Twilight Sparkle finds a book in the library.

Twilight Sparkle reads aforementioned book.

Twilight Sparkle's life is thrown upside down, her view of her teacher shattered, and her friends pitted against each other.

Everything will return to normal.

One of these statements is false.

Twilight has something she needs to tell Princess Celestia--something that means a chance at getting everything she's ever wanted, or of losing everything she's ever had.

Something so terrifying that the only way she could say it was in a letter...and so wonderful that she had the courage to send it.

(Thanks to Cenit V for the cover!)

Imprisoned in the tunnels beneath Canterlot, she withers away in hunger and despair. In the castle above, curiosity leads him to a door that he is forbidden to open. When they finally meet, it is just the opportunity she has waited for. Mislead by a child's trusting innocence, Spike unknowingly stumbles into the clutches of Equestria's greatest foe. And once you embrace the darkness, the darkness never lets you go...

Cover image by ss2sonic

Rainbow Dash is many things. Awesome, radical, amazing, and at least twenty percent cooler than any other pony in Equestria.

She is also lost, lonely and uncertain. Not that anypony else would know.

During the day she is everything everypony expects her to be: she is fast, daring, and adventurous, but when the sun goes down, she is left alone with her thoughts. Tired of simply yearning for something more, she sets out on a night of soul searching and stumbles onto a friend in need, and maybe, underneath the vanilla twilight, she finds something more.

Celestia leaves to deal with a foreign crisis, giving her sister a chance to rule alone and become more attached to the modern world. She calls on Twilight Sparkle to advise Luna, hoping her student will be able to draw Luna out of her shell. With two major threats to Equestria already defeated in the past year, it seems like the perfect time to let Luna gain some confidence and experience in the modern world. After all, what are the chances of a third disaster occurring?

Now comes with complimentary tropes.

Discord has been defeated, and Twilight and her friends are eager to get back into the swing of everyday life. Shortly after the end of the victory ceremony in Canterlot, Celestia asks a favour of Twilight, to put Discord back where he belongs, and the ever-faithful student accepts.

By noon of the next day, however, Twilight has both a startling revelation, and a terrible new secret to keep. Otherwise, the last thing she sees may in fact be the statue garden.

Acknowledgements
Edited and test-read by DreamVirusOmega (aka PoisonClaw) and Nonagon
Heavily inspired by and adapted from Garden Party: Petrified by PumpkinHipHop
Cover art used with permission by DocWario