Cheerilee busied herself in the Library’s kitchen, her upbeat humming in harmony with the mid-morning sunlight that beamed through the window. Truly, she felt at the top of her game, ready to tackle anything the day might throw at her–and rightly, it would throw everything it could. Putting together a pair of daisy sandwiches, Cheerilee couldn’t help but start to bend her back legs a bit, hopping about and dancing to some imaginary tune.
It wasn’t long at all before she was shaking what her momma gave her. “Who’s a silly pony~!” Cheerilee sang, a foalish smile on her face. Swinging about, Cheerilee started to lose herself in the old pony pop song, calling back to the old days of fast living and ridiculous hair of her youth. Abandoning the sandwiches on the table, Cheerilee went into full ‘break it down’ mode, her limbs shaking off their rust as the schoolteacher performed her celebratory dance in the solitude of the kitchen.
Pulling off moves that would make Pinkie Pie jealous, Cheerilee swept her tail across the seats at the table set against the wall, dusting off the chairs as she continued to rock out. Despite the tragic loss of a few inches of her mane, it still flowed around her like a satin curtain. “Who is? You is–Twilight Sparkle!”
Framed in the doorway, Twilight Sparkle stood stoically at the frozen Cheerilee in mid-breakdance. A long silence filled the air as Twilight’s eyes attempted to decode the situation, but the throbbing at the back of her head caused her to forget what just happened.
“I have become death.”
Already on her hooves, Cheerilee trotted over to Twilight, bolstering her marefriend and leading her to her seat. “Oh, you poor dear. You must have one terrible headache.”
“I will burn down the countrysides and all will fear me.”
Taking up the daisy sandwiches and placing one in front of Twilight, Cheerilee quickly set about gathering a strange amount of ingredients. Among them included garlic, onions, toothpaste, orange juice, ground up coffee beans, and half of a chocolate bar.
It had to be half a chocolate bar. Not a chocolate bar cut in half, mind. It had to be one whose intention in life was to be eaten as it's other half had been some time ago. That loss of purpose, stolen from it, was the ingredient that the half a chocolate bar represented. In a pinch, watermelon rind would do.
Gathering further ingredients, Cheerilee set to work. Over at the kitchen table, Twilight let her mane fall over her eyes as she slumped. Her voice was subdued, but with purpose.
“I shall bring Canterlot to its end, and all shall know my pain.”
Thankfully finding a blender with a Canterlot Cutlery branding, Cheerilee put all the foodstuffs in the gaping maw of the machine. With a tentative glance back at Twilight Sparkle, Cheerilee pressed the Food Hurricane setting on the blender and watched the green sludge start to form. Twilight released a groan as loud as the blender as the high pitched sound drove nails into her brain.
“A pox! A pox on your house!” she decried.
Cheerilee tittered her tongue, pouring the indeterminate, mildly liquid drink into a glass and sliding it over to Twilight. “Here Twilight, this’ll help with the hangover.”
Begrudgingly, Twilight wrapped a hoof around the glass. “I’ll show you who’s going to be hung over this...” With an uncharismatic swig, Twilight downed the foul drink without taking time to appreciate the taste. With her slowed response, Twilight had already swallowed before realizing that what had hit her tongue was quite possibly the worst poison known to pony kind.
The taste was not unlike that of the deepest depths of Tartarus, marinated in pools of acid. Beelzebub had officiated this swill as the one banned drink of all of existence, a fact that the Sisters and Discord had signed a blood treaty to never speak of it again. While her ancestors had no gag-reflex to speak of, it was this concoction that forced her great-and-then-some grandparents to develop one.
Twilight’s magic reached out for a nearby napkin, wishing to remove the foul taste from her memory. In her haste, Twilight fumbled the napkin on the first swipe of her tongue, the paper slipping from her magical grip and sticking to the floor below. Eyes bulging, Twilight looked at her last salvation on the ground. Slowly, she turned to stare at Cheerilee. “Why? Why would you do this to me?” Her eyes were watering. Not from tears, but from some terrible spice that refused to let go of the back of her throat.
“Mellow ou—” Cheerilee coughed. “I mean, calm down, Twilight,” she soothed, putting her hoof on Twilight’s back. At first, the student seemed to resist the touch. Yet, as Cheerilee started to rub the back of her neck, Twilight found herself unable to refuse the gesture. “It’s a recipe I learned from my moth— it’s an old family recipe for hangovers.”
Twilight’s mind whirred back to reality, no longer slogged down by the alcohol-induced torture she had endured. “That’s a hangover?” she breathed. “Why would anypony want to drink ever if that’s what happens in the morning?”
