When the Everfree Burns
5000 years ago, the alicorns invaded the planet for the first time. 1000 years ago, the celestial alicorn sisters staked their claim over the pony tribes. Then the Everfree burned, and now the Empress of Equestria rules alone. Celestia may reign, but she does not rest, for ever are there terrors lurking: Things great, ancient, and inapproachable, older than the alicorns.
It is an age of great advancements in Equestria. Gunpowder, oceanic trade, and new ideologies have shifted the balance of power and pony attitudes to the powers that be. The alicorn ordained hierarchy is challenged daily, as bitterness grow between the insecure knights and nobles, and the resentful burghers and commoners. Though many speak as though as if the Equestrian universal peace is already a dead letter, desperate reformers fight their own battle to preserve their princess's empire.
But it is not by mortal striving alone that the wheel of history is turned. The supernatural adversaries of Celestia's reign have returned at last, to conquer ponykind for themselves. Nightmares return to stalk under moonlit skies, but they are just the first and do not even bear the deepest grudge.
In an age of growing crisis, will the ponies be found wanting? Will the princess herself be found wanting? Will naked ambition, arrogance, and evil shatter the very concord of the tribes? It is a fraught time to live, where the pony world faces both peril and possibility. The ponies, the alicorns, the monsters- all have but one goal, to survive and see the world remade to their desires.
Twilight Velvet has lived in this changing world long enough to despise it, while Twilight Sparkle is just coming of age in it. Shining Armor thought he found his place but discovers all is not as it seems. This pony family, divided by duty, may effect the world more than the even their alicorn sovereign, if they can survive being close to power. Surely fighting ponies and monsters alike is worth it when there is a nation and a future to win.
Author's warnings: This story has many original characters, a fairly complex plot and lore, and is very long. A story that started as me trying to write Game of Thrones with MLP ponies has grown up with me and has come to include many of my interests in political philosophy and history. I'm committed to finishing it before taking what I learned and writing this story in its own setting, however long that takes.
79 Chapters:
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Prologue 1: Canterlot Midnight [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
1,977
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Chapter 1: Old Mare's Tale [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
24,344
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Chapter 2: The "Free City" of Ponyville [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
21,543
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Chapter 3: Blackhorn [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
21,842
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Chapter 4: Bloodied Lords [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
30,560
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Chapter 5: The End of Peaceful Nights [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
23,659
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Chapter 6: A Hollow Light Nocturne [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
29,248
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Chapter 7: Sedevacantismo [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
28,984
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Chapter 8: Heathens [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
12,909
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Chapter 10: Watchwords [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
34,529
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Chapter 11: Forlorn Hope is found There [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
17,253
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Chapter 12: Contagious Torment [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
15,782
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Chapter 14: Slave to an Inescapable Culmination [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
14,860
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Chapter 15: Mirror Phase I [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
14,944
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Chapter 16: Truth, Unconquered! [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
23,252
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Chapter 17: Confrontality [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
39,438
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Chapter 18: Unrequited [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
23,925
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Chapter 19: Scattered Thoughts [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
10,252
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Chapter 20: Good Company [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 21: End of Scene [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
6,217
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Chapter 22: Writhe by Night [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
6,198
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Chapter 23: At the Gala [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
7,580
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Chapter 24: Règle de Trois [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 25: Converge [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 26: The Esoteric and Apocryphal [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 27: Fiat Equo [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 28: Meet the New Gods, Same as the Old Gods [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 29: Twilight for the Empress [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 30: The Children of Heaven [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
15,802
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Epilogue 1: Ponyville Midnight [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
3,115
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About the Author: Long Play [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
23
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Bridge Prologue 1: An Accursed Journey Begins [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
7,350
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Bridge Chapter 1: The Claws Come Out [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 2: Anchored [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 3: Back in the Saddle [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 4: Coming in to Coltcutta [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 5: Sight of the Stone Eye [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Epilogue 1: A Thousand of Years ago in Chitin [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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An Intermezzo: Others Seek the East [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Prologue 2: Second Verse [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
2,854
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Chapter 31: Little Bit of Sunshine [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
7,706
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Chapter 32: Ruminations [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 33: Heir to the Empire [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
14,017
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Chapter 34: Ad astra per alas fideles [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 35: An Unsleeping Restless [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
13,357
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Chapter 36: Guise of Sanctity [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
7,920
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Chapter 37: Almost Homefront [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
5,426
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Chapter 38: The Last Step Before the Plummet [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
7,710
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Chapter 39: The Prospects Ahead [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
5,938
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A Truth Comes to Light: Myriadess [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
12,798
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Chapter 40: Self [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
5,869
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Chapter 41: The Longest Night of the Year [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
16,044
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Chapter 42: A Traitor and A Queen [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 43: For Those Whose Ships Have Already Sailed [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 44: The Many Memories [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
20,406
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Chapter 45: The Suzerain of Sin [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 46: The Eyes [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 47: The Way it has to Be [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
25,372
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Chapter 48: Arise, Orphans of Tartarus [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
11,036
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Chapter 49: MOONBREAKER [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
10,722
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Chapter 50: Watch at Dawn [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
19,696
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Epilogue 2: Same as the First [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
19,184
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Bridge Prologue 2: Friends of the Family [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
21,645
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Bridge Chapter 6: A Truth Comes to Light: Xaron [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
13,897
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Bridge Chapter 7: Phantom 1 [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 8: Phantom 2 [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Bridge Chapter 9: Phantom 3 [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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An Intermezzo: A Velvet Manifesto [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
2,233
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An Intermezzo: Never far out of Mind [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
4,794
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Prologue 3: The Elder Siblings of Mortalkind [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
11,889
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Chapter 51: Impossible Towers [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
19,092
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Chapter 52: Tonight we Run Til Dawn [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
14,625
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Chapter 53: Cloud Curtain [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
17,673
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Chapter 54: The Dream Discovery Club [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 55: Fruit of the Poisoned Tree [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
13,579
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Chapter 56: The New Equestrians [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Chapter 57: Fool on the Hill [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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Everfree Extra: Everfree Index 2: Maps of Equestria 1 [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
1,842
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Everfree Extra: Everfree Index 3: Relgions of Equestria 1, the Celestianist Temple [Cache]
May 1st, 2014
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