Legends and Legacies
If the floor wasn’t made of stone, it would’ve shattered to pieces with how fast their jaws collided onto it. Spike, Cadance and Twilight were all stunned at the words they just heard uttered from Discord’s mouth.
“What did you just say?” Twilight said, being the first to break free from shock.
“Oh, were you not listening the first time? Allow me to say it a bit clearer.” Discord pulled a megaphone out of the air and spoke into it. “Cadance, the princess of love, is the Saphirum! In a manner of speaking, of course.”
“What you talkin’ about, Discord?” Spike asked. “That makes no sense! Not that anything you do makes sense, though…”
Discord shook his head and waved a paw. “Oh, come now, I’m sure you don’t want to hear all the details. They’re rather small, trivial little things, after all.”
“Discord,” Cadance said, slanting her eyes. “You come to me and tell me I’m a long lost demon or whatever, and then you tell me you can’t go into details? I’m losing my husband, I’m dreaming of making out with a dragon, which may or may not considered pedophilia depending on who you ask, and now I’m traveling through whatever multiverse this is to hear your tales. Listen here, I want details, and I want them now.”
“Oh, fine, if you insist!” Discord groaned, hesitantly snapping his talons. The scenery around the group changed, but none of them recognized it. By the looks of things, they were in a village, but it seemed to be far behind in terms of the architecture. There were a few ponies milling about, but they appeared to be… watching. For what, the group had no idea. It was snowing heavily, but that didn’t seem to be it. “Before any of you ask, no, they can’t see us. Think of this as a… high definition replay,” he chuckled.
The three of them looked around in confusion.
“Where are we?” Spike asked. “I’ve gotten used to your mind games at this point, but some clarification would be nice.”
Cadance scanned her eyes back and forth across the environment for a moment. “None of these ponies or houses look familiar. I don’t think it’s any place I’m familiar with, personally.”
“Oh, quite the contrary!” Discord said with a smug grin. “You are quite familiar with this place indeed, my dear ponies… and dragon. Of course, you wouldn’t know it just from looking, but I would like to introduce you all to Crystalline, a small, quaint little village that had just been founded by this time. However, you all might know it a bit better now as the ‘Crystal Empire’”.
“This was the precursor to the Crystal Empire?” Twilight was stunned. The history books had never mentioned a village named ‘Crystalline’; she definitely would have remembered that. She mentally reminded herself to have Discord take her on more excursions like this in the future before. He wasn’t kidding when he said that the history books didn’t have anything compared to the real thing. Turning back to him, she asked him the question that was on everyone’s mind. “Why did you take us here, of all places?”
“Don’t tell me it isn’t obvious.” He grinned. With another snap of his talons, the group found themselves covered in beachgoing equipment. “We’re here to go to the beach, obviously! The weather this time of year is wonderful! And besides, I figured we could all use a little break from ‘As The Crystal Castle Turns’.”
“But… there are no beaches here…” Spike pointed out the obvious, and Discord slapped his paw to his face.
“I know that! We’re here to watch exactly what happened to Saphirum, you dolts!”
“Okay, cool, cool, that makes more sense,” Spike said with a doofy grin.
“Enough with the jokes,” Cadance said. “I feel like we don’t belong back in time anyway, so can we just do this and be done with it? I really need to know the basis for these ridiculous accusations you threw at me.”
Discord didn’t bother dignifying that with a response, instead pointing off near the edge of the village. The group watched intently as the shadowy silhouette of a pony became apparent through the dense snowfall.
The three in attendance watched intently as the figure approached.
“Who’s that?” Spike asked.
“Whoever it is, they don’t seem to care that they’re walking through a blizzard,” Twilight pointed out. “I think this is bad news.”
Once the figure finally pierced through the snowy veil, the group gasped. Cadance in particular looked horrified. “Is that…”
“Saphirum?!” All three of them shouted. The last time they had seen her, in that mural, she definitely wasn’t a pony. And yet… they could just see that it was her. “Why is she a pony?” Twilight asked.