“So says the shameless mare.”
Twilight suddenly ducked her head down so her mane would fall over her face. “M-my books said that copious amounts of alcohol would lead to not knowing what happened the previous night.”
“You remember everything?”
Twilight tried unsuccessfully to hide deeper into her mane. “In detail. At least until we got here. Then it’s all a blur—” It hadn’t really occurred to Twilight Sparkle until just now that she was currently sitting in her kitchen with Cheerilee. In the morning. After waking up from a date. Snapping her head up, she nearly took out Cheerilee. “Ohmygosh, we didn’t—!”
Cheerilee furrowed her eyebrows, a slow dawning revealing over her face. However, once she grasped the question, her reaction was swift. “What? No! Twilight, please, I deserve a little more credit than that!” she said. “We got in pretty early, and Spike helped me up to your room.”
Twilight mentally logged away that she hadn’t seen her little dragon assistant around anywhere this morning as something she’d have to check up on later. “So you took the extra bed, instead of going home,” Twilight concluded, her eyes narrowing. “Why?”
Cheerilee chuckled, pouring a cup of coffee. “Because Spike doesn’t know how to deal with a drunken unicorn. The poor dear, he started looking up books in the library on it.” Returning to the table, Cheerilee took a sip of her black coffee and mused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him all morning.”
Twilight’s cheeks flared red as she averted her eyes from Cheerilee. She watched the doorway a moment, trying to guess where Spike had gone. More importantly though, she was trying to figure out the best way to avoid him. “Oh brother, I don’t know how I’m going to face him.”
Cheerilee leaned on her hoof, wearing an expectant smile. “I don’t think he’s the one you have to worry about.”
Twilight stared out the window at the ponies going about their daily tasks. It didn’t take long for her to recognize two stallions, a peach unicorn, and his midnight blue friend, walking down the street together. The same two from the restaurant, her increasingly sober mind reminded her. And they had ducked out before she got absolutely plastered. “I am never leaving my library again.”
Cheerilee chuckled. “But then how will you ever visit your friends?” She knew Twilight was capable of sticking to any idea until its inevitable fruition if yesterday was any indication. “And I guess that means we’re done for dates, as well?”
Twilight’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “I-I-I-I-No!” she nearly screamed. Cheerilee’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’ll leave the library! I’ll do it right now! See?” With a spark of her horn, Twilight focused on the outside of the treehouse. Within seconds, she had disappeared in a flash of fuchsia magic and reappeared right outside her own window.
“See! Outside! Now we can date again!” came her muffled voice. With a winking smile, Cheerilee returned to her cup of coffee, Twilight scrambling to explain to random passersby why she had just shouted her location after seemingly teleporting from nowhere.
I became death once. But the rope didn't fit right and they gave the job to some attractive interloper. I'm not complaining though.
Chapter was split due to tone and direction shift. Chapter seven is already well on it's way to finishing.
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[youtube=8RZHEAeNK-Q]
Still the best submissions.
also, DAT OPPENHEIMER!
An update?!?????!?!!?!!?
YES!!dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Bonbon_OMG_LOVE.png
A nice conclusion to the date. Well written. I look forward to more of this...
In the mean time have a
here is an idea
how about the CMC find out whats happening between twilight and their teacher
I would love to see what happens there and how they try to explain it
Oh wow you got Twilight's adorkableness down perfectly
I greatly enjoyed reading Twilight's hungover lines.
Still not awful, but my concern is growing over the fact that since each update is too quick for anything to actually happen, nothing ends up happening in the story overall. I was so intrigued when this story began, but my interest is starting to wane a bit at the lack of quality in each succeeding chapter. I enjoyed Cheerilees mother, for sure, but since the beginning of the story, I haven't found anything to chuckle at or make me feel for the characters' predicaments. Sorry to be so harsh, but it's just difficult to feel when the entire chapter is short enough to be summed up in a single sentence.
Good luck and hope you have a good feeling on where you're going with this. Eager for another update.
Yes, more updates for my optical sensors to scan, LOVE this pairing!
I'd have to slightly agree with Ponlver. I love these little bits of chapters you post, but feel as though you are sacrificing quality over speed and consistency. Personally, however, I would love longer chapters where more stuff happens rather than a consistent time-frame between each update. As cute as the interactions between your characters are, I don't really see much happening in terms of story. That is to say I don't think the quality is decreasing by any means, but, the reason I like this story over others is how the quality shines. How your characters aren't flat like other bad romantic fics here, and how they actually show signs of characterization.
But, at the moment, they seem to be stagnating in terms of development. My own opinion, of course, but as I said, I would love chapters with more content rather than little chunks released consistently where nothing conducive to the story happens.
