Rainbow Dash usually had her head in the clouds, but she always thought she knew up from down. When an incredible revelation sends her life into a tailspin, she finds herself at the mercy of emotions she never thought she had, faced with hard questions and impossible choices.

Life is full of changes, but none of them are quite as disturbing as having a horn pop out of your skull…

Original Lauren Faust canon; non-alicorn Twilight, non-alicorn Cadance, no ascension. Diverges from the cartoon after season 3, with nods to later continuity wherever possible. Contains mature themes.

Overwhelmed by her new duties as a princess, a newly-crowned Twilight Sparkle seeks solace within the quiet confines of Canterlot Castle's royal archives, where she discovers a book she'd never seen before. Within its pages was a story about both Princess Celestia and Starswirl the Bearded, as well as a mare that Twilight had never heard of.

Details of their lives, their history, and their relationships puzzle, intrigue, and even worry Twilight. The more she read, the more curious she became and the more questions that arose. But there was only one question to which she truly sought the answer:

Who was Sunset Shimmer?

Life is pretty unpredictable for me, but that alone is the predictable part of it. Pretty early on, I learned that I should expect the unexpected, and enjoy the brief moments of peace when they were there. Such an outlook helped me early on to keep from going crazy with all of the stuff that's happened to us all.

As the years passed though, I found my own source of peace: my closest friends.

My best friends were always there for me, and I for them. We held each other up when we fell below the surface of the sea of life, and offered friendly smiles and listening ears to each other when we needed it most. Even with all the insanity we weathered over the years, we became closer in spite of it...or, perhaps because of it. In a world of hoarding dragons, I may be the only one that cherished a small group of ponies over gold or jewels.

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Rated T for use of alcohol, language of a sexually suggestive nature, and implied sexual acts.

Cover art provided by Zwagyzonk, used with permission.

Note: Ponies are considered adolescent/mature at a much younger age than humans (six and fourteen, respectively). I've made an oversight on this, and I believe this explanation will fix that. Also, this will be a Spike-harem fic, but as with all my other submissions, there is no clop; just a heads up.

Featured multiple times!

Magic is supposed to be controlled, released when the caster wants it to be and in the form dictated by the spell. To Twilight's glee, she succeeds in creating a spell to see a short distance into the future after many hours of research. The test doesn't exactly go as planned, but it works just in time to save a stallion's life. As she tries to reach out to a pony who she finds has nearly given up on life, she finds to her surprise, wonder, and concern that not all facets of magic are explainable, nor the workings of the heart - especially one that has been broken.

First story in my series. Currently undergoing a massive edit, as there were a lot of errors. Chapters 1-16 completed on the edit thus far. The endings are slightly un-canon, and that will be fixed by the edit, but until I get that up, take comfort in the fact that the shift has no bearing on the rest in the series, which currently follows the alternate path. Chapters 21-24 will likely be edited the most, as they were, admittedly, kind of rushed.

Oh, on a side note, I wrote this whole thing releasing a chapter a day as a personal challenge. Not my best piece, but the one that started them all. Ending one is blatant gary stu, I'll say it now. Art by askheroichamburger of DeviantArt

Project of C.S.N.P. (Creative Students, New Potions)

Name: Love Potion

Made By: Sunset Shimmer

School: Canterlot High

Principal: Principal Celestia

Description of The Potion: This potion makes love and can create true love in a girl and a boy.

Antidote: A true love kiss between the couple. (Note: It has to be on lips.)

Side Effects: Using the potion for a long time can cause love sickness and even if the potion gets out of body, it can make love of the other person stay in heart forever.

Ways to Heal the Side Effects: There isn't any way to stop the side effects but the best way of prevention is to get the potion out of the body before one month is passed from the first day of using.

Was This Potion Tested Before? ■Yes □No

Name of the People: Rainbow Dash, Soarin Skies, Twilight Sparkle, Flash Sentry.

Ingredients: Heart desire flower, Mistletoe, Magical rose petals, The moon sprinkles, Five feathers of a love bird.

How to use? Add string of the girl's hair to the potion. Then add boy's string of hair to a separate love potion. Let a heart appear inside of the liquid. Then give the potion with the girl's hair to the boy and the potion with the boy's hair to the girl. After drinking them, they'll fall in love.

NOTE: People in the story have wings and magic. Their magic comes out from the tip of their fingers.
It may doesn't have an EG tag but it's mostly the EG except from the Twilight from Equestria and wings and magic.
Coverart by: Moonlightprincess002
♡Happy (early) Valentine/Hearts And Hooves Day!♡

After years of being the runt of the litter (despite having no siblings), Spike finally comes into his own and starts to grow up and mature. The result is a unique bit of magic all his own, or so the theory goes: He awakens one morning to find words hanging overhead that call him [The Gamer], along with powers that let him 'live life as though it were a game'.

How he decides to handle all of this, and where things go from there? That would be a spoiler, and you all know how we feel about spoilers around here...

Frequently asked questions will be answered from time to time, and those answers linked here for the curious:
The First FAQ

One day a man wakes up in a pony's bed. For the next several days the two of them try to discover why such a thing happened.

They don't do a very good job of figuring anything out but they do cuddle a lot.

Gilda only wanted the humble things in life. Cheap rent, copious bits, the respect of her peers, the occasional juicy field-mouse.

Being captured by the Equestrians and dragooned into the Territorials wasn't quite what she'd dreamed of, but at least the rent was free.

And the rats were nice and plump.

Yaks are one of the most durable sapient species on the planet, a fact in which they take pride.  They have colonized mountains towering beyond the reach of even dragons’ wings. They smash the toughest objects the mountains have to offer for fun.  They don’t settle for second place.

Naturally, they didn’t take it lightly when they heard of Equestria’s plans to explore beyond the sky.

Rocket scientists beware: Heresy dwells within.

My thanks to Bugsydor and Akouma for some idea-bouncing and proofreading. Similarly, big thanks to Rocket Lawn Chair for making an awesome cover. Turns out, there's not a lot out there that includes yaks and rocket science.

My entry for FanOfMostEverything's Imposing Sovereigns II contest under The New: Prince Rutherford.

Now with a French translation! (Credit: Acylius)

Starlight Glimmer's attempts to stop the Rainboom pulled Twilight Sparkle into many possible timestreams.

In one, Rarity and Rainbow Dash survived Nightmare Moon's victory over the forces of light, eventually attaining positions of prominence and comfort in the Nightmare's service. But when the unexpected visit of an Alicorn and Dragon sheds light on a growing conspiracy against the wicked mistress of the night, Rarity and Rainbow Dash may yet be inspired to risk what they have gained to join the fight for a better world.

Yet darkness lingers even in the hearts of some who would oppose the Nightmare, and not all agree on what a better world would look like...

This story would not have been possible without the indescribably vast help and unwavering support of Moosetasm, the pre-reading assistance of I-A-M and Waxworks, as well as the editing prowess of OnionPie and Pascoite! Cover by Novel Idea, using Rarity by miracle32 and background by Drakizora! Featured on Equestria Daily 17Jul.2016! Featured on FimFiction 2Feb.2017 and many times thereafter!