This story is a sequel to The Sun Burns Brightly

When you're the immortal ruler of an entire kingdom, the most important quality to possess is a passion for your work. No princess can rule her nation if she can't find it in herself to give her best effort every day and night. Luna knows this better than anypony, and puts her whole heart into everything she does.

But passion, unless tempered by restraint, has a way of biting one in the flank.

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.

Princess Twilight Sparkle has sought long and hard for the weapon of which the old tales tell. Hellpiercer, mystical lance and bane of the Wraithworm, has at last fallen into her possession.

She sets out to take it to the great dragon of the Badlands, praying she arrives in time.

An utterly fluffy story.

Part of same 'verse as How to Hug a Five-Hundred-Foot Tall Dragon.

Dramatic reading by Zephyscribe aka Zephysonas found on Equestria Daily!
Recommended by PresentPerfect.

Long ago, a village in Equestria was struck with a terrible plague. The ponies fell deathly ill in mere days, coughing phlegm and blood as their muscles shriveled; crops withered and died as a poisonous odor permeated the air. And if that weren't enough, strange bellowings and roars could be heard from the distant woods.

A plea for help summoned two of the Pillars of Equestria: the Mage Meadowbrook, the Mystical Mask who could cure any sickness, and the mighty Rockhoof, mover of mountains and tamer of monsters.

When they respond, the two heroes quickly determine that this is no ordinary disease. Following the trail, they find the true source of the plague, and soon must battle for not just the villagers' lives, but their own...

Dash brings her old friend Gilda over to hang out. Turns out she knows Sunset and they tell the story of how Sunset got her motorcycle.

***
Second place winner in Sunset Shimmer x Villains Unseen Contest!

A young alicorn, alone in the darkness. A unicorn, frozen in terror as her kingdom falls. They are millennia apart, and yet they are together.

An entry for FOME's Imposing Sovereigns III contest, with the prompt Cadence / Perseverance - though it could just as easily be Amore / Perseverance.

The gryphons were not always monsters. That came later.

In the earliest days, they were our friends. They flew alongside pegasi. They shared the land with earth ponies. They studied beside unicorns. There was no fear between us. That came later too.

Time drew our people apart, but it was not time that made them monsters. They made that choice themselves; they chose their fate. And it was the greatest gryphon who sealed it.

He was born, many years ago, on a mountain far to the north...

Flim and Flam aren't the kind of ponies one should trust with powerful magical artifacts. Reformed villains like Starlight Glimmer probably aren't, either. But there's no harm in the Memory Machine.

You can't change the past, but maybe you can drown it out.

An entry in GaPJaxie's Speedwriting Contest. Perfect for curing Writer's Block, stretching your writing muscles, or just trying something new!

Ponies tell themselves many stories.

Tales of great towers spun from the air itself; legends of those who could bend the heavens to their will; myths of cities that live forever on the edge of memory.

Often, the stories themselves bear little resemblance to reality; the truth is found between the lines.

In the spirit of Cold in Gardez's Lost Cities challenge.

Proofread by Not_A_Hat.

Buried beneath the Dragon Lands, there is a city. It rots, and it bleeds.

And it breathes.

A writing exercise inspired by the magnificent Lost Cities, written by Cold in Gardez.

Enormous thanks to Undome Tinwe, without whom this story would probably not exist.

Audiobook by Illya Leonov!

Audiobook by Jman14102!