Twilight Sparkle. Magical prodigy. Personal student of Princess Celestia. Bearer of the Element of Magic. Princess of Friendship. Hers is easily one of the greatest destinies in Equestria.

Yes. Definitely. All predetermined. It certainly had nothing to do with any incidents she had early in her personal lessons from Celestia, nor any potent magic the Princess of the Sun kept hidden in plain sight. That would be ridiculous.

An entry in MrNumbers's Prompts and Positivity challenge.

Rated Teen for Lunar language and explicit alcohol consumption.

Blueblood just wants to run his charity and be left alone, but High Society - and starry-eyed mares - have other plans.

He's not a good stallion, but maybe he's a better one than even he would guess. Now if only he'd stop being so cynical...

Donut Joe keeps his store open on Hearth’s Warming Eve. And why not? He doesn’t have anywhere else to be, and neither do the tired, bitter ponies who find their way inside.

But the Eve is young, and strange things lie ahead. Who knows what might happen on a night like tonight?

(Inspired by the song "Old City Bar," by Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

Reviewed by TheifofZ here.

"Sunset, you weren't the first unearthly threat to come to this world, and you won't be the last. If we seem calm in the face of strange events, it's not because we're oblivious or indifferent to them. It's because they're not strange to us. The Fall Formal may have been the most important night of your life, but to us... it was Thursday."

(Slice-of-life adventures of Canterlot High's unlikely band of monster hunters.)

Now with a Tropes page, courtesy of AnoneMouseJr.

The sirens are defeated and Sunset Shimmer has restored her magic. All's well and good, right?

Of course not. What begins with Sunset's friends wanting to have a very important talk with her will escalate until the fate of at least one world hangs in the balance.

Rated Teen for cosmic calamities, trace amounts of waifu theft, and a bit more skin than Hasbro is likely to show. Cover by iisaw.

The Story Shuffle short stories "Aftershock" and "Rock On" take place in the same continuity as this story. The background details of "Fish Out of Water" apply, but the story itself does not.

To save her sister and her faithful student, Celestia herself must travel into the ancient tunnels beneath the ruined castle in the Everfree Forest. She, and the guards who accompany her, must face the dark, twisting corridors. Still, what was Luna and Twilight's purpose at the old castle? Why were they unable to return of their own accord?

And what watches Celestia from beyond the light's edge?

Trying to patrol the dreams of every pony in Equestria can be stressful. To ease her burden, Luna retools the Tantabus to turn nightmares into good dreams instead of vice versa. Aware of her mistakes from last time, she tests it out thoroughly, making sure there are no unexpected behaviors. And as far as she can tell, there are none.

Except that it's started calling her "Mom".

Faced with the prospect of possibly creating life, Luna seeks out Twilight's advice and assistance. With a little luck, they can get this all sorted out before the sun rises.

Celestia had a problem. Somepony wrote a novel about Nightmare Moon's rebellion. This made Luna quite unhappy, and unfortunately for her sister, Luna has not yet gotten the hang of modern traditions like freedom of speech, the abolition of the death penalty, and not bothering Princess Celestia when she's trying to sleep.

Fortunately, Celestia also had a faithful student, one who is now a Princess with an ill-defined portfolio and perfectly capable of dispensing justice by the laws of both today and one thousand years ago.

Now Twilight Sparkle has a problem.

(Title image hacked together from vectors by Martinnus1, Hawk9mm, and Paulie15.)

Twilight has developed a device that can detect strange signals coming from outer space; signals from aliens! She gathers her friends so that they can all listen in.

But they may not like what they hear...

cover image courtesy of DocWario

I'd appreciate if everyone could keep the YouTube embeds in the comments to a minimum. The sheer number of them is putting a bit more strain on my connection than I'd like. I'm going to start deleting any comments with 2 or more embeds in them.

There are stories which define us. Stories that inspire us. And there are stories that damn us.

These are the Old Stories, tales from before the dawn of Equestria.

Spanish translation

The original EqD link is here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/08/story-old-stories.html