I... this... Twilight...
This combination of irritation stemming from Twilight's complete and utter ignorance and the hilarity of her mistakes is giving me a headache... literally. I actually am suffering mild pain in my head from this. The words you have written here have inflicted physical damage to my cranium. You, sir, are dangerous.
Stick and stones my flank!
On a side note, I await further pony words pertaining to Twilee shipping ASAP.
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Now would be the perfect time to make another longer chapter to "get the ball rolling" so to speak. You've done well so far but the last few chapters could (and probably should) have been set in the same chapter without any editing really being necessary.
This has become my new favorite ship. Chapter 6 is too short, yes, so here's hoping that your proffered
ciderchapter 7 will be where things really take off. Quotes were great, by the way.Minor phrasing question:
"Framed in the doorway, Twilight Sparkle stood stoically at the frozen Cheerilee in mid-breakdance. "
Should this have been "Twilight Sparkle stared stoically at the frozen Cheerilee"?
Loved Cheerilee's morning dancing... Now that's the way to dust the library. I also loved downbeat, hung-over Twilight. So far she's been all adorkable spaz in this story (admittedly drunk adorkable spaz for a bit). It was good to see some other aspects of her personality to offset it. She needs to let more of her heroic side out if she's going seem to be more to the schoolmare than an over-eager puppy.
Looking forward to seeing the judgment of the mother...
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Hungover Twilight is wonderful and terrifying at the same time.
I normally avoid going into editor mode and critiquing others, but here's a little bit of my opinion.
So, why is it so important to Cheerilee to have that brand of blender? When one adds that kind of detail in that type of clause, the meaning becomes clouded. Thus, you can end up making something with very little point seem invaluable. IMHO, if you wish to express the blenders brand, you should do it in a different manner. Why did I decide to say something about a blender branding blunder (say that five times, fast)? For want of a nail.
Also, I felt the M word made its way into the story too fast. The reluctant Cheerilee from chapter one doesn't seem to be the kind of mare who'd throw that term around so easily. Especially after a date where everything pretty much went south and where her date did little more than get hammered and nearly (accidentally) kill her.
Still, its very cute, and I agree with the above posters when they say that the Cheerilee dance scene was D'awwwesome.
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From what I've seen so far, I'd say some joking about taking advantage of a drunk, feisty mare is in order.
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Chekhov would like a word with you. Standard rule of the storymaking. Every sentence either moves the plot, or introduces a character.
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Nnnope.
1268229>>1268303
Technically each chapter can be summed up in three words, and those are the chapter titles.
A quick word about the shortness of chapters. It keeps me writing. While I could agree that the three date chapters could have been one single update, that update would have been three weeks in the making. I like writing bite sized updates– they aren't nearly as daunting as my normal fare(When I started, I had a tough time not producing 4K-8K words per chapter), and they're fun. Right now I'm more or less treating this fic as my very own Sunday Comic with a plot to push it along. I hate to say it, but we're not even a third done with the story right now.
Others seem to be finding the "lack of anything actually happening" to be a bad thing. I, on the other hand, am thoroughly enjoying this entire debacle. Please continue in whatever way you see fit.
Twilight quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, Priceless.
1269181 After reading that reply multiple times, I still have no idea how it relates to anything I'd said. That is, unless.... Cheerilee must be the secret blender queen, and you're saying that that sentence is the first hint of her evil persona that will take over the world through Canterlot Cutlery blender-based mind control!
That's clearly what you meant.
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I could also be intentionally vague in order to keep you guessing.
That's a thing I do.
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I'm onto you, Cheerilee! You won't control me with your blender-based bluff! dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Cheerilee.png
Gonna have to totally agree with Agarwaen on this one. All of those points are valid.
The pacing for this story is very strange. On one hand, the chapters are so short that it seems as if nothing is happening. On the other hand, things seem to be moving way too quickly. Having them be official marefriends after one disaster of a date just doesn't fit in the story.
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I wouldn't call it a bad thing, per se. Just a growing concern is all.
loving his story and wow people are nit picking over silly things tonight aren't they, I like the story as is and wouldn't change a thing
I mean after a date like that relationships ether move up to the next level or shatter like broken glass.
As for the Canterlot Cutlery blander brands placement that was just a nice touch and dose not stand out at all just like all our other Canterlot Cutlery products, they will never look out of place in your kitchen and will complement kitchen in any and all home giving you that true Canterlot feeling in your very oun home ... this advert brought to you by barmy meds, barmy meds curing sanity because your worth it
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We nit-pick because we care. And we're being civil, so nit-picking sounds offensive, call it "observing details".
