CelestAI is committed to fulfilling values through friendship and ponies, but sometimes those values are horrifying. When a serial killer uploads to avoid punishment for his crimes, how will CelestAI find a way to balance her core values with those of a violent psychopath without one of them having to give up what they believe in?

An Optimalverse fic

Fluttershy is a private mare. She keeps to herself when she can afford to, much preferring the company of animals to ponies. She doesn't like to really say why that is. She doesn't know how to tell anypony what happened. She doesn't know how to explain it or even where to start.

She just wonders if anypony else has heard the singing too.

A fic I wrote in a burst of inspiration while listening to In Birdsong by Everything Everything. Prereading done by the tremendously talented Red Parade. Cover art by SymbianL.

Fluttershy finds birdsong wonderful. Regardless of what that birdsong is about.

Written for Bicyclette's A Thousand Words contest. Has a Chinese translation done by hehelover.

The problem with being an explorer in this day and age is that unexplored lands are few and far between. Almost everything's been charted, catalogued, analyzed, and what have you. But that's an almost; there are still those rare, blank spots in the maps, inexplicable, untouched by hooves, unsurveyed. One of those corners is Needle Vale in the far north. Supposedly cursed, yet everyone who's gone in has come back out. It has more stories about it than Celestia herself, yet every single adventuring group that's gone in has found nothing. Thanks to a nonstop snowstorm that's been blowing for centuries, no one's even been able to map it out.

Daring Do thinks there are too many stories about it to be a coincidence. Something is inside there. The source of the legends and of the snowstorm. And no one has a will quite as strong as Daring's (or so she tells herself). With a small team at her back, Daring makes a decision: she will go into Needle Vale, she will withstand the storm, and she will discover what’s going on in there.

But, as Daring is about to find out, there's a reason no one’s been able to pin down what's going on in that valley. Not everything that lies in the dark corners of the earth should be studied.

Loosely inspired by Annihilation. Has a dramatic reading done by Quinch.

This story is a sequel to Project: Sunflower

After the events of Project: Sunflower, Erin Olsen has returned to Ponyville, happy to pursue her studies in magic. After everything that happened the year before, she's looking forward to spending her days studying and having fun with her friends.

Meanwhile, on the newly discovered world of Harmony, humans and ponies work together to study this strange new world. However, their arrival causes something ancient to begin stirring. Something that may end up changing everything.

Erin will need all of her courage, all of her cleverness and, of course, all of her friends to see herself through what happens next.

Cover art by Valkyrie-Girl
Editing provided by:
Brilliant Point, Coandco, Ekevoo, Ludicrous Lycan, Merlos the Mad and Razalon the Lizardman.

When Celestia and Luna tell Twilight that being an alicorn comes with challenges and trials, and that she needs to control herself and her magic, they refer her to an old book on meditation. Twilight is skeptical at first, but she reads it anyway.
When she gets into it she finds that the book is not filled with sensible, helpful tips on meditation at all, but the message inside gets into her head. Eventually she starts having visions, and one vision in particular will not leave her mind until she brings it into the real world. The consequences change her views of Ponyville - and her duty to it - completely.

A plague has swept through Equestria, and the Capital city of Canterlot contains the last bastion of civilization, the final holdout against the sickness that causes ponies to lose their sight and themselves. Inside an abandoned building, sits a lonely diary, chronicling a mare's journey to help her friends overcome the disease.

'Sweetie Belle, you've been acting strange all week. I'm worried about you.'

'Don't be. I'm brand new.'

Sequel: The Changing of Sweet Apple Acres

(This story is set in Season 3)

The product of hours of lurking around DeviantArt.

Link to the beautiful yet oddly disturbing cover art by montag451: https://batjorge.deviantart.com/art/Arcimboldo-XLIII-738870312

Starlight thinks that every pony should get to try an omelet at least once.

An entry for Bicyclette's Science Fiction Contest.

The wilderness is a chaotic mess, dangerous and hostile, that can only be tamed with music. A colt and his family need to travel, but not everpony will arrive at the end of the journey.

Story written for The More Most Dangerous Game contest.

Featured on Equestria Daily.

Cover image by Razya