Professor Ocellus visits the Crystal Empire to escort a new student back to the school, and possibly commits some minor faux pas in the process. Cadance worries.

Based on an entry to the Quills and Sofas 2023 Snowponies Contest; this version has been significantly expanded for publication.

Entry in the 2024 May Pairings Contest.

This is not the first time Trixie has had a drunken one night fling with a random pony.

It is the first time Octavia has.

A May Pairings jam.

Featured 5/30/2024 - 6/4/2024!

This story is a sequel to Urban Wilds

Amanita. Quiet. Awkwardly self-conscious. Necromancer. Reformed. Newly hired by the Royal Guard and the apple of its eye. How could she not be? She’s a peerless expert when it comes to necromancy. But only because she’s the only pony with any knowledge of necromancy beyond the basics, she tells herself. She needs to be more than just a static source of knowledge; she also needs to apply that knowledge, to expand her mind. She can’t live her whole life in a lab. She needs experience out in the field.

Which is how she finds herself assigned to a ley purification team. There’s something wrong with a ley line. It’s not immediately dangerous, but if left alone, it could corrupt the land, killing crops and creating monsters. Amanita is part of a small crew that will head to the line’s source, the small mining town of Tratonmane, to identify and correct the problem. Fortunately, ley purification is a well-known science. It’ll be easy.

At least, that’s the idea. Far to the north, swathed in frost and snow, walled in by vertiginous mountains, Tratonmane is as isolated as can be. Miners and subsistence farmers eke out a living in what little land they have. Ravenous wolves stalk the forest at its border. Whispers abound at the team’s arrival. Tratonmane has existed outside the Crown’s influence for centuries and many of the townsfolk don’t appreciate it sticking its nose in now. Especially since no town lasts for that long without getting a few skeletons in its closets. Amanita and her team will have to navigate hostile environments — personal and terrestrial alike — if they want to get to the bottom of this.

For if they don’t, heads will roll. Perhaps literally.

Nothing a necromancer can’t fix.

Updates TuThS. Reading earlier stories will provide some context for this, but isn't required. Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

A nation fractured and surrounded by enemies, a physically weak ruler who struggled daily to maintain an empire that weakened with each passing year. Together with nobles increasingly ambitious and emboldened as the emperor's authority dwindled.

All this added up to a powder fuse for a nation that would explode into conflict with the ambition of the various duchies and counties that already wielded considerable power.

And in the middle of all this chaos, he is born.

An old spirit in a young body. The first and only heir of the Von Greifenstein dynasty and the last hope of a declining Griffonian Empire.

Grover the Sixth, Emperor of the Griffons.

This story is based on the mod for Hoi4 Equestria at war. It's really worth checking out. All types of constructive criticism are accepted and very well welcome! I don't own any of the images! They all belong to the Equestria at war Dev team and their Artists!

Beyond Equestria, the lands to the north are hostile and unforgiving. Ponies eke out a subsistence in uncontrollable weather, separated by mile after frigid mile of snow and mountains. A land where only the hardiest survive is no place for civilization.

Yet civilization encroaches from time to time. When a colossal bounty is placed on the head of a unicorn deep in the arts of necromancy, a motley crew of bounty hunters assembles and gives chase. It’s too good a chance to pass up. They’ll bring her to justice, no matter what stands in their way. Not her dark magic. Not the inhospitable environment.

And certainly not each other.

Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

A single monster hunter, in a region she can barely survive, advising a lone guardsmare, who’s not even supposed to be here, on how to defend a town neither of them are familiar with, against a threat nopony knows. Welcome to the Parks and Wilderness Guard.

Originally written as a greentext for /mlp/'s Royal Guard Mare Thread. 2nd person version can be found here.

Everypony knows the Hearth’s Warming Eve tale of tribal unity and the shared rule which followed. Everypony also knows that alicorns - singular or dual - have sat on Equestria’s throne for well over a thousand years.

Very few have really looked in to what actually happened between those points.

Even Twilight Sparkle, until a chance encounter leads her to an alarming discovery: Neither she, nor any other alicorn, has actually held any legal right to Equestria’s throne. They are technically usurpers, autocrats - even tyrants.

Still struggling with her own personal rule, having the fundamental basis for her authority swept from beneath her leaves Twilight with one simple, yet impossible question: 

Now what?

Many thanks to Commawriter and Kirtai for pre-reading!

Cover image was edited by Vinylshadow. They deserve all credit for it!

Rainbow Dash didn’t know she’d be on the precipice of the biggest change in her life when she nonchalantly agreed to help Pinkie Pie. Throw a party, make a lot of foals happy, go home. That was the plan.

So…why does she keep going back? Why does home…feel so empty?

Unable to shake the one foal that refuses to leave her head, Rainbow Dash is ready to jump into the greatest change—and greatest challenge—of her life.

And that, my friends, is only the beginning.

Chinese translation by luhcow:
无光，无声 Unseen, Unheard - FimTale
https://fimtale.com/t/34089

After a display of dissatisfaction turns into a revolution, Celestia found herself meeting a most unfortunate end at the hands of the mob. Being powerless to stop them or even muster up the courage to sway their minds, Twilight flees Canterlot and vows to bring Celestia back to life.

Through this vow the young unicorn starts to venture into territories of magic either hidden, forgotten, or unknown. On this path she encounters creatures and ancient entities that boggle her mind and aid her in her quest, but Twilight fears she might be losing the grander picture. Is the end of her journey bringing her beloved mentor back to life or is she slowly being corrupted by the miasma she now wades through?

Now on EqD!

Art by StDeadRa on DA. Hover over the cover art here to see the source link.

Sister Twilight of the Celestial Order makes an unsettling discovery in the bowels of the abbey.

Small world-building one-shot.