Chapter 4: Facing the Morning
Cheerilee retrieved her saddleags and walked out of the apartment.
Nopony tried to stop her: the door was unlocked. Nopony had forced or tricked her into this situation. It was all entirely her own fault. For what had happened last night, Cheerilee had nopony to blame but herself.
On the way out, some stallion called to her. "Great party!"
She glanced at him briefly, but neither recognized him, nor even really registered his appearance. She did not want to do either. She was afraid that she might recognize him, and then she would remember in what specfic way he had been a witness -- or, worse, a participant -- in her preceding debauchery.
Even more than she did not want anypony else to remember last night, she did not want to remember it either.
No, she corrected herself. I must remember it just enough that I never do anything of this sort ever again. I must never get drunk again. At least not in public, she amended. Never around any Ponies I can't completely trust.
Cheerilee went out the door and shut it behind her, closing it gently but decisively. That episode in her life was over and done with forever. She was determined to never be in such a situation in her future.
She walked down a short hall on a tattered old carpet. There were a few other doors, presumably of other apartments. Now, in the forenoon, there were few sounds coming from those doors. Their occupants were, Cheerilee would assume, already out and about their business.
Which means, Cheerilee realized as she reached the top of a stairwell, I can drink with nopony. I have no real friends now, here in Canterlot. Plenty of acquaintances, to be sure -- I've always been good at getting Ponies to like me -- but no real friends. Not the kind you can count on when you're in trouble --- or about to get yourself in trouble.
She paused at the top of the stairwell, one hoof slightly raised to begin her descent, and considered just why she had no real friends any more.
I had some friends in high school like that. Some in college, as well, until I fell too firmly into Tower's orbit. He didn't like me having other friends, unless they were mainly his friends, Ponies who hung on his every word and lived in hope of his approval and fear of his displeasure. He wanted things that way; it's easy to see, now. He wanted things that way the better to control me.
Tower Climber had been first her college professor, then (she had thought) her friend; her graduate studies mentor; her lover; the center of her existence for the last last three years. She had thought she would become his wife, as she had become his partner in the academic world.
Until just a few weeks ago, when he had absolutely refused to credit her for the work she was doing on his project, and she had asked him why, and they had that horrible late-night conversation in which it became very plain to Cheerilee that he never wanted her to have any career other than as his assistant; that the only things he valued her for was her ability to work for him, and to give him sexual pleasure: something like a useful combination of intern and whore.
He would never let her be a successful scholar; he would certainly never make her his wife. He was no real friend to her, and he did not love her. To him, she was nothing but an equine resource.
She saw this all clearly, and so she left him.
And in so doing, shattered her own planned graduate studies, leaving herself little to do in the immediate future but sit alone in her lodgings; alone because all the Ponies she knew well enough, now, that she would have even considered confiding her shameful situation were his friends. Most admired him and blamed her for dirsupting Tower's project; the few who might have sympathized with her were too afraid of incurring his hostility by taking her side, or not being seen to enthusiastically take his part in the quarrel.
She had found this out in the week right after the breakup. Ponies who had seemingly been friendly to her before had no time for her now. They made excuses not to speak with her, or steered the conversation away from Tower.
That was just how friendship went, in Canterlot.
She found herself alone.
And lone Ponies do not do well.
Where did all my old friends go? she wondered, as she began to descend the stairs.
Most of the ones from Canterlot Secondary School left after they graduated, to start careers all over Equestria. Canterlot Secondary was an elite school, for the continuing education of gifted or prosperous Ponies, what some Ponies were starting to call a "high school" in contrast with mere elementary schools such as Play Write's small schoolhouse back in Ponyville.
She had gone to CSS with one of her fillyhood best friends: Mare Ivory Scroll, who had gone back to Ponyville and gotten a job with the township; other friends had wound up going to colleges and universities all over the land, or positions in the government and military, scholarship and science. Her schoolmates had included an actual Alicorn Princess. They had all felt destined for great things.
