Princess Celestia has been keeping a dark secret from her subjects for a very long time.

It's not an easy truth to tell, but if anyone can accept her after learning it, it will surely be her most faithful student.

Third Place Finisher in Equestria Daily's 2013 Nightmare Night Contest!

There is a secret in Equestria. A secret the newly crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle doesn’t dare to believe. Like puppeteers pulling on marionettes, they have influenced Equestria for better and worse since the fall of Discord. So far they have been benevolent, but their potential for evil is vast. What’s worse, she doesn’t know their name. She doesn’t know their mission. All she knows for certain is one thing.

That they all seem to be zebra.

Twilight, in an effort to help Applejack and Rainbow Dash achieve their dream of having a foal together, casts a spell that, unbeknownst to the princess, envelops all of Ponyville and plunges the little ponies (and one dragon) into a vortex of unknown genetic exchange and unplanned parenthood. What's more, the solution may come with severe complications of its own, and thus Twilight finds herself tasked with finding a resolution where there is likely none to be had.

Editing and cover art by Bico.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Immortal rulers of Equestria, shepherds of the Sun and Moon, and arguably the most powerful beings in existence.

Even they are not immune to the dreaded rivalry that comes between sisters. Feeling her sister has gone soft over the millenia spent alone, Princess Luna challenges Princess Celestia to the one and only Iron Pony Competition.

Which sister will come out on top?

Now with fanart! By Soulite1110

What if Discord never ate the reforming spell Twilight was going to use on him as a last resort? What would happen to the Spirit of Chaos when a spell forcibly changes him to what the ponies' morality consider good to be? Nothing good, that's for sure. Or rather, nothing bad, according to the new Discord the spell creates.

Applejack has never missed a meal on purpose before, let alone a Pie Day dinner – that glorious day of the week serving Granny's famed hot, fresh apple pie. So why was Applejack absent at the dining table today, of all days? Little does the rest of the family know, Applejack's a lot closer than they think – she's in her bedroom, nervously pacing around and building up the courage to perform the single hardest thing she's ever done.

What is this herculean task that not even Applejack can overcome?

Being honest…

Editors' credit goes to: ping111, NotMurphy, John Perry, and Distaff Pope

Cover art used with permission by MuffinExplosion

Rated Teen for light sexual references.
Featured on Equestria Daily 9-19-2013

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The princess's fanatical student. A startlingly honest bootlegger. A prissy high-class escort. A traitor caught between two loyalties. A hyperactive pyromaniac. A quiet assassin who can kill with a word.

The night that has covered Equestria for a thousand years might just be coming to an end. And all of these familiar faces will be engulfed in the war between a victorious Nightmare Moon and her sister, returned from a millennium of exile.

Even as the sun rises, the situation has never seemed so dark.

This story was edited, preread, and otherwise improved by Einhander, Comrade Sparkle, CartsBeforeHorses, Spigo, and IR Pony.

Rarity's family name is in shambles, and her fortune is nonexistent. To return what her father squandered, she and her good friend Pinkie Pie turn to piracy, commandeering a magical airship and kidnapping the princess's personal student.

When Princess Celestia learns of Twilight and Applejack's abduction, she doesn't agree to pay the ransom. No, she hires the sky's greatest tactical mind, the Daring Swordspony Rainbow Dash, and her sidekick, Fluttershy. As the two groups engage in a game of cat and mouse, more dangerous threats hang on the horizon. Aztec Curses, angry gods, and a mysterious figure known only as the Derp Pirate Roberts.

Will the six Elements of Harmony be able to gather the seven pieces of eight, or will the world fall to utter chaos, and rise up as an empire of anarchy and piracy?

Now with its own TV Tropes page thanks to Cleverpun: TV Tropes

When Discord hears that his botanical creation, poison joke, continues to flourish in the Everfree, he simply cannot resist a good prank. Poison joke in hand, he storms Canterlot Castle.

Needless to say, the princesses are not impressed. But then, neither is Discord, since the joke also has an unexpected effect on him. And none of them know the cure.

Princess Luna has returned. To many, this is seen as a joyous occasion, but for the Princess of the Night, her reappearance brings only heartbreak. The world Luna once knew is but a thing of the past, lost within the dusty corridors of her mind, while memories of her loved ones haunt her nightmares.

Unbeknownst to Celestia, Luna was with a foal when she was banished, forced to give birth in her lunar exile. Now, centuries later, she has come back, broken and somber, to re-take her rightful position as co-ruler of Equestria.

Her hopes to connect with her subjects fading, Luna finds a growing jealousy festering within herself as she fails to accept the past and make amends with her sister.

No matter the case, a goddess must never show her sorrow.