After Twilight Sparkle quickly leaves for Canterlot one morning to see her family, the rest of the mane 6 get concerned and follow her, only to discover that the purple unicorn has a very big secret she is hiding.

Special thanks to Mudslinger077 for supplying the cover image

Twilight has always grown up close to Luna and Nightmare Moon, both whom are two sides of one coin. The Sun is but a myth most have forgotten and so are the elements. Life as far as Twilight is concerned couldn't be going any better, for there are only 2 whom she cares to hold dear. All until one fateful day in Luna's embrace she is asked to help end the darkness, by finding the elements and making some friends. Reluctantly Twilight agrees but only for Luna and no pony else. Setting off on her quest to help with the Lunar Celebration must she make friends, and find the elements all before it is to late.

(The first what if story in many to come, and since I can't post separate stories in the chapters, I will be posting them as separate what if one shots.)

While some of these what if stories seem like they could use a continuation, the idea is to put the thought into some ones head so that they can if they wish, pick it up and continue the story.

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!

Cobalt never wanted to rule, he never wanted to be a prince of Equestria. He just wanted to see the world. Of course, he didn't realize how defenseless he was leaving his country, and his little sisters the Princesses Luna and Celestia.

Now, three thousand years later, He returns to Equestria, but not as he knew it. New towns and cities have sprung up in his absence, and everything seems unfamiliar. Even his family has changed and expanded. Still, he's visited culture of all different verities. He should be open to new experiences...right?

To preemptively avoid any issues with cannon, revealed later in the show, I'm going to make a point to say this story was mostly written between season 6 and 7, and therefore is set in that period

Special thanks to PlatinumPony for editing!

you'd think after all of the things Twilight had to deal with would make it so she could handle anything, right? How's 9 alicorns who have almost no experience dealing with normal ponies? To top it all off, one of them wants to kill her! Of course, even that's not the only problem she has to deal with. What happens when she starts to get feelings for one of them......

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BSGS: Birthday Scenario Games Stories: Taking your birthday, or a character's birthday/premier date, putting it into the numerous Birthday Scenario Games, and trying to make a story out of the insane results. Mine turned out an alicorn because of that, despite trying to avoid that. Not a Gary Stu or a self insert.

Verdant Flare. To the castle staff and guard, he's a strange unicorn that showed up not long after Princess Luna's return. To a very select few, for now, he's known as the Alicorn Son of Celestia, returned from wandering and exploring. To the Mane 6, he's a pony with less social skills than Twilight Sparkle.

But no one seems to know anything about him: Where he's been, when he was born, why he left, or even who the father is. The answers will be more confusing than shocking, sans the final one.

Princess Celestia and her faithful student twilight sparkle goes to her school for gifted unicorns to check out the projects for midterm exams. But something goes terribly wrong and now Celestia stuck as a filly. And now twilight sparkle has to watch over Princess Celestia until the spells reversed. Can this be undone before nightmare moon returns from her thousand year banishment. Or are things going to go differently than Celestia had planned. Find out for yourself

the cover art was done by Mystic Solaris Knight which I'm very thankful for what he did for me. You can look at this pituer and others that he made on he'sDeviantart account
First chapter edited by night-fire123 and re-edited chapter 1Mystic Solaris Knight on 7/1/2015 and edited chapter 2 on 7/3/15

Okay like I place beneath my username on my account. I'm using Dragon natural speaking program to help me out with spelling and such, but it's not a 100% perfect. I got this program just like the end of May this year and in a way I'm still teaching it how what words go with how I pronounce some words always going to make a whole lot of mistakes and mystique one word for another, I'm trying to keep an eye out for them. But I will meant I will miss some like I've been aware about shining being mistaken for singing and I been trying to keep an eye out for it but I'll sometimes miss it if you see it, or any other words that may be that Dragon program miss interpret with me let me know what the word is what it should be spelled as which chapter they are where in these chapters. They are and I'll try to fix them. As soon as I can again IM sorry about this I saw they had a pretty good hold on it, but someone just pointed it out to me that I more than likely and not and night I'd had her complaint about people saying fix my grammar, but somebody has pointed out to me what the main issue with my grammar of the work placement though I double checked on my Word document and did the switchers think where it says takes us on a word and you could switch it. I fixed the shining singing thing and tell me that I did it 17 times without correcting it by mistake, which felt very embarrassing, but it would have been you guard twice as bad if not three times as bad if I didn't write to keep an eye out for it. So let me know and I'll try to fix it. As soon as I can. Thank you for your time. And I hope you enjoy the story.

Following the events "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" Celestia, with the help of Twilight and her friends, tries to get Luna to open up about the feelings she carried after being released from her Nightmare Moon persona.

An artifact causes an incident where Luna's gender switches, and she becomes prince instead.

Evidently, Luna turned out to be a handsome prince. Now having to deal with confused and judging nobility, lots of mares vying for the Prince's affection, the paparazzi eager to get more scoops on the new lunar prince, and a sister who seems to want the prince to stay judging by how she sees the entire situation hilarious, along with her pranks and quips, Luna will have to work hard with Twilight to solve the mystery of Starswirl's Sphere and hope that she can return back to a normal life.

Art by jaquelindreamz.

Originally written by Kuairu.

So, Nightmare Moon has returned, and with the Elements of Harmony back on the tree, Twilight decides now is the best time to test her alicorn power, and defeat Nightmare Moon on her own.

She will soon realize she just made a childish mistake, and pay the price, in the cutest way possible. But she will also learn some interesting secrets about history, and herself.

Cover art belongs to Cuddlelamb on deviantart.

Rated teen for mentions of breastfeeding in future chapters.