Some of her schoolmates had even achieved them.
She trudged down flight after flight of stairs. The apartment in which she had passed the night was obviously on an upper floor, as she had known from the fact that she had started at the top of the stairwell; and it was a relatively tall building for its size, as she had suspected from her knowledge of construction in Canterlot.
Because of the limited ground area available in the mountainside capital, most buildings were multi-story, and even some fairly small residential one reared up four, five or six stories. Most structures in the City proper were centuries old; built long before the widespread use of electric motors, or even steam engines. Consequently, they lacked passenger lifts.
This, in turn, meant that upper-story apartments were cheap, save for certain garrets preferred by Pegasi. And this was clearly an older building, and one in poor maintenance, as was obvious from the grimy walls and rickety stairs -- more than once, Cheerilee heard a tread creak to her hoof, or even buckle alarmingly. The students who rented the apartment, possibly at a discount from the university, could afford it for just this reason: Cheerilee, who supported herself by tutoring, had similar lodgings, though solitary and much smaller.
The neighborhood probably wasn't the best, though being aboveground in Canterlot it would be far from a real slum. In Canterlot, the poorest of the poor dwelt in the subterranean parts of the city; usually in neighborhoods toward the front of the caverns that contained the heavy infrastructure, and often working at dirty and dangerous jobs maintaining such facilities as the water works and sewage systems. Thus, the poorest neighborhoods lay within the mountain; even these were relatively safe, compared to the worst parts of the Coastal Cities.
Cheerilee reached the bottom of the stairs. There she found another short entrance hall, this one featuring some battered side-tables with vases and wilted pink flowers within in a rather sad attempt at decoration: Cheerilee was reminded of her own Cutie Mark. There was another worn-out carpet lining the hall. In front was an anteroom with mailboxes set into the walls.
And then she was out the front door.
She was gratified to note, as she descended the short outside stairs to the street, that reality conformed well to her expectations. The building she had emerged from was of brick-faced stone, five stories high and fairly narrow, separated by a short alley from its neighbors. On various parts of the facade were eroded stone carvings: the style seemed to be that of the Century of Commerce, some two centuries or more past. It might have once been the fashionable town-house of some merchant family: the house, and the many similar houses lining the street, had clearly come down in the world.
They had fallen from their high hopes.
After learning the truth about her mother's night-time activities, Cheerilee deliberately avoided talking to her, or even thinking too much, about them. She knew now what was really going on, but she very much did not want to incorporate this into her own life.
Her life was about school: both the studies, and the warm regard of her schoolfellows. She returned to school the morning after her horrible discovery, to find to her pleasant surprise that nopony there seemed to think the less of her for what Strawberry might be doing. This was only because her classmates had really liked her to begin with, and she knew that.
It made her love them -- and school -- all the more.
No one mocked her for her ill fortune. She, in return, was nice and polite and helpful to everypony else, as was her wont. She was even nice to Raisin Cake -- though she still found it difficult to really like her.
The hardest one to face was her most special friend, the one she had always turned to when life tried to crush her. He had been there the first time her mother's drunkenness had seriously threatened her family. He had helped save little Berryshine when Strawberry had let her wander off, when the little filly had gotten lost in the Everfree. That was how they had first become friends, four years ago.
Since then their friendship had only grown, and deepened. She could sometimes forget that he was two years younger than her, between his size and his grave air of un-coltish maturity. She had come to rely on his gentle strength, look forward every day to seeing him. Recently, she had started to wish that he was at least her age, so that it might have been possible for him to be ...
... but that made what happened all so much worse. If any of the others secretly despised her for what her mother had done, it would be bad. If he came to despise her, a pillar of her world would fall.
She didn't have that many pillars left.
