Necromancers. Sickly ponies bathed in cloaks of darkness, bringing ruin to all who fall under their shadow, terror to those who meet their gaze. Ripping the dead from the grave and conscripting them to their army of evil and conquest. Woe to the towns that dare draw their interest.

Such are the legends.

This is a story about one of the kindest ponies I know.

---

Now on Equestria Daily!

Now with a sequel, From Dusk to Night.

Beta Reader Special Thanks:

Blissey1
Clever Pun
Japanese Teeth
Pannic
Meta Four
Sereg
Connelly
Invidlord
Jezendar
TerribleTransit

Rainbow Dash is many things. Mainly awesome. But romantic, certainly not. Of all the ponies who would attempt a forbidden romance, nopony would have thought she would.

Now she finds herself head over hooves in love with a mortal enemy of the country. On top of that, she has to face the one group of ponies she's terrified of rejecting her new found romance: her best friends.

[Tales of the Carnageverse]

Note: This story was created as a prompt from the RD Random Shipping Game. The game required you to roll a dice and depending on the number, you would then write a 100-500 word ship with a corresponding character. I got number 13 which was a male changeling. The rest of the story is a continuation from the prompt.

Cover Art: The Maiah

Editors: DemonRykuKyuubi, mikemeiers, Cerulean Starlight.

Lightning Dust wakes up late, to another grey, gloomy day. She's cold and tired, and she's never felt so terrible in her life. But really, all she needs is to get back into a routine, or to see her friends, or to sleep a little bit longer... then she'll be fine.

Really.

Inspiration.

"Jesus, man."
—TheAspiringWriter93

"I'm sad now. Like.. you don't even know."
—thedarkprep

Dramatic reading by Limey Reads

It was only natural that introspection would come in the wake of something as monumental as a royal wedding. With the festivities of Shining Armor's betrothal long since past, Twilight has come to realize that there exists a tremendous gap in her studies of friendship, that being that she doesn't really have any stallion friends. That's likely because pursuing platonic relations with the opposite gender is rather difficult when there's a growing desire in her heart for something deeper than her friends can provide.

After an afternoon of disturbed study time and unexpected dental catastrophe, the last thing Twilight would have expected was for opportunity to come knocking in the form of a quiet stallion reading in her library. Enraptured by the chance to expand her education, Twilight bumbles into the newcomer's life without the faintest notion of the depth of the pony's loss. Though her faith in friendship is strong, it will take more than her magic to undo the scars of his past, and keep a heart once filled with wonder from succumbing to the power of doubt.

Set after the events of the season three pilot and before Twilight is crowned princess.

After a long day of flight practice with Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash discovers the filly knows next to nothing about preening and takes it upon herself to teach her.

Warning: May Contain Feels and/or D'aww moments.

Featured on FIMFiction on 7/20/2013. Yay!
Featured on EQDaily on 09/12/2013 Double Yay!
Reading by TheLostNarrator (excellent!): Here
Reading by DRWolf: Here
Reading by Joehighlord: Here
Riffed by Draklox: Here
Korean Translation: Here
Spanish Translation: Here
French Translation: Here
Chinese Translation: Here

This story is a sequel to An Alternate Path

Much has changed in a few short months in Equestria. Changelings, once feared and hated, are now starting to become full citizens, and some are choosing to live amongst ponies. A particular nymph, Gel, first sparked the movement and is now living happily with her unicorn husband. However, there are always new challenges on the horizon, and the most obvious to this couple is their first child.

Watch as this young couple take on the challenges of being new parents to the first recorded case of a pony-changeling hybrid. What will this child be like? How will they act? Only time will tell. Friends are always there to help, family as well, but there are some ponies who weren't so accepting of changelings, and one can only imagine how they might react to a literal symbol of their integration.

Sequel to An Alternate Path

Side Story: The Start of Something New: Private Moments (NFSW)

Co-written by myself and EnigmaMystere

Cover art by Ember Bell

What Spike saw in the doorway of King Sombra's crystal palace hasn't left his mind. The fear of Twilight abandoning him haunts him through recurrent nightmares. Anxiety taunts him when he's at his most vulnerable, reminding him of all his failures, all his inadequacies, all his wounds.

One night, this fear and anxiety manifests itself in a full-blown nightmare, dragging Spike face-to-face with his greatest fear. What if Twilight never needed Spike in the first place?

Takes place right after the Season Three opener (before Episode Three).

Thanks to RGLloyd for editing.

Now Featured on Equestria Daily!

Now Featured by The Royal Canterlot Library!

Check out the YouTube reading by the awesome Chinchillax!

Check out another YouTube reading by DJ Tazzlez from Hive Radio!

Rated Teen for some dark elements.

They said mighty Saraneighvo would never fall.

They said proud Saraneighvo would never weep.

They said old Saraneighvo could never die.

In the darkest of days, we find solace in whatever we can.

Inspired by the story of Vedran Smailović, the real Cellist of Sarajevo.
Audiobook version read by Illya Leonov
Editing and Prereading by: LoyaLiar, JustAnotherTimelord, and Sojourner
Cover art by me.

When Twilight comes back from her week long visit to her brother's house, she finds out that everything has changed. Canterlot High is babbling about some magic girl from another world, but Twilight knows better. There's no such thing as magic, or portals into other worlds.

Right?

EDIT: Wow. Never expected the feature. And by the way, thank you for anyone who commented with a consructive criticism. I'll be reading as many as I can and keeping them all in mind for the future chapters as well as going back to edit the past ones periodically. Enjoy the story!

EDIT 2: Went into the first chapter and tried to fix up the 'Twilight did X' issue that many people commented on. (Thank you to those who did.) Hopefully it is a bit more readable now.

EDIT 3: After fan feedback on a massive error I made where Princess Cadence was an out of control lunatic, I rewrote the Twilight meets Twilight scene so that it flows better and actually stays in character. Thank you for anyone who made a comment about this, I am listening to your feedback and writing my future chapters accordingly. (If there are any more of these, I'm going to keep these in a changelog in a blog post.)

Novel Tale is an author that's been living in Canterlot for about ten years now. That's a pretty good track record for a changeling. He's even included a changeling character in his latest book, and his fans have been loving his take on such an obscure mythological creature, especially his biggest fan, Twilight Sparkle. Things are looking up!

Then an army of changelings from another hive attacks Canterlot.

Now all of ponykind knows that changelings are real, and his readers are sure to realize that the changeling in his book was too similar to the real thing to have just been based on a myth...

earlier chapters have been revised as of 7/19/13 to be more inline quality wise with the later chapters.

Featured on EQD 10/5/13!

Let it be known that there will be extensive changeling world building in the chapters to come.

cover image courtesy of ackdari.

Much thanks to Nyerguds for proofreading and to all my fellow tropers on the TvTropes pony fanfiction thread for helping me develop this from a vague idea into an actual story.