Princess Luna has returned. To many, this is seen as a joyous occasion, but for the Princess of the Night, her reappearance brings only heartbreak. The world Luna once knew is but a thing of the past, lost within the dusty corridors of her mind, while memories of her loved ones haunt her nightmares.

Unbeknownst to Celestia, Luna was with a foal when she was banished, forced to give birth in her lunar exile. Now, centuries later, she has come back, broken and somber, to re-take her rightful position as co-ruler of Equestria.

Her hopes to connect with her subjects fading, Luna finds a growing jealousy festering within herself as she fails to accept the past and make amends with her sister.

No matter the case, a goddess must never show her sorrow.

When Twilight is accused of nepotism, her friends rush to her defense! Sortof.

Written in four hours during a speed-writing exercise. Totally unedited. Enjoy!

Three weeks after the events of Rainbow Rocks, the sirens are desperate. Without their hearts—the jewels that hold their magic—they have no power. They can't sing, can't manipulate people, and worst of all, can't feed. Their only hope is to restore their hearts, and they need to do it soon, before all three of them starve.

The problem is, they're not sure how to fix the hearts. All they've managed to figure out is that they'll need magic to do it, and magic is exactly what they don't have. Scared, starving, and completely out of options, the sirens turn to the last people who would ever want to help them, and the only ones who actually can: the Rainbooms.

Octavia Melody's love of music has revolved around a single influential and prestigious work of art, the song May Our Sun Shine Forever. Since she was a filly, what has been the Equestrian national anthem for generations has continually inspired Octavia to perform, shaping her into the promising cellist she is today. Though the completed original was lost to the passage of time, the remnants of the final masterpiece composed by the Grand Maestro Glissando has been the cornerstone of not only Octavia's career, but modern music theory in Equestria.

When the tattered remains of an ancient songbook possibly containing the original song in its entirety is found, the Equestrian Society for the Performing Arts and Princess Luna begin planning a concert series to celebrate the work's eventual restoration. However, their meeting screeches to a halt once Princess Celestia vehemently forbids anypony from playing the original in the concert and demands its restoration to cease immediately. Octavia Melody finds herself at a loss, wondering why the princess of the sun would silence such a beautiful song meant to bring light to the world.

Proofread and Edited by TheAncientPolitzanian and various others over the years of trying to fix this thing.
Cover Art Depressing Melody by TertonDA
Updated 02/27/24

This story is a sequel to The Birth of Harmony

If "The Birth of Harmony" chronicles how Celestia, Luna, and Cadance all arrived in Equestria, then this story details Cadance's life helping her aunt Celestia during the thousand years of her aunt Luna's banishment. Cover image courtesy of Sunset Dragon.

"Celestia may deny it, but Nightmare Moon is Luna. She must accept the hard truth, warts and all."

Celestia does not want her sister to harbor a monster deep inside but her desires do not make it so. We all have our demons, our issues, our closets crawling with skeletons. We all have our warts, our scars, our problems and yet, there are those that love us anyway...

Or rather, they should.

The depths of Luna's loneliness drive her to create a creature that never should have been. But the nature of her companion, and the dark methods used to create it, may lead Celestia to commit an unforgivable deed of her own...

Written for World-Building Alliance's January Writing Contest. Credit, as always, to NorsePony, for his wonderful editing work.

Princess Cadence is a lonely filly who has been shielded and protected all her life as a princess and member of the dwindling race of Sacred Alicorns. She longs for a friend her age to play with, and as a young teen she is sent to stay in Canterlot where her Aunt Celestia would personally mentor her in developing her magic. There she hopes to finally have the freedom she longs for and find somepony to be her friend. Instead, she is asked to foal sit for one of her aunt's royal adviser's fillies who may just be as lonely and reclusive as she.

This is the story of how Princess Cadence learns that the ability to give love cannot be complete without finding love for yourself, and sometimes it is found when you least expect it.

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

Three hundred years before the banishment of Nightmare Moon, the world was a very different place—and some ponies lived very different lives. A pegasus who serves the gryphons of Eaglesburg is fed up with the way he and his fellow ponies are treated. But escape from the cruel gryphon overlords seems impossible, and he has little hope.

Then his grandfather tells him of a legend—a young country ruled by kind pony princesses, where pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies can live peacefully. The pegasus and his earth pony friend, along with a small unicorn filly who is in immediate danger from her gryphon masters, make a daring escape. They head north toward their only hope for freedom—the land of Equestria.