This story is a sequel to The Principal's Project

Forgiveness is a tricky thing to earn. Most people aren't willing to give it, and when you find the rare person who will hand it out like candy, you can never really convince yourself that it's real. This all gets much worse when said forgiveness has the same weight as a royal pardon.

Sunset Shimmer is learning what it's like to be forgiven. But there's someone else who has to learn, right alongside her.

Written for FoME's Imposing Sovereigns contest.

They say you shouldn't go into the Everfree Forest. If you must go into the Everfree, never do so at night. If you must go in at night, don't do it the day after zap apple jam season. And if you must go the day after zap apple jam season, please for the love of Epona don't wander into timberwolf territory.

They said those things to Bright Mac and Pear Butter. They laughed and shrugged it off, and... well, we all know how that turned out.

They said those things to Applejack, too. But she didn't listen. And now she's running for her life from a pack of the ravenous beasts, lost in the dark and with no one around to help her.

But she's not afraid. Not tonight.

Art by NCMares.

Soldiers don't just stand there, blindly following orders and throwing their lives away. Sure, some of them do, but they aren't the ones who come back. The ones who come back have spent hours, days in the trenches, waiting for that brief moment of terrible and bloody action. And thinking.

You have a lot of time to think, in a hole in the ground waiting to kill or be killed.

There aren't any trenches in the Crystal War. Sombra throws his soldiers in wave after wave at the enemy, and the bodies of those soldiers only rest when there is nothing left to fight and their master is briefly perplexed about where all the squishy targets went. The Equestrians aren't much better, retreating to tents and clouds and once in a glorious while, maybe a cave. But even without the trench, there is time to think.

And when you might die tomorrow, you don't think in silence. You talk. You ask questions.

They aren't all easy questions.

Spike the Dragon has always loved Rarity, from the moment they met. At the time, he didn't know much about what love meant, but as he grew, so too did his understanding. And every day, he found he was still in love with her, if not always for the same reasons.

Rarity has taken a long time to love Spike. It took so long to see him as anything but a child, then somehow longer to see him as more than a friend with an unrequited crush. Every day, she wakes up and finds that it takes her a moment to remember that she is in love.

So, how do such things end? They end the same way things always do with dragons. A great roar, and then an even greater silence.

A belated birthday present for FamousLastWords. No, I don't know why he wanted this either.

Double Diamond is a very special kind of pony. He's a frost-kin, a fairy that acts as a kind of guardian spirit to little children who get lost in blizzards. Of course, Starlight Glimmer didn't know that when she took his cutie mark.

It's been a week since Starlight Glimmer was kicked out of her little village, and Double Diamond got back all the things that made him himself. Like most of the ponies from the village, he's been spending this time reconnecting with who he is. And he's just remembered something very important to him.

Or rather, somepony.

Written for Jake's Horse Word Extravaganza.

Art sources

It was supposed to be the perfect day. She had dreamed of this day, sketched it out in everything from napkins to the margins of peace treaty drafts. Now, it was finally happening. The pomp, the circumstance, the elaborate decorations and even more elaborate dresses. She was getting married.

But Princess Rarity has a problem. She's in love with someone. Someone she's been with for years, and had every chance to grow close to. Someone who will be there, watching the most beautiful day of her life unfold.

Someone that she isn't marrying.

Special thanks to ArainMorn for snapping me out of a two-week writing funk with the above image.

Written for the Interwoven Colours contest.

Based on Earthsong9405's AU where Twilight is the bodyguard to a "Princess/Queen Rarity". Prior knowledge of the AU is not necessary.

Once upon a time, ponies didn't use money. They didn't have it. They weren't even aware of the concept. They just traded goods and services, helping each other out and owing each other favors. They built big houses because they felt like it, ate grass because they could, and slept under the stars almost every night. Those were better times, simpler times.

Whatever happened to those times?

Well, one young pegasus mare has just concluded the most extensive research project of her life so far, and she believes she has found the source of the economic evolution that Equestria has gone through.

The answer lies in the gold.

Written as a birthday present for Carapace

Sunset Shimmer ran away. There's really no other way to say it. One can call it exile, tactical retreat, or even a permanent change in residence, but the facts are the same. She turned her back on the only reality she had ever known, and ran away. By the time she stopped to look back, the damage was done. It was too late. Celestia would never forgive her. She would never forgive herself.

There's someone else who will, though.

Written for Fan of Most Everything's Imposing Sovereigns contest.

I always loved Fluttershy. It never mattered that I couldn't have her, that we may as well have been worlds apart, I've never not wanted her. But when the time finally came that I could be with her, she was not for me. She had grown old and faded, while I had remained very much the same.

But I will not be denied. After so long, she is at last within my grasp, and I will not allow a silly thing like the passage of time to deny me my destiny.

I am going to travel back in time so that I can seduce the Fluttershy I fell in love with.

Written for F*** THIS PROMPT #15.

Equestria is a magical place. Almost everything that happens in Equestria happens because of magic. The changing of the leaves in autumn is no exception. It's a beautiful, quiet thing, the sort of experience that makes some ponies really stop and think for a while.

Vinyl Scratch is one of those ponies.