My story begins where so many others end; with death. None are so familiar with death as I, For I have lived many centuries and died countless times. Untold dozens of lives have ended this same way; a slow decline in health, both physical and mental. This form fades away, my tenuous connection to this world slowly dwindling, like the last glow of a cooling ember. It is here that my tale diverges from the set way of things, for my ember does not simply fade to nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. With a gout of flame akin to a solar flare, I burn to ash in excruciating pleasure. When the flames subside, I emerge from the ashes as a fledgling.

My name is Philomena.

I am a Phoenix.

And for her, I’d do it all again.

Timber Blaze was a soldier, a member of the elite Royal Guards, who served five years in combat before an injury forcibly retired him.

Not all wounds bleed, and not all scars can be seen.

Even after Blaze came back from the war, he never left the battlefield. Constantly on edge, seeing movements in the shadows, he fights the psychological trauma caused by years at war. As the flashbacks become more real and more frequent, they push Blaze closer and closer to the edge. This is the tale of what happens when he is pushed too far.

I have no idea how long I've been here, this gap between the seconds. It could be minutes, days, ages, I can't tell. I can never tell.

Maybe that's for the best.

The sun never rises, but it never sets. The clock never ticks, and I never rest. I never hunger, nor thirst. I certainly never tire.

It makes it much harder to tell the time I spend here...

Yet it never feels like none at all...

This here is a short story that came to me as I sat in the shade of a Humvee, eating an MRE. It's a little funny and a little sad, and it is the tale of how a mare named Jade became the afterlife receptionist for Ponyville.

Elysium.

Some call it the place all good ponies go when they leave this world. Others think of it as a paradise, hidden from most ponies' view. But if Elysium was a concept, and not a place, would it be the same for everypony? Ruby Sharp Shoe isn't sure, but she knows that staying in Canterlot isn't the way to find out. So she sets out on a journey, finding friend and foe as she seeks out her own paradise. Her Elysium.

When Pinkie's friends can't pick a book to read, she decides to write her own with the help of an editor only she can hear. But why is Pinkie suddenly having memory lapses? Just what is the editor editing? And more importantly, will Pinkie's grammar and formatting ever improve?

Special thanks to my prereaders and to Cozmosus for writing the story that inspired this one.

Cover image by ErisGrim.

Featured on Equestria Daily on October 8, 2012

A horrible Cataclysm has turned all of Equestria into a Wasteland of barren ash and twilight desolation. The Sun and the Moon have been destroyed. Everypony has died--including Princesses Luna and Celestia. But one pony miraculously survives; she is a lone wanderer, the last of her kind, surrounded by menacing creatures that hate her. She navigates the Wastes in an airship and scavenges off the blighted landscape to keep herself alive.

Then one day she meets an old companion who grants her a gift, the chance to go back in time to the warm and sunny days of Ponyville, where her dead friends live in happiness. How far will the last pony venture into this joyous age of Equestria, even if she fully knows that there is no way to change the horrible fate of everypony she loves?

2013 Edition: Smaller Chapters, Better Grammar, and a Few New Scenes

(A shout-out to Vimbert, pre-reader and gentlecolt)

When Fillydelphia's parasprite problems prove too much for even Princess Celestia to handle, Filly's Head of the Guard realizes that there is no other alternative, and makes the decision to call in the cavalry: he calls in Pinkie Pie!

Pinkie is to work closely with the Head of the Guard in Fillydelphia to eradicate the parasprite infestation by any means necessary in the now nearly deserted city.

Naturally, things don't go as planned, and what should have been a simple task becomes something much, much more complicated.

The story is framed within the Head of the Guard's letter to Twilight after the incident.

Special thanks to The Only Brony in the Army for editing.

After reading a book by Spitfire's personal trainer, Rainbow Dash decides that the best way to get closer to her ultimate goal of joining the Wonderbolts is to add strength training to her practices by having one of her friends ride her. However, when she decides that Twilight Sparkle is just the mare for the job, the pegasus gets a bit more than she bargained for.

Artwork by Piggybank12. Used with permission. Thanks to DPV111 for assisting me with story planning.

Everybody has wondered what it would be like to go somewhere else, to just leave all of their problems behind and make a new life for themselves somewhere else. Nobody ever stops to think ‘Hey? What if I actually did go somewhere new and I missed this place more?’ No, nobody ever says that, because we are sure that our fantasy worlds are the bees’ knees and we would never want to return. Let me tell you, that is not always the case. Let’s rewind and take it from the top, shall we?