Love is Magic, and Magic is Love

Marriage and Memories

"Okay!" Bow says, tapping his fingers onto Darla's panel. "Here's what we have so far!"

Several top-down images flash onto the display, each one showing a section of forest in various shades of leafy green.

"So there's trees," I say, frowning. "Good to know. Useful."

"But there's more!" Entrapta says, shoving Bow out of the way and swiping her hair against the on-screen display, until the green foliage turns translucent, and an overlay appears showing coloured areas ranging from blue to orange, yellow and white. "This view shows us various levels of heat. Observe the warm parts!" she says, tapping her tail onto a few orange-yellow blobs moving around, some of them in pairs.

"But what if they're animals?" Perfuma asks.

"Unlikely, because there's also stationary heat points, see," Bow says, zooming in on a couple of white-hot points. "Those have to be torches, or some other form of artificial warmth. So, definitely some kind of civilisation."

"More importantly," Entrapta says, scrolling the overhead map rapidly to the right, "the tech readings are here," she says, tapping a couple of buttons on the dashboard, until several red, glowing pulses can be seen in a circle formation.

"Oh wow, there's five of them?" Scorpia asks, placing a pincer on Bow and Entraptas shoulders, "you two must be really excited!"

Entrapta raises herself up on her pigtails until she's eye-level with Scorpia, "Indeed! These are very unusual readings."

"So," I say, slowly swaying my tail, "We'll land, check out the tech then get out of there?"

"But what about meeting the inhabitants?" Glimmer asks.

"Have any of you considered they might not want visitors?"

"Yes," Glimmer says, sighing. "I suppose that's a very real possibility."

Everyone falls silent, even Melog who flops onto the floor and glares at me, and I look from one unhappy face to the next, feeling myself grow increasingly agitated. "Ugh, fine! We'll try to find them afterwards. But if it goes badly, you teleport us back to Darla no questions asked. Got it?"

Glimmer grins. "Got it."

"A sound plan. Just what I'd expect from our away team commander," Perfuma says.

"Okay, can we stop with the bullshit titles?" I ask, shaking my head.

Adora plants a wet kiss on my cheek. "I can't believe we're going to meet new people!"

"It is exciting, but," Glimmer says, furrowing her brows. "I doubt they'll speak etherian."

"Our translators should help with that," Entrapa says, tapping her earpiece. "I've also configured the suits to translate our speech back, if it recognises the language."

Bow's eyes light up. "Wow, that's amazing! How does it-"

"Not now, snugglebum," Glimmer says, pecking him on the cheek.

"Pfft, snugglebum-haha!" I burst out laughing alongside Adora, while Glimmer and Bow both turn bright red.

"Come on you two, don't bully them," Scorpia says, placing her pincers by her side. "I bet you have pet names too."

"Yeah, she's my idiot," I say, smirking.

"And she's stinky," Adora says, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.

"While those are certainly unique names," Perfuma says, placing her fingertips together. "Have you ever considered using sweeter terms of endearment?"