TWENTY YEARS BEFORE THE CANTERLOT WEDDING
The prestigious city of Canterlot: home to the richest and snobbiest pony in Equestria. It was also home to Princess Celestia, a white alicorn with an ever flowing mane of pink, green, and blue. One thing that is to be know about this specific pony, if anything, is the mark on her flank that depicts the sun. This showed that she’s not only the ruler of the Equestria, but also the sun.
Unknown to most of Equestria, though, there is another Princess residing in the Canterlot alongside Princess Celestia. Her name is Princess Cadence, niece of Princess Celestia and small little alicorn pink filly with a pink, purple, and yellow mane that, unlike her auntie, was still. She looked to be to no more than eight years old, but don't let her looks fool you, because she happens to be over five hundred years old. But even with her age, she still fell to childish pleasures that matched her looks, as she had not yet matured.
If you worked at the castle in Canterlot where the two Princesses lived, it wasn’t unusual to find them both arguing over something or another. Today happened to be one of days. At the moment, they were residing in Cadence’s room. The room truly showed what the small alicorns favorite color were. Everything in the room was pink, with pink walls, pink bed, pink pillows, and pink stuffed animals.
“Oh come on, auntie. What’s the worst that could happen?” Cadence pleaded.
“There are many things that could happen, Cadence. We’ve been over this a million times before. We can’t risk your magic causing some kind of accident,” Celestia stated with her ever regal voice.
Cadence puffed her cheeks in irritation. “Auntie, that’s not fair. I haven’t been out of the castle by myself in,” she thought for a second, counting the years she’d been kept in castle, “four hundred ninety seven years, and besides, I can control my magic now!”
Celestia gave Cadence a small smile. “I believe you, but I do remember a whole platoon of my finest guards falling hopelessly in love with one of my maids a few months ago.”
Cadence winced in remembrance of the event. “That wasn’t my fault. I was err... sick. Yeah, that’s right; I was sick!”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “What about last week, then?”
Cadence actually smirked at the thought of the incident. “In my defense, Blueblood was being a jerk,” she stifled a laugh, “and his new brown coat looks good on him.”
Celestia giggled. “That still doesn’t excuse it, Cadence.”
“Oh, come on. I just want to explore the castle grounds,” Cadence said, resorting to her puppy dog eyes.
Celestia wilted at the diabetes inducing cuteness of Cadence’s look. “Fine, but if you cause any kind of magical related accident, you will not-” Before Celestia could finish, she was interrupted by Cadence.
“YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YES-” Cadence was cut short from her joyous yelling by being grabbed by her aunt's magic.
Celestia brought Cadence to her. “Now, Cadence, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you where you are and aren’t allowed to go, right?” she asked.
“Of course you don’t. You want me stay away from the guards training grounds, that weird mismatched creature thing statue in the garden and stay out of the bakery because you don’t want me ruining any of your cake,” Cadence said.
“Okay, good. Now, I must be off; I have a meeting with the griffon embassador about a young griffon who is wants to join the Junior Speedsters flight camp this summer,” said Celestia before setting Cadence down and walking out of the room.
Cadence sat there in her room for a few moment before a large smile erupted on her face. She trotted out of her room and into the hall. She quickly made her way through the maze of the castle. Soon, she found herself at the large gold doors that served as the entrance to the castle. With a deep breath, she opened the door and happily took a deep breath of some fresh air.
Without a pause, Cadence bolted out of the door into the crisp summer day. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore; at which point, she found herself at the maze in the garden. She had always liked going into there, even though she almost always had to teleport herself out due to getting lost inside.
Today, though, she wanted to go somewhere new. While roaming the castle a few weeks ago, Cadence had found herself in one of the towers. This tower in particular was not one she visited, often seeing as it was all the way across the castle. What possessed her to go there that day was beyond her. It was that day when she was looking down from the tower that she noticed something.
By the gardens, there was something that seemed to be flashing. Being ever so curious, she used the telescope that was in every tower to see what it was. To her surprise, it was a hole right behind the maze. It wasn’t big; it was about the size of her forehoof, but whatever was making it shine was making it stand out like a sore hoof. It was at that point that she decided she wanted to see what was there, which of course, led to her begging that happened awhile ago.
Now here she was, standing before the small hole. She peered into it and was amazed at what she found. Inside the small opening was a cave full of crystals. The first thing that came to mind was to go tell Celestia, but as she was about to turn back towards the castle, the ground beneath her crumbled.
Cadence gasped in surprised and screamed as she fell down in the crystal cave. “AAAAAAAAHHHH!” she yelled, so surprised that she forgot she could easily stop herself by simply using her wings.
Cadence soon found the cave was much bigger than she thought as she sped passed crystal after crystal. Cadence felt her life flash before her eyes, which lasted a few seconds. Cadence looked down, and just as she feared, the cave ground was approaching rapidly.
Cadence continued screaming at the top of her lungs “I can’t believe I’m going to die. I’m too young to die!” she thought to herself in panic.
Cadence shut her eyes tight bracing for her impending doom. After a minute or so of not feeling herself become one with the floor, she opened her eyes to discover that she was floating. She looked around her and found she was wrapped in a green magical aura.
Cadence sighed in relief and swiped her hoof over her forehead. “Whew, that was a close one.” A second later, she looked down to see she was less than a inch away from the ground.
That was enough excitement for her for the day. Cadence promptly passed out from shock. Out of the shadows came a bug like creature. It resembled that of a filly, but with a few noticeable differences. Its fore and hindlegs had holes in them. It was completely black, excluding its hair, which was green. It also had wings and a horn, though the wings were that of an insects, and its horn was twisted and mangled. A very noticeable thing was its teeth; sharp and carnivorous, something that would scare most ponies.
“Hm, what is this?” Chrysalis pondered.