She was friendly toward him, as usual, but resolutely refused to bring up what she had discovered last night. He seemed perhaps a bit worried; unusually solicitious toward her. But he did not raise the subject himself. He had always been leery of prying; he knew a lot about her hopes and dreams, but that was because she liked to talk about them to him.
That was their normal way together. She talked, often at great length. And he listened, sometimes replying with a terse "Eeyup" or "Eenope."
She might have thought that he wasn't paying much attention, but those deep green eyes always paid close attention to her, and when she had talked a while, he often responded at greater length. His words were still sparse, but well-chosen and to the point.
He generally showed considerable insight: he always had, even when he had been a colt of merely seven. At eleven, he was wiser and more sensible than most of Mare Ivory's friends in their late teens. It was always a good idea to pay heed to his counsel.
She knew that Big Mac, while competent at schoolwork, would never be academically-brilliant: he was not well-oriented toward formal study. But he was extremely intelligent, perhaps the smartest Pony in her school, especially when it came to matters of wisdom. He was in his own ways a match for her; something too easy to forget when she was around Mare Ivory and her older friends, who thought of him as an overgrown little colt.
All the rest of that week, she could sense the heightened tension from him. He knew her well enough that he could see through her facade: he was also far too shy to query her on it where anypony else could hear their conversation. So, by simply ensuring that she was never completely alone with him, she managed to avoid having to tell him what had happened.
It couldn't last forever, if for no other reason that Cheerilee wanted his friendship, and she wasn't really being friends with him very much if she never got to really talk to him. She saw this, and so on the last school-day that week, she arranged for him to walk her home by way of White-Tail Park.
At first they just ambled down the lane together, enjoying each other's company as they hadn't been able to since Raisin had delivered that unwelcome information. Cheerilee didn't push the topic on Big Mac: she knew from experience that trying to make Mac talk would elicit only the most minimal replies.
They reached a quiet spot overlooking the Avalon. There they sat, side by side, watching the river roll on by toward the Motherwater to the southwest. It was a lazy late afternoon, and as they sat they leaned companionably against one another, Cheerilee enjoying the physical support from the warm living mountain at her side.
"I guess," Cheerilee began -- because somepony had to open the topic, and she knew from experience that if she waited for Mackie to do so, she might be waiting a long time -- "I guess I should tell you what happened with Raisin Cake, and why I've been kind of cranky to you this week."
"If'n you like," drawled Big Mac. "Ah'll listen."
From Mackie, this was an invitation.
"You know that Raisin Cake said something about my mother a few days ago?" Cheerilee asked him.
"Eeyup."
"Well," Cheerilee stared at her hooves, and his next to hers. Cheerilee was two years older than him, and not a small filly, but her hooves were tiny compared to those of her friend. "The things Raisin said were true."
Silence from him. For a while Cheerilee dared not raise her eyes to his face; when she did, she saw caring and concern there. No condemnation. Not even pity, which she almost feared more. This gave her courage to speak plain, watching his expression as she did so.
"She goes out and gets drunk, I guess at seedy little places like the Carrot and Stick. She meets stallions. I don't know if she has special coltfriends or she just looks for whoever will buy her drinks. I guess they pay her for doing it with them. So that's it. She's a prostitute."
Big Mac stood rock solid, his ears maybe drooping a bit, but unshaken by these relevations. Which made her wonder something.
"Did you already know about this, too?" she asked him. She wasn't sure how she would react if he told her that he had known all along.
"Ah ... heard things," Mackie replied. "Ah'm younger'n Mare Ivory's friends, but Ah hear what's said around me. And Ah'd heard stallions talking 'bout yore mother disrespectful-like. Ah didn't like what they was saying -- Ah wanted to do something 'bout it -- but Ah thought it was better to listen."
"What did you hear?" Cheerilee was worried what stallions might be saying.
