Discord can have good behavior, even when nursing a broken heart over his best friend. It's when her heart is broken that he can't do it anymore.

It's a good thing he has a friend to help him give her space.

At least ten years of unrequited fluttercord included. This is my submission for the dialogue only contest.

"The first time I came back, I thought it was a miracle. By the fifth or sixth time, I knew it was a curse."

Death is a reasonable fear, but it is also a constant reassurance. A promise that no matter how bad things get, they will one day end.

That promise was broken, leaving Rainbow Dash to pay the cost.

A very last minute entry for the 2024 SciFi Contest III.

Special thanks to ScreamQueen and Rb for prereading and valuable feedback.

General content warning: Some depictions of blood, death, and debilitating injuries, but no graphic descriptions. Some existential horror.

The RMS Queen Mary. At one time she was one of the most famous ocean liners in the world, being in service from 1936-1967, having carried 2,112,000 passengers over 3,792,227 miles, and serving in WW2 as a troopship, and even surviving nearly being capsized by a rogue wave in 1942. She'd seen so much during her career, but by 1967, passenger numbers were falling due to jet travel becoming widespread, operating costs were skyrocketing, and with heavy hearts, the Cunard Line announced that they were retiring the Queen Mary, but that her fate wouldn't be the scrapyard. Instead, she was going to be moored in the city of Long Beach, California as a hotel and floating museum. She left Southampton for the last time on October 31st, 1967, and reached Long Beach on December 9th, and after all of her passengers and crew had disembarked, the conversion work of preparing the ship to become a hotel and museum was about to begin, but the ship's Soul had other ideas

For the Soul of the Queen Mary had seen the future, and she knew what her ship's fate would be if she didn't act. She would be nearly wholly gutted below R-Deck, almost all of her machinery would be removed for a useless sea life museum that would close within 10 years, all of her 2nd Class, 3rd Class, and Crew Cabins, along with almost all spaces on these decks would be removed, and her new owners would run her ship into the ground, prioritizing profits over taking care of her, allowing her to fall into deplorable shape for decades. Not wanting this to be her ship's fate, the Queen Mary's Soul took control over the now empty, but still nearly fully-intact ship, fired up her boilers, engines, and other machinery, got her propellers spinning, and after yanking her ship clear of the dock she was moored to, damaging both it and the dock in the process, the Soul of the Queen Mary made for the wide open Pacific Ocean. Her destination? A place she'd heard whispered about during her ship's career; Equestria. A land of peace, harmony, Ponies, and hopefully in need of an ocean liner. With the owners, and various naval assets in hot pursuit of the fugitive ocean liner, the Queen Mary makes a desperate dash for the portal to Equestria, located in the Bermuda Triangle, her only hope of freedom.

This story is the result of an idea that I couldn't get out of my head after doing lengthy studies of the RMS Queen Mary, and noting that this site has a distinct lack of any stories related to the OG ocean liners that aren't the Titanic, so I decided to change that. This story would be rated "E", but due to a number of instances of the use of profanity throughout, it must be rated "T" instead. Other than this, I really hope that you enjoy this story, as well as its very unique twist-ending

Each pony's mane
He must obtain;
Time is ticking,
Though the stakes aren't plain.

Reviewed by PresentPerfect! (20 May 2024)

After a harrowing and dangerous quest, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have recovered Excelsior's Ecstatic Codex from an evil zebra cult intent on ending the world. The Codex, one of the greatest works of dark magic ever forged, carries within its pages a limitless collection of vile, twisted spells, all specially devised for anypony who opens the cover.

What do you do with a book of dark magic? If you're Twilight Sparkle, you put it in your library. Because that's where books go.

After all, books are for everypony.

With Equestria at peace and harmony reaching across all the realm, for Twilight, it was only natural she'd want to expand further. Whether it was her curiosity or her hubris, Twilight soon finds herself hanging between here and eternity.

I really gotta get better at writing descriptions. But uh, yeah. Enjoy my attempt at nihilism! That's probably never been said before, holy hecc.

Everypony knows the Hearth’s Warming Eve tale of tribal unity and the shared rule which followed. Everypony also knows that alicorns - singular or dual - have sat on Equestria’s throne for well over a thousand years.

Very few have really looked in to what actually happened between those points.

Even Twilight Sparkle, until a chance encounter leads her to an alarming discovery: Neither she, nor any other alicorn, has actually held any legal right to Equestria’s throne. They are technically usurpers, autocrats - even tyrants.

Still struggling with her own personal rule, having the fundamental basis for her authority swept from beneath her leaves Twilight with one simple, yet impossible question: 

Now what?

Many thanks to Commawriter and Kirtai for pre-reading!

Cover image was edited by Vinylshadow. They deserve all credit for it!

This story is a sequel to A Human's Guide to Surviving Equestria

There is always more than one side to any story. Here are the records of somepony from one of those sides. From the pony responsible for, what the citizens of Ponyville call "The Human Incident.

Ted Valiant has been running the Valiant and Valiant detective agency on his own since his father Eddie passed away. When Twilight Sparkle, one of the stars of the hit show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, goes missing, the studio calls Ted to find their missing actress.

Crossover with Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Rarity’s eyes were shut, and the velvety darkness behind her eyelids was soft and comforting as Opalescent’s fur. The only sound was the crackling of the logs on the fire, and the only sensation the delicious rise and fall of her marefriend’s ribcage.

A Quillmas gift for AshleyNoble.