//------------------------------//
// Author's End Note: Acknowledgements, Art, Music, and Q&A 
// Story: Essenza di Amore 
// by Cerulean Voice 
//------------------------------//


All quoted material below copyright of Hasbro® and My Little Pony™


Taken from Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, written by G. M. Berrow under the Hasbro® License.





“When I was found as a baby Pegasus, in a forest far, far away…”

Cadance began the familiar tale. Twilight listened intently as Cadance recounted her path to becoming the great pony leader she was today.

Cadance told her how some Earth Ponies from a nearby village took her in as their own little 
filly. And as she grew up, the natural love and compassion she had for others filled everypony with warmth and the urge to protect her. Cadance was definitely special.

But all was not well for long. An evil pony enchantress named Prismia lived alone nearby. She rarely came out of her cottage because she felt nothing but jealousy for the other ponies in the village—the way they loved and took care of one another. And yet, she had nopony who cared for her.

Prismia always wore a powerful necklace, which she cared for more than anything else in the world, and it served to amplify the evil and jealousy within her own heart. When Prismia’s bad feelings and the power of the necklace finally overtook her, she cast a spell on the villagers that leeched all the love from their homes. She hoped to capture some of that love for herself. Everypony was distraught and sad.

Cadance decided that she couldn’t let that happen, so she went to see Prismia. Luckily, the 
enchantress’s powerful necklace also amplified the power of Cadance’s love, and she soon defeated Prismia with her incredible gift of compassion.

Once Prismia changed her horrible ways, Cadance was surrounded by magical energy and transported to a strange place—a place that nopony except Princess Celestia had ever been! So when Celestia discovered special little Cadance in that mysterious location, her fate was sealed. The princess brought her back to Canterlot to raise her as her very own royal niece—the special and loving young Princess Cadance.



…

Wait. That’s it? That’s all we get? I thought after reading about Princess Cadance in G.M.Berrow’s Hasbro®-licensed novel, Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell. I almost threw the book across the room after reading that. I mean, fair enough that the story is supposed to be about Twilight, but come on, G; could you not perhaps have at least dedicated a single chapter to Cadance’s story, with a little more detail, so she could not only show us how special she really is, but also that Twilight, too, realised the significance of her ascension?

No? Okay. I guess it falls to me to write her history then. Let’s do this…

Conception:

That was my thought process. But how to go about it? Hmmm.… At first, I was stumped for clues. I mean, I knew the bare bones of the story: adopted by earth ponies, approached by the witch, love stolen, overpowering the pendant and thwarting the witch with… compassion? How does that even work? For a long time, I was stumped.

One day in chilly July (I live in Australia, for those who were unaware), I had Nightwish playing on an endless loop at work. Quite often at work—much to my own chagrin—I find myself coming up with the most wild and crazy story ideas due to the repetitious nature of my tasks. For about the third time that day (might have been the fourth, I don’t know truly), I heard the song Cadence of Her Last Breath start up. Then, it hit me.

Cadence of Her Last Breath.

Cadence of Her Last Breath!

Wow! I can work with this!

Less than an hour later, I’d sent a PM to my good friend, J (You guys might know him better as JustAnotherTimeLord), describing my idea. Here is the ensuing series of PMs back and forth:

Had another idea for a fic.


29w, 5 ago
Cerulean Voice said:
....Dammit.

Cadance of Her Last Breath:



Before Princess Mi Amore Cadenza (or Princess Cadance as she prefers) was ever a princess of Equestria, she was simply known as Kaviyayu, an orphaned pegasus filly raised by a village who loved her as their shared daughter. Grateful to her rescuers and new adoptive family, Kaviyayu quickly learned the value and importance of love from her young age.
One night, the teenage Kaviyayu has a dream about a white colt with blue hair, who seems to be running to her while calling a single word over and over: "Cadance." Yet try as she might, she cannot ever close the distance between them; instead, a shadow blocks her path, always cackling, always accompanied by a flash of blue.
Who is the mysterious colt, why does he haunt her dreams, and why is the laughing shadow within so determined to keep the two apart?



