It has been more than one hundred years since Celestia banished Nightmare Moon. While Equestria has enjoyed a century of relative peace and prosperity, there are still lingering tensions between the three pony tribes.

Shadow Kicker, a proud warrior of Pegasopolis, must navigate the treacherous noble court of Canterlot and address the concerns and wounded pride of her own tribe in a desperate effort to prevent matters from coming to open warfare.

Sunset Shimmer originally went to Freeport to escape Celestia's influence, and to make some progress towards becoming an alicorn princess. She's certainly done her share of good in the infamous city of rogues, but after almost two years away from Canterlot she doesn't feel any closer to achieving her big goals. At this point, any reasonable pony could wonder if they made a mistake...

Faced with the unpleasant prospect of possibly going back to Canterlot in order to advance her goals, Sunset finds herself with one last option to preserve her independence: the great dragon Argentium the Runescaled, far to the north, wants to meet with her. However, her journey becomes far more than a simple social call, and Sunset has no idea just how much danger she and her friends will face.

Or how much she'll have to sacrifice—not just for her dreams, but survival.

This story is a sequel to Northern Venture

Kukri Doo has a lot to think about after her trip to Northmarch. What was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime field trip with Sunset Shimmer turned into a horrifying struggle for survival—one that left hundreds dead and a city razed to the ground. It's a lot for anyone to deal with, let alone a changeling who's not even thirteen years old.

Kukri's come home to Freeport. If only it was that easy to leave all the memories of Northmarch behind.

As fate would have it, Twilight had to hatch a much bigger egg this time.

Have you ever wondered how the story of Equestria that you know might change if Fluttershy was a swordsmith?
How would things be different if Rarity had a Stand?
What about if someone gave Applejack a culinary degree, a space-worthy exosuit, and a phoenix-core wand?
What if all of these happened in the same story?

If you have, dear reader, then welcome to the Celestial Forge! Where every thousand words, random chance bestows one of your favorite ponies with a new outlandish (and often copyright-infringing) power!

Octavia Melody's love of music has revolved around a single influential and prestigious work of art, the song May Our Sun Shine Forever. Since she was a filly, what has been the Equestrian national anthem for generations has continually inspired Octavia to perform, shaping her into the promising cellist she is today. Though the completed original was lost to the passage of time, the remnants of the final masterpiece composed by the Grand Maestro Glissando has been the cornerstone of not only Octavia's career, but modern music theory in Equestria.

When the tattered remains of an ancient songbook possibly containing the original song in its entirety is found, the Equestrian Society for the Performing Arts and Princess Luna begin planning a concert series to celebrate the work's eventual restoration. However, their meeting screeches to a halt once Princess Celestia vehemently forbids anypony from playing the original in the concert and demands its restoration to cease immediately. Octavia Melody finds herself at a loss, wondering why the princess of the sun would silence such a beautiful song meant to bring light to the world.

Proofread and Edited by TheAncientPolitzanian and various others over the years of trying to fix this thing.
Cover Art Depressing Melody by TertonDA
Updated 02/27/24

This story is a sequel to Gloria Celestia

A rumor here, a scandal there, and a peppering of negative publicity can easily provide all the ammunition necessary to take down some of the most powerful players of the Canterlot nobility. But when one party foul too far turns the entirety of the upper class against DJ Pon-3, Upper Crust leads an unrelenting blitz against her, and Vinyl Scratch's world begins to crumble all around her.

Unwilling to let an accident ruin the DJ's reputation on the callous whims of Canterlot's elite, Fancy Pants decides to make a risky investment into counter-culture and help Vinyl get back on her hooves. However, it's going to take more than the prestige of the Kingmaker of Canterlot to get this record spinning again, especially when real royal matters start spiraling out of control.

Edited by: TheAncientPolitzanian
Preread by: Alchemik and Jymbroni
Cover Art by: W. Viloria of Vintage Future Games
Takes place shortly after the events of The Crystal Empire - Part 2
Part of the Silent-verse AU of stories. While not necessary reading, be sure to check out the other stories in the universe:
Forbidden Melodies - Breaking the Silence
Gloria Celestia - The Origins of the Silence
A Peach is Worth a Thousand Problems - The Silly Spin-off for Fun!

Chapter 31 Preread by Wanderer D
Special Thanks to ShutterflyYay for their contributions to the original drafts.
Special Thanks to anonixar for helping ensure accuracy in French with this fiction.
Special Thanks to Stormfox from the Discord server for helping with the costuming research.
Special Thanks to BirdsBooksBrownies for finding many numerous typos

People will do anything to distract themselves from their problems. In an age where the situation could be both a hundred times worse and a thousand times better, there are still stories floating around. You know the type: a young human gets snatched from his/her homeworld and dropped in a land far from home, and they have to either shape up or ship out before it's too late.

Replace "human" with "Reploid", and you have a good idea what's happened to me. This land of Equestria is as completely alien to me as I am to its residents. If I can't return home then I'll have to figure out how to adapt to its environs, but my time and options are running out quickly. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm getting desperate.

I am Fairy Leviathan, one of Neo Arcadia's Four Guardians, and I will gladly accept your help if you have any to offer.

There is a Frequently Asked Questions blog on this story. Please read it first before getting into the story. Thank you.

The cover image is Leviathan's official art from Rockman X DiVE. I haven't been able to find a reasonable alternative and circumstances aren't allowing me to commission something, so I'm just going to leave it as is.

Don't know about the 'Human' tag for this one, as it's kind of iffy. Personally I think it's alright, as Reploids are close enough to 'human' for it not to matter, but your mileage may vary.

Has a TV Tropes page here.

Celestia travels to a far corner of her kingdom to investigate a rumor about a colt with strange, illicit cutie marks. She meets Radish Root, a boy whose marks make him an anomaly in the fabric of Equestria, a mystery to himself, and an outcast among society.
When Radish joins the Royal Guard just prior to the return of Nightmare Moon, he finds his life being complicated by all the changes coming to Equestria. His marks will lead him into adventure, intrigue, and trouble... but will they ever lead him to answers?

Proofreader: Slavenger Karl
Cover Art Gallery
Table of original characters
A reader is translating this story into Spanish. Check it out here.