Auto-imported from (2446205)

Do you ever just get all…. I really want to draw thing A. But thing A would really benefit from thing B drawn alongside it to explain it. But thing B needs thing C drawn before it or it won’t make any sense. And thing C is much more interesting if thing D is explained. And thing D would really benefit from thing E before it….

(And this is the point where I reveal my last Sombra/Crystal Empire headcanon was almost twice as long, before I split it into two parts. Also, be prepared that some things here make zero sense without the context of that one.)

See, I wanted to draw Cadance’s adoptive parents. But I also wanted to draw her birth-mother and give a bit of backstory there, as I’ve previously stated that in my nextgen ‘verse, she’s a descendant of Princess Amore. And therefore, I wanted to draw how and why Cadance came to be adopted in the first place. But to do that, I needed to explain a bit of my backstory of the lost Crystal Empire and the prophecy of its return. And that would really benefit me explaining Sombra’s rule over said Empire. And that, in turn, I think would be better if I explained how and why he seized power. Which in turn needs an explanation of my headcanon of the previous rulers over the Empire. Oh, and what do you know, a simple image turned into me desperately wanting to draw a full on headcanon series on the Empire and Cadance. And so… here we are =P

———

Let's start where we left of, with Tesoro! I mentioned him in the Empire headcanon, but only actually drew him in his dimmed/cloudy state when he was leaving the Empire with Hope and the others. So I wanted to draw him what he looks like when not fleeing for his life. After getting to Equestria, he was officially adopted by the couple he’d been hiding with during Sombra’s reign, who’d also fled when he left. He later met and married a pegasus, and they had several children together. He never really forgot his birthplace, and even wears a gem on his forehead in the traditional style of the Crystal Empire -like the one his mother wore, in honor of her. He is aware that she wasn’t the nicest person, but she was his mom, and death tends to scrub people’s flaws away in our memory. But he has found peace with what happened, and only feels nostalgic and sad when telling the story of the lost Empire to his kids, as opposed to the overwhelming sorrow they’d all felt in the beginning when talking about their homeland.

For Hope’s part, after she failed to convince the Princesses to do more regarding Sombra, she left alone for some unknown village in Equestria. Tesoro only saw her once after, spotting her across a market… alongside a greyish-purple colt with a black mane. He froze at the sight, and by the time he thought to approach then, he’d lost them in the crowd. He never saw either of them after that.

-

A hundred years later, Celstia and Luna are given… a prophecy! Guitar riff (….Go check out Overly Sarcastic Productions’ “___ Summarized” videos if you haven’t, they’re really great.)

See, very rarely, only about one in every few thousands, Crystal Ponies (and those with Crystal Pony heritage) are born with very… odd looking eyes. They appear to be actual crystals in place of the iris, something which many other ponies find quite disturbing to look at. Their eyesight is usually somewhat impacted, though not as much as most ponies’ think it would be from having literal crystal lenses. Their peripheral vision is bad, and they do a lot worse in darkness, but aside from that they can usually see about as well as anyone else.

The one reason they’re noteworthy, is that they tend to be able to see things they really shouldn’t. Sometimes viewing past events when looking at locations, or seeing right through illusions. Winked Away here being noteworthy for his ability to see the In Between. The space or dimension unicorns and others travel through when teleporting. Despite how it may appear, teleportation isn’t instantaneous, though it takes very long distances for someone to notice a time delay. What happens is, they phase out of reality, into the In Between -where space and time is different from the physical world -just long enough to travel to their destination. Until Winked was born to a second generation refugee from the Empire, no one had actually seen what it looked like; teleportation goes too fast to see anything, and those who get lost in it obviously cannot tell what they saw. Winked usually didn’t see anything special -mostly just darkness. But a few times, he did find some lost items… and corpses… that had gotten stuck in it. And he sometimes snapped his head around, so fast those around him thought he’d break his neck, as someone teleported past him.

In this instance, Celestia and Luna had brought him to the location of the lost Empire, thinking that maybe Sombra had shifted it completely into the In Between when he made it disappear.

