Something causes you to wake up in the middle of the night. You're groggy, you need to use the bathroom, and you really, really want a glass of water. On your way to the kitchen, you notice that your wife is still awake.

You're not surprised.

Adagio is an adult in this story.

Great and Powerful Trixie lands the performance opportunity of a lifetime. A kingdom and all its riches are hers - as long as her audience doesn't kill her first.

An entry for the 2024 May Pairings contest.

While visiting the grand city of Manhatten for work Adagio meets a shy city mouse that keeps distracting her.

This short story was made for the May Pairings 2024 Contest.

This story is a sequel to Tranquility

The most enigmatic of monsters will not carry the ugly faces of any beast, but your neighbor’s kindness in excess. A young draconequus named Discord has yet to learn this, and mortals may never do so. He learns this when he extends the generosity only a god can offer to an ailing mortal mare.

Amidst all this turmoil, the first lamia comes into being — and with them, all the chaos their creation was inevitably going to bring.

Written for Mother's Day. Cover art edit provided by Sunlight Taiga. To find the NSFW version, return to the prequel and select it in the sequel section. Site rules permit versions of the same story with different ratings to exist. Contribute to the TVTropes page!

With Maud settling down in Ponyville, Marble studying in the Crystal Empire, and her parents finally deciding to retire, Pinkie Pie wonders if Limestone is going to be okay running the Pie Family Farm all by herself. She's never done well on her own, and her cold demeanor probably isn't going to get her a boyfriend anytime soon.

Luckily, she knows an equally lonely human who is perfect for the job!

A princess and her nine companions are picked off one-by-one after stumbling into the hunting grounds of an ancient evil, in a mysterious forest of monsters. 

This story is a sequel to Hinterlands

Two years ago, bounty hunter Bitterroot turned a lich and her necromancer apprentice over to the authorities. Now, that apprentice, Amanita, has been released on good behavior. She has no more interest in necromancy. In fact, she asked Bitterroot to turn her in all those moons ago and helped capture her master. With nowhere for Amanita to go, Bitterroot takes her in until she can get her hooves under herself.

But all isn’t well in Canterlot. A killer is stalking the streets, striking with impunity and leaving no trace. The Royal Guard is befuddled. Bitterroot’s investigations have yielded nothing. And night is turning into a time of dread. Something needs to be done. If only the dead could speak. If only there was a moral necromancer around.

Amanita doesn’t want to admit it, but the part of her past she hates the most might be the most useful part right now. Just because ponies are dying doesn’t mean they need to stay that way. What she buried needs to be dug up again.

Her demons are rearing their ugly heads. It’s time to face them.

Reading the preceding story will provide some context for this, but isn't required. Cover art is modified from this image. Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

This story is a sequel to Urban Wilds

Amanita. Quiet. Awkwardly self-conscious. Necromancer. Reformed. Newly hired by the Royal Guard and the apple of its eye. How could she not be? She’s a peerless expert when it comes to necromancy. But only because she’s the only pony with any knowledge of necromancy beyond the basics, she tells herself. She needs to be more than just a static source of knowledge; she also needs to apply that knowledge, to expand her mind. She can’t live her whole life in a lab. She needs experience out in the field.

Which is how she finds herself assigned to a ley purification team. There’s something wrong with a ley line. It’s not immediately dangerous, but if left alone, it could corrupt the land, killing crops and creating monsters. Amanita is part of a small crew that will head to the line’s source, the small mining town of Tratonmane, to identify and correct the problem. Fortunately, ley purification is a well-known science. It’ll be easy.

At least, that’s the idea. Far to the north, swathed in frost and snow, walled in by vertiginous mountains, Tratonmane is as isolated as can be. Miners and subsistence farmers eke out a living in what little land they have. Ravenous wolves stalk the forest at its border. Whispers abound at the team’s arrival. Tratonmane has existed outside the Crown’s influence for centuries and many of the townsfolk don’t appreciate it sticking its nose in now. Especially since no town lasts for that long without getting a few skeletons in its closets. Amanita and her team will have to navigate hostile environments — personal and terrestrial alike — if they want to get to the bottom of this.

For if they don’t, heads will roll. Perhaps literally.

Nothing a necromancer can’t fix.

Updates TuThS. Reading earlier stories will provide some context for this, but isn't required. Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

Beyond Equestria, the lands to the north are hostile and unforgiving. Ponies eke out a subsistence in uncontrollable weather, separated by mile after frigid mile of snow and mountains. A land where only the hardiest survive is no place for civilization.

Yet civilization encroaches from time to time. When a colossal bounty is placed on the head of a unicorn deep in the arts of necromancy, a motley crew of bounty hunters assembles and gives chase. It’s too good a chance to pass up. They’ll bring her to justice, no matter what stands in their way. Not her dark magic. Not the inhospitable environment.

And certainly not each other.

Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

The second week of Anon's impromptu displacement had gone reasonably well. The quaint folk of Ponyville have taken him in as well they could, considering his origins and uncommon physique. The local Goddess' of day and night bequeathed him a place to call his own (a bit of a fixer-upper, but he'll manage), and even granted him citizenship!

So why does he feel so conflicted? As the young man struggles to get his emotions under control, said horse Goddess butts in to keep him company.

He really doesn't mind.