In the warmth of her cloud home, Rainbow Dash is about to turn in for the night when she hears Scootaloo crying outside in the middle of a vicious blizzard. Plucking the freezing filly from the snow, Rainbow hopes to provide some much-needed comfort for the otherwise tough young pegasus, but she uncovers a disturbing reality that she knows she cannot handle alone.

Knowing only one pony that could really help her out, Rainbow enlists Twilight’s help, determined to set things straight for Scootaloo. But what Rainbow doesn’t know is that in her efforts to provide a better life for the filly, her friendship with Twilight will develop into something more.

Edited by Alcatraz, Rated Ponystar, Rocinante, Ponysopher, Marshal Twilight, Knight of Cerebus, ShimmeringStallion, and Jake The Army Guy

Proofread by Neko Majin C

This story is a sequel to The Dresden Fillies: Strange Friends

Almost a year has gone by for Harry Dresden since he left Equestria. He'd have written, but between saving his newly discovered brother and destroying a scourge of vampires he's been a little busy. Then out of the blue he receives a strange letter from Twilight asking him to return. With no cases at the moment he eagerly accepts, but his friends aren't the only ponies expecting him. There's been a lot of rumors since his last visit and some ponies aren't too keen on seeing him come back.

A sequel to The Dresden Fillies: Strange Friends.

Obiter dicta -- things said in passing.

A collection of short stories, vignettes, and delete scenes, mostly based in the Civil Serviceverse and tending to be either slice of life or comedy. Also contains contest entries including FanOfMostEverything's Imposing Sovereigns.

Currently contains:

1. An Afternoon For Dotted Line [slice of life] [comedy]
2. The Game The Princesses Play [comedy]
3. On the Inaccuracy of Proverbs [slice of life] [comedy][sad]
4. The Nature of War [history]
5. On Forensic Accounting & Choral Singing [comedy]
6. Hoofprints [human][sad]
7. Dr. Spinning Top—Specimen Annotated Daily Schedule [slice of life]
8. Love and Other Acquired Tastes [comedy][sad]
9. Any Other Business? [comedy]
10. Songs Like Snow [romance]
11. Civics [comedy]
12. The Other Princess [slice of life] [comedy]

Celestia had a problem. Somepony wrote a novel about Nightmare Moon's rebellion. This made Luna quite unhappy, and unfortunately for her sister, Luna has not yet gotten the hang of modern traditions like freedom of speech, the abolition of the death penalty, and not bothering Princess Celestia when she's trying to sleep.

Fortunately, Celestia also had a faithful student, one who is now a Princess with an ill-defined portfolio and perfectly capable of dispensing justice by the laws of both today and one thousand years ago.

Now Twilight Sparkle has a problem.

(Title image hacked together from vectors by Martinnus1, Hawk9mm, and Paulie15.)

Rarity discovers an old tradition involving the exchange of felt dolls as a sign of affection. This sparks a brilliant plan to play matchmaker with her friends, and between herself and Twilight.

But brilliant plans never go as expected, do they?

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Cover art by Acceleron
Chapter art by Ratofdrawn, Sketchyjackie, Dunnstar and fatalerror328!

In a universe where humans are quite shocked to find ponies that speak languages at all, let alone English, the startling discoveries never seem to stop for the poor crew of the SMS Verreiter IV, an old-warship-turned-exploration-vessel hybrid that's certainly seen better days. Heck, some even speak of times that it had days where all the systems functioned properly for hours at a time.

Either way, they're on a mission of exploration, which means they'll be visiting every Old Earth-sized rock they can find. With a motley consignment composed of few jittery scientists, veteran marines, an exasperated captain, and a combat-hardened, battle-forged crew with absolutely nothing to do besides repair their own ship from itself, it seems like it'll be a very long year of exploration.

Then they find a planet with some rather startling similarities to human society.

Like Manehattan, the apparent parody of the American district, ponies having developed the English language, and the use of human-like tools and buildings.

And when the ship's transmitter fails at the worst possible moment, Forschungsschiff Kapitan Arnhem Zorner has to decide how best to introduce his country and humanity to these beings. Who can levitate books probably as easily as they could levitate knives and hurl them at him.

