“How long have your people been coming here? Why do you look like that? Are you related to the short gray humanoid type of aliens? Are you really one of those types of aliens that just looks the way you do because...um...okay, well I can’t actually think of a reason why you would be, and there does seem to be evidence of another race of creatures visiting our planet from before, going by our old myths and legends from ancient Greece. Scully, you’re the mythology expert, are their any legends about pegasuses talking?”
Cadance wanted to sigh at her own foolishness. When the strange creatures had knocked the wind out of her with their vehicle, she had been a little worried. That worry increased when they started talking about maybe taking her to a doctor, which then became a vet at the suggestion of the girl with the red mane, before going on about something called a Fohicky, followed by their suggestion to stay at a motel for the night...whatever that was. But, they had appeared to be concerned about her, so it was only right that she had gotten up to thank them for at least taking her to some kind of medical specialist. Only, with the boy’s reaction being what it was...maybe it would have been better to play at being unconscious.
The girl reached up to rub the bridge of her nose. “Mulder, just because I remembered one little class in high school doesn’t mean I’m an expert on the Greek mythos,” she said. “If anything, you’re our expert, considering all of weird stories you can just remember offhand from files and books you read years ago.”
“Yes!” Cadance exclaimed. They were doing what she wanted. It seemed as if any hope of trying to get a grasp of their relationship had been lost once that Mulder boy had started asking her questions, but it looked like that had only been a temporary problem. “That! Go back to doing that, please.”
Without enough information on the creatures and their interaction, there was no way Cadance could craft a plan that would end with the two of them being a couple without the use of love magic, which she didn’t even know if these beings would approve of. So, it was just better to watch their exchanges for the time being.
Both of the bipeds looked back at her with nervous expressions before Scully frowned at her. “Are you saying that you want to watch us argue?”
Before Cadance could correct her, wanting to just watch the two of them interact, a bright light appeared behind their vehicle. Mulder immediately turned back around and there was a light roar before the three of them started moving again. “On second thought, maybe we should get a room first,” he said before glancing back. “You’re not going to run away or something, are you?”
Cadance cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Why would I do that?” she asked. The couple of...whatever they were was obviously the pair of creatures that her spell had chosen. She wasn’t about to go anywhere until they were set on a course that would end with the two of them enjoying a happily ever after together.
As Mulder turned his attention back to the road, Scully continued to look at the pink princess with an expression that told Cadance she was trying to figure out something she didn’t want to. “By the way, what’re we supposed to call you?”
The question made Cadance realize how rude she was being. “Oh my gosh, I completely forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I?” she asked before sitting up a little straighter and clearing her throat. “My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. But you can call me Cadance.”
If anything, the look Scully was giving Cadance became even more disturbed after the introduction. “...Princess?”
Cadance nodded. “Mmmhm. Although, you don’t have to worry about using my title,” she said before waving the girl’s fears away with a hoof. “I don’t really like hearing it outside of formal affairs.”
“Mulder?” Scully asked as she turned around to look forward while their vehicle pulled into what what obviously an area set aside for parking. “This is going to be one of those cases, isn’t it?”
“...we’re not actually on a case, Scully.”
“But, why do I have to hide?”
Dana Scully took in a deep breath through her nose to at least continue her facade of calm as the...creature looked out of the open car door to the door of the first floor motel room not ten feet away, then to the coats belonging to both Scully and Mulder that Cadance was supposed to use to cover herself. With luck, any onlookers would think that they were just trying to sneak a dog into the motel room. “Because, your appearance might disturb someone if they saw you.”
Please buy it, Scully mentally begged the ridiculously cute looking creature that looked up at her with overly expressive eyes and a face that would have frightened nobody ever.
“Well...I don’t really want to scare anypony,” Cadance said, making Scully have to fight to school her features.
She put her long coat over Cadance’s head and impossibly small wings, then used Mulder’s to hide the horse’s rear end before leading her out the door of their car with a hand on the back of the clothing. Thankfully, the coats went down enough to hide most of the equine’s form so that anyone looking on would just see Scully leading what she hoped would be thought of as a dog into the motel room. If anyone came looking, a flash of the FBI badge would turn them away.
Once she was inside, Mulder drove the car away so quickly Scully was afraid he was going to cause the tires to squeal and wake everyone at the cheap rest stop. It was just another effect of the man’s obvious giddiness that anyone that truly knew him could see as plain as day.
It was also something she couldn’t really blame him for. All Mulder’s life, he had searched for the unexplained, the paranormal, the extraterrestrial, or just outright weird. So far, his quest had only led him to a lot of dead ends, several disappointments, and a a few X-Files that while odd, were explainable by the proper application of science. But now, he had come across something completely out of the ordinary that didn’t resist being asked questions. So, Scully could forgive him for acting like...well, a giddy little girl that wished for a magical pony from Santa and woke up on Christmas morning to find a talking winged unicorn in her bedroom.
Which...considering what Scully had seen, might have been a possibility that Mulder was considering. She was certain there was some kind of story somewhere about dolls coming to life at some point that didn’t consider the fact that little girls grew up one day and the talking toy from their childhood that they had brought to life with the wish on a star was no longer wanted.
Scully wasn’t so enthusiastic about Cadance. Perhaps it was the fact that she had served as the counter to Mulder’s way of thinking, but her mind couldn’t help but focus on the several things that simply didn’t make sense about the creature that had been presented to them. Which there were plenty of.
Like the fact that it could talk perfect English in a pleasant voice that could have come from any young woman off the street. Even if it had a mastery of the language and the ability to properly form the correct sounds, the size of the equine’s throat and mouth said it should have fallen in a completely different range than a human’s. If anything, she should have sounded much deeper, if not a man.
