Spike feels like a Dragon without purpose and without anything to offer his friends. He leaves Ponyville without warning his friends, in an attempt to find his purpose on his own.
Princess Luna finds Spike and shows him the nightmares that his friends have been having in his absence, in an attempt to convince him to return to Ponyville of his own free will. Spike learns that dreams are the quickest road to the heart.
EDIT: 1000+ views! Thank you all so much. I consider this work to be my magnum opus, and I'm glad to see that it received some attention!

Life is pretty unpredictable for me, but that alone is the predictable part of it. Pretty early on, I learned that I should expect the unexpected, and enjoy the brief moments of peace when they were there. Such an outlook helped me early on to keep from going crazy with all of the stuff that's happened to us all.

As the years passed though, I found my own source of peace: my closest friends.

My best friends were always there for me, and I for them. We held each other up when we fell below the surface of the sea of life, and offered friendly smiles and listening ears to each other when we needed it most. Even with all the insanity we weathered over the years, we became closer in spite of it...or, perhaps because of it. In a world of hoarding dragons, I may be the only one that cherished a small group of ponies over gold or jewels.

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Rated T for use of alcohol, language of a sexually suggestive nature, and implied sexual acts.

Cover art provided by Zwagyzonk, used with permission.

Note: Ponies are considered adolescent/mature at a much younger age than humans (six and fourteen, respectively). I've made an oversight on this, and I believe this explanation will fix that. Also, this will be a Spike-harem fic, but as with all my other submissions, there is no clop; just a heads up.

Featured multiple times!

This story is a sequel to A Pony out of Place

Set directly after A Pony out of Place. Flare Blitz, a Rapidash, turned pony, has opted to stay in Equestria, but things won't be so easy for him. Now a full-fledged pony, he has to earn a Cutie Mark, train with the Princesses, survive a love triangle and Arceus knows what else.

And most importantly... get Twilight to go out with him!

It has a TV Tropes pages too, check it out and help add to it.

Bright Blade was happy, sure he may have no memories of his past before coming to Ponyville, but he was happy living with the mare who took him in and making many friends in the town he now called home. Unitl one day all that came crashing down. Now Bright Blade must use his mysterious powers to fight for his home and friends. Against a demonic army of ponies and against all odds, but with the Elements of Harmony at his side there's nothing any them can't handle. But all is not well as Twilight has doubts about her young ward, which may be due to the fact that she has no memory of even meeting or knowing Bright Blade. What could this mean?

It is a tale of war...
A tale of love and heartache...
Of sorrow and despair...
Of death and rebirth...!
This is War in Equestira: The Tale of Bright Blade

Inspired by the song This is War by 30 Seconds to Mars

Link to the Sequel!

Now with an audio drama produced by truesailorcomet, as well as TVTropes page!

Princess Luna takes on a Night Apprentice, her counterpart to Princess Celestia's Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle. Nova Shine, a wandering unicorn from Canterlot, is given the position for the first time in a thousand years. What neither of them know is that there exists a long and secret history between the positions of the Faithful Student, the Night Apprentice, and a mysterious shadow that seems to keep popping up in Nova's and Twilight's dreams. This shadow, whatever it is, and the dreams it appears in do not bode well, but the Princesses remain tight-lipped about these nightmares.

Nova and Twilight agree to investigate the nightmares themselves, and this mission occupies them for some time. But as they continue their search, their relationship starts to develop into something more than just fellow students. As if to make matters any more chaotic, Trixie Lulamoon arrives on Twilight's doorstep announcing that she, too, has been dealing with nightmare problems.

Finally, there's also the shadow itself. An ancient and dangerous enemy, it has lain dormant for the last thousand or so years. Why it chooses to reveal itself now is anyone's best guess, but unless Twilight and Nova can stop it, there's no telling what will happen to Equestria...

First featured under the old system on 25 November 2013, with occasional reappearances in the new system.
Featured again on 19 November 2022, on its 10th anniversary, and again on 19 November 2023 when the final chapter of the rewrite was published. Many thanks, everyone.

This story is a sequel to The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan

NO LONGER THE CANON SEQUEL. Perhaps you are looking for The Archmage's Last Bow?

It began with The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan, but now the story continues, Even In Other Worlds.

Nathan Samuel is a normal guy. Decent grades in college, a girlfriend, an apartment, and a stable source of income. That much he thinks he's sure of. One fateful day, however, the spellwork of a curse surrounding everyone he knows suddenly drops from around him, and he is able to remember who he is: Nova Shine, the Night Master of Princess Luna.

Meanwhile, a coalition of villains to Equestria has been assembled to keep things in check. Queen Chrysalis, whose job it is to use her changeling forces to prevent any kind of organized uprising; Sombra, who was the one who cast the memory curse in the first place, is to keep it in check; Discord, who is doing little more than standing for back-up; and Nightmare Moon, watching the Elements personally and reporting back to their mysterious "benefactor."

Following a conversation with Princess Celestia, Nova now knows what he needs to do to return to Equestria. The Elements of Harmony were restored to the Tree of Harmony, but the spirits of the Elements live on in their Bearers. With all six of them unable to remember who they are, and worse, with all six hating each other, Nova Shine now has to work to restore the Elements, and in the process try to make his fiancée fall in love with him again, to return all of them to their home.

NOTE: Gore is rather light; tag is included for safety.

This story is a sequel to The 7th Element. Season 1: The Magi-Tech Pony

After a disastrous night at the Grand Galloping Gala, Gadget and Midnight just want to sit back and relax for a while. But royal duty call's and the two are soon swept up into a political game of cat and mouse. And to make thing's worse the king of chaos himself is soon unleashed upon Equestria. To complicate matter's, even more, a new and mysterious threat is making its presence known. Ponies are disappearing only to be found later with odd memories and behaviors. Can Gadget and his friend's find a way to stop this new threat before it can take over Equestria from within?

Holy CRAP!!! I GOT FEATURED!!!! I never thought that would happen. 07/08/2016

Wow, several years later and it got featured again! 04/04/2019

The human, Honored Service, returns to Canterlot after being thought dead for a year. This is the story of what happened to the unlucky human in that long year away from home.

First story found here. Click it.

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."—William Shakespeare.

This story is about the latter. Alan Williams, a man trying to take a peaceful camping trip, finds himself in Equestria. Forcing to accept the idea that the show he has watched is not, in fact, fictional has taken a massive toll on his brain, torn as he is between the awesomeness of the situation as well as it's absurdity. What's worse, it seems he is not the first human to be teleported to Equestria, and now he has some big shoes to fill.

Greatness follows.

[...]To those just finding this 'un, ya found genuine gem. Keep your heads inside the respective chapter-comments. Watch out for spoilers. Buckle your seatbelt, fillies and gentlecolts. It's gonna be a wild ride.--Runcible Spoon

Approved by Twilight's Library

Book 1 of the Harmony for All Trilogy

Due to the recent animal activity from the Everfree Forest, Princess Celestia has sent an agent from The Academy. What will happen when a certain librarian starts to fall for the crimson haired warrior? What secret is he keeping from the town folk of Ponyville? Join Crimson Storm on a journey that will shake the foundation of the world.

All ponies are humanized. Pegasi still have wings and Unicorn's cast magic with their hands.

Inspired by Gentlemanj's amazing series. 'The Journey of Graves.' and RoosterTeeth's RWBY