Cadance The Crystal Princess

by Sean Tan the Brony

Chapter 6 -The Revelation

Cadance's dazed eyes were met with distorted images, crystal-like figures staring at her, shades moving around behind them.

As quickly as her consciousness returned, it left her.

...

The next time Cadance managed to get some consciousness, she found herself in a well-lit, smoothly light blue wall hallway that arched towards the ceiling with crystal-like materials.

Cadance tried to make sense of her situation, to remember how she came to be here, but a pounding head kept her from making any sense of her thoughts. As if something or somepony sensed her discomfort, an unknown and unclear soothing voice started to comfort, and it slowly helped her drift back into a peaceful sleep.

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Cadance woke up with a start. She laid motionless for a few minutes as her mind started to catch up the memories of previous events.
The beach.

Twilight.

Her losing consciousness.

And what happened just after she regained consciousness before it left her again.

"Clover and her friends will explain everything to you. Right now, I need to take my daughter back to heal her." The tall unicorn mare said.

Cadance thought about what that unicorn said.

Daughter...

It couldn’t be true, could it?

Before she could think more about any more on it, Cadance felt her magic disguise begin to strip away.

‘No… Twilight can’t find out like this…’

The last thing Cadance felt before she slipped back to darkness was the magic aura enveloping her and lifting her up before she drifted back to unconsciousness.

The memories after that event were all blur to her, but it was the final memory that clicked in her mind, causing her to start panicking.

"Did Twilight see me? What I looked like?" The Princess of Love asked herself in an alarmed tone.

Before she could panicked even more, she sat up and took several deep breaths, just like she did before entering the throne room back in Canterlot Castle and when she taught Twilight several years ago.

"All right, Cady, one problem at a time, first one being, where am I?"

Cadance surveyed the object she was sitting in, it was a large comfortable king-sized bed decorated with bluish crystal silk, just like her bed back at the Crystal Empire. The bed was located at the end of a large room, centred in the middle facing the double doors. On the right side of the bed was a large bookshelf filled to the brim with books while on the left side was a desk with an inkwell, some scrolls and a lantern sitting on top of it. At the centre of the room sat a round table along with four chaise longue with cushions. The floor was a polished dark sky crystal floor, while the walls were smoothly light blue. A window was left opened, showering the room with sunlight. But what caught the Princess of Love's attention was what sat near the wardrobe at the far right side of the room...

"My necklace!" Cadance nearly shouted.

A mannequin with golden regalia sat near the left side of the wardrobe. She jumped out of the bed to inspect her regalia herself. Looking closely at her golden regalia, she found a pearl heart shaped in the middle of her necklace embedded in it. Sighing in relief, she quickly donned on her necklace as it was a gift from her husband from their last anniversary, before donning the rest on her. As she slipped her last golden slippers on, she noticed the mirror at the front of the wardrobe and saw her reflection.

She instantly froze and stared at the mirror.

Both her horn and wings were now in different colors.

Cadance started to hyperventilate as her fear were confirmed, her magic disguise had been ripped away in front of her sister-in-law.

Before she could hyperventilate even more, a creak from the double door interrupted her and caused her to whirl her head toward the doors to see a crystal pony.

The crystal pony was a pegasus mare carrying saddlebags with a red medical cross emblazed on them, her coat being crystal light grayish magenta, her mane and her tail being light bluish white, her eyes being dark cerise, her cutie mark bearing a red cross with wings and lastly her wings being the same colors as Cadance's wings.

Both mares froze as their eyes met.

"Your... your highness, I apologised for walking in but..."

Cadance kept staring at her, making the pegasus sweat.

Suddenly, the pegasus found herself being close to Cadance, almost muzzle to muzzle.

"Your wings are just like mine! Where am I? Who are you? Why are my horn and wings in different colors? Are there others like you? What do you know..."

The Princess of Love stopped herself from asking questions as she saw the pegasus shrank down, left eye twitching.

"Oh... sorry about that." Cadance blushed.

"It's... it's quite alright, your highness..." The pegasus sighed.

Cadance smiled sheepishly while rubbing her back of her head with her hoof.

"Well... anyway, my name is Princess Cadance."

"I am very well aware of your name, your highness. My name is Remedy Elixir, at your service!" Remedy Elixir said as she bowed down in front of Cadance.

"Wait, you know my name?" The Princess of Love asked with confusion on her face.

Remedy looked up before replying. "Why of course, your highness. Your mother told us everything about you when you were born."

"M.. mother?" Cadance asked while her thought went back to the beach.

"Right now, I need to take care of my daughter."

"Who's... my mother?"

"Why, it's Princess Amore."

Cadance froze at that name. "W... wh... what..."

Another figure emerged through the already open double door. "I will take it from here, Miss Elixir."

Princess Amore looked Cadance, a warm motherly smile worn on her face.

