Pick a card.
Those are the words every pony hears when they enter the booth. They can be in the tent for hours or for days, but no pony has ever left the lair of the Card Master unchanged. After many years of rumors and failed dreams, the greatest hero in Equestria's history has accepted the challenge.

Now, the world stands in awe as the Princess of the Sun visits the Trader's Exchange, and enters the dark grasp of the Card Master's domain.

Continue the adventure in the sequel, "Cards of Legacy!"

No one expected his return, least of all the Princess of Friendship, who had the utmost faith in her old mentor. He had been beaten. The Card Master's games had lost all power with that knowledge, and the Princess maintained her faith that she could handle anything the Card Master drew from his deck.

Princess, don't be so dull. Pick a card.

There was only one. This was not the same game. This was not the adventure story to entertain, or the endless wave of monsters to conquer. This was not a blood stained board of action. This was personal, and it was a challenge.

(Part Two of the Card Trilogy. Check out the first part in Cards of Prophecy.)

Pick a card.

What do you see, when you look into the cards. Stories? Lessons?

We stand at the edge of an era, Princess.

Look deeper into reality and you will find our truths and knowledge are not what we think it to be. How do we know things? Why are we here? The purpose of life and death and cards are always questioned.

Princess, I want to take you there, to where we find meaning. I want to take you to a place where life is vibrant and death is a gateway. It's always a gateway, path, portal, or doorway. All stories have change, and with change they are loved.

How will you change? How will you change?

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Additional categories
+Contemplative, +Alternate Universe(s)?

Book 1 Cards of Prophecy
Book 2 Cards of Legacy
Optional Reading Broken

I don't know what happened. I don't know why. But I see it. I see it again and again. The sounds are calling me. No. They tell me to run. Sounds are everywhere and I do not know.

So confused, but it's okay. That's what I am told. I am naughty because I don't listen, and it's not okay. I see it's not okay. Nothing is okay. That's what I am told.

Once done with the Card Master's wishes she got her world back, her world stolen by his games and the Princess with whom she shared a name. No more loops, no more looking at her family knowing what's to come.

With her children grown up, each taking on lives of their own as monster hunters, her pleasant life of farms and vineyards and orchards seems duller by the day. That is, of course, until the war, across all of Equestria's kingdoms, breaks out.

Driven out of the orchard she earned to live in by the High Mountain Kingdom, there is nothing but the road. War and chaos and corpses let monsters thrive, and where there are monsters, there will always be hunters.

Whatever is to come, Fiora de Battaille will stand for the life she fought to get back.

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Author's note:
This story takes place after the Card Master Trilogy, following the continued life of one of the characters in the trilogy. However, the time and story is specifically designed to be independent from the original trilogy.
The only details of significance are this: Fiora de Battaille is an "alternate" version of canonical Twilight Sparkle, who, in the events of the Card Master Trilogy, was raised from young as a monster hunter. Non-earth ponies are infertile mutants, with the exception of Fiora, who has started the only line of fertile mutants with a pony as the father, who has long since been deceased.