This story is a sequel to The Enchanted Library

It's easy to think about fairytales when you’re an ancient alicorn trapped in a library for centuries on end. It's easy to wonder how one would go about rescuing you, to think and devise and plot out how to free you in a blaze of glory, intrigue, adventure, and romance.

Or, rather, it’s easy until suddenly it happens and you’re forced to ask yourself the one terrifying question you’d yet to consider.

Now what?

PATREON!
Original story inspired by an old oneshot.
Chapter Art by Arctic Waters and lilfunkman// Graphic Design and Typography by Swan Song.

You remember Canterlot. You remember the taste of victory. Across a thousand years and a hundred lives, it was the greatest joy you had ever felt.

And then, in a flash of heat and unbearable light, it ended.

Now you are alone. The rest of your kind are dead or scattered, and you cannot hear their thoughts.

There is a void inside you. A gnawing, endless hunger you cannot escape. It is killing you.

You need love to survive, but there is none of that here. Not for you. You can only steal it from them, these ponies for whom we are hungry.

[My entry in and winner of the "Most Dangerous Game" contest."]

Principal Celestia always has wings in her dreams.

They got her into trouble, once. She let herself believe that they meant she was an angel. Then she grew up, and learned some hard lessons about what being an angel really required.

Now six magical girls have just fought a demon in front of her school. And her phantom wings are itching.

Her life is turning upside down ... and she hasn't even heard about Equestria yet.

Rated Highly Recommended (Top 15 Stories Sitewide) by Present Perfect! "It's f**king flawless, you guys. … The first [6]00-word chapter by itself is a masterpiece."

"Literally the single best EqG story on the site." —Professor Plum
"[One] of the best stories on the site, period." —Pearple Prose
"One of my all-time favorite pieces of fanfiction." –brokenimage321
"My favorite EQG fic of absolute all." -Skywriter

Rated Why Haven't You Read This Yet? by PaulAsaran! "I might have been skeptical going in, but horizon knocked it out of the park."

Rated 5/5 by csquared08! "The opening chapter here was truly something else. ... Then I hit the end of chapter 3. holy crap."

Rated ★★★★ by Louder Yay! "A lesser writer might have made a horrible, cliché-ridden mess of this story, but fortunately horizon is not a lesser writer. For a start, it's by some distance the best portrayal of the human world's Celestia I've read."

Third place in the "Under the Sun" June 2017 Writeoff!  (That first draft has been revised and expanded for FIMFiction.) Praise for the Writeoff version:

"Holy cow ... That's how you write an EqG fanfic! You captured the heart and SOUL of this/your version of Principal Celestia, wrapped it up in bi-universal consistency, and sold me on an idea of redemption I didn't even know I needed." —Xepher

"This is gorgeous. A thorough, exhaustive, incredibly moving portrait of a character who I don't think I've ever seen get quite this much development or attention." —Posh

"This is actually, after all these years, an original take on a story on Luna's banishment. If that's not something to be celebrated I don't know what is." —Quill Scratch, Radio Writeoff

MORE REVIEWER PRAISE: Rated "Definitely Read" by Super Trampoline! Reviewed by City of Doors! Reviewed by Titanium Dragon! Featured on Equestria Daily!

Rated T for brief cursing and alcohol use. Cover art by Seniloko, used under Creative Commons license.

Translations:

中文 - 行政天使

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

Every week, Equestria's princesses take a break from ruling their kingdom and discuss life. Usually over coffee.

Here are their assorted conversations.

Cover art by Grennadder. The story is marked complete because it's not a writing priority of mine, more a palette cleanser I come back to between harder projects

The first time we danced, she broke my jaw in three places.

The life of a disposable minion in the service to the Dread Ahuizotl is filled with acts of senseless violence and hardship, normally ending in a hospital or unmarked grave, but for Disposable Minion #3, the job just got more interesting.

He fell in love.

And love hurts.

Credits to the amazing Luvlessi for the cover art
Background music: The Masochism Tango by Tom Lehrer
With a wonderful reading by Luvlessi
And a second reading by Crafty Reads
Featured on Equestria Daily

You know what would be funny? Robbing a bank. Pinkie's pretty sure of that.

Not like the others have a say in the matter anyway.

Proofread by: Octavia Harmony, Neko Majin C, The Maskedferret, and Abcron.

Special thanks to Selbi and Lucky Roll.

Princess Celestia has hosted the Grand Galloping Gala for hundreds of years, the grandest party in all of Equestria and said to be without peer—and has hated every year of it. Now that her sister has returned to her, she hopes to share this painful royal duty. Shame for her that Princess Luna wants nothing to do with the Gala, or any of the other princesses for that matter. Luna is going to have to use all her wits and skills to stay one step ahead of her sister and be anywhere but the Gala.

A stand-alone Winningverse story.

Twilight Sparkle has always been frustrated with Discord. His ability to do anything, with no more effort than a snap of his claw. It shouldn't be possible. His power had to come from somewhere.
Then, one day, Twilight lets slip how she feels. Surprisingly Discord agrees to explain it to her. To give her the secret to all of his powers. If she's willing to pay the price that knowing it all will bring.

Once upon a time, (if the term even applies) two young ladies, (if that adjective even applies) decided to visit a magical land of Equestria, selected seemingly at random from about a million.

• One of the two is a time traveler deprived of her time machine, the other is an eldritch abomination out of her element.
• One would prefer the world of pastel-colored ponies to stay as it is, and can’t help but alter it. The other one is anxious to see how it can change, and can’t help but maintain it.
• Both believe that this is not their story. But while they disturb the delicate world of ponies, they don’t even notice ponies doing the same to them.
• Sandwiches are involved somehow.

There are many things this story is and some things it isn’t.

It’s not a fix fic, no matter what some of the characters think. It’s written in multiple first person narration, which happened for a pointlessly clever reason, that will eventually become quite obvious. It’s not a crossover, it just comes with an unhealthy amount of backstory. It could be a rational-fic, but since idealistic philosophy is typically not seen as very rational, it’s only a philoso-fic instead. It’s quite meta, in the original definition of metafiction: fiction concerned with fiction as a concept. In any case, it’s either a small monument to overthinking things – I’m trying to reexamine many fanon ideas here – or a digital paperweight, I’m not sure which. It’s quite a bit more subtle than it could be, and everyone talks way too much when they should be having glorious adventures.
I know how it starts, I know how it ends, and most of what happens in between. Readers say it’s a slow burner, but we’ll get there eventually.

Acknowledgements

With special thanks to my editors, Thainen, Shrink Laureate, and MitchH.
Further special thanks to ScarletWeather and Themaskedferret for valuable input.
The artist who made the cover image stubbornly wishes to remain uncredited, but thanks to her anyway.