(8/24/2020 update - I commissioned new cover art for the story from https://twitter.com/Marstruc ! I've wanted an image like this for a long time and finally got it.)

Applejack has tried everything she can think of to turn things around at her family farm, but every month brings disappointing sales and further expenses. She feels the weight of responsibility for the farm and its imminent failure bearing down on her harder every day, and every failed attempt to fix things drives her deeper into depression.

Old habits kick in, and friends' searching questions are deflected, sidestepped, and eventually even answered with outright lies.

Sweet Apple Acres, the Apple family, and even the Elements of Harmony are all in greater danger than all but one mare knows, or will admit.

(Approved by Twilight's Library once upon a time.)

Twilight Sparkle has been abandoned.

After an expedition into the badlands is torn to tatters by an unprecedented monster attack, Twilight finds herself stranded in a hostile environment with no safe way back home. With no supplies and no survival training, It all seems hopeless for the scholarly unicorn until she is discovered by a type of creature she has never seen before. A changeling named Thorax, a native of the badlands.

With Thorax's knowledge of the environment, he is Twilight's best chance of getting home safely. And by that same token, perhaps Twilight is the best chance the timid, pacifistic drone has of discovering something he has lived his entire life without.

Set well before the Season 2 Finale.

Cover art was drawn by me.

This is a spiritual successor to The Bug in The Herd, and The Bug in The Basement.

Edited by Mister Hypothetical.

Spike led Thorax into the throne room of the Crystal Castle confident he could convince the others that the changeling could be trusted. That he meant no harm, and instead wanted to be an ally and live peacefully with them. That he could make them see Thorax for what he really was. That they could befriend the changeling and accept him as one of their own.

They didn't.

And consequences followed.

SPOILERS IN COMMENTS!
First featured on 11/12/2016. -- Now with a TV Tropes page. -- Review by Arcanum Phantasy -- Review by PaulAsaran

On Flurry Heart's twelfth birthday, Cadance tells her daughter she will never die.

Haunted by the loneliness of her young immortality, Flurry Heart finds unexpected solace in the only other pony who could possibly understand her — the filly preserved for eternity within the Gardens of Canterlot.

Flurry could not have forseen that an apparition of that filly would appear before her, and only her.

Something brought them together. Flurry intends to uncover what.

Being trapped in stone doesn't give a little filly much to do. She has a lot of anger and regrets over her situation, but the one thing she misses the most was the love and comfort of her first, and perhaps only, friend.

This story is posted for Short Story Cozy Glow contest of 2020.

Additional Genre Tags: Slice of Life, Drama, Tragedy,

Note: as of 7/15/2021, there is now a reading by a youtube named Anthropomorphic Nerd who read this story >here<. Go check it out and give him some love if you're interested.

Sunset has decided to return home... wherever that may be.

The orphanage where she was left?

The castle where the princess had emotionally abandoned her?

She walks the foreign but familiar world, hoping to find something to make her life worthwhile.

Will she find somewhere, or someone, to call home?

[Cover by Mirrored Sea]

Late one night, Twilight has finished her latest spell. Nothing could go wrong testing it once to make sure it's stable, right?

She finds out how having a second horn around could quite literally save her life.

Set sometime after Twi got her castle, but before Starlight came about as Twilight's student Only because I completely forgot about her until like the very end and it wasn't going to be easy to slip her in, so... Sorry Glimglam fans.

Proofread/Preread by Jkinsley and CDR

Celestia discovers a lingering trace of Nightmare Moon's soul still lodged in Twilight's mind—a survivor of the lingering effects of the Element's magic.

Faced with the threat of gradually losing her friend to Nightmare Moon's evil influence, Celestia realizes the only way to save Twilight is to let the storm of dark magic take its course all at once.

And yet, as Nightmare Moon's corrupting magic tears away at Twilight's forgiveness and understanding, and Twilight begins dredging up unexpressed doubts once kept controlled, Celestia must face a lifetime of confrontation her student has kept covered.

It is going to be a long night for both alicorns.

This story was written for the Tenth Bimonthly Twilestia Contest. It placed somewhere.

The trauma of having his mind twisted and controlled before his wedding had a larger effect on Shining Armor than he first thought.

After an innocent conversation, Shining Armor is feeling uneasy about his wife’s special talent and even more worried about something he learns regarding Princess Celestia. However, luckily for him his sister is one of the most talented ponies in Equestria.

This story is a sequel to Dragonshyness

Four years ago, Fluttershy reached out hoping to make a friend, and instead was abused by a stranger. In response, she withdrew into herself, shutting out the rest of the world. Now she has some friends, but she still fears most strangers, because she never understood what happened to her when she was a teenager. She wishes she could be less afraid of other Ponies, but how can she when she knows that she was rejected for her own lack of merit?

Maybe she'll kill herself. That would be terrible.

Or maybe, with a little help from Rarity, something entirely different will happen.

This takes place around the 1st of October, YOH 1500 and is canon to the Shadow Wars, being part of the Flutterarc. It may also be considered an unofficial sequel to Bad Horse's excellent (and horribly logical) Fluttershy's Night Out, which in this timeline may be assumed to have taken place in YOH 1496. Fluttershy was 16 then, and is 20 now.

In connection to the main TV series, this would be taking place between the start and the end of "Fall Weather Friends" (which is one of the reasons why Rarity is the friend in whom Fluttershy chooses to confide, as Rainbow Dash is in training). It would take place before "Call of the Cutie," which in turn takes place before Fluttershy Is Free.

(Yes, I flipped the order of "Fall Weather Friends" and "Winter Wrap-Up" -- if I didn't, I'd have to assume that the first three seasons covered 5, instead of 4 years).

Its direct sequel in the Flutterarc is Fluttershy Is Free.

Now has its own TV Tropes page!