After the Elements free her from Nightmare Moon, Luna asks Celestia, "What happened to my daughters?"

Celestia escorts Luna to the Canterlot Sculpture Gardens and shows her the Reliquary of the Heroes.

Under the statues of her millennium-dead daughters, Luna learns how they lived in the shadow of Nightmare Moon's treason, and how they died as glorious heroes of Equestria.

Sequel: With Her Majesty's Coast Guard.

Recommendsday!

Content warning: Pandemic. Note that this was published before current events.

Heavy is the head that bears the crown. Light is the heart that shares its burdens.

Historian’s Note: The Tarnished Crown occurs three weeks before the events in the Season 4 Finale, Twilight’s Kingdom.

Cast: Rarity & Twilight Sparkle
Introducing: Amber Spark

Cover Art: Little-Tweenframes (SciSetDaily)
Rarity Header & Section Breaks Design: Novel Idea
Rarity Cutie Mark: Black-Gryph0n (Yes, that BlackGryp0n)

Beta Reader & Editor Credits
Ebon Quill - Audio Director & Quest Designer on The Manehattan Project
Little Tinker - Master of Systems at Poniverse & Scripting Engineer on The Manehattan Project
Beltorn - Commenter-at-Large on FimFiction
Cursori: Reader of Many a Pony Word
Monochromatic - Patron Saint of RariTwi

Word Count: 11,000 Words
Version: 2.6

When Twilight Sparkle was four years old, her mother bought her a tombstone.

Dedicated to Regidar. They're a real one.

Edited by MrNumbers and R5h.

Chinese translation by Hehelover

Russian translation by Repitter.

Patreon. Ko-fi. Picture of me looking handsome

After putting on the Element of Magic, Sunset Shimmer was shown just how much of a monster she really is. But that wasn't all the Elements did to her.

Sunset has now been forced to serve penance by answering any question truthfully and by doing anything asked of her, whether she wants to or not.

And she really doesn't want to.

Until all of the hatred in her heart is gone, Sunset is at the whim of her peers, unbeknownst to them of course. Can her new "friends" help her down the road to redemption?

If not, there's always that other Twilight Sparkle she keeps running into.

Current editor: Nomad_Sigma
Guest editors: Cerulean Voice, Flint Sparks, Starlight Nova, and Sholan
Extra thanks to Icarus_Gizmo, JustAnotherTimeLord, and HenryAnthonyCourtler

Cover art customized by Amber Spark!

Now with it's own TV Tropes page!
Posted on EQD June 25, 2014
Wanna read it in French?
Or, read the E-Pub version here or the online version here
Now available in print format!

In a sunburned Equestria, Rarity leads the pleasant life of a clothier in the tiny town of Spurhoof. She’s got a successful business, a capable assistant, and the respect of the place she’s called home for six years. Maybe she never achieved her foalhood dreams of fabulosity, but at least she’s comfortable. What more can a mare ask for?

Then a band of outlaws decide to pay Spurhoof a visit, and their leader’s eye has settled upon Rarity. Soon she’ll have to fight not only for her life, but maybe her very soul. Will her diamond turn dull under the hot Equestrian sun, or will adversity make her shine all the brighter?

Print copies now available for purchase on Lulu!.

Now featured on Equestria Daily.

Inspired by Fallout: Equestria and the song Bulletproof Heart by My Chemical Romance.

Other stories inspired by music:
Escape
Ordinary World
Bed of Roses
Drops of Jupiter
How to Save a Life
Forgive Me, Friend
Time for Tea

A big thanks to my brainstorming fellow and ever-awesome friend SorenPixels, who has helped me ponder the plans for this story since its inception.

Additional kudos to Danger Beans and Cerulean Voice for their help with the first few chapters.

Big thanks to the fantastic author Viking ZX for taking time out of his busy schedule to be my Alpha pre-reader.

Last but certainly not least, my gratitude to my gang of Beta pre-readers: Babroniedad, Lord-Commander, Merc the Jerk, Snowybee, Soge, and Wanderer D!

