Cadance looked at all the letters in front of her with a little frown as she sat on the edge of her bed while Shining Armor laid down behind her. Every year, it was the same thing. Right before Hearts and Hooves day, she would get a mountain of mail, asking for her help in romantic matters.
While she had enjoyed helping ponies, and the oddest couple of griffons that one year, things in the love department had just become...too easy.Not that there was anything wrong with easy. Despite the idea that love needed to be worked for to make it worth it, couples that fit together easily stuck together easily.
And if they fit together easily, they didn’t really need her help, did they?
Cadance sighed. “What I need is a challenge.” Not just to shake up the monotony that was the activity her cutie mark drove her to participate in, but because the half of the future couples that were writing to her didn’t really need her help. She needed to help a couple that actually needed her assistance in romance.
“What?”
The pink princess turned her head back to look at Shining Armor. “Hearts and Hooves Day, Shiny. The day that everypony knows is about finding love with your special somepony. My day,” she said. “The day that everypony looking for love sends me requests for help despite the fact that they don’t need it, when I should be looking for couples that belong together but for some reason don’t acknowledge that fact!”
Shining Armor sighed. “Sweetie, are you having another one of your episodes?”
“I don’t have episodes, Shiny,” Cadance told him with a little frown. That was Twilight. And to a lesser extent, Celestia. Although, Luna’s last mental problem had almost destroyed Equestria, so… Wow, am I the most stable Princess?
Instead of agreeing with her, as he should have, Shining Armor sat up and gave Cadance a tired look. “Yes you do.”
“No I don’t.”
Shining Armor’s expression became a slight frown. “Cadance, remember when you went to the Crystal Fair last year and saw that all the foals just wanted to buy Princess Celestia, Luna, or Twilight merchandise and not yours?” he asked. “Then you started freaking out about how you weren’t a good princess because nopony wanted to buy-”
“That wasn’t freaking out!” Cadance exclaimed. “That was a crisis of self-worth! Which was also completely valid and also completely unrelated to my current problem. Which is that fact that as the Alicorn of Love, I am unable to search for the couples that need me the most because of my position as ruler of the Crystal Empire.”
Once again, Shining Armor let out a sigh. “Cadance, it’s really not that big a deal.”
Hearing the most awful words that ever came out of her Shiny’s mouth made Cadance jump back in a loud gasp that took in so much air it left her feeling a bit lightheaded. “Love is too a big deal!” she exclaimed. “The biggest deal ever!”
“What?” Shining Armor asked before his eyes widened a little. “No wait! That’s not why I-”
“Shush!” Cadance commanded before she headed for the bedroom door. “And since it seems that I won’t being any support from my loving husband on this, I’ll be taking matters into my own hooves. If you want me I’ll be…” Cadance paused, unsure of what to say next.
Because she had no idea on how to approach the problem.
Which was the fact that she didn’t have time to find a pair of ponies or other creatures that obviously belonged together, but were not married due to some stupid reason or another. Although, after thinking about it like that, the solution became clear.
“In the library,” she said before trotting out in a huff.
“Love you,” Shining Armor’s voice called out from their bedroom.
Cadance stopped and turned around to stick her head back in their bedroom. “Love you too. Despite the fact that I am still miffed at you for saying what you did, even though I know it’s brought on by a combination of your tired mind and being a stallion.”
Then, she turned back around to trot off, still in a huff.
After getting to the imperial library, thinking just how she needed to accomplish her task of being able to locate the couple that was needing to be together, but by some cruel twist of fate weren’t while on the way there, Cadance knew the best way to find a solution to her problem. All she needed to do was combine a teleportation spell with a locating spell.
Which...made her a little nervous.
She remembered Twilight sending her a letter asking for advice on how to remove a convoluted mind control charm that Starlight Glimmer had placed upon her friends without completely melting their brains. Because of that, Cadance knew that newly-made combo spells were a bit...tricky. If she got something wrong, one part could end up overpowering the other to the point of making her spell do something completely unintended.
Then again, those spells were dealing with the same basic area. What I want to do is...only somewhat related, Cadance told herself. Teleportation spells needed a destination programmed into them, after all.
She quickly found the tomes she needed that detailed advanced teleportation as well as several spells that dealt with finding things, from dowsing spells to ones that involved scrying. Then, after a bit of thought, Cadance also got some spells dealing with claivorance, as the couple she would be dealing with were going to be getting together in the future.
