After the return of Princess Luna, Equestria entered a period of unparalleled innovation. Space flight and faster-than-light travel became not only reachable goals, but reality. And so equine civilization expanded throughout the cosmos. But in their search for other intelligent life, they discovered a race that could not be befriended, appeased or reasoned with. The race they encountered existed only to feed.

Now, in a war where defeat means extinction, any victory counts.

It’s the week before the Canterlot wedding and tensions are high, even more so for the changeling love collectors. With the results of the wedding, life is going to change drastically, regardless of the outcome.

For one co-owner of the Sweet Roast Cafe, wife to a loving stallion, and undercover changeling, Sweet Leaf can only hope this change is kind.

Edited by Cursori, Fade, and Lingo

Preread by 63.546.

Cover art by lilfunkman.

This story is a sequel to Unchanging Love

The explosion of love from the defeat at Canterlot hit harder and reached farther than any changeling expected. Firefly felt the effects as much as any, but she also gained something wonderful and priceless from it. Though this gift brought her a kind of joy she had never expected, she fears one question more than anything.

What trials will she and Fine Roast face when the invasion's inevitable fallout reaches them?

Big thanks to Cursori, SigmasonicX, Dogman15 (Chapters 2-5), and Ghost Mike for editing.

Amazing cover art by Pridark.

Friendly heads up. Beware the comments, they may contain spoilers!

The days of fear, torture and fierce opposition is over in the changeling hives. There is no longer the need for an elite, combat-ready military ready to eviscerate, pillage and destroy whatever they are ordered to kill. There is no longer a hive, only a hollow shell of pony lights, pony love, pony customs and the fading of changeling tradition. As each day passes, the old 'Chrysalis' ways are replaced by perverted versions of 'Celestia' and her subordinates' disgusting aesthetic.

Pharynx didn't think he'd be alone in his thinking. He didn't think he'd be the only one who stood defiant, fierce and intimidating to those around him. He didn't think that they wouldn't understand. They had to understand. They were his own kin! They turn their backs to him, ignorant to the years they've all spent as warriors and guards, in exchange for a life of comfort and ignorance.

He didn't think the entire hive would betray him. He didn't think the outcasting would be so unabashedly obvious. Is this what Thorax felt when he left the hive? Was this fate's sick karma of tormenting him until the day he dies?

You abandoned your brother. Now, they all abandon you.

This was no longer home.

Created as a pick-me-back-into-writing-again-write-as-I-go-kind-of-like-this challenge for myself. Can't say I am completely satisfied with how I conveyed the story, but it did get me inspired again.

Source Image: https://www.deviantart.com/inuhoshi-to-darkpen/art/No-Need-for-a-Soldier-702973099

We all dream of beautiful lives.

Shady Blossom need no longer dream; she has everything she ever wanted. Stepmother to Babs Seed and her sister, mother of two foals of her own, aunt to Applejack and Apple Bloom. Her life in Manehattan is all she could have wished for.

When Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders come visit to open up the Manehattan Branch of their club, however, it turns out that the past is not so easily forgotten.

Sometimes, the things that haunt us just won't stay buried.

Fourth place winner of the Time and Time Again /fic/ mini-fic competition. Originally, I wrote this over a period of 48 hours. After the end of the contest, I expanded it to better fit my original vision, and to fix its broken ending. Now, it's something I feel I can be amazingly proud of.

"Them: Part 2" can be found here

‘They’ are the shadowy figures lurking just beyond the corners of your eyes, pulling the strings of reality and shaping it to better suit their intentions. They are the celestial bureaucracy, ensuring that everything works together orderly, smoothly, and harmoniously. And, in order to do that, They sometimes have to change a few things.
Things like changing a stallion named Cloud Buster into a lithe cyan mare with a multicolored mane and tail, renaming her Rainbow Dash, giving her a new set of friends, and changing just about everything about her life. However, Cloud—Rainbow—whoever he or she is now—isn’t willing to give up her old life, or her choice in her own destiny, without a fight.

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"They" are the shadowy figures lurking just beyond the corners of your eyes, pulling the strings of reality and shaping it to better suit their intentions. They are the celestial bureaucracy, ensuring that everything works together orderly, smoothly, and harmoniously. And, in order to do that, They sometimes have to change a few things.

Rainbow Dash is one of Their victims, but she's learned how to fight back. Now she must trace Them down to Their own world before she forgets who she truly is, or is cast into a bleak oblivion from which there is no return.

An authorized continuation of Them by Chaotic Dreams. A special thanks to him for continuing to consult and advise as well.

Warning! Contains heavy doses of Gnosticism, Buddhism, and Hindu mysticism! Consult your doctor before use.

This story is a sequel to Through the Well of Pirene

Pirene stretched and emerged from her cave, shaking off the heaviness of her long slumber like a raiment. The fields of her home were saturated in sunlight, and her children played and laughed and sang in the light, their green eyes bright. Of them, one trotted forward to nuzzle at her, her mane thickly curled and black. "Hello, Mother."
"Good morning, Aurora. How are things going with Daphne and her friends?"
"I haven't checked the Well in a bit," she admitted, twitching her tail. "Our umpteenth-great granddaughter is probably in trouble, though."
"Let's have a look, then, shall we? It's been far too long."
With that, the two of them settled near the Well, and watched what visions poured from it, the stories, struggles, sorrows, and triumphs of nine and a half worlds that flowed like water, like imagination.

These are those tales.

This story is a sequel to Through the Well of Pirene

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NOTE: I wrote this before the 2020 BLM protests and my learning more about policing. I would have written it differently after, but I won't be changing it. Just keep in mind that the depiction here is of another world and another species from a different perspective.

In the City of Dreams, the City That Never Sleeps, a wistful heart walks the lonely streets, searching for answers to questions no one else is willing to ask. A reluctant pilgrim arrives from a long journey, weary but determined to make his mark. An old warhorse, his soul cracked and bleeding, saddles up for his last battle.

A noir tale set in Manehattan, fifteen years after the events of Through the Well of Pirene. Three people over the course of three nights weave and unravel a tale of anxiety, pain, and hope under the lights of the greatest city in Equestria, and the watchful gaze of a green star.

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As a child, Daphne knew of a world where magic lived, where an immortal princess reigned over a beautiful kingdom, and longed to journey there beside Leit Motif, the filly she'd grown to love in the woods behind her home. But one day, when she needed her most, Leit Motif was gone, and she never came back to show her the way. As she grew, she put aside her childish dreams, and taught herself to believe the lie.
When forces beyond her knowing take her sister Amelia, though, she discovers that her childhood fancies were entirely too real, and is thrust into a journey that will take her back to that land she longed for, back to the childhood friend she'd abandoned, and to worlds she'd only dreamed of.

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