"Leave us." Amore ordered, prompting the pegasus to do a quick bow before leaving the room and closing the double doors.

"H... h... how are you alive?" Cadance stammered, staring at the unicorn princess before she continued. "From what I heard from my two aunties, King Sombra petrified you and shattered you into many pieces, scattering your pieces across the Equestria before taking over the Crystal Empire."

Amore's face darkened at the name of the tyrant unicorn, but was immediately replaced with a sad smile.

"When the Crystal Empire returned after a thousand years, remnants of the Crystal Imperial quickly dispatched several groups of guards to find my pieces to rebuild and heal me, along with the help of some other creatures who were lost in the Frozen North before and after the empire return. Once there were enough pieces of me rebuilt, I was able to tell them where some of my remaining pieces are for them to find." Amore answered.

Cadance stared at her for a while before nodding.

"I... I see... wait a minute..." Cadance thought what the pegasus said before asking. "What did Remedy Elixir mean when she said that you are my mother?"

Amore gave a sad sigh before casting a sound proofing spell around the room.

Cadance arched an eyebrow at that display, but remained silent before Amore spoke.

"I assumed Princess Celestia and Princess Luna told you the story of the Crystal Empire from the history book, but I will tell the story again."

Amore began. "A thousand and fifteen years ago, King Sombra arrived and wanted to conquer the Crystal Empire. He was able to take over the empire despite my efforts. Then, both the princesses from Canterlot came and managed to banish him to the ice of the artic north, but he was able to put a curse on the empire before he was imprisoned which caused it to vanish for a thousand years."

Amore stopped to see Cadance nodding her head.

"But... " The unicorn princess continued. "What the history book didn't say is that a month before King Sombra's arrival, I gave birth to an alicorn filly..." She paused before speaking again. "That alicorn filly... was you, Cadanza."

Cadance's eyes widened, her heart seemingly stopped, her body trembling.

"Cadenza?" Amore asked with concern in both her voice and face after a few minutes of Cadance not saying anything.

"No..." Cadance started.

"NO...!"

"NO, IT'S NOT TRUE!!!"

Amore flinched back at the Princess of Love's sudden burst.

"You..." Cadance spoke with distressed tone as tears started to stream down her face. "You can't be my mother..."

Amore's heart broke when she saw Cadance cried and she too started shedding tears from her eyes.

Cadance was now struggling with internal conflict.

She didn't want to believe, but at the same time, she want. For one thousand and fifteen years, she had known from her aunties that Princess Amore was just a distant relative, only to told by the said mare in front of her that she was actually her mother rather than her great grandmother.

"I... I don't... I don't believe..." Cadance mumbled, looking away from Amore as she started to stroke one of her wings while tears continued to flow down her cheeks. "No... it can't be true..."

A shadow loomed over her, and she looked up to see that Amore had moved up to sit in front of her.

"Oh, Cadenza..." Amore spoke in an anguished voice. "I'm so sorry if that was too much of a shock to you, but it is the truth. I am your real mother."

Cadance shook her head as she tried to process the information.

She wanted to deny Amore's words, but she sensed no deception within the unicorn princess's voice.

Though her head was telling her not to accept it, her heart was leaping in her chest at that revelation.

After a few minutes of sobbing and weeping, Cadance finally spoke through an anguished tone.

"If... if you're really my mother..." Cadance whimpered. "Then why did you abandoned me? Leave me at the garden?"

"Because I didn't have a choice!" Amore cried, her voice echoing inside the sound-proof room.

Cadance looked at her in shock, her eyes being red from all the crying. "W-what?"

Amore regained control of her emotions before she spoke again. "Be... because I didn't have a choice. I had to give you up, otherwise Sombra will make you his heir."

"His... his heir?" Cadance asked while sniffing.

"Yes, his heir." Amore's voice sounded pained before she continued, her eyes closing. "A month after your birth, King Sombra gathered his umbrum army and started to march toward the Crystal Empire. The Crystal Imperial tried to stop the attack, but his army was too strong and they were able to breach one of the empire's defences. Minutes before he arrived to the throne room, I was able to channel some of my magic to you to send you away from that tyrant. Right before I sent you away, I said..."

She opened her teary eyes and said. "I will always remember you, my little Cady; I always will."

As soon as Amore finished her sentence, Cadance flinched back, her eyes widened.

"I will always remember you, my little Cady; I always will."

She remembered those words when she was just a filly, but couldn't figured out who had said that.

Until now.

"M... m... mom?" Cadance spoke in a trembling voice as tears continued to stream down her face.

Amore didn't respond, only nuzzling the top of her daughter's head and hugging her, letting more tears flow down her cheek. A few seconds later, Cadance returned the hug to her mother, sobbing into her mother's shoulder.

How long they cried, they lost count after 10 minutes.

