Sombra's takeover took everyone in the Crystal Empire by surprise. No one saw it coming, none were prepared for it, and almost no one got away. Almost.

A few hooffuls of daring souls managed to break out of the city and flee southwards, towards Equestria. Some ran to beg the Princesses for aid, others - just to save themselves and their families from the mad tyrant.

But as the refugees are about to learn, it's the dead of winter outside the Empire's shield, and the crystal ponies are far too used to their warm life in the city. One filly that gets separated from her parents while trying to get away learns that fact all too painfully...

Cover art by Marbo, Allfather of the Snowponies.

Additional tag:snowpony

Apparently someone upstairs found some sort of pity within themselves and decided that I was worthy of a second chance. At least, that's what I assume. Since I've magically been dropped into another world, in the body of a baby horse no less! 

That was four years ago. Everything was all fine and dandy, my life was going good.

Too good apparently. 

Since that's when everything sort of went to shit.

Mega ultra super duper props to: FunkyFresh for helping this story get to how it is today.

Formal Premise: The inventors of the Mirror wanted to create a device that could channel infinite magic and grant wishes. The hard part was making sure those wishes would never destroy the world. Showing a person their heart's desire is a sensible precaution to put into a wish-granting machine designed NOT to go horribly wrong.

The Atlanteans got close, even managing to imbue some amount of intelligence and morality into the Mirror. But they never finished their work; the Mirror never DID get to the point where it could grant wishes... at least, nobody believes it ever got to that point. But then, nobody has ever been trapped inside the Mirror and returned to tell the tale.

When the Mirror traps someone inside itself and outside of Time, that person and their consequences can no longer affect the world. In that circumstance, with a person fully under its power, the Mirror isn't limited in what it can do. Sometimes, it can even grant seemingly incompatible wishes.

But complex problems require complex solutions. In this case, the Mirror takes a few massive liberties about how, exactly, it satisfies the wishes of both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Namely, it sends them to a world of ponies.

Informal Premise: This is a crossover between MLP and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, not just Harry Potter. No matter how accessible I try to make it to those who haven't read HPMoR, those who HAVE read it will undeniably have an easier experience reading this story.

HPMoR is the second most popular fanfiction of Harry Potter, at least according to fanfiction stats. It involves Harry studying & dissecting the wizarding world with science. Not with technology, with actual science. That is, he uses the experimental method, generates and tests hypotheses, and in the words of his Occlumency instructor, "wants to discover the underlying rules of magic to become all-poweful".

THIS fanfic brings THAT version of Harry Potter to Equestria. It also brings that story's version of Voldemort.

If you want the best reading experience, please go read HPMoR first. It can be found on fanfiction dot net, or on its own website, or even on any podcast app, as it has its own fan-made audiobook with 30+ contributing voice actors, production quality, sound effects, music, etc. (which is more than can be said for most PROFESSIONAL audiobooks).

Link to HPMoR on fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality
Link to HPMoR on its own website: http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/1
Link to audiobook (though the website isn't nearly as good as podcast apps): https://hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=56

All forms of HPMoR that I've encountered are high quality, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone. You can probably read the first few chapters of HPMoR in thirty minutes or so. If it doesn't appeal to you, this story probably won't appeal to you either.

For those who haven't read Methods and want to read this story anyway, the first two chapters are going to be the most confusing. They're mostly housekeeping and stage-setting, barely touching the MLP universe beyond the new setting.

And I think the same advice Yudkowsky gave for HPMoR applies here. The story starts hitting its strides around Chapter 5, if not sooner. If you don't like it by Chapter 10, best just to give up and read something else.

This story is a sequel to Prey and a Lamb

'Little lamb, Little lamb, where have you been?~ I've sown the fields and reaped the corn~'

Ups and downs, triumphs and setbacks. This story(s) mainly draws from the characters after the end of 'Prey and a Lamb'. These individual story-chapters are both about what came afterwards, and their owners involvement in the wider events of Equestria.

You don't necessarily have to have read the marathon long previous story, (its really long, I know) as the characters can stand alone to an extent, but it might help. Or not? You can do as you please.

Now, as a word of how I plan to do this, first off: There is no release schedule! Sorry, no bi-weekly update grindstone writing. However, each chapter will be a small self contained story in itself. I will maybe use certain characters more than once, and interweave these min-stories Time Lines, but this will at least mean there are no cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter.

(Disclaimer: I own nothing and have no say in FiM and associated industries. The cover image came from a suggestion from earth)

The great Archotechs, bored with the machinations of the universe, found a new source of amusement.
Tossed into the lion's pit, Twilight Sparkle will have to put every lesson she learned to use. The Rimworlds are dangerous places, this even more so than the others. Can one clever pony survive unbroken in such a place? Thru the onslaught of the cruel game master Winston Waves?

Luckily, she isn't alone, and as they say:
Friendship is magic, even on the Rim.

* A MLP/Rimworld crossover
*Take's place just before episode 25 of season 2 (A Canterlot Wedding)
*Gore tag because it's rimworld and people lose limb's there like it's going out of style.
*Profanity because I have a potty mouth.
*Beware of hats.

3/14/24 Still Alive Edition

There's only one pony in Ponyville that the Mane Six have never met. Pinkie Pie has never thrown him a party, Applejack has never sold him a mug of cider, and Twilight has never seen him check out any books. And as far as that unicorn, Lapis Print, is concerned, that's exactly how it should be.

Lapis can't risk them knowing where he lives, what he does for a living, or even what his name is - if he gets his way, the Mane Six won't even know he exists, and nopony in Ponyville will miss him once he's gone.

It should be a piece of cake - after all, it's not like the biggest magical power in Equestria is about making sure everypony looks out for each other, right?

(Rated Teen for language - mental cursing mostly.)

Sweet Sauce was once a Stallion of renown and stature, a pony others respected and admired. Unfortunately for him, all that success eventually turned to pride, and ended with a sentence of banishment from Equestria.

There was no term to his sentence--but Sweet Sauce was not the kind of pony to surrender. He had centuries to reflect, to reconsider, and to gather power for his triumphant return. But perhaps he should've spent a little more time.

His incredible spell worked, returning him to the world of his birth. But instead of his own powerful body, he's now a small, useless earth pony, in a world that has forgotten he ever existed. Sweet is determined to make up for his mistakes, and to prove to the princesses of Equestria that he is a changed pony.

Too bad he looks like a homeless little colt without a cutie mark.

Updates Thursdays until complete. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail. Coverart by Solder Point.

This story was written as a Patreon reward for Boopy Doopy.