'Unseen and unheard: They must never know'.

That's the motto of the CMAA, the Cutie Mark Allocation Agency. Nopony knows who they are or what they do, but they're vital to the workings of Equestrian society.

This is the story of two of these unsung heroes of the pony world, who selflessly sacrifice their time and energy for those blasted mysterious cutie marks that the ponies seem to like so much.

(Thanks to Zemious for the excellent cover picture for this story!)

On the outskirts of a village by the sea, just north of Halterfax, there is a house.

In the house lives a maid, tasked with caring for it in the absence of its masters, who have not visited in some time. Every autumn she dutifully seals the windows, locks the doors, and prepares as the fog rolls in.

In the fog are ghost stories waiting to happen. Beasts and specters blown in from the sea to haunt and roam the coast. This is how it has always been in the village, and the maid, like the villagers, has become very good at avoiding the fog.

This autumn, however, the house has received a new master.

A series of short stories regarding a Bat Pony, the supernatural, and when it is appropriate to be sensible.

Discord's been settling in, if you can call anything Discord does "settling", to life as Fluttershy's housemate. He's friends now with both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, he's become an extraordinarily annoying second mentor for Twilight, he and Celestia are even making attempts to repair their old friendship. But what comes as close as Discord can get to "ordinary" life is haunted by a secret he's not willing to share with any of his new friends. He's been exiled from the Q Continuum because he's on trial. And there's a very significant chance they're going to take his powers away.

Crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation, though don't expect to see much of the TNG characters or see the crew of the Enterprise interact with the ponies. Part of my "Next of Kin to Chaos" series, where Discord is Q. This is what happens immediately prior to and during the TNG episode "Deja Q" from the perspective of Discord's pony friends. Or, why would someone take refuge with "the closest thing" they have to a friend when they have actual friends they could go to instead?

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

There is now a Progress Bar at my writing journal.

It occurred one peaceful night. Half of Equestria awoke to the sound like a double-shot thunderclap. A percussion heard in the skies and rattling windows from Apploosa, to Canterlot, to Ponyville. Nopony knew what it was or what it heralded for the world as it drew a line across the nation.

For Twilight Sparkle, this isolated incident might have faded from memory after a time, if not for the strange rumors of a creature sitting on the hill on the outskirts of town.

These are her thoughts given written form. These are Sparkle's Notes.

Report EVERYTHING to the Princess.

The star system Omega Centauri was just another oddity on a map to scientists in the not too distant future. However when they found the star was orbiting an earth-sized, earth-like planet instead of a black hole as its motion had suggested, a mission was scrambled to investigate this most unusual of celestial behaviors.

Hamstrung by politics, and nearly crippled before it began, the 'Lone Ranger' mission was reduced to just one crew member and left to his own devices.

These are the logs of Arrow 18 and its lone commander. This information is classified TOP SECRET by the Global Space Agency.

Do NOT tell the princess.

Discord wants Twilight to hit him. Twilight thinks there has to be a catch. Set in the same continuity as my TNG crossover fics, between "The Princess and the Dragon" (and also "Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report") and "The King Who Would Be Man", but Discord being Q isn't relevant to this specific story.

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

A zipped copy of a WMA Audio file of me reading this story is now up on my web site, but be warned, the zip file is 28 megs. (The WMA is a good bit bigger than that.) I have an MP3 version as well, but it was both larger and less compressible, so I went with the WMA version instead.

Twilight's convinced Discord hasn't really reformed, and has found a weapon to replace the Elements -- a reforming spell Discord missed eating. But panicking an entity like Discord is probably never a good idea. And Twilight's about to learn that the good intentions that pave the road to hell don't make the destination a nicer place to live...

There is now a Progress Bar. Part of "Next of Kin to Chaos", my Discord-as-Q series, set after "Negotiating Terms" and before "Hit Me".

(Note: gets a Dark tag but this is not super dark; after all if Discord destroyed the universe he'd find he had nothing to play with later, and both "Hit Me" and "The King Who Would Be Man" happen after this story.)

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

This story is a sequel to Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report

Set in my "Next of Kin to Chaos" series, but no Star Trek knowledge is needed for this story. More or less direct sequel to "Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report", but not humor. Celestia summons Discord to explain himself regarding his ridiculous "friendship report", but the conversation quickly diverges. Discord wants to know what Celestia wanted to reform him for, and what he's expected to do. And Celestia wants to know why he decided to reform.

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

Edited to add: The marvelous zabchan drew me this lovely cover art! Thank you!

Belongs to my "Next of Kin to Chaos" series, in which Discord is Q from Star Trek, but absolutely no Star Trek knowledge is required for this story.

Somepony seems to have thought it would help Discord with staying on the straight and narrow if he were required to send Celestia reports on friendship, like Twilight Sparkle does. Somepony was plainly out of their mind.

New cover art added! From the magnificent zabchan.

A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos

A WMA Audio file of me reading this story is now up on my own site.

Twilight Sparkle wakes up one morning to a harsh dose of unreality. She is stranded, without her friends, on an island which matches no known locale on Equestria. Surrounded and harried on all sides by the alien and the dangerous, she will find her mettle sorely tested, and find perhaps that the best friends you will ever have in your life are the ones you make when your back is to the wall...

Thanks to CedricBale and noobie56xx for tracking down the name of the artist so I could give them credit.