Crystal Cat

When Shining Armor returned to the palace he immediately went to find Cadance, Cadance was sitting in the throne room addressing the guards. "OK guards, I know the presence of Molly is an unprecedented one, however it has become clear that she is currently of no threat to the empire and therefore I politely request that you treat her as a guest here until my husband and I can come to a reasonable conclusion and solution as to where she will be remaining, thank you". The guards all bowed and left the throne room, when Cadance saw Shining Armor approaching she said "So, how did it go? What did you find out?"

Shining Armor said "Plenty, all the information available suggests that she isn't a threat, in fact, she's the threatened one. Sunburst enlightened me to the fact that if we attempt to send her back to her clan, she will be..... dealt with".

Cadance gasped, "Oh my... well, what are we to do? We can't send her back out there, it's far too cold for her to survive".

Shining Armor sighed and went "Well...... it looks like she'll just have to stay here until we can figure out what to do with her, speaking of which, where is she?"

Cadance said "Oh yes, well she was so cold the poor thing and those rags she were in were practically falling apart, so I tasked the royal tailor to prepare some new clothes for her. She was rather excited and immediately started rattling off new clothing ideas, the tailor was quite confused", Cadance let out a giggle before she said "She should be in here at any moment".

Right on cue, Molly arrived back in the throne room in her new outfit before going "Ta-da! What do you think?" Molly was wearing a pair of black lycra shorts that went from her waist to just above the middle of her thigh, it seemed to hug and accentuate her curves, clinging to her body like a second skin. Along with this she wore a simple red short sleeve t-shirt which hung loosely on her body for comfort but did a more than adequate job of hiding her rather large bust. It was only at this moment that Shining Armor actually took in Molly's features, her tan colored body, brown ears, emerald green eyes and blonde bob cut, Shining Armor found himself in the rather strange situation of admitting to himself that Molly was actually rather attractive. There was so much silence that Molly's previously erect tail and ears drooped and her smiled disappeared as she said "Does... does it not look good?"

Cadance, realizing that her husband was a bit too busy admiring her stepped in and said "No Molly, you look very pretty indeed, my husband here is only speechless because of how you look, right darling?"

Shining Armor shook himself awake before his brain decided to wander into fantasy territory and said "Oh... oh yes, yes! You look very... very um, it's nice". Molly's smile returned, as did the upright position of her ears and tail.

Cadance continued "Molly, my husband and I have decided that given the current situation, we are willing to allow you to stay here with us at the palace, one of our guards will escort you to a room for you stay in and will provide whatever is necessary to fit what you consider essential requirements for a comfortable living condition for someone of your species".

Molly was very excited, she jumped up and down and said "Oh boy! Like a pet kitty?!"

Cadance blushed and said "W-well no, more like a... like a family member, I suppose?"

Molly cocked her head and said "So I'd be like... your daughter? Are you adopting me? Can I call you mommy and daddy!?!?"

Cadance was blushing harder by the minute, to avoid this bizarre turn of events she simply went "G-guard! Please escort Molly to her new living quarters please".

The nearest guard bowed and said "Of course your majesty". Molly followed the guard out of the throne room.

Shining Armor turned to his wife with an eyebrow raised "A family member?"

Cadance sighed and went "Look, it seemed like a good analogy at the time! I'm not saying we should actually adopt her as our step-daughter, we have our hooves full enough with Flurry Heart... don't we?"

Don't we? That was an odd question for her to ask, Shining Armor said "Are you... considering adopting this strange cat creature into our family?"

Cadance said "Hey, strange cat creature has a name Shining! Her name is Molly. Also... I mean where else can she go? We can't keep her here as a temporary guest if she has nowhere to go. Why don't we just keep her?"

Shining Armor couldn't argue with his wife's logic, but still had a couple of issues with it "OK I get that but can't we just keep her as a pet?"

Cadance gasped "Shining! We can't treat a walking talking member of another species like some sort of pet! She may be cat-like but she's not an actual cat! So are we adopting her as a daughter like she were a sentient creature with hopes, dreams and feelings or are we tossing her back out into the snow to die?"

Shining Armor sighed, there was only really one answer to that kind of question. A couple of days later they arranged all the paperwork to adopt Molly, all three of them were present to sign the adoption certificate, being that Molly was twenty-three years old she had to be there to consent to being adopted as Shining Armor and Cadance's daughter. Flurry Heart was actually very excited to have Molly as a big sister, it was after the adoption process that Molly did what she considered the most important thing to do and go out shopping for new clothes, most of the clothes she bought followed a similar theme to her original new outfit, some form of shorts that never went any further than her knee and an array of short sleeve and long sleeve shirts in addition to a few tank tops.

What made things most awkward however was that Shining couldn't stop noticing just how attractive Molly was, especially with her provocative wardrobe choices, so his thoughts were always lingering very close to the sexual fantasy part of his brain, he couldn't help it but he desperately wanted to stop. He figured the best way to convince himself to stop thinking about Molly that way was to make a list of all the reasons he couldn't do any of the things he often came very close to imagining. He lit up his horn and, with a quill, started scribbling away on a blank piece of parchment.

1. She is, technically, my daughter

2. She is a different species

3. I am a married stallion

4.

As Shining wrote down that number four, he couldn't think of any other reasons, he was certain there was more than that but it seemed like he had been overthinking things. Feeling tired, he simply put the list away in a drawer and got on with his day. However, he should have thought more carefully about just where he had put that list or maybe he should have just thrown it away, a couple of days later Molly was looking for a hairbrush she had misplaced and stumbled across the list during her search. She looked at the list and was slightly confused, she recognized it was her step-father's handwriting, but why was he writing down a list of facts? Molly was too curious to simply ignore it and decided she had to ask him about it.

Shining Armor was in the throne room having just finished a discussion with the delegates from Saddle Arabia when Molly walked in. Shining Armor smiled and said "Hey honey! How's your day going?"

Molly didn't look too pleased, she looked ready for a fairly serious confrontation. Molly thrust the piece of paper directly in front of his face and said "Daddy, what exactly is this?!"