This story is a sequel to Innocent Until Proven Cozy

Sunset Shimmer knows the risks of blabbing about Equestria. Especially to people whose counterparts are... unsavory. The human counterpart of Cozy Glow was a gamble, but so far she's paid off. A troubled girl struggling to stay good. All Sunset has to do is keep her trust.

Something very hard to do after a nosy native Equestrian shows up.

First Place Winner

of the 4th Annual Cozy Glow Story Contest, using the prompt "Cozy's got a secret!"

On Flurry Heart's twelfth birthday, Cadance tells her daughter she will never die.

Haunted by the loneliness of her young immortality, Flurry Heart finds unexpected solace in the only other pony who could possibly understand her — the filly preserved for eternity within the Gardens of Canterlot.

Flurry could not have forseen that an apparition of that filly would appear before her, and only her.

Something brought them together. Flurry intends to uncover what.

If she wins, it's a date. If Flurry Heart wins, they hang out. Rising Hope is worried about what the difference is, but she's going to try her hardest anyway.

Written for Pride Month, and for the A Thousand Words Contest II in the slice of life category. Find the other entries here!

Art is a commission by the incomparable Mutter_Butter! Preread by the lovely Perfectly Insane! Inspired by the Horslips song Dearg Doom!

For the Sixth Annual Equestria at War Writing Contest...
and an Express Ticket to Horse Hell.

The year is 1023.

The world burns. Harmony has been forgotten in the fires of war. Guns, tanks, planes... technology outpaces magic and cruelties hitherto unknown are daily occurrences. One of them is Chiropterra, the last remnant of Nightmare Moon's rebellion. A thousand years ago, her loyalists fled across the sea to Zebrica, and their offspring have built a millennia-long legacy on fear and suffering. The beleaguered Hippogriffs of Aris have been pushed back to their home islands, as they were decades ago under the Storm King.

But no longer. Equestria and the Crystal Empire have withstood the invasion of Queen Chrysalis at great cost. They have rebuilt, and now the Princesses turn their eyes to their last mistake. Across the ocean, the Griffonian Empire, reforged and reformed, sees an opportunity to thaw relations between three species.

The greatest expeditionary force ever assembled, bearing weaponry never used before in war, descends upon north Zebrica to end the long night of terror. Two of the leaders find themselves at one of the first landings: Flurry Heart, the Crystal Princess and heir apparent to the Crystalline Throne, and Grover VI, the constitutional Kaiser of the Griffonian Empire. They are barely adults, and this is their first war.

Everyone wishes they took it seriously.

Equestria and the Crystal Empire have fallen to the Changeling Hegemony, led by the brutal Queen Chrysalis at the head of a mechanized horde of guns and tanks. Princess Cadance stayed in the Crystal Empire; Princess Twilight stayed in Equestria. Chrysalis rules the continent, only defied by Nova Griffonia, the poor Griffon colony in the north.

Across the ocean, the Griffonian Reich pledges to reclaim its lost territory, sundered by revolution a generation ago. While the Alicorn Sisters retreat to New Mareland, Princess Flurry Heart and Shining Armor turn to Aquileia, the Republic born out of the ashes of the Griffonian Reich. The Kaiser of the Reich is only a child, subject to a regent bent on war and conquest.

Flurry knows the Reich and Chrysalis have worked together.

She knows that war is coming to Aquileia.

She knows that Celestia and Luna abandoned her mother and Twilight Sparkle.

She knows that the world is on fire, and she is the last true Princess of Ponies.

She knows she will go home.

Cover Art by Opal Radiance, commissioned by Sunstreaker.
https://www.deviantart.com/opalradiance

One evening, Twilight Velvet, book editor for Hoovesbury Publishing and mother of two, meets her newest client: aspiring writer Sunny Skies, who writes of distant lands and people from across the world, who has as many secrets as Celestia has loving subjects.

It didn't matter to her much, so long as Sunny did her work, and Velvet hers. But as the seasons pass by and their acquaintance grows, Velvet finds that perhaps she and Sunny are more alike than she could have ever imagined.

Set before Season 1.

Now with an audio reading by skysayl! Thanks a bunch

Third Place in the 2023 May Pairings Contest!

Featured on Equestria Daily!

A standalone piece in the Spectrum-verse. TV Tropes page here!

Edited by VoxAdam, proofread by skysayl and EileenSaysHi. Thanks, everyone

The Great Hall of Asterion excerpts adapted by VoxAdam.

Cover by egriz.

Featured on 29/5/2023-3/6/2023, reaching #1 three hours after publishing!

What does a mayor do? On a good day, you get to nose over an award. It helps if you can make sure the weather schedule comes off on time. But more than anything else, it's about leadership. Taking responsibility for the safety and comfort of all those who live within your domain. That's how it's supposed to work. The mayor is the one who makes sure everything is under control.

This is Ponyville. Marigold is fully aware that on a typical day, approximately nothing will be under control. But when it comes to protecting those who live there, she still has to do whatever she can.

If there's anything left which she can do at all.

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

Cover art from a vector rendering by DaAfroMan.

It is a common belief that with immortality comes a warped perception of time. The years blend together and decades pass in a blink of an eye.

Four hundred years after Luna's banishment, Princess Celestia wishes that those rumors were true.

Inspired by the 4everfreebrony's cover of Cyril the Wolf's "Millennium Alone".

Proofread by Reviewfilly and the anons of /fimfic/.

Sometimes, watching those we care about suffer can hurt more than anything.

Iron Will doesn't sit down and take pain in stride, though. He's gotta fight back. Like an angry bull. So when the ignorant jerks up at the state capitol decide to be idiots, he has to figure out a way to make things right again.

Only sometimes, there's no perfect catchphrase for the job.

First place entry in the Quills and Sofas Transgender contest.

My entry for the Pride and Positivity event. Please consider donating to one of the following charitable causes:

• Transgender Law Center
• Palestine Children's Relief Fund
• Sewa International (Indian charity collecting funds for COVID relief)

Cover art was a gift from a friend, applejackofalltrades! Thank you so much!

Much gratitude for my fellow Q&S members for their support/suggestions/prereading: applejackofalltrades, themoontonite, Undome Tinwe, The Red Parade, Silvermint, Bicyclette, wishcometrue, The Hat Man, Vis-A-Viscera, and Atom Smash.

Additional editing/prereading provided by ninjadeadbeard, Jarvy Jared, and Arkane12

Love is shared, Thorax and the changelings are freed, Chrysalis is defeated, and alls well that ends well. But Twilight isn't Celestia. An escaping villain should be chased down. In pursuit of chrysalis however, Twilight is surprised to uncover the truth of who the queen really is, and learns a little of the truth of politics in the process.

A personal twist on the season 6 finale, inspired by watching said finale, listening to my brother complain about it, and pondering how I would have structured the story differently. Less a "Fix" and more a "what would I do if I ran the zoo?"