Sheriff Silverstar presides over a town that is the envy of a great portion of Equestria. Despite being a dusty and rural frontier town it is remarkably cosmopolitan in many ways. Aside from the pony inhabitants the buffalo territory lies not far away and they freely populate the town, and with a very good set of mines Diamond Dogs have begun to ply their trades. The population is happy, but Silverstar is not. He tries to be, but it never lasts.

Silverstar is wed to a mare whose contempt for other species gets no disguise inside the house, and sends him into the kind and tender embrace of buffalo cow Cactus Blossom, the chanteuse at The Salt Block. He has been out with her, and enjoys it. But such happiness cannot last in that form. He must pursue real and lasting peace.

(Yes, you are not mistaken. The story title and the chapter titles are named for the works of Garth Brooks. Mock all you want but I genuinely enjoy his music. Besides, for a western setting like this a Country music reference seems proper.)

While visiting Canterlot with Limestone, Marble runs into an energetic pony who could match her twin in cheerfulness. And she's cute. And wants to talk to her. And cute.

Naturally, Marble explodes from shyness.

Pre-read by: Timaeus
Ch. 1 Audio Reading by TheCaptainSand - Scarlett Blade

When Scootaloo moves to Ponyville, she meets a certain cyan pegasus who becomes her idol. Things go well until a pivotal event causes her hopes and dreams to come crashing down around her. Broken and betrayed, Scootaloo must learn to accept her reality and embrace her inner strength with the help of her father and two best friends.

[Now with a super awesome reading by Neighrator Pony.]
[This story's sequel can be found here.]

Equestria is a land of rainbows and pastel-coloured ponies, where friendship is a tangible force and villians are redeemed as often as they are defeated.

It is truly a land of magic, but even more than that, it is a land of stories, from the mundane anecdote between friends to the world-spanning epic. And every story has a happy ending.

But a happy ending doesn't always mean a happy beginning, and it certainly doesn't mean a happy middle. Celestia has manipulated Equestria for over a thousand years to ensure that the dark times are as short and as painless as possible - though doing so may mean breaking every one of the tenets of harmony she preaches.

When faced with a choice between seeing Equestria fall to darkness with the promise of salvation, or fighting to stop the catastrophe by sacrificing the guarantee of a happy ending, Celestia holds the fate of her little ponies in her hooves as never before.

A behind-the-scenes look at Celestia and Luna's actions throughout Season Three.

Fine's life is far from easy. He doesn't know what his next meal will be or where he'll be sleeping on any given night. Then there's the gruesome murders. He never wanted to be what he is, but he tries to take life one kill at a time. Some day he might even be able to put the weapon down for good.

Having it taken from him by a homeless foal is not what he had in mind.

Fine has discovered a filly who stands at a precipice. With one wrong step, she could lead the same kind of life he does. Fine will do anything to keep her from walking that path. He knows what it's like to be a monster. He has a chance to do the right thing, and he won't let it slip through his hooves.

My thanks to Cerulean Voice for taking time out of his busy schedule to edit this.

The No Heroes Series
Chronological from Top to Bottom:
Shadow Pony
Reddux the Tyrant
No Heroes Part I - The Roster
No Heroes Part II - The Journey Home
Lightning's Bolt
No Heroes Part III - For Dreams
No Heroes Part IV - The Crystal Empress
No Heroes: Beyond the Everfree
No Heroes: Life of Pie
No Heroes: Hot Chocolate at the Isekai
To My Uncle

The Fleur-Verse
Chronologically from Top to Bottom:
Shadow Pony
Reddux the Tyrant
No Heroes Part I - The Roster
No Heroes Part II - The Journey Home
Lightning's Bolt
The Weed
The Challenge of Fleur
Ordinary World
A Challenge for Fleur
Sweet to Eat: Tales of Nightmare Night

To be talented in magic is a rare gift, rarer still in a pegasus. For Featherfall, each spell comes at a cost: one of her precious feathers.

