Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. My brothers are Shining Armor, captain of the Royal Guard, and a dragon named Spike that I hatched when I was little. I have five friends that help me wield the Elements of Harmony, artifacts that protect Equestria from evil. I have a few other friends that are less important, but still great ponies nonetheless.

One catch, though. I am also a changeling Queen, and the friends and family I just mentioned are all my subjects, and children as well. They don't even know it, but everything's working out alright, so no reason to tell them! After all, it's not like a giant wave of love energy could suddenly reveal all the changelings in Canterlot, right? Right?

Part 1, Revelation: Twilight Sparkle meets an old enemy that reveals a secret she's kept since she was named.

Part 2, Recollection: The Elements of Harmony try to get to the truth of the matter, changeling Queens begin their game of chess, Queen Citlali takes her Hive and runs from Canterlot.

Part 3, Reformation: Queen Citlali begins to grow her hive, Whitetail Hive takes some time to get used to the news, Princess Cadance dreams of a dark creature.

May 11-15, 2017: Featured for the maximum time... whoa.

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.

Sometimes your passions are at odds with one another. In some cases, they're so at odds with one another that you need to hide behind a different name just to be yourself. Living two lives is hard, and in the case of Photo Finish and Rainbow Dash, it's about to get harder.

Rated Teen for mild cursing, alcohol, and mild adult themes.

Thanks to my good friend Falkon for edits, MelodicMarzipan for the awesome cover art, and everyone who has pestered me to work on this story since I had the idea back during Season 2

Hey look, someone reviewed my story!

Idol Hooves holds a special place in Equestria. He's probably the only exiled changeling to serve in the Royal Guard, or at least, that's what he expects, as exiles don't really broadcast that fact. However, it's well known that Princess Celestia loves all of her little ponies, and her guards perhaps more so, and that makes it one of the best ways for a changeling to discreetly feed.

But how does a changeling even get there, let alone get exiled in the first place? For that matter, why would it ever go to Canterlot? Set a number of years before the series proper, before Luna’s redemption, Idol details how he was exiled, the ponies he’s met, and the series of misadventures that led him to joining the Royal Guard, and should continue a good ways into the series, as something of an alternate perspective.

Soon, he’ll have to deal with a boisterous new princess to serve and a royal wedding in the works bringing a third to power. Will his old instincts bring this new life crashing down around him? What precipitates Chrysalis’s ill-fated assault on Canterlot? Is it really so wrong for a changeling to enjoy good craftsmanship to an obsessive degree?

New cover art provided by the fantastic Carnifex

And a TVTropes page here.

And an Ask Blog of questionable canonity!
Out of Idol Curiosity

Fanart by Norad2! Major thanks! Short For a Royal Guard

Art by Egophiliac of Idol and his Daring Duckie Please don't tell him what that brush is meant for.

Rating updated to (T), it's a bit darker than (E)
Comedy Tag added as well
And changed the character tags a bit.

Thrust into the world of her favorite book-series, Rainbow Dash finds herself dragged along for the ride of Daring Do's latest adventure. Mind-boggling as it may be, things are about to get far more complicated. For Rainbow Dash, breaking the fourth wall may very well prove to be a learning experience.

TAGS: Learning curve, Breaking the Fourth Wall for beginners, "Rainbow Sense", Where is Pinkie Pie?

This story was conceived long before the episodes "Daring Don't" and "Power Ponies".
For the sake of this story, Daring Do remains a fictional character, the author remains anonymous, and there is no such thing as a store selling "enchanted" comic-books.

This story is available as an audio-book (text-to-speech synthesized), see individual chapters for links.

Story excerpt:

It still bothered her how she had gotten here, how it was even possible that she was walking side-by-side through some buried underground-structure, with her favourite fictional character become flesh. But as they resumed trotting deeper into the temple, Dash's thoughts kept going back to the event.

"No", Dash told herself, sternly. "That's - that's not it."

She almost would have compared the experience to "Pinkie Sense" of all things!

But she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. It had been... letters. Words. A sentence.

Something along the lines of "... the characteristic noise of a ... spikes closing in right behind ... Rainbow Dash slammed her body into ... ".

And then she had acted, before the trap was even visible. She had known what was going to happen, before it happened.

She ... she had read the next paragraph.

Story-related artwork:
[1] [2]