Then came time to coble spell together, which was a frustrating task in and of itself. Although it might have limited her options a bit, she decided to have her spell target not-couples that were in close proximity, as that would allow her to get started immediately. After all, if she ran into a stallion who didn’t know what he wanted like the vast majority of them did, Cadance would have to waste a great deal of time having him go over one mare after another until he led her to the one that was meant for him. She also decided for the spell to plant her in the path of the future couple, as just popping in around their general location could lead to Cadance missing them completely if she got mobbed by a bunch of ponies asking for her help. On top of which, she made sure that the couple her spell would bring her to would be the most in need of her talents to overcome the challenges and get married.
After hours of careful crafting and several rewrites, Cadance finished the teleportation magic that would send her to the couple of creatures, as she was also more than willing to help out more than just ponies, that belonged together more than any other not-couple ever. Once she was done, the pink princes looked out the window just in time to see Celestia’s sun being raised.
The whole night had passed since she started her project, despite the fact that Cadance didn’t feel all that tired. “Have I really been down here that long?” she asked herself in surprise. It must have been the fact that she was so excited about the prospect of finally helping a couple who really needed it.
For a second, Cadance thought about galloping back to Shiny in order to make up from their disagreement, but if he was still going on about the same thing he was last night...or worse, started supporting her to the point of overcompensation, he might insist on accompanying her. Which would have been bad. Cadance had learned in the earliest stages of their relationship that Shining Armor was absolutely awful at romance.
However, she didn’t want to just disappear. It would worry him to death. With that in mind, Cadance simply took a quill and some parchment to leave him a note. Dear Shiny, the pink princess thought to herself as she wrote. Gone shipping. Be back in two weeks.
After signing the note and leaving it in the middle of the table with the books she needed to make the spell, Cadance lit up her horn and let loose the magic she had just designed. Like every time she teleported, the world disappeared behind a bright wall of white. However, unlike all her teleports before, there was an odd lurching sensation followed by a strong pull that had Cadance crying out in surprise. She tumbled around through the space between and got the strange sensation of being twirled around for the last bit of the journey before landing on a hard surface.
Face first.
Cadance let out a groan as she picked herself up and looked around. The teleportation spell must have taken a lot longer than normal to complete, because it was nighttime. She was on a road of some sort just below the top of a hill. After looking closer, she saw it was wider than the average Equestrian road with two yellow lines running down the center as far as she could see, which wasn’t very far in one of the directions it went, what with how it crested the hill.
A strange growling sound made Cadance look behind her to see a bright glow cresting the hill. She looked back down at the road a smirked. “Right in their path,” she said before looking up right as the source of the light crested the hill and...found herself blinded by the light that filled her eyes.
Cadance closed her eyes and looked away on instinct to protect her vision before a loud blaring sound rang in her ears. Then, something hard struck her in the chest and Cadance fell forward to something else that made a loud cracking sound before she rolled over whatever struck her and fell down to smash into the road...again.
Completely discombobulated by the experience, Cadance was only left with a dull pain in her chest and little air in her lungs. She let out a low moan as there as a loud screeching sounded behind her from the direction the...metal thing had went after striking her. The beams of light returned overhead as she heard a pair of doors open and two ponies talking.
“A dog? Did I just hit a dog?” a female voice asked. "A...pink dog?"
“I don’t think that was a dog,” a stallion Cadance couldn’t see replied in a nearly monotone voice.
“Well what was it then?”
“I don’t know, I was talking to you. This is why I don’t like having to talk and drive at night,” the male replied, his voice growing louder as his oddly muted hoof-steps came closer to Cadance before another bright light completely blinded her. “Yeah...that’s...not a dog.”
The female sighed and approached with her own lightsource. “Well, what is...oh,” she said as she took a place next to the male.
Cadance’s eyes adjusted to the light a little, letting her see a blurry outline of the creatures that were definitely not ponies. They were bipeds wearing...Cadance thought that they had on robes before realizing the open nature of the clothing told her they were long coats of some sort. The clothes kind, not body hair.
The male had a mess of black hair topping his otherwise bald face and a tie hanging from his white collared shirt. The female’s mane was a mass of red that went down to her shoulders.
“Mulder...did I just run over a unicorn?” the female asked.
“I don’t think unicorns have wings, Scully.”