Cheerilee jumped when the cocktail waitress tapped her on the shoulder. "What—Oh, thanks," She’d totally forgotten that she’d ordered a drink some forty-five minutes ago. I guess everything here moves slowly. Cheerilee took a sip, and then stuck out her tongue. Ugh. Watery. Frowning at the drink, she tried to find a place on the cluttered poker table to set it down.
Beside her, Cloud Dancer hunched over her cards and stared at them intently. Licking her lips, the pegasus pulled one from the middle and moved it to the far right of her hoof. After several seconds of intense concentration, she moved it back.
Cheerilee took another reluctant pull from the glass and squinted at the clock through the casino’s smoky haze again. Four hours. My rump is getting sore.
“Make your call, already,” a baggy-eyed and stubble-jawed stallion growled from their left. “Some of us ain’t got all day.”
A trickle of sweat traced a glistening line down the side of Cloud’s cheek. “Just… just hold on a sec. I’m thinking!”
The mare to their right tapped her cards against the table’s green felt repeatedly. “Well, think faster and quit stalling!”
Cloud's cheeks puffed out as she blew out an explosive sigh. “Okay, okay! Uh… I’ll see your fifty bits and raise twenty.”
The stallion rolled his eyes. “Call. Three queens.”
The mare swore and tossed her cards to the table. “Two pair.”
Cloud Dancer swallowed hard and put her cards on the table with a trembling hoof. Three of clubs. Five of diamonds. Ten of clubs. Jack of hearts. Ace of spades. “Um… nothing?”
“Are you kidding me?” Cheerilee said, sloshing some of her drink as she threw her hooves up. “You’ve been staring at those cards for ten minutes!”
Cloud gripped Cheerilee’s shoulder tightly with her hoof, her eyes flicking left and right. “Can you lend me some bits?” she whispered.
Cheerilee blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Look, it’s just until I hit, okay?” Cloud Dancer’s eyes slid to the hulking security guards on either side of the table. “My luck’s about to turn, but I’m in a little hole right now, so if you could—”
“Well, it’s not my fault that you ran through all your money!” Cheerilee said. “Anyway, I’m a teacher. How many extra bits do you think I have to throw around?”
Cloud scowled at her. “If you don’t have any bits, then why did you want to gamble?”
“Me?” Cheerilee’s hoof flew to her chest. “You’re the one who was dying to come here. I figured we’d just try our luck on a few slot machines, maybe a little blackjack, and then we’d head out for dinner. Instead, I’ve been sitting here with a bunch of lousy drinks watching you steadily lose that pile of chips.”
“It was your idea to try poker!”
Cheerilee rubbed her aching temple and took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes it was. And you know what? I played two hands and lost fifteen bits. It took less than ten minutes, and I’ve been sitting here waiting on you ever—”
“Not that this isn’t fascinating,” the table’s elegantly dressed dealer said, leaning in between them, “but are you ladies in or out?”
Cloud motioned for another hand. “In!”
“Out,” Cheerilee said, hopping off the stool.
The dealer’s hoof shot into the air and two large and grim-faced security stallions trotted up. “No can do,” one of them growled as he wrapped his massive hoof around Cheerilee’s waist and gently set her back onto her stool.
Cheerilee’s smacked at the stallion’s hoof ineffectually. “What the—put me down!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the dealer said with a shrug. “It’s casino policy. Nopony leaves the table until all players bets are settled. Your friend here’s run quite a tab.”
Cheerilee’s head ratcheted back and forth as she stared at the group incredulously, finally settling on Cloud Dancer. The pegasus looked down, suddenly seeming to take great interest in a small rip in the table’s fabric.
Cheerilee’s stomach sank. “Um, Cloud, you do have the bits to cover this, right?”
The pegasus picked at the rip.
Cheerilee crossed her hooves over her chest and glared at the mare. “If I lend you the bits, can we get out of here?”
Cloud Dancer ran her hoof over the rip again and nodded silently.
“Okay, how much do you need?”
The pegasus pushed her meager pile of chips around, counting. “Five…”
Cheerilee reached for her saddlebag.
“…Hundred.”
