It's been a year now since Twilight vanished after attempting a sonic rainboom. She's spent her time fighting in WWII alongside her brothers in arms. Now, after a bad jump, she finds herself back in Equestria. After a well deserved rest, a nice, warm bath, and the most unusual breakfast, she begins to tell her story.

This story is a sequel to Princess Celestia The Changeling Queen: Stories Behind the Mask

At the Royal Wedding, Chrysalis and the Changelings were revealed to all of Equestria.

But another mask was torn away that day. A mask born for a thousand years. A mask created on one promise. A mask, that has become synonymous, fused, to its bearer.

A mask that when ripped off, causes Twilight, her friends and Luna to question everything they ever knew about the one pony, one very important pony.

At the Royal Wedding, the meaning of the phrase 'Princess Celestia' changes forever.

NOTE: Chrysalis is NOT Celestia!!! That'd be impossible to pull off.

Credits to: Plainoasis for the design of the cover art
Note 2: Original cover art here: https://angelea-phoenix.deviantart.com/art/Contest-entry-Changeling-Celestia-337023552

Pre-read/edited by Zervziel,
Blankscape,
FinalFan,
Courage Fire
Aurora Borealis

Side Stories to this can be found: here.

An audio-reading on youtube up to Chapter 21 is up by StraightToThePoint Studios. I'm aware there are others but this is the nearest complete one: [embed]https://youtu.be/X3eMW673CSY[/embed]

There are also 2 print versions of Princess Celestia:The Changeling Queen. Nonexistent Publications run and Ministry of Image's run.

Contribute to the TV Tropes Page (thanks to Babs_Seed72 for getting it up)

The surface isn't safe anymore.

In the ruined depths of Canterlot, a team of brave salvagers discover six mares, long forgotten but miraculously preserved. Though these mares cannot remember what happened to their world, they possess powerful magic that hasn't been seen for centuries.

Now the Elements of Harmony are thrust headlong into a world beyond recognition. Twilight and her friends must dive into the sunken remains of history to determine what happened, but Equestria isn't the harmonious land it once was. Before they can focus wholly on the past, they may first have to survive the present.

It isn't going to be easy.

Audiobook by Skijarama!
Original Soundtrack by Noc!

Special thanks to Doccular42 for the original concept, and M1ntf4n for editing!

Join the Empty Horizons Discord!

Big thanks to dA artist fantazyme and reader jeffh4 for making this fantastic rendition of Rarity at Mr. Rich's party!

On the fence of whether to read? Check out the Rage Review or hear PaulAsaran's thoughts!

This story is a sequel to Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen

This story is a direct sequel to Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen. Reading that first is necessary to understand any part of this story.

Co-authored by vren55 and Zervziel

Alternia, sister to Chrysalis, ruled Equestria for a thousand years, disguised as Princess Celestia, while the alicorn slumbered in a healing sleep. Now revealed, Alternia prepares to become Equestria’s first changeling princess, and prove herself to the ponies she loves at the side of her co-rulers Luna and the newly-returned Celestia.

But even as the crown descends onto Alternia’s head, something is stirring in the depths of the Eastern Sea, something that will turn the surface world onto its head. Some power that could destroy Alternia, and all that she loves, before she can even regain the approval of her own ponies.

Will Alternia restore the trust her ponies once placed with her? Will she found a hive? Will she find love?

All that is certain is that Equestria, and the world, will never be the same again.

Now with a TV Tropes page.

Empress Tethys and the Kelpies Created by Zervziel

That Fantastic Cover art is by Plainoasis

Pre-read and edited by:
Blankscape,
FinalFan,
Courage Fire
Cosmic Cowboy

The Cutie Mark Crusaders find themselves as accidental stowaways on a pirate ship. All they want is some food, drink, and a fair price on their heads. Maybe the pirates should call in reinforcements.

Third-place finisher in the /fic/ write-off "History Repeats."

Featured on Equestria Daily!

Starlight Glimmer is repentant, on the path to reformation after she saw what her plan could have caused. She was thankfully talked down, all the possible futures she made prevented, all the changes to the past no longer existing.

At least... that's what everyone thinks. But magic isn't something to be abused.

There are always consequences.

