Apple Bloom wants to grow up. She's sure she does. Surrounded by the family that founded a town, shaped it, and made it what it is today, she finds herself all the more invested in becoming a part of this legacy.

Yet as Apple Bloom's interest in the legacy grows, so does her interest in a pony who never had one.

After all, sometimes there's a good reason to step outside. To fly on your own. To look beyond the herd.

Sweetie Belle has spent most of her life trying to be like Rarity. That engenders a certain beau monde sophistication regarding one's life philosophy.

It ain't got nothing on Rainbow Dash, though, who'd probably think "engender" meant "make someone a boy or a girl". Assuming she knew words that long.

However, if these two ponies are going to spend a day together, they'll have to commit to it. But then, who knows? There are times when even beauty comes in the most unexpected and unlikely of forms.

And when it comes to picking things up on the fly, Sweetie Belle's nothing if not a keen student. Always eager to please a sister.

Scootaloo might be no good at sums, but she knows Scootaloo plus scooter equals the fastest, awesomest, most attention-grabbing-est thing on the ground.

She also knows Applejack minus anyone actually fun to be with equals one really lame time.

And yet, spending a day with the Apple farmer and her broader Apple family seems strangely attractive to her. They might not be the most exciting of ponies, (and when it comes to cool, they're certainly the most clueless), but they have something Scootaloo really, really wants. Deep down. Something she keeps coming back for.

Not that she's going to admit it. Cos that would be seriously lame.

Apple Bloom never thought of herself as a "s'phisticated" pony. She lives on a farm, she eats what's put in front of her, she follows the advice of her kin without question or doubt. That's all there is to it.

Rarity, on the other hoof, is so "s'phisticated" she can actually spell it. Probably too "s'phisticated" for her own good. The life of an artist - even one who actually makes money - is never a simple one.

But truth, like life, is like the gleam off a sun-caught apple. Turn it around, and though it was once dull and uninteresting, the flash of light may well catch your eye in a way that sparks something new and exciting. As if you'd found your cutie mark all over again. A life-changing moment of pure inspiration.

Maybe these two socially sensitive ponies have more in common than they'd ever thought possible...

Some might think Twilight Velvet is the luckiest mother in the world. Yet she hasn't seen her daughter since her little girl was crowned princess. Velvet isn't even royalty herself. How can she be a mother to someone so radically different? So far away? So unreal?

Worse, it's now Mare's Day - a day for celebrating motherhood - and the situation is so bizarre that Velvet is in the odd position of having to go visit her little princess in Ponyville, by appointment, to bring the flowers that Twilight will then give back to her as a Mare's Day gift.

Twilight Sparkle's mother, they call her. Always and always. Princess this and princess that. Wouldn't it just be nice if someone looked at her life from any angle other than "Twilight Sparkle's mother"? For a day, at least. A few hours. Anything.

So who should she stumble across in Ponyville but the oddest and most extraordinary mother of all: Derpy, a mail mare capable of looking from all kinds of angles indeed. Sometimes in ways other ponies can scarcely imagine...

Written for the May 2020 Pairing Contest. Full details can also be found here.

Like spring, friendship warms.
A haiku challenge flies forth.
Two poets find joy.

Written for the May 2020 Pairing Contest. Full details can also be found here.

Scootaloo. A name out of the tougher side of history. The Rider. The Speed Demon. The Devil-Made Mare.

She dreamed of busting barriers. She dreamed big. They say she dreamed bigger than dreams themselves. And then she conquered them.

The history books say Scootaloo died long ago. But legends live for as long as you tell them. This is the tale that will never die.

Originally intended for Loganberry's Flashfic 150, June 2020: "Dream a Little Dream" event.

Toola Roola is a special pony, just like everypony else. She's learned that fighting with your friends doesn't mean you have to stop being friends. It just means you should let them win sometimes, otherwise it looks suspicious.

She didn't learn that from her parents, who have no time for her except by appointment. She didn't learn that from her best friend, who has too much time for her and spends most of it fighting anyway.

And she especially didn't learn that from her ancestral homeland: the distant, enchanted land of Skyra, whence her oddball uncle cometh, but which - in her entire life - she has never, ever seen for herself.

No, she learned it from a book. Princess Twilight Sparkle^TM's Journal of Friendship^TM, only $12.99 at your local tree-made, cloud-made, or conventionally built magical bookshop! Buy your way to a meaningful^TM, satisfying^TM relationship^TM now, while^TM stocks^TM last^TM!^TM

From everyone's friend to everyone's enemy, Gladmane has always been larger than life.

He started off as a used cart salespony in a backwater desert village, but there was no way he was staying there. For he has dreamed the Equestrian Dream, and why be a small-time businesspony when you can be a king?

In a humble hotel, in Las Pegasus the city of dreams, where even the clouds are within an earth pony's grasp, Gladmane plans to show what a heart of gold he truly has. And to hide his mind of steel.

After all, he's good at making friends. He makes everyone happy. And he knows how mean and ruthless the world can be; it's what he's had to fight against just to get here.

So why does his conscience start to prick him, the closer and closer he gets to his greatest performance ever?

Cloudchaser is the perfect big sister: cool, calm, collected, and carefree. Flitter is a lot of things – most of them insanely annoying – but she’ll always see her sister as a true paragon.

That’s because Cloudchaser’s determined to act like one. Always. No matter what the cost.

So when they both apply for the Wonderbolt Academy, and only one of them gets in, it’s a very bad time to let the façade crack under the sudden pressure.

Then again, why not crack? After all, she’s walked on the edge of the storm every day. She has to stop acting sometime.

Storms that strong can’t hide forever.