Story inspiration:




29w, 4d ago
JustAnotherTimeLord said:
Holy shit, this is good stuff. Really good stuff. I really like this idea. Like, a lot. Now, here's the thing, though: the villain NEEDS to be something original. Discord is overplayed, and Sombra CAN be used, but really, you'll need to get creative here.
I say this because with how great of an idea this is, it is a disservice to use a villain that doesn't match it. I'd think of maybe using the Nightmare or something. That just came to mind. It probably doesn't work overall, but it's the thought that counts.
So yeah. That's all I have for it. All in all, this is a great idea.

29w, 4d ago
Cerulean Voice said:
The villain, in fact, already exists. Her name is Prismia:



“When I was found as a baby Pegasus, in a forest far, far away…” Cadance began the familiar
tale. Twilight listened intently as Cadance recounted her path to becoming the great pony leader she was today.
Cadance told her how some Earth Ponies from a nearby village took her in as their own little
filly. And as she grew up, the natural love and compassion she had for others filled everypony with warmth and the urge to protect her. Cadance was definitely special.
But all was not well for long.
An evil pony enchantress named Prismia lived alone nearby. She rarely came out of her cottage
because she felt nothing but jealousy for the other ponies in the village—the way they loved and
took care of one another. And yet, she had nopony who cared for her. Prismia always wore a
powerful necklace, which she cared for more than anything else in the world, and it served to
amplify the evil and jealousy within her own heart. When Prismia’s bad feelings and the power of
the necklace finally overtook her, she cast a spell on the villagers that leeched all the love from their homes. She hoped to capture some of that love for herself. Everypony was distraught and sad.



Prismia is a blank slate.



A week later, I abandoned the one-shot idea, and the “dreaming of Shining and the shadow” concept, and had listened to more than enough Nightwish (Mostly the album Dark Passion Play) to get myself into a superhyped fantasy mood. Thus was the name of the story changed from Cadance of Her Last Breath, to The Essence of Love, and then finally to Essenza di Amore. The final naming choice felt fitting, both because it is an elegant, smooth title out of a language I find gorgeous (Italian for those who don’t know/too lazy to look it up), and also because of Cadance’s Princess name: “Mi Amore Cadenza.” This was her story, and so to have her defining trait as well as a part of her name in the title just felt 100% right.

Brainstorming ideas:

Initially, I intended for the story to be about episode length, or between 12-15k words over a few chapters. I figured I might push it a little further if necessary, if I got lost in the descriptions.

Ha. Great joke, huh?

Firstly, I was going to have a chapter introducing her as an orphan, why she was an orphan, who took her in, and Lady Prismia’s arrival: all within the first chapter. The second chapter would be about Prismia’s sapping of love, Cadance’s confrontation of her, and her subsequent ascension to alicornication. Chapter three was intended to be the resolution, with Cadance having redeemed Prismia, Celestia showing up to tell her of her destiny and to take her away to Canterlot. All of these chapters were going to be framed under the guise of Young-Twilight-Era-aged Cadance telling her story to Twilight as a bedtime story.

But something was annoying me, niggling at the back of my mind. Namely, if Cadance was an orphan, how did she come to be raised by earth ponies in the first place? Why would they not try to return her to her other family: aunties, cousins, grandparents? Did they know she was special? Did they know that Cloudsdale even existed?  And so, the idea of Cadance being rescued at the expense of multiple other lives came to mind. She was far from home, and her rescuers had never seen pegasi before. She would appear to fall out of the sky, and they would see her as a blessing from above. So I drafted up this huge conflicting chapter about some Amish-styled ponies, who basically knew nothing of the outside world save for their own village. A couple of naughty foals wandered too far from home, being adventurous, and their decision to disobey the rules of their elders set in motion a series of events that changed the entire course of history.