The Princesses find an alien creature barely clinging to life at the scene of a terrifying crash. Can the Combined Power of the Elements of Harmony save it, or more importantly, should they save it? Will the arrival of this strange creature tear Equestria apart?

TV Tropes
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/Article2

They say that Equestria was a paradise. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wanna believe it. There sure ain’t one in this piece of the ‘Verse. Maybe we coulda built one if it weren’t for the damned Confederation. Those bastards wanted every planet in the system under their hoof and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The outer planets fought ’em, and we lost.

It’s tough to get by these days with Confederation lawkeepers looking for an excuse to crack down, bandits and thieves crawling everywhere the Confederation’s not, and the Jesters prowling around the edges of civilized space. Honest work’s hard to come by, and honest folk are twice as rare. Still, a mare has to make a livin’ somehow. So that’s what I do.

Find a crew. Find a job. Keep flying.
– Rainbow Dash, Captain of Tranquility

The companion literary piece to the commissioned artwork by dori-to, "Relaxing on a Saturday Night", the story describes the events both before and after the scene illustrated...a barfight in the "13 Shots Bar" just outside the Canterlot Training Center. This artwork was featured in the "Equestria Daily" Drawfriend.

What happens when you put twenty-eight war ponies in a bar with a gaggle of Griffons?
Do you really need to be told? Not everything in Equestria is magic and friendship.

Link to dori-to's original work.
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Relaxing-On-A-Saturday-Night-483288805

Diplomacy has failed. Six years have passed Equestria's crowning of the princess of friendship, ushering in a supposed unprecedented age of peace and harmony. The concept of warfare is, to most ponies, nothing more than an unfathomable legend. They have let their guard down.

An unknown enemy has seized the opportunity to attack Equestria with terrifying new weapons of war, bent on taking the fertile land and restoring an ancient order. The valiant efforts of the Royal Guard have given Princess Twilight and her arcane scientists time to research and develop a response to their attackers, and the time has come for that response to be implemented. Utilizing weapons and tactics borrowed from another world, five squads under the command of Princess Luna will infiltrate the forests of the Equestrian Northwest to destroy a revolutionary magical matrix that Twilight refers to as the "radio" - a tool that allows enemy ponies to communicate across vast distances instantly.

Nightmare Two is comprised of three foalhood friends who, rather than be separated from each other in the draft, volunteer to become one of the five Nightmare squads. With their bodies forever altered to suit the needs of their mission, the three young mares join legions of ponies armed with powerful weapons to partake in a horrifying new breed of warfare - Equestria's first in over one thousand years.

--

Heads up, folks. If you wouldn't mind leaving a comment alongside the thumbs-down, I'd appreciate it. This is my first foray into fan fiction and although it's a hobby I nonetheless wish to get better. :)

Got some FAQ's for you guys as well!

- Alternate universe in which the events of "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" did not occur. (As much as I loved it! :D)

- Numerical age tends to vary with headcanon, but the CMC here were just getting started with their adult lives when the draft went into effect.

- The war is pony v. pony, utilizing firearms and the Equestrian equivalent of a tank. The underlying headcanon is that ponies used firearms similar to muskets and tracked armored vehicles akin to our tanks in times of old, and what the enemy currently employs is essentially the natural progression of these technologies.

- There are no real-world weapons or equipment i.e. "Panzer IV," or "M16 assault rifle." Particularly acute details such as the caliber of weapons are also absent.

- Technology is based on that of WWI with some WWII elements. Firearms are primarily bolt-action.

- The "radio" spell matrix functions as what we know to be a radio, but is not identical.

- All four of a Night Mare's legs are permanently replaced by the augments.

- Night Mares are female. Stallions proved unable to properly animate the limbs.

--

Hold up, now - fanart? You guys rock. Like, for real. Thanks a lot!

1. A great YouTube video coming from The_Pegasus_Box. Thanks, bud!
Check it out!

2. Click here for the collection on DArt.

3. https://derpibooru.org/740375?scope=scpeac921b191f688d04521575f31608785cbc3bbaa1
[img]https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/10/10/740375__safe_anthro_apple+bloom_gun_artist-colon-pusspuss_night+mares.png[/img]