“Uhm, do you think the talks will go well?” Flash Sentry asked gingerly, hoping the changeling mare wouldn’t mind the breach of protocol. Technically he should just stand to attention and stay silent, but he didn’t see the point. All they were doing was standing in front of a pair of richly decorated double doors, while their respective rulers inside hashed out the treaty. They were not even providing any actual security, there were enough crystal and changeling guards spread throughout

“Oh, come on!” Shining Armor exclaimed as he was beaten yet again by Sunburst’s fighter. He was almost of a mind to just fling the controller away. This was getting ridiculous, at this point he would be happy if he could score at least one victory at this. And Cadance’s amused giggles weren’t helping this situation at all. Yet, the evening had begun so well, finally a chance for Shining to give his nerdier side a bit of attention. Ever since he became the prince of the Crystal Empire h

The hive was abuzz with activity, full of spiderlings skittering around and tending to the various tasks the upcoming event required. After all, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the hives founding properly required the full attention of everyone. The hive’s inhabitants were rather peculiar, looking like a mixture of a spider and a changeling, a changeling upper body atop an eight-legged spider body. Banners were hung up and colorful decorations placed into every free space. Only one of the

-buuuuuuurrrrraaaaap- A massive belch rocked through the mare’s body, strong enough to expel two skulls from her mouth and sent them clattering into the pile of bones that had already formed onto the floor. “Whew, that should have been all of you. Of course, the last ones take the longest to digest, stupid earth ponies.” Vorepone spat out, seemingly not bothered by the fact that she herself technically could have counted as earth pony too, provided one ignored her fangs. Of course, that wa

An
"Evil" King
Despite
Princess Luna’s insistence that her Nightmare Night party should be
a casual event, it ultimately turned into a full-blown royal event,
taking up a whole wing of the royal castle. In a last effort to
prevent the night from dissolving into yet another stuffy noble
gathering, she ordered that every drink was to be alcoholic and
everyone was to be in a costume. Furthermore, a few more interesting
guests were invited to liven things up.
With
a dramatic slam, Pharyn

“This
must be the place. Unless there is another mansion somewhere in the
Everfree,” Soulful said. In front of the pegasus was a rather odd
sight, all around was the dese growth of the Everfree forest which
suddenly disappeared to make way for an opulent mansion. In fact, it
seemed almost like the forest itself was wary to grow towards it,
creating a small clearing around the house.
“Gah,
I hope so. We better don’t stay in the Everfree too long, royal
mission or not.” Behind Soulful a

The
cool water was exactly what Swift Sketch needed. It was quite
fortunate to find an empty beach on a hot day like this, a bit
suspicious even, but he didn’t worry about that. As soon as he had
set down his stuff on the beach, the blue earth pony ran off into the
ocean. It was perfect, the waves were gentle and calm and it was just
the right temperature to counter the sweltering heat without being
too cold. All in all a good way to spend the afternoon. Or that would
have been the case if Swi

“What
is this doing here?”
Up
to now, Gyro Feather’s morning was mostly normal. While today was
his birthday, or rather hatchday since his transformation into a
griffon, the party would only start in the evening. So he had planned
to spend the time before that mostly lazing around in his house.
Well, this plan was disrupted by a large wriggling sack lying on his
living room floor. Muffled protests sounded from its insides. After
watching this for a bit, Gyro noticed a note wedged under the

“The
left field could use another go, the earth there is usually a bit
denser than it appears.” said Maybel, gesturing to the west with
her cloven hoof.The light-brown goat was currently lying on a deck
chair in front of her house, overlooking the small fields surrounding
it.
“Are
you sure? Seemed pretty loose to me,” a red-furred stallion
replied, but after a while, he just shrugged and walked back to it
“Well I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Grape Vine fetched the
plough and slowly p

After
some searching around Eco Stigma finally found the place he was
looking for: Runic Glow, an enchantment emporium specializing in all
kinds of runic magic. Eco had encountered quite a few magical
artifacts from this place, most quite powerful ones, and decided to
seek this shop out for himself. After all, it was bound to harbor
even greater treasures and he fully intended to claim those for
himself. Not wasting any more time, Eco opened the door open with a
casual flick of his magic and str

As the Postmaster, Postal page usually didn’t have to bother with simple deliveries, she had more important duties to take care off. But the Black Archives were quite an exception to this rule, a sizeable collection of all the tomes of dark magic Equestria acquired over the centuries, to be safely secured from any unprepared eyes. So transporting such a tome into the archives wasn’t something that would be left to some random mailpony, the crown considered only the Postmaster herself

Rune was busy preparing his shop for the day. He had returned from a trip, in which he helped to keep a mine shaft from collapsing, the day before and had to find out to his dismay that he was gone long enough for a small layer of dust to settle. As he was busy cleaning the many small items he had, to demonstrate the effect of his enchantments, he considered again if he just should just enchant his entire shop against dust even if large scale enchantments could prove rather unstable among so man

Hearts
and Hooves day always made Princess Cadance ecstatic.
Equestria
was filled with happy couples everywhere and every decoration, song
and story was aimed at celebrating love itself, of all days in the
year this one was hers without question. Not to mention Shining
Armor, who always managed to surprise her with something, when they
would finally meet later tonight. She would have preferred to spend
the whole day with him, but she had to agree that he had good reasons
to avoid her for now, co

Spider
silk
Inside
a dimly lit side tunnel of the hive there was a black door.
The
tunnel itself was in a quieter part of the hive’s visitor area, an
area that was open for outsiders who wanted to buy the various
artworks and crafts the hive was producing nowadays or just wanted to
visit a more exotic place for a vacation. Those guests usually had an
enjoyable stay, provided they didn’t stray from the visitor area or
made an ass of themselves.
At
this moment, a small group was walking toward

Despite
the distance, Ember enjoyed the long flights to the hive. She
preferred to think this was due to the scenic route rather than
anticipation to meeting Thorax.
The
hive itself changed quite a bit in recent time. While the wild plant
growth the changelings seemed to like still covered most places, it
was cut back in other places to make room for various kinds of art
like banners, statues and smaller decorations. They looked well made
and where in most cases good decorations but the changeli