I was not prepared for the absolutely stunning world building or the incredibly well done characters. [...] This is a work of absolute art. — Equstarte Marine Sebaste

Reading and re-reading (and re-reading) this story was an amazing experience. It will always be one of my favorites! — Wanderer D

I dare say this is a masterpiece of the fandom. — FanOfMostEverything

It's a gorgeous, vivid-drawn setting you've crafted for this, and it hits its gritty Western beats and epic scope with aplomb. Rarity's character journey in this is a stellar one, and her gradual sink into (and recovery at the brink of) [...] darkness was wonderfully and believably told. — Carabas

Cover art commissioned from the fantastic bakki, with title work generously donated by Novel-Idea.

Pronoia: believing the world is conspiring in your favor
Paranoia: believing the world is conspiring against you

As a former member of Canterlot's elite law enforcement team, Twilight Sparkle is used to a certain level of responsibility. However, her years of experience are rendered useless by her sudden and unwanted transfer to the sleepy little town of Ponyville. With no other option, she chooses to give into the monotony.

But this all changes when a grisly murder shocks the entire town. As the only member of Ponyville's police force equipped to deal with this sort of thing, Twilight welcomes her first real case in over two years. But she quickly realizes that there is more to this murder than meets the eye. It seems Twilight's past has followed her to Ponyville.

With the help of her loyal assistant Spike, a series of strange clues, and some cryptic notes, Twilight tries to figure out the identity of the pony or ponies who have wrapped her up in their bizarre game.

It's the oldest chocolate shop in Equestria, the very first -- and on this night, it's also out of business. The final treats have been sold, the vultures have already begun to circle the equipment, and the proprietor polishes the remains out of pure habit while wondering what to do with her life. But that question will have to wait, as she has one more customer to take care of.

The very first.

(A stand-alone, no-prior-reading necessary part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
Cover art by Pikamander2.

"When the revolution comes, who will be the first against the gingerbread wall?"

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, goes to Las Pegasus to attend the Great Equestrian Bake-Off. Being Twilight Sparkle, she can't have a pleasant trip, no. She finds herself in a convoluted mess of tribalism, government mandated fairness, a dying element of earth pony culture, and what just might be the remnants of the Great Equestrian Dream, a unity that might have never existed.

Left with no other choice, Twilight decides it is time to smash the system, forgetting that she is the system. Somehow, Twilight manages to lead a revolt against her own authority.

An entry in the Weedverse.

This story is a sequel to The Flower Mare: Seele

Schneeblume Herbstlicht—Ponyville's newer Flower Mare—was a withdrawn, grizzled earth pony veteran of the The Great War. It took the determination and attentiveness of the three Crusaders over several years to help Schnee slowly find peace in her tumultuous mind, and life. But it turns out, in a manner of speaking, there is one more battle that must be concluded.

And to lay to rest some more of her demons that have haunted her healing mind, Schnee realizes she must once-more return to where her journey through Tartarus began: back home.

Two-chapter, third and final installment of 'The Flower Mare' series.
Unlike my previous stories that had sequels, this is one that I highly recommend reading the previous two prequels for better world filling.

Cover art by the wonderfully talented pridark, sourced to her DA.

Monster attacks. Crime. Illegal hallucinogens made from electric fruit.

They say things didn't use to be like this. They say things were different, before Luna came back 60 years ago, but Detective Hard "Hardy" Boiled of the Detrot Police Department has never known any world other than that demarcated by the seedy streets of his beloved decaying metropolis; a world in which the coroners sing and dance, surveillance bugs have personality disorders, and the Chief of Police is a scarier entity than most of the eldritch things the city attracts.

The grey unicorn who turned up dead outside the posh High Step Hotel seemed like just another case, but her missing horn is the pointy tip of a very large and nasty iceberg. It's up to Hardy and his friends - a rejected monster hunter, a psychic cab driver, and an underground antiques heir - to find out what’s going on in an investigation that promises to stick more than a cupcake into the very eye of Detrot.

Especially if Hardy has anything to say about it.

By Popular Demand, there is now a Patreon

Additional editing by coandco Sig_Awesome, Hinds, Clint, and Raccoon!
Featured on EQD - 5 Stars!
Cover art by MisterMech (http://mistermech.deviantart.com/)
Now with TVTropes page here!