Angelswift

by Nevel

Chapter 6

Cherry Blossom had barely touched her breakfast. She had a knot in her stomach that made her feel like if she ate anything, she'd be sick. Lance was rushing around the house, gathering the last things that Cherry would need. Her sandwiches, pencils, paper, books. Lance placed all these items into her new sky blue saddlebags with a red heart on the strap. Today was Cherry's first day of school and as any filly or colt would be, she was nervous. They'd been in Ponyville for five days now and everything had been going well for them. Lance was working and bringing home enough bits to pay for almost everything they needed. Food, plates, cups, and other household items needed for everyday living. Though the house was still mostly bare from the lack of furniture, they did manage to get a table and chairs for the kitchen very cheap.

Fluttershy had been a big help looking after Cherry while Lance worked all week. Lance only ever got Sunday's off work and he had to use that free time to do the shopping. Cherry continued to look at her daisy sandwich and orange juice, as the same nervous thoughts came to her head. Lance had put the last item in her new saddlebags then turned to her.

“Okay, you're all set to go.” Lance then noticed she had barely touched her breakfast. “Cherry, what's the matter? You okay?”

“I feel sick.” She replied quietly. Cherry never moved her head. She just kept staring, as if the food or the table in front of her wasn't there. Lance walked over and gave her a gentle smile.

“Cherry. I know you’re nervous. Every pony is on their first day. But you've already met Miss Cheerilee and she was nice, wasn't she?” Cheerilee had come by a few days ago. She just wanted to drop off a list of items that Cherry Blossom would need for the first day of school. She was nervous of the forest, that was clear, but when Lance invited her in for tea, she graciously accepted. She was a good, kind-hearted mare and Lance knew she'd make sure Cherry was looked after in school.

“Do I really have to go?” Cherry asked, turning to look at Lance.

“Yes. Everypony has to when they get older.” Lance said, in his most comforting voice. Cherry looked back to her breakfast. “Eat a little more. You'll feel better.” Lance gave his little sister a quick hug. As he pulled out, Cherry grabbed him and pulled him back into it. They stayed like that a moment longer. Then Lance glanced up at the clock. “It's time to go.”

* * *

The school bell rang, signalling the start of the school day. Fillies and colts that were playing around on the playground now picked up their saddlebags and ran into the classroom. The school was a large red building that looked like it could have once been a small church with a bell tower above it. Cheerilee was stood at the doorway and she waved a hoof at Lance and Cherry, who was wearing her new saddlebags. Lance returned the wave but Cherry barely moved.

“I don't want to go!” Cherry whined. “I wanna stay with Fluttershy!” Lance looked down as Cherry started tearing up. He then got down to eye level with her.

“Cherry. I know school can be a very scary experience when you first go. But let me tell you something. You're going to have lots of fun here. You'll make so many new friends, learning together and you'll have a great teacher who'll be there to help you, should you ever have any problems.” Lance reassured her. Cherry didn't look up at Lance, her own fears weighing too heavy on her mind. She heard hoof steps. Lance and Cherry both looked and saw Cheerilee as she approached the school gate where they stood.

“Everything okay?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Said Lance. “She's just incredibly nervous.”

"Well don't you worry about a thing, Cherry." said Cheerilee. "We were all nervous on our first day of school."

Cherry looked back down to the ground. Lance had already told her that but it didn't help. Lance gave her one more look. “Cherry,” Lance spoke gently. “Do you remember why I had to leave school early?”

"I-It was because dad told you to?" Cherry whispered quietly.

"Not exactly." Lance said back. “I did it for you. It was so I could keep a roof over your head and put food in front of you. So that one day you could go to school, have a good education and a better life.” Cherry looked up at Lance.

“But what if he comes, while you’re gone?” Cherry said, a bit louder then she intended. Cheerilee looked confused at this. Lance gave a sideways look to her. He hoped she wouldn't bring this up later.

Is this why she's so nervous?

Cherry had felt safe with her brother and with Fluttershy, but here at school... She trusted no one.

