Twilight is on the cusp of leading Equestria for a year. It's been an easy year with no major difficulties. No wars. No natural disasters. No villains.

At least until a villain from the far, far future appears in Twilight's throne room. She's escaping defeat at Twilight's hooves, with one thought in mind: she won't be stopped if Twilight doesn't exist in the future. And here's Twilight's past self, right in front of her. Easy.

Unfortunately, she's not the only villain with this idea.

You wouldn’t expect a small town to be the site of a terrible accident. But here we are.

Ponies think they know magic. So when two travelers run into Rocky Point in the middle of the night, scared out of their minds by something magic apparently can’t explain, the town needs answers. Enter Trench Digger, a government agent from Manehattan tasked with investigating the situation. She’ll get to the bottom of things and unravel the mystery of just what happened on that night.

Not that she’ll share her findings with the town, mind.

Inspired by Control.

Applejack is not having a good day.

She was nopony special: a gardener and sometime-engineer aboard the Golden Oaks space station, providing food and oxygen for the CelesTech researchers living and performing experiments there. She vaguely knew everypony, performed good work, and even was on first-name terms with a certain royal, but wasn't noteworthy. She was nice, a dependable worker, and not much else.

But when the Stellar Thrones send up representatives for a routine tour, something goes wrong. Applejack wakes up a week later, with no memories of what occurred in the meantime, to find Golden Oaks ravaged. The entire station is in lockdown. Communications are nonexistent. The shuttles are destroyed. Power is unreliable. Most of the crew have been slaughtered. The escape pods don't work. Every module has been badly damaged. And something is prowling the station. Something capable of disguising itself as anything.

With only a wrench and herself to rely on, Applejack pushes through the crumbling station to unravel the mystery. But her every step is being watched, her every movement is a risk. Because Golden Oaks isn't a research facility anymore. It's a hunting ground. And ponies are the prey.

Although this is a crossover with Prey, no knowledge of it is required.

After the return of the Pillars of Equestria, A. K. Yearling gets a letter from Twilight: former villain Stygian is interested in writing. Not one to turn down a request from a princess and interested in learning from somepony who lived a millennium ago, Yearling sets up a meeting with him at a Canterlot donut shop. And so the two commence on Stygian's education of modern fiction.

Takes place not long after "Shadow Play". Written for the May 2020 Pairing Contest.

Tempest gets roped into babysitting Flurry Heart during a visit to the Crystal Empire. It's not so bad. She can talk all she wants and Flurry's a good listener. Plus, it gets her away from the hustle and bustle of the Crystal Faire. In all, she expects a quiet night.

Then she spots a spider. And spiders need to die. By any means necessary.

The Crystal Palace will never be the same.

Written for the May 2020 Pairing Contest. Loosely inspired by, well, Kill it With Fire. Has a Spanish translation by SPANIARD KIWI.

Although zebras are united today, this was not always so. Long ago, the zebra tribes were separate and unconcerned with each other. Each tribe managed its own affairs, and the others could go rot for all they cared.

But when an unthinkable calamity upsets the balance of the plains, everyone struggles to survive. One zebra, Maelewano, will take it upon herself to draw the tribes together and support each other, forming the beginnings of what would become Zebrabwe. By ancient tradition, her tale has been directly passed down from one generation to the next across centuries, always in person. And today, it’s your turn to hear her story.

Editor’s note: Due to the corruption inherent in oral tradition and based on what scant archaeological evidence exists, the following is estimated to be roughly 50% history, 25% myth, and 25% hagiography.

Written for Jake the Army Guy's Horseword Extravaganza II and as an experiment for my 50th story.

After dying in a train crash, Twilight finds herself offered a deal by the Reaper: a game of chess for her soul. Twilight accepts, but there's something off about the game. Something she can't put her hoof on.

But the answer to that question is just perfect for who she is.

Cover art is from the Poets of the Fall album Clearview.

What do dragons think of hot peppers? Gallus wants to know.

By the end of the day, he'll wish he hadn't.

The problem with being an explorer in this day and age is that unexplored lands are few and far between. Almost everything's been charted, catalogued, analyzed, and what have you. But that's an almost; there are still those rare, blank spots in the maps, inexplicable, untouched by hooves, unsurveyed. One of those corners is Needle Vale in the far north. Supposedly cursed, yet everyone who's gone in has come back out. It has more stories about it than Celestia herself, yet every single adventuring group that's gone in has found nothing. Thanks to a nonstop snowstorm that's been blowing for centuries, no one's even been able to map it out.

Daring Do thinks there are too many stories about it to be a coincidence. Something is inside there. The source of the legends and of the snowstorm. And no one has a will quite as strong as Daring's (or so she tells herself). With a small team at her back, Daring makes a decision: she will go into Needle Vale, she will withstand the storm, and she will discover what’s going on in there.

But, as Daring is about to find out, there's a reason no one’s been able to pin down what's going on in that valley. Not everything that lies in the dark corners of the earth should be studied.

Loosely inspired by Annihilation. Has a dramatic reading done by Quinch.

Starlight has a problem. Twilight left on an ambassadorial mission to the zebras less than a week ago. Just this morning, a businesspony showed up on the doorstep of the Castle of Friendship and stole the Alicorn Amulet right out from under her nose.

Rainbow Dash has a solution. Steal the Amulet back. How hard could it possibly be, right? Okay, so the Amulet's being kept in one of the most secure vaults in Equestria. And it's surrounded by guards and bystanders. And there's no one in Ponyville who has much experience in heists or robberies or law-breaking of any kind. Oh, and said businesspony is planning on selling the powerful artifact of dark magic on the black market, putting the whole thing on a time crunch. And they don't even have the blueprints to the place. But other than that, it'll be easy!

Starlight has a problem. This is the closest thing to a solution she has.

This can only end well.

Takes place before the season 6 finale.