All things have a beginning.

Even for one such as Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings.

She lost her bid for Equestria. The changeling was found lying in a crater miles from where she had been flung. It was a miracle she had survived. Her army was shattered. So far as the Equestrians knew, Chrysalis was the only survivor.

But her hive survives and has gone to hiding as another queen seeks to find it.

If Equestria thought Chrysalis was a monster, wait until they meet Queen Taalia...

In the meantime, Atalanta has given Queen Chrysalis a renewed sense of purpose. Hatched in captivity, she is the whole world to her doting mother.

She writes the story of her life for her daughter, who could very well be the last of the changelings once Chrysalis is gone...and who this Queen Taalia is.

Cover Art by pinkanaon. Check out the art!

MLP:FiM was created by Lauren Faust.
MLP:FiM is owned by Hasbro.
All Rights Reserved.

This is a fic based on the Time Loop Files, the format of which was first codified by Innortal on fanfiction.net.
Here's a brief guide.
The basic idea is, one character (the Anchor, usually the main character of a fictional setting) is looping back to the very first moments of their parent series every time either they die or some kind of time limit expires. They of course end up monumentally stir crazy given enough time.
Eventually others start to loop as well.
The reset is not always perfect. Sometimes a loop's history will be different to the "prime" loop, or canonical plot.
"Crossover" or "Fusion" loops also occur, randomly. These can involve the home loopers having a guest, or the anchor for one universe spending time in another, or replacements of one character by another.
Vacation Loops are where the Anchor (or others) decide/s "buck it" and lets off steam by doing whatever comes to mind. There's little or no attempt to maintain the original timeline.

In addition, and particularly more recently, it should be known that this story has a collaborative element to it - people may submit loop ideas or loops, ideally at the Spacebattles thread (a link to the current version of which is on the Trope page), and they may become included.

There's two page image options, thanks to Filraen - the current page image has been edited by the original creator from this work of theirs.. The other one is here:
http://hourglass-vectors.deviantart.com/art/MLP-Loops-466030169

Twilight Sparkle is Princess Celestia's personal student, tinkerer, philosopher, arcanosmith, and more. What she is not, however, is one to give up on a good mystery. Especially when her attempts to put it off are met with strange dreams and vague hints.
If only she didn't have to do this alone. Well, that's what the young inventor thought.
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Added gore tag for some later chapters

After years of being the runt of the litter (despite having no siblings), Spike finally comes into his own and starts to grow up and mature. The result is a unique bit of magic all his own, or so the theory goes: He awakens one morning to find words hanging overhead that call him [The Gamer], along with powers that let him 'live life as though it were a game'.

How he decides to handle all of this, and where things go from there? That would be a spoiler, and you all know how we feel about spoilers around here...

Frequently asked questions will be answered from time to time, and those answers linked here for the curious:
The First FAQ