You didn't buy Rainbow Dash a Hearts and Hooves day present.

And now she won't let you come inside.

After her face and body are permanently scarred, Rarity seals herself off in her room with the lights off and drapes drawn, too disgusted by her own appearance to be seen. The only comfort she has comes in the form of daily visits from Spike, though she keeps the room dark to hide her deformities from the baby dragon. Can he convince her that she has nothing to fear; that her beauty is not limited to what she looks like?

My entry for the Feature Box Crusaders' Contest due on March 20th.

Thanks to BubblepipeWrangler for the initial story idea, and the help writing and editing it.

Additional thanks to: Twi-Guy and Featherprop for their help with the editing.

After fulfilling her destiny, Twilight Sparkle is faced with a feeling of incompletion; a feeling that what just happened... isn't all there is. Now, she and her friends must face their respective pasts, and fulfill the destiny that truly awaits them.

Rating: Teen for struggles that adults often face. Nothing bad, just some caution. This may be a bit confusing to young viewers.

A Conversion Bureau Story

Whether it be clothed in a velvet glove, or by the iron hoof it covered, Princess Celestia forced ponification onto mankind, allowing no choice for the species. Only a scant hundred million escaped her law, out of a total of seven billion, whether it be by their own hand, the hoof of an unfortunate pony, or the three million who managed to escape to space in pods that would never make landfall even in the off-chance they would encounter a viable planet. She was confident that all of the apes that had ruined this planet of Earth were either surely dead, or her little ponies.

Millennia later, she would receive a strange visitor from the stars, one that held an agenda that she didn't agree with, but that she herself had given precedence for.

The Well of Eternity a place lost to time, is the birthplace of Equestria's various deities. King, a mortal man from Earth slips between the cracks that separate worlds. Landing in the unforgiving badlands of greater Equestria, he aimlessly wanders through the unforgiving terrain. Eventually enslaved by diamond dogs, for ten long years he labors under their cruel whips, eventually escaping his captors only to become lost in the depths of Equestria's vast underworld. Dying of thirst, the man spies the Well of Eternity and drinks his fill. Its waters more than quench his thirst; a metamorphosis occurs and changes him, for good or ill none can tell. What fate shall befall this man, the Great Slave King?

Book one of four, book two can be found at The Book of Water: The Marriage of the Slave King

TV Tropes Page: The Great Slave King: Special thanks goes to gentlereader Abstract Indigo

Cover art by PoisonSt.

“History is written by the victors.” ~ Winston Churchill

Welcome to the new Equestria: Several decades ago it spanned a continent, now it encompasses an entire world due to an unknown phenomenon that occurred many years ago. Equestriani towns and cities now dot the planet. What many of its inhabitants try to forget though is that many of these cities were built over older cities that belonged to a now-extinct race: humans.

Crystal Clear, a fledgling researcher with a fascination of these beings, intends to publish a book; a comprehensive take on their race. His task is not an easy one as the event all those years ago has ensured that nothing tangible of their era remained. The only way for him to gain any information on mankind is via old unofficial accounts and interviewing the 'newfoals' and anypony who lived with humans back then. But the latter are far and few... and those who had agreed before are now mysteriously refusing to comment. Why?

In the midst of this, Crystal's grandmother passes away, leaving him several memory orbs of her times with humans. Is this the break that he has been searching for? Will he finally come to an understanding of this elusive species or will he learn of something that he wasn't meant to know?

This story has been reviewed by The Equestrians Critics Society. See the full review here.

**Placed on hiatus for the foreseeable future. The story will be finished, but my writing effort has been redirected back to my main story. It is very likely that this story shall remain on hiatus until my other one is complete.**

The third world war engulfed the world in a nuclear holocaust. Very few survived, and those that did only cared about their survival. The remains of the U.S. military resurfaced and restored order to the American wasteland. While rebuilding their shattered world, the ponies appeared from their destroyed dimension. The two races met and formed a peaceful relationship based on cooperation. Peace and prosperity came as the two species worked together to restore order and purify the planet.

However, not all ponies viewed the humans as valuable partners. Celestia saw them as an evil, warmongering blight on this world. They had destroyed their world and almost themselves. She reasoned that true peace was impossible, as the human lust for war could not be suppressed forever. Setting her plans into motion, she declared war and launched a human genocide. The vastly outnumbered American people and military made what may be mankind’s final stand.

Have the great warmongers finally met their match?

For little less than one thousand years, the species of Equestria had been a part of the Trade Order, sharing the millenium of peace of prosperity the humans had enjoyed.

Now, with the arrival of alien invaders and the return of ancient evils, that peace was been shattered. A people unused to war had to rediscover its ways and fight for their home. The Trader Emergency Coalition was born from this need.

Ten years have passed, and the sitation has improved to the point High Command has authorized a rotation of the forces, sending the weary first generation back to their homes, to rest and recover.

Meanwhile, a lavander unicorn mare who has never been on a planet is travelling to Equestria on behalf of her teacher...

For more information, see the [URL='http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friends-of-a-solar-empire-mlp-fim-soase-thread-mk3.220696/#post-7541443']thread on the Spacebattles forums.

[URL='http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/FriendsOfASolarEmpire']Now with tropes!

It occurred one peaceful night. Half of Equestria awoke to the sound like a double-shot thunderclap. A percussion heard in the skies and rattling windows from Apploosa, to Canterlot, to Ponyville. Nopony knew what it was or what it heralded for the world as it drew a line across the nation.

For Twilight Sparkle, this isolated incident might have faded from memory after a time, if not for the strange rumors of a creature sitting on the hill on the outskirts of town.

These are her thoughts given written form. These are Sparkle's Notes.

Report EVERYTHING to the Princess.

She was but a monster, to ponykind. One who simply wished to devour their love, and make them suffer. It's true, she didn't care much about those colorful ponies. But when her people are the ones suffering, is she really such a monster?