"Teach Me Goodness" Cut Content - Mission 51, Kingdom of the CheeriMac · 5:47am Sep 4th, 2016
"Cheerimac" sounds like a friendly Confederate ironclad that spreads love and joy instead of running blockades and defending slavery.
I was going to include this in my initial bragging blog (blagging? brogging?) but completely forgot to because I was too busy brogging. If you read the RCL interview where I admitted to being the Zodiac Killer, then you'll know that I also promised to put cut material from the revised version of "Teach Me Goodness" on my blog, as is my wont. I do the same thing from time to time with PGS.
Speaking of, I am planning to do a proper Document blog for the recent chapter, "13. Twilight Wishes She Was Fucking Her Brother," but I'm still waiting for EqD. to publish it. Submitted it about a week ago and haven't heard back, so I'm thinking that everyone who runs the blog is dead and that the blog itself has achieved consciousness and is not a fan of my work.
Or it just got buried. I'll bug them again in a couple of days.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: If you read the interview, then you know that there was one scene which I intended to be in the revised draft, but which I ultimately cut, and that's the scene where Cheerilee says goodbye to Big McIntosh. The only remnant of that subplot is the bridal veil which Cheerilee gazes forlornly at in the first chapter.
I like to think that the two characters are particularly close, and that the CMC's love potion fiasco had the ironic effect of bringing them together naturally, letting them develop a deeper and more meaningful friendship on their own terms. We see them together in background shots from time to time, and there's that one part in Filli Vanilli where Cheerilee playfully swoons at Big Mac... or at Fluttershy, I suppose... but, uh, the takeaway here is that I think of the two of them as having one of those friendships that's in the weird hinterlands between platonic and flirtatious, the kind of thing that could easily become romance. There's a mutual attraction that they're both aware of, but which neither of them have ever acted on.
(There's also a story that was posted just today, called Kiss Me, which has a similar premise. In it, Big Mac and Cheerilee are having do-it when a cereal killer cums along and stabs them to death and they scream NOOOOO NOOOOO while blood goes everywhere. I laughed because I'm a statistician.)
This scene was supposed to reflect my headcanon'd relationship. I loved writing it, and I hated that I had to cut it, but in the end, it detracted from what I wanted to be the focus of the story: the relationship between Cheerilee and Diamond Tiara. I'd like to rework it into a story of its own, centered on Big Mac, but between PGS and Murphy's Law, I'm inundated as it is.
'Til then, I'm gonna post it here. Catch it below the break.
For some additional context, the bottle of cider that Applejack gives Cheerilee was going to be a gift from Big Mac, who declined to attend the party because he had to sulk, the way that the lovelorn do. Applejack would tell Cheerilee that Big Mac would be working in the orchard at the crack of dawn, and would encourage her to go out and say goodbye.
I'd include that here, but I think I deleted that excerpt without intending to. Harrumph.
The train wouldn't even arrive at the station for another hour; per her idiom, Cheerilee was out and about early. She had time enough to wander through the morning mist and privately bid farewell to the familiar streets and sights of home. A pair of saddlebags, holding books and mementos, gemstones and cider, a pink thermos and a hankie and her students' last essays, were slung over her back, along with her trusty bedroll. Everything else, furniture and formal wear, all and sundry, was already shipped away to Fillydelphia, and awaited her at her new home.
Her hooves led her down to a dense orchard on the outskirts of town, to the east side of Sweet Apple Acres, a grove of apple trees watched over by a red farmhouse sitting on the top of the hill like a ripe, juicy fruit. There was one more painful goodbye she had to make.
After all, Apple Bloom wasn't the only Apple sibling who was conspicuously absent at the party.
She found him, as she knew she would, bucking trees and filling baskets with apples of many hues. The crack of his powerful hooves striking tree after tree rolled like thunder through the orchard.
It's a wonder the town can sleep through that.
"Hello, Big McIntosh," she said when she drew close enough for him to hear her.
Big Mac froze midway through another buck. He lowered his hind legs, and looked evenly at her.
"Howdy, Cheerilee."
