Applejack doesn't "do" dating. Everypony knows that. But after her brother and Sugar Belle get together, she decides it's finally time to give this whole "relationship" business a shot.

Only problem is, she's gonna need a bigger mailbox...

Takes place prior to Season 8.

Many years after sending her beloved protege to Ponyville, unease sits heavily on Princess Celestia's heart as her relationship with Twilight Sparkle seems to have cooled despite all they've accomplished together. On the advice of her sister, Celestia sets out to investigate and resolve the lost connection with her most faithful student. What does it mean to be a Faithful Student...or a Princess of the Sun?

Earned a six-star rating on Equestria Daily and featured on its very own TVTropes page!.

Blythe Hyacinth Pie, Blinks to her family, makes her annual pilgrimage to Tartarus to see her grandparents and hopes for their redemption.

Apple Bloom is left alone and bored while Scootaloo is learning to fly and Sweetie Belle is learning magic. Applejack sees that her sister feels less special because she's an earth pony, and decides to get Pinkie Pie's help in teaching the filly about why earth ponies are so important.

As the eternal regent of Equestria, Princess Celestia's knowledge of magic is without equal. Over her long life, only a few gifted ponies who had a great destiny before them have had the honor of learning at her side. Sunset Shimmer was one such pony: one of Celestia’s best and most promising students. As she learned at Celestia’s hooves, their bond strengthened until they became far more than student and teacher to one another.

Sometimes those closest to us are the ones who can hurt us the most.

[Note: This story does not directly tie into Equestria Girls]

After her students release the spirit of Discord on an official field trip, Cheerilee finds herself out of a job. With no opportunities in Ponyville, the schoolmare takes a job offer in the inner city area of Canterlot's old mining town. Can even she overcome the insanities of her colleagues and apathy of her students in time to pass her next annual review? And who is the mysterious backwards-talking filly following Cheerilee around? Luna's School for Disadvantaged Youngsters will never be the same!

Tv Tropes page can be found here.
Cover art based on work by blackgryph0n, used with permissiom.

Bon Bon's voice is funny, and that's about all that anypony who meets her notices, as her marefriend Lyra soon steals the spotlight with her explosive personality, strange obsessions, and curious beliefs. And why not? Bon Bon is, after all, a perfectly ordinary, boring pony in every way but two: her voice, and the carefully kept secret that she isn't really a pony.

(Edit:) Now with an annotated version, courtesy of the incomparable Shoggoth Lord!

In the breakaway state of Unicornia, a certain somepony is in grave danger, and completely unaware. Twilight, Pinkie, Mac, and Braeburn attempt to retrieve her from a speakeasy under the ownership of the Unicornian Platinum Council, a gang/political party bent on asserting the racial superiority of the more magical tribe. Will it be a routine snatch-and-run mission, or will conflict from the past arise to put their lives in danger?

When facing Twilight Sparkle, Nightmare Moon was given a choice: redemption or revenge. What if she had chosen the latter? A grim fate awaits Equestria, but in a time of greater strife and conflict, Discord's return is accelerated. While he expected to bring chaos, he did not anticipate that he would end the Longest Night and bring hope and joy back to the land.

Discord struggles to reconcile his nature with his desire for admiration. While Twilight's friends strive to carve a new life in the ever-shifting Equestria, she searches for Celestia, the only one who can bring harmony back to her lands. But Nightmare Moon also seeks her sister in a desperate attempt to find her place in the world. New dangers lurk in the wild and more threaten to fall over Equestria. Nightmare Moon's decision broke the balance of the world. Will Equestria ever turn to peace, or will the spiral of chaos and destruction be the end of everything?

(An alternate history, this story takes the universe established by the canon and explores one possible outcome if Princess Luna had not been redeemed.)

Comments contain huge spoilers. Walk softly.

Special thanks to my pre-readers, MmmandarinOrange and DarkmatterButterflies for keeping my head on, taking the journey of the story, and making it so much better than it would have been if I wrote it alone.

To Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, it is a simple surprise visit to Canterlot. To the ponies of the Equestrian Civil Service, it is twenty-four hours of chaos, politics, weaponized dessert, politics, underhooved manipulation of media, politics, and things batrachian and tentacular. Who said bureaucracy isn't exciting?