[Complete! With TVTropes apparently!]
Also, apparently, an animated trailer.

In a world of brass and steam, Twilight Sparkle had thought she had made a life-changing discovery with the invention of the telescope. For better or worse, she was correct.

Now her discovery has not only changed her life, but the lives of those she seeks out in her desperate attempt to contact the only other creature as lonely as Twilight herself.

It all would have been much simpler, but it had to be the one Twilight could only call The Mare on the Moon.

Decidedly not within walking distance, then.

[Featured on EQD before story was meant to be submitted. 4/03/2015]

[Editing team: Southpaw, Wolfvenom, Maskedferret, SwanSong and BluePaladin42, without whom this story would be a fraction of its current state.]
[Special thanks to Novel-Idea for the updated cover]

Hopes. Dreams. Aspirations. They're what everyone survives, and even thrives, on. What happens, then, when hopes and dreams are dashed? When something so monumentally destructive and life-changing occurs, and dreams, hopes, even ponies' lives are thrown into turmoil, where can solace be found? When somepony's entire world comes crumbling around them, who can they turn to for support? What can they do when everything they once had is shattered?

Twilight Sparkle wakes up one morning to a harsh dose of unreality. She is stranded, without her friends, on an island which matches no known locale on Equestria. Surrounded and harried on all sides by the alien and the dangerous, she will find her mettle sorely tested, and find perhaps that the best friends you will ever have in your life are the ones you make when your back is to the wall...

Thanks to CedricBale and noobie56xx for tracking down the name of the artist so I could give them credit.

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.

Twilight has been waiting for-freaking-ever for her first edition, autographed hard cover edition of the newest Prancy Drew novel.

Three times- THREE times it's been improperly delivered, and Twilight has HAD IT with the town's mail system and the town's mail mare!!

Edited by : Docontra Thank you so much!!!

"My handsome little cherub, close your eyes.
Mommy's going to give you clear blue skies.
So you’ll laugh and dance and play in the air.
And sing the song of angels everywhere."

Daring Do is on a quest to recover the Ruby of Raksamakesh! As always, she's prepared for every situation she could think of as she approaches the labyrinth where it is located. That doesn't help when she comes up across something she couldn't have expected; a monster who's...slightly more inept than what she's used to.

Her heart was broken. Her reputation in Ponyville was in ruins. A menace, they called her. Said she wasn't a real hero. Blamed her for the sudden disappearance of their real hero, Mare Do Well. She'd even been abandoned by her five best friends. Everything she thought she could count on was destroyed.

Bent on vengeance and driven by her raw emotions, Rainbow Dash becomes a villain that Ponyville won't soon forget. But she soon finds that not everything in Ponyville is quite what it seems.

Special thanks to DragonShadow, who pre-read and helped me revise this story. Thanks also to JofY, who gave suggestions for the second revision.

The comments are full of unmarked spoilers, so watch out.
Obviously, this contains massive spoilers for the season 2 episode "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," and one must have seen it before this story will make much sense.
Rated Teen for violence and some blood.

What does it mean to be immortal? Celestia has lived for too long. Her memories are old. She has seen many ponies, and many places, and many times, and many stars, and many dreams. She wakes one night to find she does not know the ponies and the stars of today from the ponies and the stars of any other day she has lived. She no longer knows what was real and what was only dreamed.

She desperately searches for the one pony she knows could not have been a dream.

Princess Luna decides that risking the lives of the Elements of Harmony time and time again is hardly the most sensible or strategic response to the threats Equestria faces, leading her to seek an alternative solution, one which will ensure Equestria's protection in a more efficient manner.

The vagrants and outcasts of Equestria then find themselves presented with a proposition, one which could ensure their futures and prosperity... Assuming they survive the tasks requested of them that is.

Additional tags: Princess Ember, Bon Bon / Sweetie Drops, Changeling.
Old Cover Art
TvTropes Page