The Great Freeze. Was it our hubris in controlling the sun, or was it that others started to covet that control? At this point, the whos and the whys don’t change anything. Our star is dying, and those responsible for it are long dead. Their causes and motives, lost to all but a few.

For the past hundred years, our sun has been growing dimmer, kept alive only by Celestia’s constant efforts. But not even she nor the legion of magi and scientists can stop the inevitable.

Our only choice is to flee to a new world, one that could give our doomed species a second chance. The Seeding colony ship is that chance. There are so many worth saving, and yet so very few seats.

May our children never forget the sacrifice of those we leave behind.

~Excerpt from Princess Twilight Sparkle’s journal three days before Seeding.

While this fic will borrow heavily from Beyond Earth, it will be written so that you do not have to know anything about BE to enjoy the story.

Twilight becomes alicorn of the stars. This is sort of a problem, because Luna kind of already was alicorn of the stars. Oops!

TV Tropes

How would things be different if Twilight had never made it to Ponyville? Twilight Sparkle finds out just how different things could be when she is forced to travel to her own past while chasing down a mystery; a plot to erase Princess Twilight Sparkle from history.

Landing in a time just weeks after the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, she finds a world shrouded in an eternal night, where the Elements of Harmony were never recovered. Can she fix the things that should have, but didn't happen? Or is this Equestria destined to head down a different path?

Chinese Translation by Hell Organist

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.

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!

This story is a sequel to Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard

Between castle gossip, professional rivalries, a blooming romance, and a mysterious malefactor still at large, Decurion Twilight Sparkle has a lot on her plate. Hopefully, she'll make a few new friends as she moves towards the destiny she's chosen for herself.

As per usual, big thanks to Magello for the rad cover art!