He doesn't know whether to laugh of cry at the situation that's been thrown at his face.

"Twi, you gotta get me out of here. These human guys think I’m nuts! Nopony here has even heard of Equestria! Not to mention a pegasus or unicorn outside a book! I tried finding the other girls, but I couldn’t before I got locked up. We gotta find ‘em Twi. If we’re here, it can’t be good news back home.”

Aurora Amaryllis dreamed of ponies and Equestria her whole life. She'd long thought them just flights of fancy and products of a creative youth. Then, she met Rainbow Dash. Then, her hair started changing color. Then, she started meeting other strangers, all who claimed to know her and were her closest friends.

Aurora keeps saying it's all a dream, but soon it becomes all too real. Real enough that Equestria is in danger from a foe that threatens all of the lands. Real enough that she and these new strangers are the only ones who can stop it. Real enough that Aurora must meet a destiny not even meant for her.

Will Aurora help the Elements of Harmony, save Equestria from an unstoppable menace, and live to tell the tale? Or is it all just a dream?

Thanks to Yamino for use of the cover image.

Isolated from her friends and taken prisoner in the middle of a war, Twilight must deal with the very real dangers of being percieved as an enemy as well as the nightmares of her arrival on 'Earth'. Can she overcome her own fears and the fears of her captors? Will the wayward unicorn's assistance be a boon or a curse to the 'humans?' Most importantly, will she ever find her way home?

"In short, it's a story of friendship and plasma rifles, with the emphasis on the friendship. The characters are well written, the XCOM setting is fleshed out very well, and the story is compelling. If you love XCOM, you'll love the story, but even if you've never heard of it, it's more than worth giving the first 3 chapters a read.

There's excellent action later on, but the real strength lies in the collision between the friendly and naive world of Twilight Sparkle and the desperate world of humans fighting a losing war for survival and willing to do anything to turn the tide."

--Arzoo

(XCOM/FiM crossover)
(Cover art commissioned by a friend and created by the magnificent FoxInShadow!)
(Original cover art by the amazing Carnelian can be viewed here!)
(Gore tag for blood and some violence)
(Many thanks to the studius OminousTen, Arzoo, xXFluttershyForeverXx and finally Setokaiva for giving my rambles a once-over)
(Now with it's own TV Tropes page! Get to tropin' folks!)

Current description is outdated and horrible. Thank you for your patience while I figure out one that actually does this story justice.

Note: I think this story works better if read without the long synopsis. The sex and gore tag refers to light content of both. Think summer-blockbuster.

The story is a HIE with post-cyberpunk in the mix, and most of the human main characters are full-body cyborgs meant to look like MLP:FIM characters. If this is enough to grab your interest, then please skip the below text.

Spoiler prevention.
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It is the year 2310 and trans-humanism is within the grasp of anybody that cares for it...

The public responded with "Eww..."

Even so, life and technology marches on.

Such as in the Pheidippides, humanities first try at a manned starship with a range outside our solar-system.

But not all see it as a glorious day. The Ludz, a neo-luddite terrorist group is howling for blood...

And that was before Captain Gregory starts recruiting heavily among the transhuman community.

The response, sabotage of the experimental engines.

Now, stuck in orbit above a world that shouldn't exist, in a ship that barely is holding together and most of his crew dead or wounded...

How exactly do you perform first contact... when your experts looks like bad imitations of the heroes of the land?

The other character tag refers to: Shining Armor, Cadance, Luna and Celestia.

Edited by the talented AppleTank and formerly edited by Razzle Dazzle. Go show your appreciation by checking out their stuff if you have a moment.

Cover by AppleTank. His DeviantArt page may be found here.

After discovering that Cadence is not who she appears to be, Twilight is sent to another world entirely by the disguised Changeling Queen to avoid her plan being disrupted.
When Twilight lands, she discovers that not only have Spike, Owlowiscious and Peewee followed her, but that they've arrived in a world where the main sentient species is human.
There's still a place where they teach magic, though.
Crossover with Harry Potter. Twilight will be effectively taking the role of Hermione.

I've marked this story as cancelled to reflect the unlikelihood of it continuing. If I do come back to it I'll revert that.