Ruling an up-and-coming empire is largely an unpleasant task: there are disputes to be resolved, budgets to be balanced, infrastructure to maintain and policies to enact - and made sure they're followed through on. This isn't helped by the fact that, as a dragon, Princess Ember is supposed to perform these duties without complaint, clemency or compromise. It was thankless for her father and thankless for her, especially when they were supposed to perform duties above and beyond their normal tasks.

Ember really doesn't want to have to personally execute a traitor. But that's part of her job, part of what she's expected to do, part of how she's expected to show strength of character.

He. Must. Pay.

All of my thanks to Flashgen and Regidar for pre-reading the story.

Picture was created by bassybird, and will be deleted upon request.

Spike was the strangest of dragons, living his charmed life so far removed from his heritage. Knowing so much. How to be a good friend. How to be a hero.

How to have fun.

But actually being a dragon? Not so much. Barely at all, really.

Ember didn't know what to make of her friendship with the little drake, but she did know two things. Spike needed a teacher, a proper dragon teacher, to show him the way.

And second, that this was going to be fun.

Turns out the School of Friendship has a swim team leader board. Turns out Smolder is a pretty good swimmer. She wants to be the best though, for a reason more complicated than simple pride.

Now with a Youtube reading!

This fic is the product of another one of Nitro Indigo's text prompts. This one: Portray a pony with Naked Foal Syndrome. It ended up morphing into brief character study on Smolder, but that’s not a bad thing for a fic to be.

Tree Hugger needs a little bit of business help from Trixie.

What's the deal with ponies? Squint just a little and you can't tell one from the next.
Ember doesn't even need to squint to get the effect.
Who would have guessed that a Dragonlord would have problems that needed more than just an application of violence?

All of the girls speak directly to his face, and it feels like none of them listen to a single word which emerges from his mouth. They treat him as a prize: something which will say how special they were for being able to win him. There are boys in Hogwarts who would relish that shallow level of attention, and Bill Weasley isn't one of them. Sometimes it feels like there's no one in the world who understands.

But some say there are other worlds. And no one doesn't mean nopony.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

The ponies of Equestria finally decide to declare their independence from Princess Celestia.

She doesn't take it well.

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Directly inspired by the songs "You'll Be Back," "What Comes Next," and "I Know Him" from 'Hamilton: An American Musical' by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Twilight Sparkle and her best friends are in deep trouble... yesterday.

Starlight Glimmer's been holding onto a secret for a long time now. Her old villainous days of messing with Starswirl the Bearded's spell alerted an alternate dimension full of shape-shifting monsters, and now this malevolent faction from beyond seeks to send their minions back in time to the first year of Twilight's stay in Ponyville in order to consume the magic of harmony. So, to secure the timeline and save the multi-verse, Starlight has devised a plan to project herself back several years and play bodyguard for the Elements of Harmony.

There's only one problem. Her great and powerful best friend steps in during the execution of the spell. Now both Trixie and Starlight are stuck back in time—fused magically to the same physical avatar—with an incredibly difficult mission to accomplish during the first year of Twilight's friendship lessons. Can the two time-displaced mares work together to thwart an alternate dimension's meddling? Or will they fail and hoof the future over to chaos? Even worse—will they get too relaxed with the comforts of the past and miss an opportunity to be heroes?

Credit to KeronianNiroro for the vector
and
Scampy for the edit.

In an unremarkable city, in an unremarkable hospital, to two unremarkable ponies, a filly was born. A filly who was all too remarkable. A filly who radiated Destiny, and Adventure.

Her parents, however, liked their unremarkable life, in their unremarkable city, and wanted nothing more for their little filly than to have a nice, normal, unremarkable youth. So whenever Destiny or Adventure reared their heads, they made sure to nip it in the bud. Magical portals, foreign princes, time travellers and mysterious salesponies of magical musical instruments all got the same answer:

Nope.

Based on the Nope: The Anime joke (original posts) that went around on Tumblr some years ago. Expect silliness.

Covert art based on a picture by greyscale / Theponysketchguy, edited by me to change her hair and eye colour and make her look younger.

Spanish version:
Un poni llamado Nop on DeviantArt, translated by SPANIARD KIWI.

Flurry Heart has requested a very unusual bedtime story. Shining Armor senses something is up, but he also knows that children occasionally come across feelings they don't have words for yet. Books can supply those words.

On a less cerebral note, hopefully there’s some entertainment to be had watching Shining Armor flounder through a novel that common sense dictates he shouldn't be reading to a foal before bed. That 'Thriller' tag is present in the banner for a reason.

Now with a written review!

This is an entry in the Snippet Series, an anthology of old oneshots I (and my good buddy Str8aura) wrote based around interesting pics I found. New ones will be posted every Thursday for the foreseeable future.