After a freak accident, Princess Celestia finds herself in a whole new universe. As she seeks a way home, she is captured by none other than Team Rocket.

Welp.

Now on TV Tropes.

Nopony has heard from Fluttershy for three months. Not Rainbow Dash, not Rarity, not even Pinkie Pie. Her friends have been tending to the cottage and her animals, keeping it clean and organized, but even with Twilight's constant magic scans and a semi-constant guard search Equestria-wide, no hint has been found of where she went, how she vanished, or why she didn't tell anyone. Some ponies even think, in their darkest nightmares, that she might be dead.

Then she shows up one day, very definitely not dead, but just as definitely not the same as she was.

And does she have a story to tell. Boy, does she ever...

Coverart by Paladin.

Celestia has given Sweetie Belle a rare opportunity to become an exchange student where she can bring friendship to a whole new world’s students of magic. Elsewhere, Theodore Nott has been given a similar opportunity: turn down his Seventh Year at Hogwarts in order to learn powerful magic from the cursebreakers of the Equestrian Crystal Empire.

Neither of them has the slightest idea what they are about to experience over the next year.

Editors: Tek, Peter, Charles H
Cover art from Florida's Harry Potter World at night.

Idol Hooves holds a special place in Equestria. He's probably the only exiled changeling to serve in the Royal Guard, or at least, that's what he expects, as exiles don't really broadcast that fact. However, it's well known that Princess Celestia loves all of her little ponies, and her guards perhaps more so, and that makes it one of the best ways for a changeling to discreetly feed.

But how does a changeling even get there, let alone get exiled in the first place? For that matter, why would it ever go to Canterlot? Set a number of years before the series proper, before Luna’s redemption, Idol details how he was exiled, the ponies he’s met, and the series of misadventures that led him to joining the Royal Guard, and should continue a good ways into the series, as something of an alternate perspective.

Soon, he’ll have to deal with a boisterous new princess to serve and a royal wedding in the works bringing a third to power. Will his old instincts bring this new life crashing down around him? What precipitates Chrysalis’s ill-fated assault on Canterlot? Is it really so wrong for a changeling to enjoy good craftsmanship to an obsessive degree?

New cover art provided by the fantastic Carnifex

And a TVTropes page here.

And an Ask Blog of questionable canonity!
Out of Idol Curiosity

Fanart by Norad2! Major thanks! Short For a Royal Guard

Art by Egophiliac of Idol and his Daring Duckie Please don't tell him what that brush is meant for.

Rating updated to (T), it's a bit darker than (E)
Comedy Tag added as well
And changed the character tags a bit.

When Sunset Shimmer left Celestia's tutelage, she entered the magic mirror that had shown her dreams coming true, but instead of ending up in a simian mirror-version of Canterlot, she ended up in a strange school of magic, an esoteric, arcane, and clumsy kind of magic, but a potent one nonetheless.

Disoriented, and her mission somewhat derailed, Sunset is nonetheless determined to become an alicorn. She has glimpsed eternity, and will continue to pursue it. Whether the magics of the school of Hogwarts will aid her or not remains to be seen.

Put simply, this is my attempt at making a power fantasy entertaining. Read more about it here.

Thanks to ssokolow for his help with the story.

This story is a sequel to Harmony Defended

Ten years ago, Equestria was nearly destroyed in a combined invasion of its worst enemies. Only with the timely intervention of its erstwhile human allies was the nation spared slavery and extinction. The war is over now, and the treaties of peace faithfully followed even after a decade. While earth ponies help rebuild Earth's ecosystem, human tractors erect roads and cities with terrifying speed.

Sweetie Belle helped make victory possible, but the cost of that victory was one of her best friends. Equestria is safe now, and ponies are spreading to the stars. Why doesn't she feel happier?

The ancient and powerful Accipion Empire has conquered every nation on Equus... except one. Despite their apparent weakness, the magic of friendship has protected ponies for many years. Emperor Gaius Renault thought his kind would rule forever, that they would have ample opportunity to conquer their ancient foe.

Nature had other ideas. Beneath their claws was a force of unimaginable power, a volcano whose eruption will devastate the empire and smother their crops for years afterward. Even his most optimistic advisors agree that there is only one choice: evacuation.

Equestria might be friendly, but they are no fools. They send a pony, Starlight Glimmer, to see that the terms of the evacuation are followed, and to help the griffins integrate during their time as refugees in Equestria. But blood runs thick, and old rivalries can't just be forgotten.

The longer Starlight Glimmer watches, the more she is convinced she is witnessing the end of both nations.

Updates Mondays

This story was commissioned on my Patreon by Vilken666. Thank you so much for making this story possible!

Coverart by Zutcha, who maintains his perfect record. Prereading by Two Bit and Sparktail (sometimes).

An English knight married a kindly woman, touched in the head, who thought she was an alicorn. She was right.

Then one day Cecilia disappeared.

He knew that Cecilia vanished into the side of the statue, the same place she lamented the 'mirror closing' two and a half years ago. He threw a rock at it... and it vanished. It was true. He had to find her.

He didn't care about Cecilia's madness, about this 'Equestria' or her obsession with ponies. He loved her. He loved her enough to walk into Hell itself. He would bring her back, no matter what.

TV Tropes page

Non-canon chapters 8-12

Edited by: John Hood, OkemosBrony, Legion222 & Katherine Kerensky (Chapters 1-12)
Guest Editor: refferree

Sunset Shimmer is having the worst day of her life. She used to be important. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia. She was a future leader of Equestria. She was the kind of mare that everypony envied.

Today, it's all crashing down around her.

Alternate Universe: What if Sunset Shimmer hadn't gone through the mirror?

When the Princess refused Sunset Shimmer the reward which was her right as a pony of talent and excellence, Sunset was determined. She would prove her mentor wrong, she would prove her worth, prove her worth as a pony and as a princess in her own right. The Mirror offered promises. It promised Sunset many things.

The Mirror lied.

The land that laid beyond the Mirror was barbaric beyond all her worst expectations. Ape-like beings strode through this world, arrogant, violent, vicious beyond anything in Sunset's experience. Slavers, savages, brutes, carnivores.

They put her in chains like cattle, and told her she was livestock. Then the brutes tried to give her as a gift to those whom even brutes feared, to the eastern savages. To a people who said there were only two things in this world: those that ride, and those that are ridden.

And so if she has any hope of ever proving herself worthy of being a person again, Sunset Shimmer would have to show that she could be one who rides - that she is...

Dothraki.