But how to make them seem so secluded, so out of touch with the outside world, that they wouldn’t even consider trying to return Cadance to her family? That was where the idea for giving them strange tribal-ish names came from. They were a secret family, a herd hidden away from the world in a secret village that nopony knew about. A family so ancient and out of touch with progress, that they continued to use ancient naming conventions. Thus, my search for weird names began. I also decided to name my chapters after songs from the Dark Passion Play album, as a homage and thanks to Nightwish for inspiring the story in my head.

It is here that I must give great thanks for one of my earliest collaborators: PaulAsaran. Striking up a conversation with him, I mentioned that the earth ponies were inspired by the Greenskins, from The Neverending Story (that being the subtle nod to NES, with the pony named Artax being the obvious nod). He suggested naming them from a language that he himself adores: Hindi. Putting our heads (and a Hindi-English translator) together, we experimented with a few names that combined other names. The end results came out thus:

Kaviyayu: Kavi + Eriya + yu ( Poet + Aria + ours/all of us)
Kartanya: Karen + Tanya (Pure + Light)
Stamska: Stambha + Skatur (Pillar + Scout)
Samanka: Samanta, light variation of Samantha (Family or Kinship)
Avran: as is (Cover or Shield)
Havijhan: Anubhav + Jivan (History or Knowledge + Life Experience)
Eva: light variation of Eve (Life)
Artax: although I plucked his name right out of The Neverending Story, it turns out to mean (Divine)

Writing:

As I wrote, I realised just how deep a world and characters I had created. I also realised that I was falling in love with Cadance as a character. She was so cute, carefree, innocent and spirited, with the kind of attitude you might expect to see emulated by many Studio Ghibli heroines such as Kiki, Chihiro, Sophie, or Nausicaa. Clearly, 20k words was not going to cut it for this story. No, I wasn’t just creating a backstory for an underappreciated character anymore; I was creating an epic for her, a love song—a cadence if you will.

Prismia became fascinating as well. Although all I had to work with from canon was that she was a jealous witch who lived nearby, I never felt like that did her any level of justice. As I began the third chapter, I really began to wonder what her real story was. Why was she jealous, and what was it about her past that made her so? It was then that I remembered a truly delicious villain from a highly rated cartoon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Seeing Prismia in my mind—the level of deception she displayed, the demeanour of her attitude and her actions before striking the critical blow—really woke me up to the fact that I was subconsciously basing her on someone else.

An old waterbender character called Hama. Here is her bio from the A:TLA wikipedia. Needless to say, they are incredibly similar, not only in appearance, but in tragic backstory, loneliness, suffering, and desire for retribution.

The Search For Editors:

I asked around for a few people to preread and perhaps edit for me, to give me an idea of just what I was creating. A pretty decent amount of friends jumped on board, willing to help me out:

•Syeekoh
•ThatOneWriter
•The Albinocorn
•Foals Errand
•ZOMG
•vren55
•Comet Burst

There were a couple of others, but they didn’t really read much or give me an opinion. Many of them had a few things to say about certain things, but for the most part, all responses were overwhelmingly positive. Everyone listed above contributed in their own way, even those who only left a few select strategic comments that made me really think about certain things.

Then, it was time to gather actual editors. I had realised at this point that it was on track to become the best thing I had ever written, and so I sought after only the best people that I personally knew to help me. My oldest acquaintance and former editor, ChromeMyriad, seemed eager to help, but life caught up to him in a rather vicious manner, and so he had no choice but to abandon the project after chapter one. With Chrome gone, I asked a very talented writer and then-contributor to Twilight’s Library, Lambent Dream (then known as Noble Thought) as well as someone I had a truly great amount of respect for: Chris. With (Noble) and Chris on my case, suddenly my gdocs pages were covered in a rather large amount of graffiti, which both depressed and encouraged me. (Noble) was incredible at helping me rewrite sentences to be less awkward and more concise, whereas Chris was a major asset in finding areas that needed greater explanation, or things that just didn’t quite add up or have quite enough “oomph.”