Then there was Cadance’s name. She introduced herself as Mi Amore Cadenza, which Scully believed was Italian. While a mythological, or alien, creature knowing English wasn’t actually that unbelievable, an English speaking unicorn that gave a French name was a bit...odd. Especially considering the fact she didn’t have an accent. The consideration of which was odd in and of itself.
But the oddest thing about the talking horse was her body. Eyes that were far too large adorned a head that was equally mismatched to Cadance’s body. On top of which, her wings didn’t look nearly large enough to support the weight of the creature Scully had needed Mulder’s help to get into the back seat of their rental thanks to her weighing so much. To add to the strangeness, the alien’s use of her forelegs to make gestures showed that her skeletal structure must have been far different than what an Earth pony possessed, and her colored hair suggested either a very recent dye job, or that the pattern on her butt was somehow natural.
The collection of evidence put a disturbed frown on Scully’s face as she closed the door behind her. While Mulder would undoubtedly start pointing at things like European mythology that spoke of similar creatures, the more Scully thought about the odd shape of the equine’ body and how it might have been possible to possess in a low gravity environment, the more she wanted to point to the sky and say ‘an alien did it’ as Mulder was prone to.
“Okay,” Scully said before she closed the door. “Now that we’re here, maybe you could explain…” The rest of the sentence died in Scully’s throat as she turned around to see Cadance’s horn surrounded by a nimbus of pale blue light that was also surrounding both her coat and Mulder’s as they floated in the air next to the floating hangers that were also held by the blue glow, next to the motel room’s closet.
Cadance looked over to the FBI agent and gave a little gasp. “Oh, I’m sorry! You probably want this back. It doesn’t seem to be that cold to me, but I am wearing a coat of my own,” she said before the clothing floated over to Scully. When she didn’t take the clothing back, the pink pony tilted her head to the side a bit. “Ms Scully?”
“How are you doing that?” Scully asked after several seconds.
The confusion on Cadance’s face intensified for a moment before the light bulb above her head clicked on, which was apparently also due to the little blue glow surrounding the light switch next to her. “You mean the floating coat?” she asked with a little smile. “It’s my magic.”
Scully’s inner scientific critic that ran on all things rational jumped up to shout, THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE, while Cadance went about setting Mulder’s coat down on the little couch by the door. Despite any good levitation trickster knowing how to avoid such things, Scully reached out to wave her hand over the material in a search for wire or...something to explain what she was seeing. After finding nothing, she snatched the article of clothing from the air right before the light went out.
At that moment, the door opened and Mulder quickly stepped in. “She still here? She’s still here, right?” he asked before looking over to the pink horse and untensing. “Good, you’re still here.”
It was a question and fear Scully understood. All too often, Mulder had said he got proof of aliens or some other impossible thing, only to have it disappear. The fact he had left Cadance’s presence at all was surprising.
Then, Mulder studied Scully’s face for a moment. While Scully believed herself to be a woman in complete control of her emotions, Mulder had been with her in so many unnerving situations that she knew he would be quick to pick up on any unease despite how well she hid it. As was quickly evidenced by his next question.
“What’s wrong? Did I miss something?”
Scully fought to keep her face neutral as her mind shouted a resounding YES to Mulder’s question. Despite the exhaustion creeping in from the late hour, Scully’s brain worked to untangle the mystery of both Cadance’s trick with the coat and how she had made both her horn and the material luminescent in a way that didn’t originate from the items, but surrounded them. Which was the true mystery of the act, since Scully’s mind had already worked up half a dozen explanations of how Cadance accomplished her feat which ranged from magnets, to a sudden shift in the Earth’s gravitational field that only happened because God just felt like screwing with a tired woman. As he was known to do from time to time.
“I think I upset her,” Cadance said before she lowered her ears and put on a look that made Scully feel as if she had just spent the last thirty minutes kicking a puppy. “Do you not like it when other ponies, or...um, what exactly is the name of your species?”
A question that also didn’t make sense, seeing as how she spoke English!
Mulder looked back to the horned pegasus. “Humans.”
Cadance nodded. “Thank you. Do you not like it when somehuman handles your clothes? Is it some sort of cultural thing?” she asked.
Instead of just ignoring the ridiculous question from the TALKING PEGASUS WITH A HORN that CLAIMED to have used magic, Mulder actually took it under consideration for a moment. “Well, it was considered good manners for a man to take a woman’s coat when she entered a room until recently.”
And that was it.
Admittedly, it was a small thing. Minuscule, really. Having been expecting to sleep for half the drive south, Scully’s body was sore from needing to be up past midnight. The sudden reversal on top of meeting an alien, the alien displaying impossible phenomena, and then Mulder talking to the alien about taking a woman’s coat as if it was normal...that was the straw that broke the cammel’s back.
Scully turned to Mulder. She almost, almost asked Mulder if he was actually serious about asking her that. She was going to blow up at him, demand to know why he wasn’t freaking out over the existence of whatever the hell Cadance was.
But...if what she was experiencing really was true, and with Mulder looking like a kid who had been given his parent’s credit card before being let loose in Toys R Us, despite how calm he made himself look...made her stop. She wasn’t about to ruin this for him or the Earth if it turned out Cadance really was the Princess of some intergalactic whatever who had just gotten a flat tire or something on her way to Risa, or Remblor, or whatever the hell the name of that fictitious planet Mulder always joked about when aliens were mentioned in a non-serious way!
“I’m going to...take a bath,” Scully said in defeat before slinking off towards the restroom at a tired pace. IF she stayed in the same room as Cadance any longer, she was going to lose it.
Right before she shut the door, Cadance’s voice reached her ears. “Is Scully one of those territorial females that doesn’t like it when you play with other girls?”