Discord seems to be getting ready for a wedding. Twilight has some questions.

The original version of this story won 1st place in the 180th Writeoff contest, "Confronting the Inevitable."

Twilight Sparkle has ruled Equestria for over a thousand years. From her throne atop the floating city of Concord, she enforces ruthless harmony over the handful of surviving settlements. But Twilight is afraid: Equestria's survival always hangs by a thread, as enemies more ancient than the Alicorns threaten to return and devour what she has built.

Twilight selects her star pupil, a young unicorn named Star Orchid, to travel down from the perfect city of Concord into the dangerous ruins beneath, so that she might locate these forces, and help Twilight to destroy them. Only when every threat to Equestria is finally dismantled will she be able to rest. Until then, there is much left to purify.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha

Updates Wednesdays.

This story was commissioned by TyrannisUmbra, with additional funds donated by my enabler, Two Bit. If you'd like one of your own, drop me a PM!

This story takes place in the same universe as Why We Dig. I'm not going to call it a sequel, since none of its characters will be aware of anything in that story, so you won't have to be either.

After you've tried to celebrate it enough times, a holiday might start to feel like nothing more than a group of traditions which all chose the same day to kick you. The bulk of Equestria may see the palace's annual gift-receiving ceremony as their chance to show how much they love their Solar princess, but Celestia mostly perceives it as something she has to get through without dying or actively longing for death. She's usually 50% successful, and most ceremonies end with her convinced it was the wrong half.

But maybe this year will be different.

One of them has to be.

(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)

Cover art by BonesWolbach, used under open permission. Please contact him with any special background rendering requests.

Every night, Princess Luna soars through the land of dreams, shepherding the minds of her subjects. It is lonely, thankless work, forgotten by the ponies she helps as soon as the sun rises.

Luna is not the only one who stalks in the night. Monsters, yes, predators that glide in the dark spaces between the stars. But there are other wanderers as well, spirits who step easily between the worlds. Sometimes she meets them.

And sometimes she comes back with them.

An homage to Luna and little siblings everywhere. Keep up the good fight.

After four harrowing years of civil war brought about by Nightmare Moon's return, Canterlot has finally fallen. Princess Celestia has been banished to the moon, and now a new alicorn rules over Equestria. For the supporters of Nightmare Moon, the new eternal night is a time for celebration. For the ponies who fought for Celestia, it means something else entirely. For when the war is lost and the victor demands fealty, the vanquished are given only two choices: bow low and kiss the ground beneath her hooves, or die.

Not everpony who bows does so out of love for the conqueror, of course. Some do it to bide their time. Some do it out of a sense of opportunity. Most bow merely to survive. All of them are liars. But how long can a pony tell the same lie before it becomes the truth?

And what happens to that pony when their lies are lies no more?

Edited by SolidFire. Inspired by the Nightmare Moon timeline in the season 5 finale, a particular scene from a particular show, and an entertaining game of Equestria at War.

What if Twilight had remembered a reforming spell? How would this decision affect Discord, Fluttershy, herself, and the whole of Equestria?

Cover art made by TheOperaticOne

Russian translation: https://ficbook.net/readfic/9144801

Day Four of #FluttercordWeek

Featured on 1/23/20, 1/24/20, 1/26/20,
1/27/20, 1/28/20, and 1/29/20

She is the One who Mourns, She Who Raises the Sun and Moon, the Reclusive Princess.

Years have passed since the appearance of the Mare in the Moon, years during which Celestia has left the day-to-day running of the still-young kingdom of Equestria in the hooves of Platinum's grandson Prince Pyrite. Each day she raises and lowers the sun and moon, makes brief appearances at diplomatic meetings and special events, and then returns to her chambers, too lost in her melancholy to even count the years as they pass.

But what will she do when she discovers that her trusted prime minister has not been the faithful servant of the people she expected? Will she lose herself to her grief... or to the same madness that took her sister from her?

Written for Fan of Most Everything's Imposing Sovereigns II contest.

Part of the Remember Fort Libris print anthology, thanks to our Kickstarter supporters!

The guards are scared to say it.

Sunset Shimmer has returned to Canterlot.

And the Princess is furious...

Not in continuity with my other stories. Just something that popped into my head one day.

Spell Nexus (mentioned only) is from Past Sins, by Pen Stroke

On an expedition to explore the deeper depths of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Twilight finds something far older.

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In the quiet, she will be tested. It may prove her undoing.

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She will not return the same.

Artwork credit to GroaningGreyAgony.

After Celestia humiliates her at a dinner, Luna storms off and ends up snooping around in her sister's room. There, she stumbles upon the journal Celestia kept immediately after the banishment of Nightmare Moon.

Cover art by bunnish on dA.
This story now has a reading by Craft Arts. Go check it out!
Featured on Equestria Daily on August 22, 2013.