Cheerilee gasped and dropped her bag. “Five hundred? You need five hundred bits before we can leave?”
“How do you think we feel, lady?” the stubble-faced stallion said. “I was supposed to be at work three hours ago!”
The mare crossed her legs tightly over her chest. “My family’s probably been sitting at the dinner table all night!”
“Oh, come on.” Cheerilee turned to the dealer and threw her hooves wide. “What are you going to do? Keep us here forever?”
The dealer shrugged, pointing over his shoulder to several elderly ponies sitting around a badly worn table. “See those guys?”
Cheerilee nodded, and her mouth suddenly felt very dry.
Separating his stack of cards into two piles, the dealer tapped them into alignment. With practiced ease, he shuffled them together and repeated the process. “They’ve been here for twenty years.”
“What kind of sense does that make?” Cheerilee said, a vein on her forehead bulging. “You can’t just keep ponies prisoner.”
The dealer nodded to a large sign hanging over the door. “Hey, it’s all there in the rules. Nopony forced you to play here.”
Cheerilee squinted at the sign. “It just says ‘Welcome to Lucky Horseshoes Casino.’”
“Rules are on the back.”
“On the back?” Cheerilee pointed to the sign. “What are you talking about? It’s nailed on!”
The dealer took a deep, steadying breath. “And we keep a crowbar right by the door in case anypony wants to look,” he said with exaggerated patience as he pointed to a thin, black box with a glass front. Above the box was a small sign that read ‘In The Event Of Attorneys, Break Glass.’
“This is ridiculous,” Cheerilee said through clenched teeth. “Thank you for an… interesting night, Cloud, but—oof!” Cheerilee bounced off the chest of one of the hulking security detail. Cheerilee’s hooves kicked helplessly in the air as he deposited her back atop her chair.
The dealer patted Cheerilee’s hoof. “Look, we aren’t unsympathetic. Ponies do come in unprepared sometimes. It happens.” Leaning down, the dealer pulled out a small metal box and rifled through it. After pulling out a piece of paper, a pencil, and an envelope, he set them down in front of the two mares. “You can write to anypony you know and see if they’ll send you some bits. We’ll add the postage to your tab.”
The baggy-eyed stallion leaned his cheek against his hoof. “Look, are we gonna play or not?”
“Yeah!” Cloud said, perking up. “Deal ’em!”
“What do you mean ‘deal ’em?’” Cheerilee said, exasperated. “You don’t any bits left! That’s the whole problem!”
Cloud put a hoof to her chin and ran her eyes over Cheerilee. Motioning the dealer over, she pointed to the house’s supply of chips. “How much can I get if I put a slightly used mare up for collateral?”
The dealer slowly shook his head while one of the guards placed a restraining hoof against the sputtering teacher’s chest. “Sorry,” he said loudly over Cheerilee’s inarticulate growling, “Lucky Horseshoes is legally obligated to remind our guests that it no longer accepts alternative forms of tender, and that it now completes its court appointed ethics training twice a year.”
Cheerilee lunged, trying to grab the perplexed pegasus from around the massive stallion. “Why you…” she finally managed.
“Jeez, you’re uptight!” Cloud Dancer said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like there’s any risk. I’m just about to hit! I can feel it! I just need somepony to front the bits and we can be out of here!”
Cheerilee glared at the pegasus. “If you think we’re still going out after this, you’ve lost your mind!”
Cloud Dancer pointed to the tiny stack of chips in front of her. “Well, we aren’t going anywhere at all without more bits to ante with!”
“Well… I…” Cheerilee stared up at the security stallion. He seemed like a vast, muscular wall. An impenetrable object. With a groan, she let her head fall to the table.
“Um…” Cloud said hesitantly beside her. “Can I still bet on a credit line?”
With a quick tug, the dealer straightened his tuxedo vest. “Certainly!” he replied with a sunny smile.
Cheerilee picked up the pencil with a heavy sigh. Her head was throbbing fiercely now. For a moment, she frowned at the paper and admired its white featurelessness. Boring and predictable. Why can’t my life be like that? Licking the tip of the pencil, she set it to paper and began.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Your Majesty, it was truly an honor to receive your letter several weeks ago. While it wasn’t necessary, your apology for the weeks that I spent at sea due to your nephew’s behavior was greatly appreciated. I’d had no intention of taking up your valuable time when you offered to make it up to me, but I’ve found myself in a pickle…
Pffft.