Cheerilee took another step toward him. "You weren't at the party last night."
Big Mac stepped closer to her in turn. "Had an early start. Apples, an' all that."
And if ever a single sentence could summarize your existence, my friend...
"You got a train to catch, I hear," he remarked. He was directly in front of her now, almost nose-to-nose.
Cheerilee nodded, fully cognizant of what little distance there was between the two of them. She could see the veins pulsing in his neck, in the cords of muscle running along his body, the perspiration that resulted from a long morning spent in the orchards. Yet his breath was steady, even, as though he hadn't yet begun to exert himself.
Her heart fluttered a little, and not merely from nervousness.
"I've been going around, saying goodbye to Ponyville. I have have enough time for that."
"Mm." Big Mac shut his eyes. "Fillydelphia, right? Gettin' your doctorate?"
"That's exactly right."
Big Mac was silent for a moment. "You coulda said somethin'."
"I could have. I should have." A pause. "I'm sorry. Saying it out loud... would have made it feel more real, I think. And it would have made things harder."
A lot of things. A lot harder.
Big Mac worked his jaw in silence before nodding slightly. "This what you really want?"
"It is."
A tiny sigh came from her friend. He opened his eyes halfway, looked at her with a sad gaze. "You'll write?" His voice was a hoarse whisper.
Cheerilee forced herself to smile. "Eeyup."
Big Mac snorted and rolled his eyes, but smirked. "Think you're real cute, huh?"
Cheerilee turned her head to the side and batted her eyelashes. "Do you?"
"Think you know the answer to that."
Well well, McIntosh. She'd never fenced with him quite like this before. It struck her, painfully, that she might never get the chance to again.
Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe the time for fencing is over.
Cheerilee stepped closer to her friend, until they really were nose-to-nose. She raised her hoof and cupped his cheek with it. His smirk slid away, and he leaned his face into Cheerilee's hoof.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"
He laced his hoof over hers. "No point in sayin', not anymore. An' I think you know the answer to that too, besides."
She'd known Big McIntosh since the two were foals together. They'd been friendly, but never close. The interference of a trio of well-meaning, but misguided, little fillies changed all that, helped them forge the kind of friendship where one could give the other a wedding veil as a gag gift in front of a schoolhouse full of giggling foals, and get away with a nothing more than a playful smack on the shoulder, where she could playfully faint and bat her bedroom eyes at him whenever his voice dropped into the lower registers. A friendship filled with empty cups and nighttime chats that stretched into the wee hours, and confused, fluttery feelings in her stomach whenever she said his name or thought of his face.
Judging by the way he nuzzled her hoof, and the damp spot running from his eye down to her fetlock, the fluttery feelings were mutual.
Perhaps there would have been a future there. No... no "perhaps" about it. There would have been a future there. There was something there, something real. She could see clearly, too clearly, the life that might have been hers. The life that might have been theirs. But that road was closed to her now. Big McIntosh was one more thing that she had to say goodbye to, her friendship with him one more memory she had to put away.
And this moment, in the orchard, was one last moment she could allow herself to cherish.
She leaned close to him and rested her cheek against his muscular neck. Strong forelegs wrapped around Cheerilee and pulled her close as she nuzzled him. Cheerilee leaned away from his neck, sought his lips, and placed hers against his in a chaste, tender kiss.
"Goodbye, my friend," she whispered when she pulled away.
Big Mac hiccuped. "So long, Cheerilee."
She forced herself to disengage from the hug, gazed into his deep green eyes, smiled sadly, and turned away, hooves drawing her back up the road from which she came.
Behind her, the thunder cracked and rolled again and again.
Disappointingly, while a few people have picked up on the Archer reference in the story, nobody's picked up on the Metal Gear reference.
Posh molests cats.
A week? Wait a month before you freak out, seriously. :B
4191299 That's just what Equestria Daily would say if it were impersonating PresentPerfect after it achieved sapience and murdered the entire staff. I'm on to you.
Plus, a month? Who knows how long that'd be?
4191172 That was one time. It's not like I make a habit of it.