A Collection of Headcanons

Why is Cadence the Crystal Princess? We clearly hear a stallion call her that, but if the Crystal Empire's been gone for one thousand years, how is she the Princess?

The Crystal Empire was taken over by a cruel Unicorn King. His motivation and how he came to be is a long and winding tale, and not for now.

But he was not the rightful heir to the Crystal throne. No, he was a dictator King, one who murdered the Crystal Queen and exiled the Crystal Princess after she rejected his hoof in marriage. He himself was not a Crystal pony - rather a half-breed between his Crystal mother (whose tragic death only fed his rage) and a Unicorn father who he never knew. His life of shame and isolation because of his heritage had frozen his heart as solid as the ice of the North. Bitter and cruel, he took over the Empire, ruling with an iron hoof, and taking the Crystal ponies as his slaves. They had not taken part in the lighting of the hearth fire when Equestria had first been founded by the three pony tribes; the Crystal ponies still had a darker streak in their natures, one that had inadvertently caused the Shadow king to become as cruel as he did. He had run away as a foal, and discovered the Shadow Crystal, black and wrong-shaped compared to the light blues and pinks of the Empire, the Shadow Crystal was an object with a mind of its own; a dark desire for destruction. It took over the Unicorn foal, twisting him and taking control of him, causing him to become Sombra, the Shadow King.

Upon being exiled, the Crystal Princess had fled the cold, bitter North of Equestria, and found sanctuary in a village. She captured the heart of a young Pegasus colt, rightly named Crimson Dusk, for his coat was a delicate pink, his mane a deep rose streaked and with rich purple. The Crystal Princess' crystalline coat was gold, as was her shimmering, curled mane, and her eyes were a vivid violet. He was entranced by her shimmering coat, and she was mesmerised by his kindness. The two fell in love.

But then, news of her beloved Empire reached the ears of the Crystal Princess. It came to her attention that Sombra had taken over the Empire. The Crystal Princess wept for her subjects, and vowed to do anything in her power to stop him. She begged for the assistance of the Alicorn sisters, and they accompanied her, sensing both the Crystal Princess' devastation, and the dangerous limits and source of Sombra's dark power. Leaving her winged lover, with the promise that she would return, the Crystal Princess returned to her Empire.

The Alicorn Sisters did their best to try and stop the Shadow King, but he was too powerful. The Crystal Princess chose that moment to step up. She vowed that she would distract him, whilst the Sisters cast a spell to banish the Shadow King's dark magic from the Empire. She entered the Crystal Palace and confronted the Shadow King. She spoke of once close friends, lost mothers and desire turning hearts cold.

She begged the Shadow King to stop his magic, to free her subjects and to learn forgiveness, but he merely laughed. Then, he sensed a disturbance in his magic, and he realised that the Crystal Princess had returned to call his downfall. Outraged, he decreed that if he could not have the Empire, then nopony could, and vowed to destroy it.

Desperate, and without much power of her own, the Crystal Princess called for the Sisters to save her Empire. Desperately, the Sisters entered the Shadow Palace and battled the Shadow King. It was a long, hard, dire battle, but they won, and they turned the Shadow King into the very name he had taken - shadow, locking him away in the icy heart of the North, just as the Shadow had locked away a once-kind foal in an icy heart of his own.

The Empire was another story. The Sister's only just managed to get themselves out before the Empire vanished. Now, it was nowhere to be seen. Sombra had cast a spell to destroy it, and though it had gone wrong, it was a truth that would not be revealed for many centuries to come. But the great amount of destructive magic - both light and dark - had caused it to be banished, sent to an Ethereal Plain. The only things to escape were the Sisters, and a tiny fraction of the Shadow that had taken over Sombra, Shadow which had touched upon the Moon Sister during the battle, Shadow that would grow and manifest to do to the Moon Sister what it had done to the Shadow King.

Unfortunately, the banishing spell had done the same with the Crystal Princess, for she had not been able to get out in time. However, even if she had, she wouldn't have. She made a vow to protect her subjects, and though her heart pined for her Pegasus lover, she stayed stoic and proud, trying to aid the Crystal Ponies in repairing their hopes, and keeping them safe. But all she was met with were blank, confused stares. The magic of the Sister's and the Shadow King had had terrible effects on their minds, they would remember nothing of a time before Sombra, nor of this in-between period, until Sombra was destroyed once and for all.

He was, eventually. By the Light of the Crystal Heart. But that was over one thousand years in the future.

One thousand years passed for Equestria, but only one passed for the Empire.

The Shadow King was gone, sealed in an icy prison. But soon, the spells the Sister's had cast on him - the ones that turned him to shadow, began to work in his favour. He found that he was able to escape his prison, and did so, manifesting as a dark, haunted mist. He was annoyed at having been beaten, but satisfied that he had won the battle for the Empire.

He was also satisfied that he had the Crystal Princess with him. He taunted her, telling her stories of her childhood, of her mother, of how her Pegasus lover would be long dead by the time she escaped. What the Princess didn't know, was that the Shadow King meant the time difference. The Crystal Princess thought Sombra meant to escape and torture him.

The Crystal Princess eventually came to realise that she was pregnant, pregnant with the Pegasus' child.  She did not know that time was passing much fast outside of the Empire, that her Pegasus was long dead. She gave birth to her daughter, a tiny pink Pegasus with a tri-colour mane and tail, made of both colours of her father's mane, and the colour of her mother's. She also had her mother's eyes. The Crystal Princess named her for the two things she loved most in the world; music, and love itself. Two un-taintable manifestations of affection, and the two things that reminded her of her lover, back in Equestria. Cadenza Mi Amore.

The Shadow King was outraged.

He held a personal distaste for the child, as well as disgust at the idea of a Crystal Hybrid. There had been only one Crystal Hybrid before, and he had despised it powerfully. He made to kill the child, but the Princess intervened. Desperate to save her child, the Crystal Princess used the last remaining magic inside of her to send her daughter far away. To this day, nopony knows how the Princess did it, but she did do it. But at a grave cost; this spell cost the Crystal Princess her life.

The Pegasus foal was later found outside of a rural Equestria village, about two decades before the return of the Empire. Because of her un-crystalline coat, nopony knew of her royal, Crystal heritage, but her tri-coloured mane was marveled and envied by many. She was raised as a normal Pegasus, and later as an Alicorn Princess, Guardian of Love in the same way that the Sisters were the Guardians of the Sun and the Moon. She never truly realised that she was made Crystal Princess by rite of birth, and not simply because the Crystal Ponies had needed a ruler.