After finding real friends for the first time in a strange dimension of odd creatures, Sunset Shimmer has finally decided to return home to Equestria in the hopes of apologizing to Princess Celestia for her betrayal. Instead, she is greeted by an attack from the Royal Guard, and a pursuit across nighttime Canterlot that ends in disaster.

Can two injured ponies who hate each other so much manage to survive the Everfree Forest and return to civilization, or are they just doomed to be eaten?
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Background is from James Corck on Deviant Art, with a few added eyes.
Update: Featured 10/4/2014. Thanks guys!

What sort of mare would turn down the chance to help a friend? Twilight's been there for me so many times in the past, but now she's a princess with all the new obligations and duties that come with that. The transition... hasn't been an entirely smooth one. Who better to lend her a helping hoof and show her how one deals with nobles, courts, and politics than moi?

I only hope it doesn't end up costing one of us our sanity along the way.

Love is never easy, even for a royal alicorn princess. Especially when the love of her life is a former rival who refuses to return her feelings.

Fortunately she has friends to back her up and help her thaw her beloved magician's heart. Manehattan will never be the same.

Cover art by doqwor, permission pending.

Many, many thanks to Talon and Thorn, Frission and RarityEQM for prereading and support!

Takes place mid/late season 4. Comics are considered canon but not necessary reading for understanding the plot.

Comments are welcome!

This, this is why I spend so much time in the archives, Twilight thought, holding a dusty old book close in her magic. Inside the book were a number of advanced spells, each one more interesting than the last in some sort of circular logic that Twilight could only assume went to infinity

Twilight galloped through the doors to her tower and leaped onto her favorite reading pillow on the balcony. She opened the book to the table of contents.

Oh my gosh! They’re all so interesting! Ooh, an age spell! That…might be a bit beyond me. But here right below it – a duplication spell!

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