She wanted peace. She wanted diplomacy. She wanted harmony and friendship.

She got war.

With the armies of the Changeling Lands marching through Equestria, overwhelming any and all resistance they encounter, Princess Celestia has had to resort to increasingly drastic measures to save her country and the ponies that live in it. But while her sister leads the armies from the front and her ponies fight and die in the name of princesses and country, Celestia feels useless and inadequate in Canterlot. After all, she was supposed to protect her precious little ponies. How had she failed them so badly?

Those doubts and worries gradually gnaw away at her, day after day and month after month. Until one day, she reaches a tipping point, the point of no return:

She will save Equestria, no matter what it takes.

[An Equestria at War story]

Edited by LoyalLiar and SolidFire
Art by TwoTail813

Through countless centuries, Princess Celestia has remained a steadfast beacon of benevolence, kindness, wisdom and grace. Everypony knows the Princess of the Sun cannot have a dark side.

Sunset Shimmer is about to find out just how wrong they are, and in doing so, find that Celestia understands Sunset more than she ever thought possible.

Historian’s Note: Dreaming in Dawn's Light occurs several months after the events of A Royal Problem.

Featured on FimFiction for June 12-16, 2017!

Cast: Sunset Shimmer and Princess Celestia

Text and coloring design by Novel Idea
Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer and background by Jykinturah.
Sunset Shimmer Cutie Mark By Millennial Dan

Beta Reader & Editor Credits
Ebon Quill - Audio Director & Quest Designer on The Manehattan Project
Little Tinker - Master of Systems at Poniverse & Scripting Engineer on The Manehattan Project
Beltorn - Commenter-at-Large on FimFiction
Cursori: Reader of Many a Pony Word

Word Count: 8,000 words
Version: 2.3

Contains spoilers for Season 7, Episode 10: "A Royal Problem," as it takes place the evening after the events in that episode. The episode itself serves largely as a framing device, however.

Long ago, Luna turned into a twisted, evil version of herself, and Celestia remained to watch over Equestria. Yet Celestia has wondered whether she too could turn into a "Nightmare"... and she's speculated about what she would become.

She has kept these thoughts to herself, but when Celestia and her sister witness the former’s evil counterpart, "Daybreaker," in a nightmare, Luna notes that Celestia does not seem too surprised at her own "dark" side...

The next evening, Luna asks Celestia for her thoughts on Daybreaker - and asks what exactly would turn Celestia into such a monster...

Proofread by SPark.

Two years after Princess Celestia stopped Nightmare Moon's return, Discord runs rampant across Equestria. With the Elements of Harmony still useless rocks, Celestia turns to her fallen sister for help. Little does she know that Nightmare Moon has been waiting for an incident like this for months.

Inspired by, and several lines stolen from: Doctor Who 8x12- Death in Heaven

Time travel is not a simple case of following someone back to stop them from committing whatever evil deeds they plan on. To stop a change to the past, one must prevent the traveler from going there in the first place.

Twilight and Spike failed to do this, but that's okay.

For Discord, causing chaos is not a hobby or even his job. It is what he does. So when Tirek offered him an excuse to cut loose from harmony and friendship, only to be rebuffed, Discord went against his very nature. For a spirit like him, this is similar to willingly poisoning himself.

This story is a sequel to Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead

“Look, I know Mom and Aunt Luna said I shouldn’t work ‘the business’ without them. And I know they’re right – college will be hard enough without battling the hungry dead. But people out there need a bad-ass monster hunter to save them, and that’s what I’ll be.”

“Just don’t tell Mom. You know how she gets.”

(Slice-of-life adventures of Canterlot College's rookie band of monster hunters.)

Now with a Tropes page, courtesy of AnoneMouseJr.

And check out this fan art!

This story is a sequel to Message in a Bottle

For numberless eons, Equus hosted primitive civilizations, ignorant of the proud achievements of their ancient race. In their simple lives, ponies and other creatures could grow without fear of alerting any of the terrible forces that grew in the galaxy beyond. All civilization had been extinguished by forces beyond comprehension. If they made too much noise, Equestria would be next.

Then came James Irwin, with the truth the Harmony superintelligence that maintained the vast Niven Ring had already known: the galaxy was safe again, and probably had been for many centuries.

Once the truth was revealed, Equestria again longed for the stars. Surely they could not be the only survivors of that galactic Red Tide that had swallowed all intelligent life. Their searching bore fruit: radio signals from a nearby system.

Felicity was the Alicorn chosen to captain that mission of discovery. She would bring the pony gift of friendship to a fellow survivor somewhere out there. That was the plan, anyway.

Unfortunately for Equestria, intelligence does not imply friendliness.

A tale of understanding and discovery set in the world of Message in a Bottle. Reading that story first is highly recommended.

This story was written as a Patreon commission for Lithl over the course of over two years now. It comes to fimfiction now that it is nearly finished.

Editing by Two Bit, cover by Zutcha.

Updates Weekly on Wednesdays.

Rainbow Dash was never into dresses, make-up, or styling her mane, but it's not like she gets mistaken for being male or anything. At least, not until she wakes up in a world where she's the closest thing to a stallion her friends have seen in months.

A bit RGRE? Mostly for comedy, really.

If you haven't heard of RGRE, the story might actually work a little better, but here's a definition anyway since it was requested: RGRE stands for Reverse Gender Role Equestria. Basically, females are the dominant gender. Causes, consequences, etc. vary from story to story.

Cheesy pick-up lines? Really? They're so dumb!
Who comes up with this stuff?
There's no way that actually works.

...Does it?