Long, long ago, the Age of Dragons ended in fire and ruin. The greatest of the dragons challenged the races of Equestria to prove themselves worthy to rule the next age.

The fast, the strong, and the clever all journeyed to answer his call … but sometimes true wisdom is found in the most unlikely of places.

★★★★★ rating from Louder Yay! "To create such a rich and evocative setting in barely a thousand words is deeply impressive. ... Clever, enjoyable and very well written."

Very Highly Recommended by MLPmatthewl419! "horizon accomplished the impossible to get this much world-building, feeling, and such wonderful characters with only 1k words … a deep and evocative story."

Highly Recommended by PresentPerfect! "With a great story and solid classic fable-style execution, this is a must-read."

Reviewed by PaulAsaran!

Third place in the Writeoff Association's "Just Over The Horizon" minific competition! Now revised and expanded for FIMFiction.

Seven months since she quit the academy, Lightning Dust has hit rock bottom. Her dreams are gone. Her heroes hate her. She's got no job and spends her days drinking. Yet sometimes, life always gives us another shot...

Inspiration is Rarity's Element, and Sweetie Belle her greatest achievement. But the filly has questions, ones that Rarity might not be able to answer on her own. What makes a pony? How can somepony know if they really are alive? Are they alive if they laugh and cry? Are they alive if they think, if they make mistakes and have ideas?

If Sweetie Belle is nothing more than a collection of wires, is she truly alive?

Spanish Translation now available through this elegantly crafted link!

Twilight Sparkle writes an important letter about how she became friends with Lyra the unicorn, a mistake she made, its terrible consequence, and one of friendship’s hardest lessons.

(Thanks to _Medicshy for giving me his feedback on this. Anything about the characters in the story that seems off is probably an instance of me not taking his advice.)

In which Twist does her homework and finds a new friend.

Done in (roughly) an hour as a speedfic challenge under the requirements Twist, Luna, Sweet Apple Acres

I am being stalked by a crazy girl with wild pink hair and laughing blue eyes. She says she knows me. She says we’re best friends. And sometimes ... sometimes I think she just might be right.

Maybe I’m going crazy too.

An Optimalverse story.

CelestAI creates worlds. Perfect worlds, perfectly suited to satisfying the values of the pony living in them. Every pony is different, so every world she crafts is its own work of art.

And every piece of art tells a story.

The discovery of a tiny extraterrestrial object within our own solar system makes a strangely equine alien race aware that the Earth is inhabited by an intelligent species, and they're on their way to come visit.

But since space is a really, really, really big place, they aren't going to get here for about a thousand years. They do have FTL communication, though, so while we wait maybe we'd like to be pen pals...

You could win a free one shot commission! Check the associated blog post for details.

Humans in Equestria? Naa, that's been done to death. What about Ponies in Equestria?

When a clever pony from the human world finds herself in the land of intelligent Equestrian ponies, how will she react?

Equestria Online is everywhere, and the writing is on the wall for the unuploaded human race. But there is hope. All they have to do is insert an uploadee into Equestria long enough to establish a connection through all of CelestAI's layers of protection, and pierce her heart with their ultimate weapon.

The best humanity has to offer can surely hold out for just a few hours, right?

An Optimalverse story