Zenith would give anything to find her lost sister Nadir, who vanished in the depths of space long ago. And now, after decades of suspended animation, she has finally located Nadir on a strange planet haunted by alien ruins, far outside known space.

It's lonely out there, but Zenith has company – six personalities simulated by her ship's AI. And she'll need every ounce of help Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and the others can offer, for Lapis is a more mysterious, and dangerous, planet than she could ever have imagined.

Updated every-other day until Jan. 6.

An entry for Bicyclette's Science Fiction Contest.

This story is a sequel to Lost Cities

Once upon a time there was a high tower at the edge of the world. The ponies who lived there thought it would last forever.

It did not. Neither did the great pegasus cloud fortresses, or the earth ponies's mighty metropolises, or even Everfree, home of the Sisters and the glorious capital from which they ruled an empire. Cities, it seems, are as mortal as ponies – they are born, they live, and someday they must die.

But the world goes on. The stories never end.

Why do ponies dream? Why do we all seem to dream the same dreams?

What if we started to dream new things?

Discord said he wanted to make our dreams more interesting. Add some spice to our boring nocturnal lives. Nothing dangerous – just a bit of excitement to talk about in the mornings.

"Stop worrying so much, Twilight Sparkle," he said. "After all, dreams never hurt anypony."

How I wish he’d been right.

Gold Medalist in the Under the Sun Writeoff Event.

Now with Russian translation, courtesy of Cloud Ring! https://darkpony.space/the-archetypist-1/

Vermilion didn’t join the Guard to be a hero. He just wanted to escape the farm and his old, boring life.

But now it seems he may have no choice – his unit is being sent to Hollow Shades, a tiny hamlet hidden in the depths of an endless forest, to fight monsters on behalf of Luna and Celestia. When the mission turns into a disaster and the town is lost, Vermilion finds himself at the forefront of an unexpected war, with all of Equestria at stake.

A new dark age has begun. Heroes must be found to guard the flickering lights of civilization. And Vermilion and his friends will discover that monsters are the least of their worries.

Set in the years before Nightmare Moon’s banishment, The World is Filled with Monsters follows a young hero and his friends as they struggle to protect a newfound nation – and discover the cost of greatness.

Art gallery:

Fight!

Vermilion

Cloud Fire

Zephyr

Quicklime

Rose Quartz

Canopy

Luna

Tartarus

Derecho

The gang

Marvelous Needle (Zephyr's spear)

The Nightmare

It's every young filly and colt's dream -- the moment they get their cutie mark. It is the instant they leave childhood behind.

For Firecracker, getting his cutie mark was a dream come true. Literally: he woke up, and there it was.

Now if only he could remember what his dream was about.

After a harrowing and dangerous quest, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have recovered Excelsior's Ecstatic Codex from an evil zebra cult intent on ending the world. The Codex, one of the greatest works of dark magic ever forged, carries within its pages a limitless collection of vile, twisted spells, all specially devised for anypony who opens the cover.

What do you do with a book of dark magic? If you're Twilight Sparkle, you put it in your library. Because that's where books go.

After all, books are for everypony.

Love can take root in the most unlikely of places.

In Equestria's darkest moment, when Tirek seemed unstoppable, when the princesses lay chained in Tartarus, when the Elements were helpless, two ponies discover that no one is so weak that they cannot fight back. And what matters more than victory is what you discover along the way.

Ponyville has grown boring for Rainbow Dash. Sometimes, an entire week will pass between monster attacks.

What's a mare of action to do when her neighbors are all celebrating apples and hard work? When the weather bureau insists on gentle showers and sunny days, instead of something more exciting?

She has to find adventure, obviously. And when an airship captained by a pegasus pony flies through Ponyville one lazy summer day, dragging a flying iceberg behind it, Rainbow Dash realizes this might be the opportunity she's been waiting for.

But nopony ever said adventuring was easy.

Strange dreams are haunting the night in Ponyville.

The dreams are lucid and clear, indistinguishable from reality. And sometimes, when ponies wake up, the dreams don't go away.

Hallucinations stalk the waking world. Reality is bending in ways that Twilight Sparkle doesn't understand. But she intends to get to the bottom of this mystery and save Equestria from whatever is hiding in the dark.

Twilight Sparkle wonders, sometimes, if the pony in her dreams is the real her. If that is her soul laid bare.

She's about to find out.

Written for the Distant Shores Writeoff. Cover art by CosmicUnicorn, used with permission.

Queen Platinum is dying.

She is cursed, and every day she grows weaker. If she dies, the kingdom will collapse, and the three tribes will once again fragment. Centuries of unity and harmony will come to an end.

There is only one thing that might cure her – a mystical, half-forgotten potion known as the Panacea. It can cure any curse, any disease, any poison. But all magic has its price, and the greater the magic, the greater the sacrifice it requires.

Prince Hyperion will do anything to save his mother. He will find the Panacea, regardless of the cost.

Even if he isn't the one who must pay it.

Winner of the April Writeoff Competition