"Well, these were just teamster Ponies, pickin' up produce from the Acres. And one of them mentioned a 'Strawberry' as a ... well, mare o' easy virtue. And Ah thought it might be yore mom, but she ain't the only mare named 'Strawberry' in Ponyville, and who knows if she lived in Ponyville. They did mention the Carrot n' Stick, though, so Ah thought it was prolly some filly who lived 'round here."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Cheerilee asked.
"Ah didn't know fer sure they was talking 'bout her. An' Ah didn't want to get you all upset if it weren't. Ah'm sorry -- mebbe Ah should have told you sooner." Now his ears were drooping, and it was his turn to look away.
"I don't know," said Cheerilee. "What if you'd been wrong? Then you would have gotten me worried over nothing. You had no way of being sure." She started to lean forward , meaning to press her cheek against his, then reconsidered. "Mackie?"
"Yes?"
"What do you think of me now?" she asked.
"Yore mah friend," he answered, and she could see nothing in his eyes but honesty.
"I mean," she looked down, feeling uncomfortable, "because of my mother."
"You ain't yore mother."
"But they say 'like mother like daughter,' and she drinks and parties and sleeps with strangers and ..."
"You don't do those things," said Mackie. He wrinkled his brow. "Well, Ah've drunk a little hard cider with you, but we didn't do nothing wrong. You ain't no bad Pony."
"But my mother --"
"Is yore mother," said Mac. "And you're you. And if she's bad, don't mean that you're bad. A Pony's sins is her own guilt, nopony else's." He reached out and very, very gently touched her shoulder with one massive hoof. "Yore a good filly, Cheery. You don't have to be like yore mother. You won't be like yore mother. Yore good."
And hearing that statement -- so obviously pure and heartfelt, full of confidence in her beyond what she felt in herself right that moment -- Cheerilee could no longer control herself. She flung hersef against him, lowering his head into his breast, and weeping with relief from the long tension of wondering whether or not her best and most loyal friend now despised her. She was incredibly happy to find out that he didn't.
Mac held her for a long time, letting her use his breast as a sort of combined pilow and towel, gently holding her in place with one raised foreleg.
Somehow the really sad moments of my life seem to end with Mackie hugging me, she thought. And then I feel better. I'm feeling a bit better right now.
I'm lucky to have a friend like Mackie.
Then she slowly pulled back from him, and he gently let her go.
And she was ready to face the future.
As her gaze rose from the rows of decaying townhouses, she could see the lovely white spires of Canterlot University towering over them from one direction; the majestic beauty of Mount Avalon rising in another; abruptly, she knew exactly where she was, and which way to walk to go home. She was free; she could put this episode of her life behind her.
But she was not entirely sure she could yet face the future. She had nopony to talk to, nopony she could trust with her shame over what she would done, and worse -- her fear that she would get drunk again in the future and do exactly the same thing. Nopony at all.
I wish I still had a friend like Mackie, she thought with a sudden ache deep within. I sure could use a friend like him right now.
She was alone.
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Now I'm wondering whether Princess Cadance ever noticed Tower Climber's, ahem, love life. And if not, what would've happened if she had?
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I imagine she would have greatly disapproved of it. And at the minimum considered giving Cheerilee some useful advice. Though, note, she's not the wandering vigilante of Love.
Cheerilee knew Tower Climber in college, not high school.
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Though in a way, she is a sort of Wandering Vigilante of Love. She's the Princess of Love, and she's a very active idealist. So maybe she'd go all Sailor V on Tower Climber's ass ...
I know I swore "never again" several times during my college career. Here's hoping Cheerilee's vow works out better than a lot of mine did.
Of course, that comes with an implicit logical consequence: If she ever does behave like her mother, she'll be bad in Mac's eyes. Not necessarily accurate, but a reasonable deduction. And thus she finds herself where she is in the later stages of the story.
Of course, given the other character tag, I think it's safe to say that this will go as well for Cheerilee as it won't for Tower Climber.
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I so would like to respond to this but I can’t without major spoilers.
*hugs Cherilee*