Cheerilee has the worst luck in dates ever.
She needs to start running background checks. Or ask Twi to run them for her - I'm sure the princess would oblige.
I want to see celestias letter back
...I really hope one of the later chapters mentions how Celestia burned the Casino to the ground shortly after finding out they held a table of players hostage for 20 years.
They think they know the Law, well Cheerilee just wrote a letter to the Law.
Geez, Cloudchaser is the worst poker player ever. Her luck is even worse than Cheerilee's when it comes to dating.
Maybe Cheeriee should take a vow of celibacy or something. The universe seems to be trying to tell her something.
4796265
You mean ruin, for that is what Twilight has been doing for awhile now.
Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle
You know that mare you like, the one you've had to constantly neurolize. Well, the good news is that you can easily forgo the dating ritual now and instead rescue her in dramatic fashion. Please find enclosed a map with guard patrol routes and a list of old sports injuries for the ones that can't be bypassed.
- Definitely not from the office of Princess Celestia, seriously, burn this note, you never seem to get what plausible deniability means.
4796285 Hey, hey, hey! Let's leave Cloudchaser and her awesome hair out of this. That pegasus was Cloud Dancer. She's an entirely different pony.
4796265 Twi is a little... weird around Cheerilee these days. Chapter thirty-one is to blame...
4796269 I should start Celestia's Thousand. One thousand crazy letters that she received from her subjects.
4796286 Even if celibate, she'd still want love.
4796279 There's pretty much nothing that's off-limits in this story, so if a good chance arises, I'm sure I'll bring this casino's story back.
Oh look it's this thing! I remember this thing, I liked this thing. Still do!
4796348 mainly from cheerilee's award winning horrid dates?
4796396 Yeah, I've been taking a little break from writing. Hopefully this will update quickly in the future. They'll be another update tomorrow, at the very least.
4796408 I'm sure there would be a fair share of them. Cheerilee's dates have repercussions that span all of Equestria. I mean, she's destroyed a symphony, taken out Celestia's ambassador to Saddle Arabia, managed to damage quite a bit of property running from a love-crazed robot, and possibly throttled Daring Do. There have to be some letters about all of that, along with all the rest.
4796447 please write this....
4796348
The great part about that idea is you have almost no timeline. You could send her letters from all points of time, including before luna was banished!
4796348
4796475
+1
This. Very much this. Some sort of Canterlot court Drama/Comedy/Slice of Life like Dawnscroll's Slice Of Life or GhostOfHeraclitus' Civil Service perhaps? Maybe in the flavour of that Dirty Jobs show on the Discovery Channel. Twilight et al may handle all the critical national emergencies like Nightmare Moon's return, Discord's escape, Sombra's return, Tyrek's attack and Chrysalis' invasion, but what about the poor, nameless ponies in the Equestrian Civil Service that perform thankless, dirty jobs so that civilised life in Equestria is possible?
4796622 while twilight fights discord and tirek, celestia handles the millions off complaints with a bottle of scotch and plenty of free time
4796348
Combine the two! Next date should be with Celestia, and her first letter is from Cheerilee~
4796781 I don't mean only dates for Celly I WS just suggesting killing two birds with one stone.
4796348
This is an excellent idea and you should do it
4796658 Ironically enough, they share the same voice actress though you never see them in the same scene so it's hard to tell.
4796346 No harm in trying.
Besides, Cheerilee needs help and Twi doesn't want Cheerilee to think anything's up lest she's forced to mind-wipe her again. They're already friends, and I'm sure Twi would oblige under normal conditions - therefore, she'd oblige under abnormal ones too, since not doing what she'd normally do could (potentially and in her head) tip off Cheerilee that somethings up.
At least, that's how it goes in my head.
Add gambling and other addictive behaviors to Cheerilee's background check battery.
Still won't help, though.
4796348 I support this motion. I support it so much!
Funny enough, i just got back from a trip to Las Vegas. Couldn't gamble though. Hope I won't be as bad as Cloud Dancer.
