles upon the voice of 'Adi,' who has a story so crazy Vinyl isn't willing to believe it.

But Adi is desperate, so desperate that Vinyl knows something really is wrong. Can her words help Adi overcome whatever is really happening? Even if she can instill hope in this stranger, is hope worth anything against seemingly insurmountable odds?

All Vinyl can do is sit before her radio and talk. Perhaps it will be enough.

Thanks to Mercury Gilado and Starlight Nova for pre-reading and editing.

Now featured on Equestria Daily!

Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio! It came as quite the surprise.

Cover Art Credit: HolyShmow

A thousand years ago in Equestria, Luna's frustration and desperation has been building for years and years as her social and political isolation grows, but just before Luna's jealousy and resentment can turn into murderous hatred against her sister, a new event triggars Luna's mental collapse and pushes her over the edge. When Luna by circumstance finds herself alone in Celestia's room she reads her sister's diary out of curiosity and discovers all of the disparaging criticism that Celestia has leveled at her over the years about how much of a nuisance Luna has been to her, but has been too polite to say directly to Luna's face.

Luna and Celestia had always supported and stuck with each other all their lives. Even when the common-ponies critisism and shunning of her was at its worst, the knowledge that her sister loved her kept Luna going. The realization that nopony, not even her own sister valued her or thought she was fit for the throne completely shattered whatever remained of her fragile psyche.

And so Luna just gave up...

She gave in...

If no one wanted her there...

Then she wouldn't stay there...

She would leave.

I like to think of the Company as an island of order and sanity in a sea of chaos, selfishness and irrationality. My fellow soldiers tell me I'm a damn foal, and an idealist, and I white-wash the mercenaries of the Black Company in ways that doesn't serve either the Company or them. But I've been given the role of Annalist, in the absence of anyone better-suited and properly lettered, so until they take the Annals away from me, I'm going to write them as I see fit. The Company has been my home since it forcefully recruited me from my unending apprenticeship, and I've seen more interesting medicine in the years since then than a hundred apothecaries, a dozen chirurgeons, or three other doctors with, pfft, "degrees". Most of it screaming for its mama and bleeding out on my surgery table.

They call me Sawbones, and this is the story of the last of the Black Companies.