Part of Canterlot's elite Magical Crimes Unit, Featherfall struggles to solve the disappearances of two well-liked mares and the brutal murder of a renowned candle-maker, burned alive in his own shop. But, as the facts of the case emerge, Featherfall finds her own family implicated for the grisly crime and unearths hints of a far greater horror.

Sunset Shimmer had one friend before the events of Equestria Girls, a diary. She abandoned the book in her spiral into darkness but now, with a chance of redemption, she turns back to her old friend for help. Does writing in her diary help her recover her life? Will she be able to overcome her memories, feelings, and school bullies to make deep connections with her new friends? It's all in her diary, all you have to do is read it.

This story is an epistolary, written entirely from the perspective of Sunset Shimmer making diary entries. For those of you unfamiliar with this format it means you are getting both the story as she is writing it as well as the emotions and thoughts she has while reviewing the events she is writing about. Half the story is how and why she writes what she writes.

Pre-read by alt-tap, asylum1388, Monanniverse, and totallynotabrony
Edited by Nopony_Important

A special thank you to EQD Pre-reader 63.546. When I submitted this story to EQD he saw it as close enough to post that he took extra time to help me touch up the story. As it turns out, he helped me 3-4 years ago on the ponychan boards when I first drafted Excessive Worry. It literally took me years to get good enough to make good on his notes and now it's been featured by groups such as the Seattle's Angels.

Art by Elsia-pony

(This story is sci-fi, and somewhat different to regular FIM stories.)
Aneki's world was small. It was spherical, and it only took a day to gallop from one side to the other. She had been taught nothing existed outside the sphere, but she wasn't so sure about that. Perhaps her world was a bottle, a container in which ponies had fled to live. A time would come when she gained the opportunity to investigate these things first hoof, if she lived that long.

Fluttershy has just successfully reformed Discord, but another evil lurks in the shadows. Princesses Celestia and Luna has called upon the Mane Six to team up with Discord in the battle of their lives against a terrible darkness spreading from the south. Discord is more than reluctant to go, and Fluttershy takes it on herself to convince him to join them on their quest. She soon finds out about Discord's dark and tortured past, while forming a romantic relationship with him. Will she be able to save Equestria and her new found friend, or will she have to sacrifice one for the other?
Cover Art Made by Chelis, fimfiction account -> http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Chelis
Original Art done by norang94, deviantArt account -> http://norang94.deviantart.com/

Stress levels were already high, with Twilight directing her first royal Hearth's Warming pageant and unexpected snowstorms escaping the Everfree. Then the changeling army arrived.

Now, with Queen Chrysalis holding Ponyville hostage and the clock ticking on suspiciously pointless negotiations, it's up to Rarity to match wits with the invaders and save the holiday. However, as she digs ever deeper into the queen's tangled plot, what she learns could force her to choose between her friendships and her conscience.

Off-season note: This is a Hearth's Warming story like Die Hard is a Christmas movie (but with espionage instead of explosions). Don't skip it just because the holiday's over.

Critical praise:

"A high-tension thriller where nothing is what it seems." — Titanium Dragon (rating: "Highly Recommended")

"An entertaining ride from start to finish … watching all the pieces fall into place is fantastic." — Present Perfect (rating: "Highly Recommended")

"Props to horizon for an intricate web of deception. Most writers have difficulty with crafting mysteries … this one, however, had me completely fooled from beginning to end." — PaulAsaran (rating: "Why Haven't You Read This Yet?")

"It’s a rare mystery and thriller that can keep things tense and make the mystery actually tough to guess as you go along, while still feeling like a natural conclusion. ... The end result of layers unveiled and red herrings contradicted makes it sing." — Ghost Mike (rating: "Really Good")

Second-place winner in the "Behind Closed Doors" December writeoff, now expanded and revised! Featured on EqD! Rated "Recommended" by MLPmatthewl419!

Big thanks to Titanium Dragon for post-Writeoff editing assistance.

Comments contain spoilers!