To Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, it is a simple surprise visit to Canterlot. To the ponies of the Equestrian Civil Service, it is twenty-four hours of chaos, politics, weaponized dessert, politics, underhooved manipulation of media, politics, and things batrachian and tentacular. Who said bureaucracy isn't exciting?

==Originally written Fall 2011== Equestria Daily Post==
After a long day of ruling Equestria, the Royal Sisters need a chance to unwind. Luna's solution is a few glasses of her once famous Moonshine, a drink distilled from moonlight. Celestia has been sober for a thousand years, but the temptation to have "just one" glass proves too great. Yet, when that one glass turns into several, it's Twilight who will have to deal with the princesses when they’re drunk off their flanks.

This story is a sequel to Past Sins

Side-story to Past Sins - Slowly, the wounds inflicted by Nightmare Moon's reign heal. Ponyville is being reconstructed, and the last refugees are leaving the castle. Nyx is with Twilight. Celestia and Luna rule Equestria and guide the sun and moon once more. Everything is as it should be.

But some things are never washed away. These are the things that remain to remind us of the past. They remind us of the good times we've had with friends and family. They never let us forget the mistakes we've made. Everyone has them. Twilight has them. Nyx has them.

And, on occasion, when you share your scars, your photos, and your trinkets with another, they just might share theirs in return.

There is a Party that is every party. One day, it wanted a friend.

*The Pinkie Pie vector for the image was originally done by DrDraze. The main body of the picture is M. C. Escher's Print Gallery*

“I will give you the power to not be remembered for the next 24 hours. Anything you do will be forgotten, and anything you do to anypony will not make a single bit of difference. You have one day to do absolutely anything you want to without any consequences.”

How could Rainbow Dash refuse?

A commission for BlackSnowyOwl.

"Our Mother, who art the Sun, blessed by thy gaze. With faithful obedience, Thy will be done, in Equestria, as it is in the heavens..."

After her students release the spirit of Discord on an official field trip, Cheerilee finds herself out of a job. With no opportunities in Ponyville, the schoolmare takes a job offer in the inner city area of Canterlot's old mining town. Can even she overcome the insanities of her colleagues and apathy of her students in time to pass her next annual review? And who is the mysterious backwards-talking filly following Cheerilee around? Luna's School for Disadvantaged Youngsters will never be the same!

Tv Tropes page can be found here.
Cover art based on work by blackgryph0n, used with permissiom.

Romance, palace intrigue, and swashbuckling adventure await our six heroines when Princess Luna summons the Elements of Harmony to Canterlot.

I started writing this story in the middle of March 2011 and submitted the last chapter and the epilogue to EqD 3 1/2 months later on July 4th. The basic idea for it, though, had come to me after watching the first two episodes on YouTube at the beginning of that February, but it took me a month to discover there were places on the net to which a person could send fanfiction and have it posted. I don't get out much, y'see...

The discerning reader may, therefore, find a bit of canon-fodder here and there, and for all that I've thought about diving back in and changing a few things to make the story line up better with Season 2, I'm not gonna. For better or for worse, this story's done, and I hope to use what I learned while writing it and from the comments it's gotten--and the comments I reckon it'll get here--to make my next story better.

Mike

Rainbow Dash just wants a bottle of Dr. Pony from the vending machine. Is that too much to ask?

Can a utopian paradise that preaches love and tolerance really make ponies happy? Does contentment really lie in free universal healthcare and open government?

Twilight Sparkle is determined to resist this happy world on a matter of principle, and finds herself sneaking off with a mare called Trixie to hate and loathe each other in secret.

Will their hate-nest go undetected? Or will they be forced to face the dangers of the Ministry of Love and the mysterious Room 101?