Princess Luna invites the CMC to drink with her. The CMC can't handle their alcohol.

Art drawn by Bean

AN: First story I have been able to write in 8 to 9 months, whoo!

The First and Last Days of Luna's Banishment, of Nightmare Moon's impending attack, through Celestia's thoughts and experiences as the silence she once craved in the madness of her life was drowning her as it refused to let her forget what she did to Luna.

The Librarian in charge of the main Canterlot Castle Library wasn't delighted to have to deal with some big royal wedding that she had no interest in, it didn't help either that there was a hideous pink shield surrounding the city either from some unknown threat.

Things didn't get any better when that shield, meant to protect the city fell, and soon she was galloping, like many others, to survive the invasion of changelings

Shortly before extracting the Pillars of Equestria and the Pony of Shadows from Limbo, the Bearers of Harmony faced off against a stallion trying to erase all records of an ancient evil, lest that knowledge fall into the wrong hooves.

Nopony ever considered that the two incidents might have been related. Not until Stygian's first novel hit store shelves.

An entry in the 2024 May Pairings Contest for the Original Pairings group. Last minute best minute.
Rated Teen for implied concepts a bit more grim than what the show could get away with.

Cover from the Friendship is Magic mainline comics, Issue #53

A breakfast conversation between the princesses turns toward Celestia's long history of losing fights.

After a decade of shirking his duties, a young buck finally takes on the legacy of his lineage: To be the keeper of stories in the world of ponies. In a ceremony that has endured for generations, he must first obtain the blessing of an elder. The last elder of his own kind. The Great Sage Fimbulpur, also know as a "Sage of Fate", and his grandfather. Except that the times for ceremony and ritual are long past, since obtaining that blessing now is an impossible task for him in more ways than one.

Thankfully for him, he can always depend on the help of a good friend he made long, long ago. A mare by the name of Cozy Glow.

note

This story was written for the Tropical Post-Apocalyptic Story Contest, but was cut down due to wordcount limits. I am currently working on a full-length expanded version of the story that will be the definitive edition, which I will link here when it goes up in a week or so. If you can be patient, please read that one instead! Or read this one and then read that one when it goes up.

longdesc

It was supposed to be an easy way back home. Jump into the quicksand pit, go through the portal to Equestria beneath it, get to Twilight's Castle's Basement, go through the Magic Mirror, and before she knew it, Sunset and all of her friends and everyone they rescued from that sinking cruise ship would find themselves on the manicured green lawns of Canterlot High.

Instead, they wake up scattered around the quicksand pit, still on the desert tropical island they were trying to escape. Only there isn't a portal to Equestria anymore. And none of them can get a cell phone signal.

And then Bon Bon's phone lights up.

ATTN AGENT SWEETIE DROPS: BRILLIG BLACK EVENT CONFIRMED. FOUNDATION CONTINUITY SCENARIO OMEGA-OMEGA-OMEGA. FINAL DIRECTIVE: ENSURE LONG-TERM SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

It turns out that Bon Bon was a secret agent for a secret spy organization this whole time. And they just told her that the world has ended, and no rescue is coming for them. Ever.

content

Note that this is rated T, that is, while things implied by the red tags will happen the story will not linger on them in graphic detail when they are depicted.

Spoil at your own risk!:

Overall: Gore, death, gory death, limb dismemberment, guns, being shot by guns, being killed by guns, suicide by gun, suicidal ideation but it's only one time, starvation, questions about the nature of humanity, questions about the relationship between humans and the animals they raise and slaughter, existential horror, body horror, existential horror arising from body horror, relationships in all sorts of combinations even including cis-hetero, one of those is Rarity x Ragamuffin, pregnancy so sexhaving is implied to have happened but is not depicted, one of those is Rarity x Ragamuffin, almost everyone in the world dying but it's not depicted and all offscreen so it's okay, gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlbossing

Chapter-by-chapter:
Chapter 1: Surprise death and gore. "Spring Breakdown" plot inconsistency lampshading.
Chapter 2: Death and gore, possibly of a child. Rainbow Dash no longer having a leg.
Chapter 3: Suicidal ideation. Implied offscreen apocalypse where everyone died.
Chapter 4: Discussion of corpse disposal. Discussion of cannibalism. Discussion of how many calories a human body has.
Chapter 5: Implied but not depicted gore. Funerals and grieving.
Chapter 6: No actual content warning here so this is just to pad out the spoiler bar.
Chapter 7: Physical effects of the early stages of starvation depicted. An animal in chronic pain depicted.
Chapter 8: Talk of creating tulpas and I guess that's called tulpomancy?
Chapter 9: Suicide mentioned as having happened. Contemplating the consequences of philosophical solipsism, the nature of happiness
Chapter 10: Underage drinking, pregnancy announcement, planning estrogen extraction from pregnant woman urine
Chapter 11: Gore. Death. A skull getting blown half-off which is pretty gory.
Chapter 12: Gore. Death. Suicide. Sucking chest wound, a body being riddled with bullets, suicide by shooting self in head.
Chapter 13: Death. Suicide. A mother shooting her daughter and then herself.
Chapter 14: Gore, by PTSD flashbacks to the events of the previous three chapters.
Chapter 15: Childbirth! I mean I tried to describe the events without going into vivid description even though it's a perfectly natural and glorious event.
Chapter 16: Unsettling implications of what the characters are saying but nothing graphic or anything
Chapter 17: A reveal that recontextualizes the previous events of the story with horrific implications. Nothing graphic tho
Chapter 18: Continuation of the above, plus physical violence and swearing.

info

an entry into Tropical Post-Apocalyptic Story Contest and the Sunset x Villain “Monster-Shipping” Competition. originally a May Pairings entry, but withdrawn due to going over the length limit

thank you to Crack-Fic Kai, Shrink Laureate, and Drider for prereading Chapters 1-6!

thank you to FanOfMostEverything for commenting so quickly on chapters when they were posted and thus being an inadvertent post-publication prereader for later tweaks.

Sunset just wanted to give her friends an Equestrian experience without any magical mishaps, threats to life and limb, or tears in reality.

In hindsight, she really should have known better.

An exquisite corpse from many of the same folks who brought you Cheerilee's Normal Day, with each author only seeing the two chapters prior to theirs. Featuring the work of Jarvy Jared, PseudoBob Delightus, Dashie04, Silver Needle, EileenSaysHi, AltruistArtist, The Red Parade, Fillyfoolish, Bicyclette, The Sleepless Beholder, Rego, and yours truly.

Rated Teen for a precision F-bomb. (Hey, if it works for PG-13 movies...) Cover by PseudoBob.

This story is a sister to Iridium

In Cloudsdale, as the Long Cold seeps in, a matron is doing all she can to hold faith, even as the very flock she’s raising falls apart around her.

In Pegasopolis, things will be better. They must.

In the forty-third year of her reign, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and of Equestria, and her friends faced off against a rogue draconequus who had stumbled upon Equestria and who threatened the life and sanity of every creature on the planet. After a titanic battle, she succeeded in defeating the creature…at the cost of her own life.

This is the story of what happened to her after that.

Featured on April 22, 2024.

Crossover with Dot and the Kangaroo (1977), causing 90% of readers to respond “Who and the What?” and 10% of readers to respond with “MacPherson?” To the former: The character I originally created ended up so similar to this obscure character that I decided to merge them; you don’t need to have seen the source material. And to the latter: The rhythm of the title required a last name, and you can’t say for sure that Dot’s last name isn’t MacPherson.