“He won't. He's not coming back. Miss Cheerilee will look after you until I arrive after school to pick you up. Won't you Miss Cheerilee?” Lance asked her. Cheerilee brought herself back to the conversation.

“Of course I will. Just like I would any of my students. Now we really do have to get inside. Class has already started.” Cheerilee gave Cherry a confident smile.

Lance gave his sister another hug and then pushed her gently to Cheerilee. They both walked down the school path and arrived at the classroom. Cheerilee offering what encouragement she could. Most of the students were sitting down and talking loudly. A few others were still playing around as Cherry Blossom walked into the room. She instantly felt the eyes of a few students turn to her, and then heard them as they pointed her out to their friends next to them. Cheerilee called out to her students.

“Okay everypony, let’s take our seats.” The ones out their seats all rushed back as everypony fell quiet. “Now, today I want to continue our talk from last week about the study of wildlife, but first I want you all to welcome our newest student. Cherry Blossom.”

Cherry kept her head down as she felt the eyes everypony looking at her. She wished she could just turn invisible and hide. A few students said 'Hello', but she wasn't looking and didn't see which ones. It sounded like a murmur to her. Cheerilee then whispered to Cherry to go have a seat. She looked up and saw a seat at the very back. As she headed towards the seat, Miss Cheerilee began talking about something called homework and a review of plant life.

Cherry placed her saddlebags under her desk and then sat down, she risked a glance around her and she saw everypony was focused on only Miss Cheerilee. Cherry then looked towards her too. She was talking about plants found around Ponyville and how they grow. Cherry then saw on the chalkboard a picture of a Calla Lilly, just like the one in their front garden.

Cherry had been trying to look after it. Keeping it watered, pulling away the bad weeds, but they kept coming back and the flower itself didn't seem to be getting any healthier. She'd even cut herself on a thorn once. Lance had promised to buy something to protect her from the thorns, stingers and thistles. Cherry quickly reached into her saddlebags and pulled out some paper and a pencil. She copied as much as she could down. Her big brother taught her how to write back in the late nights, when they lived in Las Pegasus. He had taught her so much while she should have been in school. But instead was kept home. She believed that Lance could just keep teaching her from home, but even he didn't know about plant life. There was a lot he missed out on from leaving school early.

Cherry finished copying down all the information on the Calla Lilly and then looked at the next flower. It was a pretty red Rose. She thought it would look lovely in their garden and she began copying down the information for that too. Then the flower after that, then another. Cheerilee was talking about how the different flowers also had medicinal uses but Cheery was purely focus on what her home would look like if she made a garden with all different types of beautiful flowers. Suddenly the bell rang and everypony put there things away. Cherry wasn't sure what was going on, she just remained seated for a moment watching the others. Two colts began talking loudly to her right.

“Come on, Snails! We gotta get to the See Saw before anypony else!” A short heavy looking green colt said to a taller yellow colt.

“Eeeeh, 'old on. I'm coming. Wait up, Snips!” The colt called Snails chased after Snips as they ran out the door.

Cherry watched them leave and then saw Cheerilee walking over to her.

“It's recess time, Cherry. Aren't you going to go outside and play?” Cheerilee asked. Cherry hadn't really thought about it. “Go on outside. Just leave your things here, I promise they'll all be here when you get back.”

Cherry slid down from her desk and without a word went outside. It was a little cloudy this morning. The sun had been shining all week, so rain would have to come soon to balance it out. She walked among all the other screaming foals as they laughed and played together. Cherry saw a pair of fillies on the swings and it looked fun. She hadn't really been to a playground before. She watched the two as they swung higher and higher. One of them was yellow with a long red mane tied back by a large red bow. The other was orange with a shorter purple mane. Cherry saw how they swung their hind legs in front of themselves and then tucked them under the seat as they went backwards. The two fillies jumped off of the swings a few moments later and the orange one got significantly more distance then the yellow one, since she used her wings for an extra push.

“Hey!” The yellow one yelled. “Ya cheated!” The orange Pegasus looked back, with an annoyed face.

