If Twilight knows anything, which she does, it's that the perfect date requires the perfect list.

Rarity, however, seems to have a different idea.

Dedicated to lilfunkman, who also drew the cover art

Twilight didn’t know what to say. How easy it sounded, to just not think about things that hurt, but thoughts were all she had.

Thoughts were the only thing that were hers, for better or worse.

Special thanks to lilfunkman for the cover art and for generally being the best support I could ask for.

All Mayor Mare wants is for everything to go perfectly. Her death is no exception.

Unsubmitted entry into EFNW's 2019 Iron Author contest.

Once upon a time, everypony spoke the same language.

Then came Discord, and everything changed. Was it a malicious prank? Boredom? An attempt to teach everypony a lesson? We can't ask him, because he's gone, and who knows when he'll be back.

If language is the glue that holds society together, what happens when it turns to sand?

Winner of the October Writeoff competition, "Illusion of Choice."

You remember Canterlot. You remember the taste of victory. Across a thousand years and a hundred lives, it was the greatest joy you had ever felt.

And then, in a flash of heat and unbearable light, it ended.

Now you are alone. The rest of your kind are dead or scattered, and you cannot hear their thoughts.

There is a void inside you. A gnawing, endless hunger you cannot escape. It is killing you.

You need love to survive, but there is none of that here. Not for you. You can only steal it from them, these ponies for whom we are hungry.

[My entry in and winner of the "Most Dangerous Game" contest."]

There is a village where everypony can be the same.

You may have read some nasty things about it. Rumors of stolen cutie marks and power-mad unicorns. Tall tales about forced smiles and frightened glances.

It's all lies. All except the part about us wanting to escape. That's true.

It's why we came here in the first place.

Winner of the May Writeoff Event.

After a harrowing and dangerous quest, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have recovered Excelsior's Ecstatic Codex from an evil zebra cult intent on ending the world. The Codex, one of the greatest works of dark magic ever forged, carries within its pages a limitless collection of vile, twisted spells, all specially devised for anypony who opens the cover.

What do you do with a book of dark magic? If you're Twilight Sparkle, you put it in your library. Because that's where books go.

After all, books are for everypony.

What if pony princesses were actually highly social carnivores?

What if a National Geographic team began following them around to film a documentary?

What if nopony saw anything unusual about this?

A metaphor about growing up. Or possibly a metaphor about living in a surveillance society. Or maybe just a very, very weird idea that needed to become a story.

Twilight Sparkle is a happy pony. With the help of her friends she defeated Tirek. She has a shiny new castle, the kingdom is safe, and she knows the reason behind her ascension. What more could a young princess want?

She is happy, she tells herself as she digs through the ruins of her home. She is so happy she can barely smell the ashes any more.

But in those ashes she finds something unexpected: a small porcelain vase, and with it a decade's worth of unspoken questions. A mystery hiding beneath her hooves, waiting to be put to rest.

Winner of the November Writeoff event.

Why do ponies dream? Why do we all seem to dream the same dreams?

What if we started to dream new things?

Discord said he wanted to make our dreams more interesting. Add some spice to our boring nocturnal lives. Nothing dangerous – just a bit of excitement to talk about in the mornings.

"Stop worrying so much, Twilight Sparkle," he said. "After all, dreams never hurt anypony."

How I wish he’d been right.

Gold Medalist in the Under the Sun Writeoff Event.

Now with Russian translation, courtesy of Cloud Ring! https://darkpony.space/the-archetypist-1/