Alas, (Noble) also had some life and confidence issues build up, and we pretty much said good bye halfway through chapter four. While Chris served as an amazing plothole finder/story strengthener, he also had life issues to worry more about. Not wanting to leave the story to languish, I decided to bite the bullet and ask the two people I knew could be reliable when it comes to both objective and subjective editing: Prak, and NightWolf289. Finally, I asked for a return favour from one Titanium Dragon, whose works Dawn and Dusk I had edited the week before. Even with these editors, September-through-November proved to be rather challenging when it came to finding time to dedicate to the story.

Finally, I threw some money in PresentPerfect’s general direction to help him out a bit, and he took the time to give me some additional feedback as well as final editing suggestions.

Release Plans:

With the story about 85% complete, I decided to submit my first two finished, edited chapters to Equestria Daily, in the hopes that I could nab a feature there at the same time as nabbing the fimfic feature box. Having submitted the story in early December, I was taking the gamble that, if it was approved, it might be published somewhere around Christmas. Around the beginning of December, I also contacted one of my favourite MLP fandom musicians, whose music I’d been listening to for two years already: The L-Train, most famous for his absolutely stellar collaboration, Moonlight: a symphonic metal opera. I asked him very nicely if he would consider making a song for my story, and to my immense surprise agreed without any further effort on my part.

My ideal plan, because I had promised my followers a Christmas release, was to release around Christmas Eve. Alas, Christmas came and went, with no word on the blog’s progress with the story. New Year’s Eve rolled around, yet still, nothing. It was at this point I decided “bugger it, I don’t need it to be featured anyway. My people have waited long enough (24 weeks at that point in time).” So, I released it on New Year’s Day instead. To my surprise, the story still featured anyway, claiming fourth in the regular box, and 6th in the mature content box. Two days later, when it had already been pushed out, Sethisto himself read and approved my story and proceeded to post it. Four weeks later, L-Train finished his recording, mixing, and mastering of his/our brand new track, The Crystal Pendant.

The other important person to thank for the song is my friend, Ayemel. She is one of the best artists in this fandom, is underrated as hell, and puts her absolute all into her pictures. By herself, she created seven images to complement not only the music video, but also my story. Suffice to say, Ayemel did a damn fine job on it, with many many hours put into such pieces and a very patient attitude. You can find all the art at the bottom of this blog. You will also find L-Train’s music track near the end of the chapter, after the artwork.

Deleted Scenes:

It is here that I should tell you that I was waiting to release my created foes, the Vargar. Originally named Wargen, they were a breed of enormous direwolf, hungry for either death or the taste of flesh. There was also a largely extended scene of Cadance in Cloudsdale with Celestia as they confirm Cadance’s lineage. Days from uploading, Titanium Dragon told me that those chapters were both better off eliminated, which forced me to cut almost 14k words from the final product. This was about ⅓ of the story, just gone completely. I hammered out a new conflict involving a familiar villain and was done with it just in time to keep to my self-imposed deadline. These deleted scenes have been posted and are readable after this chapter, if you have not already read them.

Reception:

Despite being just a little less successful than I anticipated, Essenza di Amore received high amounts of praise as well as many wishes for the story to continue. It had a good overall rating, but it was really the comments that made me smile. Yes, I had achieved what I set out to do— impress people with my version of events surrounding our little pink princess. Having run its course of updates (and Equestria Daily updates), the story has closed on the highest approval percentage of any of my stories yet, at a rating of over 97.7% approval. I am extremely happy with how it turned out, and the overwhelmingly positive reviews and comments it has received.

Acknowledgements:

Here, I thank all of those involved in helping make this dream story come to life.