Discord didn’t answer, and Saphirum continued stomping her way towards the village. The pony’s head was drooped, and she looked freezing cold with the way her coat shivered with every step.
“Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!” Discord clapped and smiled. “Congratulations! That is indeed Saphirum. However, she’s not quite the goddess she once was,” he noted.
“What happened to her?” Twilight questioned.
“Yeah,” Cadance said. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Well, you see, the old ones, myself included,” he winked, “weren’t too fond of ole’ Saphy after she tried to take over the planet. So she was locked away into an artificial body. A husk, if you will.” He summoned a string puppet and made it walk around to emphasize his point. “She had her free will, but her powers were locked away. As opposed to outright destroying her, she was given a chance to live as a pony, with a normal pony lifespan.
“Unfortunately, there was one thing none of us could account for. Her willingness to go to great lengths just for revenge. I assume you’re familiar with a pony named Sombra?”
“Oh no, not him again,” Cadance said, shuddering. “How in the world could he be involved in this?”
“Instead of simply taking our offer and living the rest of her life in peace, she tried to make a pact with Sombra. She recognized that he had a heart of pure darkness. One that would easily give into the temptation of taking over an entire empire. Of course, what she didn’t plan on happening was him betraying her. The fool gave her latent power to Sombra, and he was quick to turn her over to us,” he smirked. “All while keeping the fact that he’d been given her power a secret.”
“So is that what’s happening here?” Twilight asked. “This village, this snowstorm. Was this a set-up to turn her over?”
“Well, why don’t we take a look and find out?” Discord asked.
The group watched on as the pony, shivering and cold, trudged her way to the village. The village where Sombra would assuredly wait for her to begin their plans. As she entered the main gates, however, things took a turn far different than what she had foreseen.
Sombra was nowhere to be found, but instead, a bright beam of light shot through the clouds and enveloped the area of town in which she was standing. Time seemed to freeze in place as all the towns ponies around were frozen in place.
“You have betrayed us,” a loud voice from the heavens rang out. “We gave you a chance to move on in life, and instead you attempt to abuse your influence once more and hurt more ponies.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Saphirum shouted at the top of her lungs. “I’ve been living for four years now as nothing but a model citizen.”
“Spare us your fables,” the voice boomed out. “You have walked the planes of existence for the last time. You will be stripped of any and all of your power and have it given to one of us, and then you will be destroyed.”
“It won’t work!” she screamed out. “You can’t destroy a fellow God! You can strip my title and my power, but I will never be destroyed!”
An even brighter flash of light appeared on the ground, adjacent to her, revealing one of the ancient ones. A very familiar one at that.
“Discord!” the voice sounded. “You know what you have to do.”
“Of course, homies, you don’t gotta worry bout nothin’.”
The scene instantly froze as a giant pause sign flashed over the image.
“Oh my Celestia, is that what you used to look like?” Cadance asked, snorting with laughter. He appeared to be wearing some sort of tie-dye shirt, neon green bell-bottom pants, and had, of all things, a large gray afro. “Okay, I take everything I said back. This trip was so worth it!”
“Well excuse me, but things were different back then,” Discord said. “The old days were pretty crazy times. Now, if you’ll let me continue…”
The scene resumed.
Saphirum could only watch in horror as Discord leaned down, grinning like a madman. The moment one of his talons touched her nose, her snout shined white. Deep red cracks emanated from that spot, slowly spreading throughout her body. She could do no more than scream as the cracks eventually formed over the entirety of her body, piercing deep through her.
“I would say I hate having to do this, but I really don’t,” Discord chuckled grimly. “See you when I see you!”
It was at that moment that the group was forced to shield their eyes as an intense explosion rang out. Saphirum had been blown to shreds and shot off in all directions as the Discord of old siphoned her energy into his own being. He let out a burp, and then disappeared in a flash of white, the village springing back to life as if nothing had happened.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t realize at the time that she had given Sombra the bulk of her power. He, in turn, managed to hold us back long enough for his power to grow. Our only hope was to pass on all of our power into some artifacts that you may be familiar with.”
