For almost a thousand years, the immortal Nightmare Moon has reigned over Equestria as Empress. To the average pony, Nightmare Moon is an overarching enigma whose rule is absolute and whose wrath is terrible. But to Twilight Sparkle, who as an orphan has never known her parents, the Empress is something else entirely. When the young unicorn is brought under the royal wing as an apprentice, she learns a great deal more about the supposed tyrant than she ever knew. But as Twilight is introduced to life with her new mentor, she is thrust into a world of political intrigue, conspiracies and secrets. Secrets that were never meant to be revealed. As allies and enemies plot against the very peace of the nation, will Twilight fall prey to the perils of her new position? Or will she prosper and find in Nightmare Moon the mother she never had?

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My eternal gratitude to my editor, LordOfTheWrongs, without whom Night's Favoured Child would not be the story it is today.

Now with added TVtropes!

A refined mare fresh out of high school and a dropout following her dreams find themselves forced to spend a lot of time together.

With the help of a meddling psychology tutor and their new classmates, can they find what they've been looking for?

French Translation!

Fan Stuff!

Bon Bon's voice is funny, and that's about all that anypony who meets her notices, as her marefriend Lyra soon steals the spotlight with her explosive personality, strange obsessions, and curious beliefs. And why not? Bon Bon is, after all, a perfectly ordinary, boring pony in every way but two: her voice, and the carefully kept secret that she isn't really a pony.

(Edit:) Now with an annotated version, courtesy of the incomparable Shoggoth Lord!

Celestia had a problem. Somepony wrote a novel about Nightmare Moon's rebellion. This made Luna quite unhappy, and unfortunately for her sister, Luna has not yet gotten the hang of modern traditions like freedom of speech, the abolition of the death penalty, and not bothering Princess Celestia when she's trying to sleep.

Fortunately, Celestia also had a faithful student, one who is now a Princess with an ill-defined portfolio and perfectly capable of dispensing justice by the laws of both today and one thousand years ago.

Now Twilight Sparkle has a problem.

(Title image hacked together from vectors by Martinnus1, Hawk9mm, and Paulie15.)

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. Things seem to be falling through the cracks lately. Spike thinks I should go see the doctor, but...

A short trip to Canterlot with Rainbow Dash and Applejack is the perfect opportunity for Twilight to test out her new long-distance Teleportation spell. But a nasty cold dashes the hopes of a quick trip, and makes the spell disappear in smoke: instead of arriving in Canterlot, the three find themselves in the nearby Everfree Forest, and discover that their location is not the only thing that went wrong.

While Rainbow has exchanged her wings and tail for a straw blond tail, Applejack has acquired a rainbow tail as well as a pair of strong, blue wings.

While Twilight attempts to find a spell to return the body parts to their rightful owners, the others must attempt to deal with this situation... and with their changing feelings.

Prince Blueblood thought the Grand Galloping Gala was over. He thought he could just go to sleep and put it behind him. He never expected to be reliving the same disaster of a day, over and over... and over.

TV tropes page here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/TheBestNightEver

Thanks to all the people who wrote the page and all the people who gave me a little wakeup call and comment to become aware of that fact! You can't see it, but you guys put a real smile on my face tonight.

Also, recently, extra thanks to RD Dash for giving TBNE a thorough editing. I've updated the fic accordingly (7.11.12)