Inspirations:

•G. M. Berrow., author of Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell
•To Make a Spark, by Chris
•Lady Prismia and the Princess-Goddess, by Skywriter
•The band Nightwish, and certain themes from their album Dark Passion Play

Initial idea pitch and discussion:

•JustAnotherTimeLord
•PaulAsaran

Prereaders:


•The Albinocorn
•ThatOneWriter
•vren55
•Syeekoh,
•ZOMG
•Foals Errand
•Comet Burst

Editors:

•ChromeMyriad
•Titanium Dragon
•Lambent Dream
•Prak
•NightWolf289
•PresentPerfect
•Chris

Artists:

•Ayemel
•Silfoe

Equestria Daily:

•Equestria Daily
•Sethisto
•TheSlorg

Music:

•The L-Train

Artwork:


Newly orphaned Cadance is rescued by her adoptive sister, Kartanya, at the cost of Cadance’s parents’ and Kartanya’s brother’s (Artax) lives.


Young Cadance (rechristened Kaviyayu), Avran, and two of his friends play together in a riverside pool. Little do they suspect that somepony is watching their every move...


Kavi, her family, and some other Zaharans are captivated by newcomer Eva’s illusory talents and skill in storytelling.


Having learned the truth about herself and her family, Kavi retreats in a distraught state of mind, however Eva is not far behind with moral support. Or is she?


Even those who commit great wrongs in life may be deserving of love. Perhaps it’s all they really want.


The changeling queen, newly released from her prison inside the Crystal Pendant, demands Kavi’s love in exchange for her family.


Lost and afraid, Kavi has a meeting with the most powerful, benevolent being in Equestria.


Kavi has learned an extremely valuable lesson about life, and so earns her horn and her apotheosis.

A phenomenally great thank you to Ayemel for creating all but one of those images. I watched each one come to life, and Ayemel is amazing to work with in her livestreams. Also a note of thanks to Silfoe, who allowed the L-Train to use her old Little Cadance image as part of his music video.

Music:



Go and listen to L-Train’s stuff. It’s incredible.

Final Thanks:

As you can see, this story would not have been possible without the combined efforts of these amazing, dedicated people. Each and every one of them contributed in some way, large or small, and I am grateful to every one of them. Thank you all so much.

Lastly, my thanks go to all of you, my lovely readers. Without you all to read and enjoy the story, I might never have had the will to finish it. I am glad for all of you, and I hope you enjoyed this coming-of-age tale.

Q&A:

Something else you’d like to know about the story that I haven’t covered? Feel free to ask me anything! Go on, right there! Type a comment and I’ll be sure to answer you. Here, I’ll even answer a frequently asked question for you right now:



Will you be writing a sequel?



Uh, well…

Teaser!



Mid-afternoon sunshine bounced off the Crystal Empire’s many buildings, creating a kaleidoscopic effect across the sky. Eager voices mingled with music as residents and tourists alike milled about, inspecting the various stalls all offering their unique wares.

Princess Cadance smiled as she strolled down Emerald Boulevard. The scent of crystal strawberries, raisins, dates, and others filled her nostrils. All around her, other vendors bowed and called out when she passed them by. She waved to all her subjects, who beamed their own bright smiles in return.

As she approached a crystal fruit stall, she caressed the Crystal Pendant around her neck. Many years earlier, she had inherited the enchanted, heart-shaped sapphire and used it to help her spread love wherever she went. She had outgrown the need to wield it, however, and had bestowed its emotion-amplifying power upon her sister-in-law as a coronation gift. Although Twilight had put it to good use, she had felt uneasy about keeping it, and so Cadance found it in her possession once again.

“You are the Princess of Love,” she had said upon returning it to Cadance. “You defeated the witch and purified it all that time ago. It rightfully belongs to you. Keep it, and pass it down to your foals.”

Cadance giggled, remembering Twilight’s words that day. Oh, Twilight. I think you’re more hopeful to be an auntie than Celestia or Luna are to be great-aunts.



Keep your eyes posted! Until next time,
Love,
Adren “Cerulean Voice” Perry.