Uh... Why is Cheerilee held captive? She's not the one that owes the bits...
This just didn't quite fit together for me.
4798429 I'm guessing Cheerilee and Cloud Dancer (foolishly) pooled their money together, which is why they both have to stay at the table.
That being said, Celie is gonna be so mad when she finds out what's going on at this casino. And I don't want to be around when that happens.
...
I'm afraid to ask if real casinos operate like this. I'm pretty sure they don't. At least, I hope they don't.
4798429 Cheerilee played two hands early on. Since no one can leave until the debt is settled, Cheerilee has to stay.
4798519 No real casino could operate like this. It's an insane system because everything Cheerilee gets mixed up with is kinda insane.
4798697 Yeah, which presumably she had the coinage for, else she wouldn't have played. And if Cloud Dancer was paying, then Cheerilee still wouldn't be held back.
There's still an assumption missing, somewhere.
4798723 Cloud Dancer owes five hundred bits. No one can leave the table until that debt is settled.
4798911 Ahh. That's the bit that doesn't make sense to me then.
I think that the universe has altered its laws of causality specifically to mess with Cheerilee.
It's not 'she dates ponies who happen to be crazy or Caramel,' or even 'she dates ponies because they're crazy or Caramel,' it's 'because she dates ponies, said ponies had been crazy already or are Caramel.'
Oh my God, I think I'd be interested in her dating a mad scientist who's watched her dates and come to that conclusion. And then maybe she sees said scientist have an existential crisis or something.
... It sounded better in my head.
4799202 I really like that Caramel is his own subset in this thought experiment.
But not all the ponies are crazy. Sometimes it's just crap luck. Bell Curve was fine until he got crushed by affectionate animals. Parallax's date feel apart due to Cheerilee. Fancy Pants was just an innocent bystander.
But that's the crux of the thing: What is going on with Cheerilee? It can't just be chance...
4799338 Well yes, but it's certainly a recurring trend.
(Stream of consciousness writing and crack theories incoming)
Let's put this into three categories: Caramel, Insane, and Rare.
Caramel is a subset of his own because he tries regardless of the universe's attempts to make him stahp. I personally chalk this up to twoo wuv, at least on his part.
Rare Ponies are ponies that went on dates with Cheerilee without being insane prior to the date. In every case, something messed up happened, usually not because of anypony involved (at least, not that I remember - I'm going to reread this story, but as of yet I don't quite remember how each rare date went. I think I want to keep them somewhere so that I don't have to rely on memory). The date with Parallax failed because of prior experiences, which could be indicative of the goal of whatever higher power has deemed it necessary to mess with Cheerilee - to make her give up on love in some manner. She's already become paranoid and jaded in the subject of love, and now her own actions keep her from reaching it.
Insane doesn't really need to be elaborated upon here. It's self-explanatory.
Could it be that she's a powerful being whose potential can only be realized upon finding love? And another higher being (discord-level higher being, I should note) decided to keep her from ever finding love so that it'd have less competition? It's the only explanation for me as to why there'd be a conspiracy to keep Cheerilee specifically from finding love and why so much effort would be made to make her jaded and not care about love, while not directly altering Cheerilee herself. Or maybe Caramel is the powerful being, and Cheerilee exists to unlock his power, so they're keeping her jaded so that she can't unlock Caramel's power?
Or maybe some malevolent higher beings flipped a metaphorical dice and it came up on Cheerilee, so they're working to keep her from finding true love because they're bored?
Of course, this all relies on the idea that there is a higher power that's working towards making Cheerilee miserable for some reason, which isn't necessarily the case - it could be that it just happens that it's a law of the universe that Cheerilee cannot find twoo wuv. No reason to it, just the law itself.
Oh my god, that's so tangential it's not even - wait, it is funny. To me.
Slightly Used!
Ouch, that's just ouch!
Who ever heard of a clock in a casino?
Magical contracts suck.
4799202
Interesting....
Please do write Celestia's thousand
4796279
All rules not clearly and visibly stated are invalid by law anyway, so I think she'd deal with them regardless.