“What? I didn't cheat!” She retorted back.

“Yes you did! Ya'll used your wings!” The orange Pegasus looked back as she flapped her tiny wings quickly.

“Yeah? Well... you never said I couldn't use them!”

“I didn' think I need to, to tell ya'll ta play fair! You're jus' like Rainbow Dash when she cheated to beat my sister.”

“She never needed her wings anyway!”

They both walked off, continuing their argument as a third white filly, a unicorn, ran up to them and tried to stop them fighting. The swings were empty. Cherry went over to them, sat down and held onto the ropes. She then kicked her legs backwards and began to swing, but before she had the chance to kick forwards, somepony shouted at her.

“Hey! What do you think you're doing?” Cherry looked at who the voice was coming from. Two other fillies were standing right behind her. If she had swung backwards any further, she would have hit them. One of them was dark grey with blue glasses and a light grey mane with a braided pony tail. The other had a white mane, with a purple streak and a tiara on her head. Cherry also noticed that her pink coat was just like her own. The pink filly looked at Cherry with disgust.

“How dare you cut in front of us? We were next to use the swings!” She said. Cherry jumped down quickly and stepped away.

“I'm sorry. I-” Cherry started to apologise but the grey one interrupted her.

“Seriously. Did you, like, not see us standing right here?” Cherry was positive that neither of these girls were stood there before she got on the swings herself.

“I didn't-” She was cut off again. This time by the pink one.

“You better watch yourself. This is our playground. When you see us coming, you leave. You got it?”

“Yeah, got it?!” the grey one chimed along. Cherry backed away from both of them. Walking away from the swings, doing her best not to cry. “Hey look. She's crying!” They both laughed and she couldn't hold the tears back any longer. She fell to the floor and covered her face as they made fun of her.

“Come on, Silver Spoon. Let’s swing before recess is over.” Said the pink filly.

“Right behind you, Diamond Tiara” Silver Spoon followed her to the swings. They swung back and forth leaving Cherry Blossom on the floor, wiping her eyes. She hated it here. She wanted to go home. She got up and walked over to the classroom. Maybe Miss Cheerilee would let her spend the rest of recess inside? Just then, the class bell rang and Cherry went inside before anypony else. She sat down and just wanted to bury herself in her saddlebags, hiding away till her brother came to pick her up.

* * *

Cherry didn't pay much more attention in class the rest of that day. Cheerilee had asked her to stay behind after class. She wanted to know if she was okay, but Cherry wouldn't talk about it. She didn't want the horrible fillies to have a reason ever again to bully her. She went outside and walked over to her brother who was waiting by the gate.

“Hey Cherry. How was your first day?” Lance asked with a smile that quickly faded as she walked right past him, heading towards home. “Cherry?” Lance asked, with worry. “Cherry, what's-” The little filly screwed up her face and then broke down.

“Ju-- Just ta- take me h-h-home!!” Cherry was fighting back the tears again. She'd been holding them in all through class. Lance's heart was breaking at the sight of this. He leaned down to hug her, but she just ran off towards home. Lance looked back towards the school and saw Cheerilee standing at the doorway. Even from this distance he could see her concern. What Lance didn't see as he turned to run after Cherry, were two little fillies, a pink one and a grey one, laughing. Proud of themselves.

Comments

[MrBumbles]

It brought tears to my eyes.

[Sir Topsy]

[Firewire]

Cherry cherry cherry cherry

Her name is repeated so many times..

[Nevel]

692147

Helpful Criticism is always welcome. Upon review, I may have used it more times then was necessary. I have fixed this by replacing her name where possible and without breaking the sentence to pull people out of the immersion of the story. Thank you and I hope that the editing is more pleasing for you.

Nevel V.

[WildStallion]

Curse those two. (insert angry face here)

[Riku006]

763316 I believe this is the face you're looking for.

[peace corps general]

CELESTIA DAMN IT SILVER SPOON AND DIAMOND TIARA ARE STILL HERE!