When five foals asked Princess Twilight Sparkle to please try and paint the moon purple during Nightmare Night, she initially refused. It wasn't until they insisted (and Princess Luna quite basically dared her) that she relented. She only relented, however, because she really thought she wouldn't be able to do it.

Too bad she thought wrong.

A very silly story that started as a prompt that got way, way, way out of hand.

This is the core story of the Camaraderie-verse.
Reading order:
Camaraderie is Sorcery, Season 1 (Ch. 0:0 - 1:27.4)
Lady of Love
Camaraderie is Sorcery, Season 2 (Ch. 2:0 - 2:27.3)
King in the North
Camaraderie is Sorcery, Season 3 (Ch. 3:0-3:14.3)
The Other Side of the Mirror: Vol. 1
Camaraderie is Sorcery, Season 4 (Ch. 4:0- )

Maps of Equestria
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4

What if Equestria wasn't all sunshine and rainbows? What if the lands were wild, untamed, and ruled by powerful (and corrupt) nobles in the names of distant kings and queens? What if magic belonged not to every unicorn, but only to the privileged (and persecuted) few?

Camaraderie is Sorcery is a dark fantasy retelling of the story of Friendship is Magic. In this Equestria, the land is divided into kingdoms hungrily eyeing each others' lands and resources. This is a world where peasants are born, work, suffer, and die without their overseers shedding a tear. It is a world where bandits and monsters occupy both the wild places and the civilized ones (but in different forms). This is the world where Twilight Sparkle lives. Cant'r Laht, a shining city perched on the edge of a mountain with more nobles and mages than it knows what to do with, has been Twilight's home her whole life. Now, as the one thousandth summer solstice of the Fourth Age approaches, she will leave Cant'r Laht and depart for the tiny hamlet of Ponieville, where five companions await her. These Brave Companions, as the ballads will come to commemorate them, are already bound by destiny, though they do not know it yet. For who would ever imagine that a sorceress, a farmer, a Hunter, a blacksmith, a druidess, and a baker would ever become comrades with the strength to stop the end of the world?

Author's Note: I drew inspiration from several dark or realistic fantasy sources for the world of Camaraderie is Sorcery, but the most influential was the world of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels and CD Projekt RED's video game series of the same name.

Principal Celestia always has wings in her dreams.

They got her into trouble, once. She let herself believe that they meant she was an angel. Then she grew up, and learned some hard lessons about what being an angel really required.

Now six magical girls have just fought a demon in front of her school. And her phantom wings are itching.

Her life is turning upside down ... and she hasn't even heard about Equestria yet.

Rated Highly Recommended (Top 15 Stories Sitewide) by Present Perfect! "It's f**king flawless, you guys. … The first [6]00-word chapter by itself is a masterpiece."

"Literally the single best EqG story on the site." —Professor Plum
"[One] of the best stories on the site, period." —Pearple Prose
"One of my all-time favorite pieces of fanfiction." –brokenimage321
"My favorite EQG fic of absolute all." -Skywriter

Rated Why Haven't You Read This Yet? by PaulAsaran! "I might have been skeptical going in, but horizon knocked it out of the park."

Rated 5/5 by csquared08! "The opening chapter here was truly something else. ... Then I hit the end of chapter 3. holy crap."

Rated ★★★★ by Louder Yay! "A lesser writer might have made a horrible, cliché-ridden mess of this story, but fortunately horizon is not a lesser writer. For a start, it's by some distance the best portrayal of the human world's Celestia I've read."

Third place in the "Under the Sun" June 2017 Writeoff!  (That first draft has been revised and expanded for FIMFiction.) Praise for the Writeoff version:

"Holy cow ... That's how you write an EqG fanfic! You captured the heart and SOUL of this/your version of Principal Celestia, wrapped it up in bi-universal consistency, and sold me on an idea of redemption I didn't even know I needed." —Xepher

"This is gorgeous. A thorough, exhaustive, incredibly moving portrait of a character who I don't think I've ever seen get quite this much development or attention." —Posh

"This is actually, after all these years, an original take on a story on Luna's banishment. If that's not something to be celebrated I don't know what is." —Quill Scratch, Radio Writeoff

MORE REVIEWER PRAISE: Rated "Definitely Read" by Super Trampoline! Reviewed by City of Doors! Reviewed by Titanium Dragon! Featured on Equestria Daily!

Rated T for brief cursing and alcohol use. Cover art by Seniloko, used under Creative Commons license.

Translations:

中文 - 行政天使

Being seventeen is hard--especially if you happen to be a Princess.

I'm Princess Celestia, but everyone calls me Cece. My life has been crazier than normal lately--my big brother Blueblood is a selfish jerk, my best friend Twilight just moved away to Ponyville, and, oh yeah--Nightmare Moon turned out to be my long-lost somethingth-Great Aunt, Princess Luna. No biggie.

But, no matter how my life is going, I'm still Princess. I've gotta keep it together. Somehow. I can make it at least until the Grand Galloping Gala in a month-and-a-half... right?

A new AU, Season 1 AU, in which Celestia is mortal, and the same age as Twilight. Keep reading for shenanigans!

Rated Teen for brief-but-strong language in later chapters, and some crass dialogue. Otherwise, it's a pretty "soft" Teen.

As always, this story is written and edited. New chapters will post every morning until completion.

Edited by Eruantalon and Orsuros.
Cover art done by LeafBunny!

Twilight Sparkle wakes up one morning, to find she's living with her family and is a filly again. She's not in Canterlot but in Ponyville though, and that's just the beginning of the changes. Like her new school, and the identity of the Headmare...

In time, all of Twilight Sparkle's friends have had to say their last goodbyes. And as the last of the original Cutie Mark Crusaders passes on, the Princess decides to send her off in grand fashion.

But after the party, the tears, and her newer friends have moved on, and Twilight is all alone once again, somecreature she once thought of as a friend decides to visit her for tea.

Memorial, or Desecration? Twilight might just have to decide tonight, on the loneliest night of her life...

Now with a Spanish Translation by Spaniard Kiwi.

Russian Translation by AngryShutty.

Chinese Translation by Hellagur

After the defeat of Tirek, Equestria is safe once more, but Luna can sense that her sister is troubled. When Celestia retreats to the starry realm of ascension in order to look upon the past, Luna joins her to discover what is bothering her.

There is now a Spanish translation of this story, courtesy of Spaniard Kiwi

It's an ordinary day in Ponyville, until Applejack says Twilight is purple. She should have known better.

Prereader: CoffeeBean

Para español: Aquí

I hope to read this you give your time, for this story is almost entirely in rhyme.
I live in the forest of Everfree, there is nothing that is new to me.
But one day, I did something I should not, something that affected me quite a lot.
In and out the effects faded, it's my intelligence that the plant hated.
This is the story of how my clumsy action made things not to my satisfaction.

YouTube readings:
TheCaptainSand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrZJDkk1Dss
The Living Library: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCNPgaEhlXM

For a thousand years, there was just Celestia. Then Cadance appeared, Luna returned -- and now Twilight has ascended. There are ponies who are very curious about just what happened, why -- and how. Especially the how. Twilight herself is on that list, a freshly-minted princess with far more questions than answers, about to face a brand new one: what truly makes an alicorn?

And what happens if it goes wrong?

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Cover art by Harwick.