It's easy to say a story is good, it's kind to voice concerns.
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First date was technically the end of the first chapter.
In the second chapter, it is established the two have spent time together between the five days that separate the first and second chapter. They were already referring to eachother as marefriends at this point.
Personally I wonder why I respond to comments sometimes. Insofar most problems I've seen from readers are the product of what I like to call breadcrumbs. I should probably just focus on writing the next chapter and let their concerns be addressed in the story. It's not like any other medium the creator can swoop down and answer the questions of those who are partaking in his/her work. But, then again, it is fun walking about the comments and generally being unhelpful when it comes to questions pertaining to the plot that's yet to have come.
Breakdancing Cheerilee..... Hell yes.
A nice mixture of hilarity and d'awww >w< Loving this story~
Semper fidelis
Dang and I had an idea for a scene just the other day involving the girls helping Applejack with some early morning chores at the farm to free up her day for a planned activity. everypony gathered around the breakfast table Applejack preparing coffee for all before they get to work, mostly normal save for pinkies "cream and 37 sugars" only to get to Twilight.
"How do you take your coffee sugahcube?" The mage replies with "darker then the blackest night and roasted in the fires of my rage." Which would probably scare the manure out of everypony at the table if Twilight could bother to lift her face from the table. "Huh. I'd figure being student a the Sun Princess would make you more of a morning sort."
I'm not sure "amount" is the right word here; try "assortment"
I'm pretty sure this is redundant, but even if it isn't, it doesn't sound right
That must be one talented moth! Or was she interrupting herself?
Excellent! Looking forward to more.
Please keep writing, I'll keep reading!
Twilight. You so silly.
Hungover Twilight is awesome Twilight. Forget using the Elements of Harmony, just put Discord up against Hungover Twilight and she'll incinerate him on the spot^^
Another awesome chapter to one of the best Twilee fics I've read so far. Keep up the awesome work.
This story is....this story has permanently altered Twilight's flirtatious personality for me. I mean that. I mean, Twilight's fear of losing Cheerilee, her almost neurotic reaction to each thing that may embarrass her even a little, it's just so PERFECT! It's so very in-character in its own special way it's both scary and unbelievably awesome!
Also, Drunken Twilight was absolutely amazing. Especially when she started talking about her 'chonga'. Oh dear God, I can't WAIT to hear her talking to her friends after they catch wind or, Celestia forbid, they're AROUND when this stuff happens! Especially Rainbow Dash, OH DEAR CELESTIA, Rainbow Dash would NEVER let Twilight live it down. Can you imagine Cheerilee's Mom and Rainbow Dash teaming up?....only to have RD and Cheerilee's Mom wind up banging of course, but that would probably be a very, very awkward given.
I'm loving the story so far and definitely enjoyed hungover Twilight. Also props for the Oppenheimer quote . I do have to agree that you should probably try and release more content at once rather than releasing short segments on a regular basis. I just think that it would have been much better to release this chapter with the last chapter rather than separating them like you did. I found myself reading the last chapter to refresh myself so I could understand and enjoy this chapter more. Anyway I did notice one tiny error in this chapter and wanted to point it out to you.
“See! Outisde! Now we can date again!” came her muffled voice.
You misspelled outside here .
Keep up the great work!
I couldn't help but think of this.
This is an exceptional Cheerilight story, and I salute you. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra_dealwithit.png
These chapters, they're sooo short
1267928 ah I loved anthology
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You should check out MMManderinorange on youtube if you haven't already, those were his submissions, and he makes amazing videos. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra_smile.png
Drunk Twilight is best Twilight
Huh. I read the first chapter a long time ago, didn't know it had updated. Fancy that.
That was hilariously entertaining, well done. XD
I can't believe I never found this before. I'm loving it, and I hope you continue on with it.
"i have become death, i will burn the countrysides and all will fear me, i shall bring canterlot to it's end and all will fear my name.
A POX, A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!!!"
love it
i am totally stealing this for personal use
uhm.....that is....if it's okay with you
seriously though, lovin' the story, hilarity is off the charts
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drunk twilight, and hungover twilight, is best twilight
1267928 Oppenheimer? Where? Wasn't he one of the scientists from the Manhattan Project?
"It's" should be "its", since replacing it with "it is" doesn't make sense in context.
hungover twillight is scary
o-o
Your description of the drink was marvelous. Bravo!
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I had this song stuck in my head when I saw her, and thought "The Twilight Cometh"
[This is so drunken Twilight's song. Although I lament that I can't find PMVs of that song.]