You know what they say once you hit rock bottom...

This story is a sequel to When the Man Comes Around

The tenth story in The Journey of Graves.

After much too long away, the Ponyville girls finally make their triumphant return with marshal in tow. Spike, who's been holding down the fort at home, is definitely glad to see them back, especially since it means the return of his beloved Rarity.

Only... what's a boy to do when the object of his deepest affections turns out to be taken?

After a long day of flight practice with Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash discovers the filly knows next to nothing about preening and takes it upon herself to teach her.

Warning: May Contain Feels and/or D'aww moments.

Featured on FIMFiction on 7/20/2013. Yay!
Featured on EQDaily on 09/12/2013 Double Yay!
Reading by TheLostNarrator (excellent!): Here
Reading by DRWolf: Here
Reading by Joehighlord: Here
Riffed by Draklox: Here
Korean Translation: Here
Spanish Translation: Here
French Translation: Here
Chinese Translation: Here

"All my life, I've wanted to fly
But I don't have the wings, and I wonder why
I can't break away..."
Most pegasi figure out flying easily enough. Heck, most of them figure out how to do it before they even get their cutie marks.

But not me. I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t even hover. Not for more than a few seconds, anyway. And not even Rainbow Dash, the greatest flier in Equestria, could seem to help me. We tried everything, and I failed every time. Day after day, I tried – and day after day, I failed, until finally I was ready to just give up. I’d never be able to do it. Nopony would ever be able to help me to fly...

...until one day, somepony did.

Fourteen authors, one story. I foresee precisely zero problems.

This is the culmination of a round-robin event in which a whole bunch of neato folks whose words you may have read before wrote a chapter each in one big story, with the proviso that they were only allowed to see the preceding chapter. This was totally a cool idea, like, a year ago.

This is the story that they wrote, and these are the people who wrote it:

Arcainum
Blueshift
Zay-el
Alexstrazsa
Ninestempest
Lucky Dreams
Obselescence
Whatever Rusty's Fimfic Name Is
Ponydora Prancypants
Cold in Gardez
Eakin
Wanderer D
Dawn Scroll
Pen Stroke

There are no elephants.

I don’t question the “life” bar floating over my head, or my “EXP” gauge, or the little phantasmal boxes that appear whenever I look at an “equippable” object that show its “statistics.” It’s normal for small messages to appear in the sky every now and then, such as [System update in 2 hours.] My kind worships the Developers, higher beings that direct, create, and control everything we see. It’s all normal. This is how things have always been, since I was born. My father, my grandfather, my ancestors have all accepted and coped with these elements.

So why does everything feel so... fake?

My name is Twilight_Sparkle, and I know there’s something wrong here.

Co-Written by GaruuSpike and Chaotic Dreams.

(EDIT: This story is cancelled forever because someone sabotaged all of our attempts to write. You know who you are, and so do I, and I hope you're happy for killing it.)

Fluttershy was beginning to worry why everypony was acting like she wasn’t there—more so than usual—until she discovered that despite spending most of the day in Ponyville, she’d never even gotten out of bed. At least, her body hadn’t... Nor was it breathing...

Even if Fluttershy isn’t ready to give up on life just yet, The AfterLife is calling, and it isn’t patient.

Written by Chaotic Dreams and GaruuSpike.

Princess Celestia, tired of the constant pressure that ruling a nation puts on her, decides to take a day off and let Luna take her responsibilities for a day, something the younger alicorn is more than happy to do. She disguises herself as a pink maned pegasus pony named Sunny Skies and decides to go walking around Canterlot without any supervision. Unfortunately for her, not all parts of Canterlot are as safe as the palace, and she finds herself at the wrong end of a gang of muggers, who decide to kidnap her for a ransom when they see how much money she has on her.

Luna freaks out.

Celestia thinks it's hilarious.

Find this story and more in a print copy! Just click these words here!

Featured on Equestria Daily 8/15/13

Go here for the French translation!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/CUBPvKI.png[/img]

Edited wonderfully by sqarishoctagon and Cloud Hop

Updated cover art by Dominatore

After being supposedly 'reformed', Discord returns to Canterlot with Princess Celestia. Once there he realizes that it would be a long run before the ponies would accept him. Shunned and mistrusted, Discord slowly returns to his older ways.

This time there is no holding back.

BeauZoe helped with story development and slight editing, editing help also provided by Boolyboo.

This story is a sequel to When the Man Comes Around

The ninth story in The Journey of Graves.

Graves is gone, departed for parts unknown without so much as a backwards glance. A quick farewell and a cold goodbye is all the marshal left before severing every tie he ever had to Ponyville, including those with Rarity.

Why? He's a soldier and it was obvious he'd one day have to leave. But the way he left, so abruptly, even callously... it just doesn't seem right. Could it be that there's something more to his departure than meets the eye? Or are thoughts like that merely fancy and wishful thinking? To find the truth, Rarity and the girls start down a long, winding road that will hopefully bring the grey eyed soldier back. Hopefully.