It has been nearly a thousand years since Twilight Sparkle died. Celestia and Luna are gone. The Holy Equestrian Diarchy, ruled by a bigoted and brutal theocracy, has driven ponies apart and divided them along tribal lines. Unicorns are driven from society, feared and hated.

The lessons of friendship, painstakingly written down in the journal of friendship by Princess Twilight and her friends, have been warped and twisted to fit the Diarchy's hateful ideology. But to the average pony, this is the truth and reality of the world they live in, beset on all sides by enemies monstrous and magical.

Emberglow, a young pegasus mare, aspires to join the elite Knights, magically enhanced warriors dedicated to the holy Saints worshiped by the state religion. Can she uncover the lies and deceptions that have led the world to this bitter place?

Thanks to QueenChrysalisForever for prereading Chapters 1-24. Prereader for chapters 29-31 is MrRTS.
Prereading for chapter 34-? by Horsetorian
Additional pre-readers: bananachips/CommissarVulpin, Thought Prism, Chyre
Special thanks to my amazing editor, Cyonix
Cover Art by JodTheCod

Note on timing: I began writing this long before Season 9 aired, so none of those events happened as far as the narrative of this story is concerned.

Come join us on the Rekindled Embers Discord!

Edit: Featured 8/7/20! Yay and Thanks!

"Rule number one." Pipp put on an uncharacteristically serious face. "Your fans cannot be your friends."

Sunny blinked. "What?"

"Oh here we go," Zipp muttered to herself.

This story is a sequel to Convergence

Equestria was just a game, one of an endless number of semi-illicit online games created to take advantage of the ubiquity of cheap augmented reality hardware. But that changed, when for no reason anyone knows, the virtual population of Equestria woke up.

Two decades have gone by since then, and the world has been transformed. The former game network has grown to encompass the backbone of trade, infrastructure, and research the western world over. Its vast computational resources have given rise to an infinitely subdivided world of overlays and sublayers, coterminous with the various cities and towns within Equestria. Every person in the modern world is assigned a Synth, a pony personal assistant that adapts to their needs and helps them access those parts of the world governed by Equestria's systems.

It is a world Dakota barely remembers, thanks to an automobile accident that turned most of her body to mush. But thanks to the medical miracles created by joint equestrian-human research, her life is saved by a remarkably new series of implants.

But Dakota isn't content to sit around while her body slowly knits itself together. There are unanswered questions to answer, questions that will ultimately lead her to the oldest mystery of both worlds.

Updates every Saturday.

Sponsored on Patreon by the Illustrious Canary in a Coal Mine. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha.

This isn't part of the Optimalverse, or any other established fan-universe.

A story set in an Equestria that could have been...

Rarity, the personal student of Princess Luna, defeated Daybreaker with her new friends and reawakened the lost Elements of Harmony. With Princess Celestia's return, the long-lost tradition of the Summer Sun Celebration is going to be revived for the first time in a thousand years - but first Celestia will need to reclaim her power over the Sun!

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Don't worry, there's no previous story you missed that explains the setting. I was thinking of which characters could have their roles swapped, and I got to thinking - what if I just switched everyone? Depending on how people like this, I might write stories centered around other swapped pairings.

Written for the Secrets: A Swapped Roles Contest

Thank you to all my readers! I couldn't do it without you.

This I know: cold feet and a lousy day at work and hunger can all be solved by cuddling a pony in front of a fireplace.

Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio!
Now with a Chinese Translation by gezhehuohu!
Now with a Russian Translation by Mordaneus: (Ponyfiction) (Ficbook)

This story is a sequel to Cuddles

Ponies had plenty of festivals and celebrations for the changing seasons. Winter Wrap-Up, Spring Finish, Summer Sun Celebration, Summer’s End, Harvest Festival . . . they were a chance for ponies to socialize, to bond, and to prepare for what was to come next.

For all their schedules and festivals, there wasn't one for the first fire of the season, and there should have been.

Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio
Now with a Chinese translation by gezhehuohu!
Now with a Russian Translation by Mordaneus: (Ponyfiction) (Ficbook)

This story is a sequel to Cuddles II

There is nothing to compare to the comfort factor of a fluffy unicorn in the wintertime. Pony body temperature is naturally higher than a human's to begin with, and then there was the fur to consider. Cami's winter coat gave her maximum fluff.

In the dog days of summer, though. . . .

With a reading by StraightToThePointStudio!
Now with a Russian Translation by Mordaneus: (Ponyfiction) (Ficbook)
Now with a Chinese translation by gezhehuohu!

It's a simple request, really. Can't they do just a little more for Ponyville, especially when they consider all the things they've done to Ponyville and how this might help to pay for some of the damages? It's just spending a few hours at the town's street fair, being among the population, making themselves freely accessible --

-- well, not freely. After all, the kisses have to cost something, or how is the money being raised?

Kiss A Bearer For A Bit.
Arrive early. There might be a line.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Starlight Glimmer has gone back in time. Each time Twilight tries to stop Starlight, she fails and is flung back through the portal and into a broken, twisted Equestria, ravaged by wars or monsters, each version worse than the one before, barreling toward the destruction of the world. Until she lands in a version of Equestria that ... isn't worse. It seems unchanged, happy, normal. The only real difference she can find on the cutie map is that her castle isn't there ...

... but the library still is.

Editing by Formerly Committed and JetstreamGW.

This is the story of Bon Bon. How she grew up and what she did before she moved to Ponyville.

This is also the story of how Bon Bon met Lyra Heartstrings. And how they quickly became the best of friends.

Bon Bon and Lyra loved being best friends, but they both wished for more. If they only knew how the other truly felt…

This is a prequel to Lyra’s Journey, although you don’t need to read that story to enjoy this one. It largely expands on what little canon we’ve seen for these two characters.

For those who are perusing this story based on the tags: Note that the first three chapters are more accurately categorized as Drama and then Adventure. However, the last seven chapters are Romance/Slice of Life, which is why the story has been labeled as such.