Instead, Winked’s eyes opened impossibly wide as he stared at nothing. Then shouting, screaming out a sight that should be impossible, at least as far as Celestia and Luna knew at this point. The future is a mystery -you can tell what is most probable to happen, but it is not set in stone. It changes with every decision, and cannot be pinned down. Yet, Winked Away saw and knew, in the deepest part of his magic, what was to come. Sombra and the Empire will return. He watched a burst of flame from a scaled maw fight back Sombra’s dark crystals. He felt the descendant of Princess Amore, watched her fly to grab the Heart, pink hooves outstretched, before two claws covered in scales reached it.

The Sisters were unsure what to feel about this -on one hoof, taking it seriously against everything they knew about time and the vailidity of prophecies. But on another, they had already failed to heed a warning regarding Sombra, which resulted in countless deaths. And this situation certainly was disturbing and worthy of fear -Sombra, the genocidal tyrant returning to fight for the Heart against a Dragon. They didn’t even know what would happen if a dragon did manage to get their claws on it and eat it -adult dragon's were already extremelt dfficult to defeat, and with the power of the Heart… And facing that, a single pegasus.

Of course, here in the future we know what he actually saw. But he didn’t, and thus didn’t realise the dragon in question was a baby, nor that the ‘pegasus’ had a horn. And so, neither did the Sisters. Who decided that the potential danger of the situation warranted preparations, and went out of their way to keep track of the descendants of Tesoro, looking out for a pink pegasus which would warn about the Empire’s return. All the while preparing for how to defeat a dragon wielding the power of the Heart, or the return of Sombra to full power.

That is why Celstia was experimenting with abandoned “dud” dragon eggs -and being very shocked when one hatched, they were supposed to be unfertilized -trying to develop magic effective against them specifically. It’s also why she’d sent the main six to deal with the sleeping dragon, rather than diplomats and a team of guards; while Winked didn’t see the Elements, she thought it would be best to send them as well. In which case they would need all the experience they could get with adult dragons.

She and Luna spent some time after the actual events switching between shaking from relief and laughing their flanks off at the realisation that Spike was the dragon they’d spent so much time dreading.

-

Mi Dolcezza (After unknown generations of living in Equestria, the family started to get the various neo-minotaurus languages mixed up -hence Mi Dolcezza rather than Mia Dolcezza) was one of Tesoro's descendants. She knew of the prophecy, but hadn’t really thought about it ever since she was first told it -it just wasn’t relevant to her life.

Her talent was one of the more uncommon ones, namely parenting. She got it when she was babysitting her cousins as a teen, and since then had planned to have a big family when she grew up. She was mainly wanting to adopt kids, but didn’t mind having bio ones if that’s what her possible partner wanted. Though, she wasn’t all that fussy when it came to having a partner -mostly, she’d just want another adult pony to help support and parent the future children.

So the eventual marriage she entered into suited her just fine -with a noble who currently was a lieutenant in the royal guard, named Loyal March. He had quite a bit of money from his family name, and wanted an heir, but didn’t much care about marriage and children aside from that. So she’d be able to be a full time mom and have basically as many kids as she wanted, without having to worry about money. And he’d get an heir and didn’t actually have to do much of the raising himself. They both saw it as a win-win, and set out to actually make said heir.

Mi Dolcezza was home alone when the baby was born a few weeks early, and the actual delivery went quickly enough that she didn’t have time to get herself some help. So completely alone, she gave birth and… the filly was a pink pegasus. And the prophecy came rushing back to her.

It was absolute nonsense, it had to be. There was no way her infant daughter hailed the return of the Tyrant King. But… she knew the Princess believed it. And she knew her husband would report this to her; his first priority has been and always will be to the crown. That had been perfectly fine for her -until now, when it could put their daughter in danger. Who knew what the Princess would do in her attempt to prepare her daughter?

And also… what if it wasn’t nonsense? Her baby, forced into battle againt a dragon and the Tyrant.

So, what’s a panicked new mother to do? In her case, run apparently.

