After leaving Ponyville, Tempest Shadow's travels have led her to settle down near the edge of the Crystal Kingdom - for now, anyway. She currently works at the Arctic Patrol office with her old-yet-new friend Glitter Drops. Together, they keep an eye on the border of the kingdom and look out for ponies living in the tundra of the Northern Wastes. It's a sedate and oftentimes lonely sort of place, but Tempest doesn't mind - in fact, she thinks it suits her.

This fragile peace is disrupted when a local pony complains about some sort of prank being pulled on them. When Tempest investigates, she's confronted with something much more concerning - and annoying - than she could have anticipated.

After her dreams of going to a tea party and being dressed up, Smolder finally decides to try it out. Thankfully, her best friend is there to give her a hoof.

“Come on in,/We haven’t slept in weeks./Drink some of this,/It’ll put some color in your cheeks.” -The Mountain Goats, ‘Color In Your Cheeks’

With the world at war, Smolder is doing what she can to survive with her squad in the frozen mountains. After Smolder gets separated from her comrades, she comes across a dragon who is both lost and confused. The two join together to protect themselves from the elements. However, not everything is as it seems.

Cover art commissioned from MaoDoodles.
Pre-read and edited by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous.

Smolder wants to enjoy a lovely dip in the lava pools. Spike on the other claw rather challenge the volcano itself!

Free 1k Commission For The Always Awesome SpikeSmolder fan.

Rainbow Dash's late afternoon errand run is almost spoiled by a particular orange filly who finds her mentor and idol to be the perfect sleeping spot after a long day.

Sure, Dash could put her to bed, but why waste an opportunity for some quality time?

Now if only her friends would stop noticing what she's doing.

Smolder hates being called a girl. Yona tries to help her figure out why.

Originally written for the Quills and Sofas 2023 T is for Trans contest, where it received third place.

Ocellus has a talk with her School’s guidance counselor about what’s been on her mind lately. Trixie turns out to be a lot more helpful than she’d expected.

Garble enjoys Smolder relaying the tales of Daring Do to him, but he's skeptical of their veracity. Surely there can't be that many mystical ruins around the land, can there? Smolder knows they can be. In fact, she can prove it to him. There's just such a ruin in the Dragonlands, untouched over the ages. She can show him exactly the sort of adventure Daring Do has, right in person!

The sort of adventure Daring Do has doesn't exactly play nice with those persons being dragons, though.

Written for the 2024 Non-Pony Writing Contest.

This story is a sequel to Don't Bet On Ocellus Related Topics

When Gallus has finally built up the courage to ask out Silverstream, he realizes that he has no idea what he's doing. So he asks Ocellus to mind control her. Completely reasonable.