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The crying had slowly faded away, but the two ponies still did not let go of each other. Neither of them spoke up, but no more words were needed to express what they were thinking.
By then, it was a couple of hours into the day.

"Don't you have royal duties you need to perform?" Cadance broke the silence.

Amore shook her head. "No. My subjects are okay in doing things by themselves, and they are giving me all the time for me to see and talk to you."

They stayed silent again before Cadance spoke again.

"So, where am I?"

The unicorn princess reluctantly let go of her daughter and looked at her.

"We are currently in one of the Crystal Empire's outpost cities."

"Crystal Empire's outpost city?" Cadance asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes." Amore answered. "There are six outpost cities surrounding the Crystal Empire from a distance."

The unicorn princess stood up and gestured her daughter to follow her before moving toward the opened window. Cadance followed her and looked out the window. Her eyes widened at the sight she saw.

From the window, the Princess of Love could see various buildings similar to the ones in the Crystal Empire and individuals of various races walking or doing their business. Among the crystal ponies, there were yaks, griffons, hippogriffs, bat ponies, changelings, even kirins. Some of the races were wearing crystal armors and holding spears, swords, muskets or crossbows, symbolising them as part of the Crystal Imperial. Around the outpost city were crystal walls and a cyan blue shield blocking the blizzard and snow from coming in.

"What's powering the shield surrounding this outpost?" Cadance asked, turning her head toward her mother.

"The Crystal Heart." Amore answered before continuing when she noticed her daughter's eyes being widened. "There are seven Crystal Hearts in the Frozen North. While the one in the Crystal Empire is the powerful relic that can protect the empire from evil, the other six relics can only protect the outposts from blizzards."

Cadance processed the information Amore gave through her head as she stared at her mother in shock. To think in the Frozen North, there were actually six more Crystal Hearts in each of the outpost cities that she didn't know existed.

"That's... a lot to take in." The Princess of Love finally said while staring down at the floor.

"I know." The unicorn princess nodded her head.

A moment of silence hung between them before it was broken by Cadance.

"So... what happens now?" She asked, looking at her mother from the floor.

Amore gave her daughter a warm motherly smile before she answered.

"Walk with me."

"Um... Ok? Where are we going?"

"I'm going give you a tour of the city we are in."

Cadance looked up into the unicorn princess's eyes, before she answered.

"All right..."

Both princesses left the bedroom behind and began to walk down the hallway, several crystal ponies and crystal creatures bowed as they passed by.

There was silence between the two a little while, before Cadance broke it.

"You said that you were able to tell them where your remaining pieces were for your subjects to find once there were enough of your pieces rebuilt. How do you talk to them when your body isn't fully rebuilt?" She asked.

"Well..." Amore started. "When Sombra shattered me, my soul fused with all the pieces that scattered around the world. When enough of my pieces were rebuilt, I was able to make up my astral form for me to talk and used my magic to find some of my remaining pieces."

"I... I see..." Cadance trailed off as she took the information her mother had gave.

"Hey..." Amore stopped and placed her hoof on her daughter's shoulder. "If you want, you could stay in the bedroom for a while to process all this information."

The Princess of Love stood there and looked down, debating what to do. After a while, she had decided.

Cadance looked back up and said. "Well, I still have a bunch of questions." She gave her mother a smile. "Plus, you have been trapped and alone for so long. Not to mention, I had always wanted to know more about you before... you know."

Amore gave her daughter a tearful smile before pulling Cadance into an embrace.

"Ok..." She croaked out.

‘Maybe everything will work out after all.’ Amore mused.

Author's Note:

Wrote lots of dialogues and I'm not even sure if I am writing correctly.

Edited by Bronyshot2020

Comments

[Luckyfanisaac]

"Did Twilight see me? What I looked like?" The Princess of Love asked herself in an alarmed tone.

Cadance surveyed the object she was sitting in, it was a large comfortable king-sized

just like her bed back at the Crystal Empire.

Before she could hyperventilate even more, a creak from the double door interrupted her and caused her to whirl her head toward the doors to see a crystal pony.

"Your wings are just like mine!

"H... h... how are you alive?”(—— Cadance stammered, staring at the unicorn princess before she continued. "From what I heard from my two aunties, King Sombra petrified you and shattered you into many pieces, scattering your pieces across the Equestria before taking over the Crystal Empire."

"I assumed Princess Celestia and Princess Luna told you the story of The Crystal Empire from the history book, but I will tell the story again."

arrived and wanted to conquer The Crystal Empire.

I gave birth to an alicorn filly..." She paused before speaking again. "That alicorn filly... was you, Cadanza."

that Princess Amore was just a distant relative,(—— only to told by the said mare in front of her

or crossbows, symbolising them as part of The Crystal Imperial.

I’m curious about this guard and the outpost cities.