She left a note to her husband, basically saying that she’d given birth to an earth pony filly. But, while she had been hoping to hide it, it was obvious the filly was not his. So Dolcezza had taken the foal who she only referred to as her little Amore and left. She’d be staying with her friend in Saddle Arabia for a little while, so she'd be perfectly safe. She left all her belongings to him, including her wedding ring, and a signed copy of a divorce agreement. She would take a new name and get a new start; please don’t look for her.

Meanwhile, she sent a letter via a really, extremely, expensive vial of dragonflame to said friend in Saddle Arabia. They used to be good friends in university, and they owed her a favour. Which she now cashed, asking them to cover for her -if her husband or anyone else asked, she’d been there with an earth pony filly. But if they came in person, she’d left just a little while ago, to an unknown location.

She then grabbed her foal and ran in the opposite direction.

-

She’d picked a good time to run, as the early autumn provided a lot of berries and fruit, as well as plenty of grass, to sustain her on her journey. She’d picked a small village in the northeastern part of Equestria as it was protected to the north and west via a mountain range, and desolate enough that the Tyrant King wouldn’t bother coming there which she was now headed for.

But, it wasn’t meant to be. Just a few trots away from the village, the long journey finally took its toll on her and she got sick. She tried to push on, but eventually collapsed ..and didn’t get up again.

It seemed like the baby’s fate was sealed; either by hunger, cold or wild animals. If it wasn’t for Chanterelle. His talent was cooking, and he liked to experiment with different ingredients he could find in the forests around his village. He usually stayed in a logging cabin a little while away, while he gathered anything interesting and edible he could find. He was confused, to say the least, when he swore he could hear a baby crying one day when he was out. He approached cautiously; you never know what lives out in the woods, and he would not be surprised if there existed some monster who hunted by mimicking foals. When he finally found the baby and her late mother, he almost wished it had been a monster.

After checking that the mother was really gone, he panicked around for a few minutes, before grabbing the baby and setting a fast pace back; there was no time to do anything for the mother, as he didn’t know how long they’d been there and had to get the baby something to eat as soon as possible. Except, the journey to the village would be too long. So he stopped at the cabin, panicked some more, and cooked some oat until it was nothing more than mush, added water and all his butter and sugar. He didn’t have any milk, as it spoiled quickly in a cabin with no cold-pantry, which he cursed loudly and angrily as he worked. The baby ate it, luckily, but he wasn’t sure if it was doing more harm than good. So he put the rest in a canteen, grabbed a canteen of water for himself and some trail rations, and set out running. He somehow managed to cover the three trots back to the village in just under a day -he’s honestly not sure how he did it, just that adrenaline kept him galloping through the night.

When Chanterelle finally made it, the baby was given to a wet nurse, he collapsed after gasping out what had happened, and a team of pegasi set out to the cabin to investigate. One diverging to the next village over, who had an actual police-station, to get the authorities involved.

This village is very remote, and while the local authorities tried their best to find where this mysterious mare and filly came from, they got no leads. Mi Dolcezza hadn’t been reported as missing by her husband due to the message she’d left, and the news of the found mare never reached far beyond the northern Equestria. So the baby was put into the Equestrian foster system -but she didn’t stay in it for long. Quickly being taken in by Chanterelle and his partner Flicker Wick.

-

Chanterelle ran the local inn, where he served food, alcohol and almost never actually rented out any rooms. They didn’t get many visitors, and those who did usually knew someone in the village they’d just overnight with.

Flicker Wick was a candle maker by passion, and helped run the inn by the necessity of money. They didn’t actually mind -it was enjoyable to work with their husband -but they secretly lamented how good the villagers were at preserving candles. And not seeing the absolute necessity of scented candles. As is, the inn was smothered in the scent of cinnamon and vanilla, and the tables almost had more candles than space.

They had actually been wanting and waiting to adopt a child for quite a while when Chanterelle found the mare and foal in the forest; not many foals actually get put up for adoption in the area, as there’s almost always some family in a neighbouring village to take any orphans in. So they were starting to think that they might have to use the money they saved for the adoption and foal care on a surrogate and save up even more. But then this situation happened, and the authorities decided to ask them if they wanted to take the foal in. They agreed, and the adoption officially went through one year after -to give potential blood relatives time to find out what had happened -but they fostered her from the second week she’d spent in the village.

