//------------------------------// // 6 Truth // Story: For science - Book two // by Znegil //------------------------------// Celestia had decided it would be unfair to tell us before Cadence, so she had sent a message for her to meet us in the private garden. It seemed like forever until Cadence arrived, she looked confused by this sudden invitation to talk about her past. "Hi to all of you.", she said and looked at me. "What have you found about my past?" "We have found a few new pieces of information, but before I could talk about them Celestia said she had to tell you something." Cadence was surprised by that and turned towards the white alicorn. "Let's all sit down in the grass and I will tell you everything." We did as she suggested and we waited for her to begin. She seemed to have trouble finding the right words and three minutes passed without her saying anything. Finally, she took a deep breath and started to talk. "You know I love you like a mother and never would do something to hurt you.", she addressed Cadence. "But I lied to you about your past. It was easier to tell you this white lie when you were little and somehow I missed the right time to tell you the truth... because I was scared of you being mad at me for lying." Both Cadence and Celestia moved uneasy, clearly stressed out from this situation. Without thinking about it I had laid my hand on Cadence's back to calm her down a bit, but she didn't seem to notice. "I have told you, you were found laying in the snow with just these papers next to you... but you were found in the burning remains of an exploded tower." I felt her tense up under my hand and Celestia gave her a few seconds to process this. "You are a direct descendant of Indigo Nightshade, although a few generations apart. Your family always consisted of ponies with powerful magic. I had been on site after the accident to investigate what happened. Connecting my findings with the things Stella had told me days ago, I think this is the most likely scenario: You had been born for just a few days, living with your parents in Indigo's old tower. Your parents tried for some reason to replicate his portal spell to Earth but it didn't work as expected. From the scratch marks on the ground where the furniture had been, it looks like the Portal sucked everything towards it with great force before it exploded and destroyed a huge part of the tower." Tears rolled down Cadence cheeks. "Should I stop for a moment?", Celestia asked worriedly. "No, I want to know it all and I want to know it now.", she replied with a trembling voice. Again she took a deep breath and continued. "When you were found by a pegasus from a nearby village, you lay on the only unharmed spot in all this burned and destroyed chaos. It was round and four feet in diameter. I can only assume one of your parents cast a force field to protect you before they got sucked into the portal... because we never found their bodies." That's when Cadence broke down and cried. Celestia came next to her, wrapping her wing around her. "I'm so so sorry.", she kept on repeating while she cried as well. Without a word, we decided to leave them alone for a while and moved into another part of the garden. ... "That's a lot of new information to process.", said Lyra. "I just wished it wasn't so depressing." "I think we all do.", I replied. "It was heart-wrenching to see Cadence like this." Twilight just nodded. "Let's wait until they are ready to talk to us again." ... Ten minutes later the alicorns walked up to us. Both of them looked tired and their manes were messed up. "We're all so sorry for what we had to hear, Cadence.", I said. "Tell us if there is anything we can do to help." "Thank you.", she replied silently. "You said you had more information about Indigo Nightshade as well?" "Yes, we found some things while we read through his books." We explained them everything in great detail. The portal, his friendship with Cadenza and her tragic death. There was a long silence after we had finished explaining. I decided to break the silence. "We hoped the papers found next to you would bring us more information, the ones that named you 'Mi Amore Cadenza'." "I know where they are, I can teleport them here.", said Cadence and after her horn brightened for a moment a scroll appeared. I picked it up and unrolled it. "My italian is far from perfect.", I warned them before I took a closer look at the papers. "Mi Amore Cadenza is written both in equestrian letters as well as in italian letters on top. It is..." I read a bit ahead. "It is a love poem." "I remember we read in his diary about a present he had prepared for her.", said Lyra. "I'm sure it's this poem. He wanted to give it to her when... he found her dead." "My love Cadenza.", I read out loud. "I fell in love with your beautiful smile. Your curly hair, black as the night, keeps me awake... here his words seem to get fancier, I don't understand most of them." I browsed through the pages. "It looks like the rest of it are just first drafts and gathering of thoughts for this poem." "My love Cadenza, Mi Amore Cadenza.", Celestia whispered. "I just liked how it sounded back then, I had no idea what it meant. And since we had no idea what your real name was... " Again she wrapped her wing around Cadence and drew her close. The pink alicorn allowed it for a moment before she stepped out of it. "I want to visit this tower. Would you please join me on this journey?", she addressed us. "You all know more than anypony else about Indigo." "Well, the tower would have been our next logical target anyway. But maybe we can wait a few days before we go there, so we can make some preparations." "I'm fine with waiting a bit, after all this time a few more days won't hurt.", she replied. "I already know more about my past than I ever imagined. But I think it isn't complete before I saw my home." "Well, we better be going back to Ponyville than.", Twilight suggested. "I want to write it all down in our research journal as soon as possible. We stay in touch about our trip to the tower." So after saying goodbye, we were off to the train station again.