“The Elements…” Twilight muttered. It all made sense now. That was why the Elements had a seemingly endless amount of power.
“Precisely. And of course, as we all know, our very own Celestia and Luna were the first to find and unlock the power hidden within them. With it, they defeated Sombra and restored balance to Equestria.”
“But if you gave all of your power to the Elements, how come you’re still here, Discord?” Spike asked, scratching his head in confusion.
“The old ones thought it best that one of us remain behind to watch over the land. They made the fabulous mistake of trusting me with that position,” he chuckled.
“But that still doesn’t explain how I’m Saphirum,” Cadance argued, stamping a hoof on the ground.
“I’m getting to that, if you’ll just hold your horses,” Discord said, clutching a gaggle of pony plushies he then threw to them. “If you recall, she was living normally for several years before returning to her evil ways. In that time, Saphirum managed meet a handosome young gentlecolt with which she managed to have some offspring, which she hid well from us. These offspring, in turn, had their own offspring. So on and so forth, that bloodline is alive today, Cadance. In you.”
“But why would Saphirum pick now of all times to come back?” Twilight asked. “What’s so special about right now?”
“It wasn’t a matter of picking her moment, my dear Twilight. Saphirum is dead, so she can’t choose anything. However, the power that once was hers, the malevolent energy that consumed her, is still alive. It travelled through the bloodlines until now.”
Cadance shook her head and yelled at him. “But why me? Why now?”
“Because,” Discord began, “you’re in the exact position she wanted to be in. Ruling an empire of ponies through the power of love.”
Famous: Another chapter that didn't take a year to come out? Dayuuuummmm. Anyway, thanks for reading and give some mad love to my co-author, Seventh Heaven. He's really helping me get this together for you guys.
Seven: Working hard, hardly working, what's the difference? I kid, I kid. We really hope you guys like this chapter. And don't worry, the wedding between Famous and myself is still on. 
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No problem, man, glad to help!
Wow that was quick to update! Nice to get a little bit of backstory on Cadence's bloodline too! A pretty dark and grim ancestry at that.
Another nice chapter, and I look forward to the next one!
~ Super-Brony12
I thought Spike was grown-up in this story?
I commented on this to Seven when going through edits, but seriously, all that I can hear here is a super white boy trying to sound black. Dumb, but had to say it. But we all have that phase of our lives that we kind of want put away forever.
Wouldn't there theoretically be a lot of Saphirum('s) then? By that logic, Cadance isn't the only one.
Btw, has anyone answered how this is actually happening yet? They never said how these hallucinations or whatever they are are actually happening.
Faster than I thought was possible for Famous to be honest. Guess we have his new co-author to thank for that
7208911 bruh. Why u h8in my sizzle to the fizzle wazizzle. We all still cool as a cucumber here, no need to mess the good vibes homedog. Otherwise I'll haff ta ice a foo.
7208904 He is, but his age leaves a lot to interpretation. I mean, considering dragons live thousands of years, he could be considered a youth for the next hu dred years or so by comparison.
7209462 I thought that being an adult was determind by ones culture/society not their race/species.
7209545 It is and it isn't. But to help me out here, what line are you referencing that says he's a child?
7209552 Cadence`s comment about it being pedophillia.
7209915 That was mostly an in-joke referring to something that was posted on a story of mine a while back, but it's also just poking fun at how divided the fandom is on whether or not he's a child.
7210304 Thanks for explaining.
I wonder if Chrysalis is related in any way to this. I mean, she's also ruling an Empire through the power of love.
This chapter explained EVERYTHING. Even things that I didn't think would apply to the situation. That's pretty dang impressive.
Discord's clothes were a great touch.
So, possession through blood lineage?
Brain.exe has stopped! Would you like to send a crash report to Faust?
(Y/N)