She spent most of her time screaming, eating, crying, sleeping and wailing. Flick and Chanterelle didn’t much blame her considering what she’d gone through in her short life. But they did joke to each other that, considering those lungs, her talent had to have something to do with singing. So they named her Cadenza. Later shortened to Cadance upon her insistence.

So, that’s where Cadance grew up; in a village where everyone knew everyone, and with her Papa and Baba being extremely loving and supportive parents. She didn’t remember her mother, but her parents took her to see her grave whenever she asked, and made sure to tell her what little they knew of her.

-

This continues until Cadance reaches her later teens, at which point she gains her mark, ascends (I’m going to be honest here, I haven’t quite decided how exactly that happens), and Celestia finds out about her. Flick and Chanterelle are very shocked to find their daughter is suddenly the equivalent of a demi-goddess, but they take it fine. It’s fine. They’re fine, this situation is fine. It’s fine.

They realised that Cadance would need help in navigating all this… alicorn-business… from Celestia, and all moved to Canterlot -from a village of less than a thousand ponies to the capital, it was quite a bit of culture shock for all of them. It didn’t help that once they actually got there, Celestia finally managed to piece together Cadance’s history, and realised who she was. So everything was happening at once; a new Alicorn, the Empire was returning, Nightmare Moon was set to return in a few years, and Discord’s seal was weakening. She didn’t show it outwards, but Celestia was on the verge of some serious panic attacks there.

Cadance was also going through some things then as well -finding out who her birth mother and father was, actually meeting with said birth father who seemed disinterested at best, meeting her half-siblings who were very upset at her for swooping in and suddenly becoming their father’s heir. She was faring better than Celestia though, as she had her parents to help her through it.

Though, she was very happy to finally learn more about her mother; who she was and why she chose to run away with Cadance. Once she read the note her mother had left, she talked with her parents and legally had “Mi Amore” added in front of her name. As a combination of her mother’s name and the name she’d referred to Cadance as.

Aside from all that, there were also some issues with the sudden appearance of a new alicorn. Ponies were mobbing Cadance, trying to find out how she became one. Some were attempting different ways of making themselves into alicorns; most ending very badly for themselves and others. It got to a head when they’d had a kidnapping scare -the pony in question didn’t get further than trying to pull her away, her yelling and Flick ramming into them so hard they managed to both break the attackers wing and their own ribs -but it was the last straw for Celestia regarding this alicorn craze. So, she went out with a statement that 'Cadance is an alicorn because she’s Celestia's long lost niece'. Yup, definitely, it’s only possible because they’re totally related, everypony please stop trying to ascend yourself now. She might have handled it better, but, as mentioned, she was on the verge of a breakdown at the time. It did work in calming everypony down a bit at least, and Cadance could go back to normal-ish life -joining the Canterlot secondary school, taking some babysitting jobs (despite being an alicorn, her monthly allowance was still limited), getting her first colt-friend… Flick and Chanterelle wanted the rest of her teenage years to be as normal as possible, and didn’t tell Cadance how often they had to convince/order Celestia to not start training her in advanced battle magic twenty-four-seven, only sticking to basics a few times a week.

After Cadance got married (and Chanterelle spent the entire time crying; first from happiness, then of fear, and then of happiness again) and saved the Empire (Flick spent some time after trying to kick Celestia’s flank for sending her there in the first place), Chanterelle and Flick moved back to the village, which now had grown quite a bit larger and features a train station. They visit the Empire quite often, and have a good relationship with their daughter and grandkids. Cadance keeps insisting on sending them money, even though they tell her to please stop, so they technically don't need to work anymore. Chanterelle still opened a restauruant, and Flick is happy making more candles than anyone can ever need.

Upvotes at import: 27 | Stars at import: 19
Posted previously at: 2020-09-16T03:45:18 | Posted previously by: zero two