About “Aubade” · 1:53am Sep 26th, 2016
“Hooves?”
“Sir?”
“I’m bored, Hooves.”
“I’m pleased to hear you’re feeling quite yourself again, sir.”
“No, I mean there’s nothing to do. Hasn’t Ponyville got any nightlife?”
“I believe Princess Sparkle is organizing a monthly star party—“
“Smashing! What stars is she getting? Countess RaRa? Sapphire Shores?”
“Er, no sir. It is devoted to observing and discussing the constellations.”
“Oh…telescopes, then?”
“I’m afraid so, sir…”
***
Bertie Whickers was been rusticated, sent down to the country by a coalition of Formidable Aunts due to his inability to handle big-city life…
It isn’t so much that he keeps bad companions, as they keep him: his guilessness attracts them and his affability makes him go along with them. So he has to be sent someplace where bad company and opportunities for mischief are thin on the ground. Ponyville is the obvious choice. Aside from a slight tendency to monsters it’s quiet and respectable. It’s close enough to Canterlot for surprise inspections by said Aunts and there’s even a Princess to keep an eye on their nephew between times.
Bertie meets Pinkie at the Ponyville County Fair, where she saves him from the wrath of Applejack after Winona wins a working-dog contest (“I say, that’s a fine bitch you have there! How much for a pup off of her, eh?” Bertie’s Common Touch needs work). Pinkie disarms the situation with a silly joke, Bertie laughs quite sincerely at it, and…it’s not exactly love at first sight, but they realize on some level that they get each other. They keep running into one another, first by accident, then on purpose, until they find themselves something of an item.
Hooves does not approve.
Oh, he knows Pinkie’s a Name, a hero of Equestria and a friend to royalty. But in his career he’s met lots of ponies just like that who in private were not nice at all. As well, certain great houses of Equestria (*ahem*theBluebloods*hem*hem*) have been feuding with the Whickers, trying to get at them through Bertie--that’s one reason he was sent down. And their MO is always the same: they send in an affable stranger who “just wants a bit of fun” but invariably gets Bertie involved in some scandal or other.
Of course Hooves doesn’t know these things are true of Pinkie. But then he doesn’t know they aren’t. So he bides his time—and gathers intelligence.
A butler can talk to a lot of people in the course of business, and in a small town he can learn a lot quickly. Not that he asks any questions about Pinkie. He just waits for other folks to talk about her. Which they inevitably do: unlike the Canterlot elites, the ponies of Ponyille will talk about anyone to anybody.
And that means that they’ll talk about Hooves and Bertie as well. But who’d be trying to gather intel on them?
Cheerilee.
She’s very protective of all her students, past and present, especially of the ones that are different. Such as Pinkie Pie, who’s always been a bit desperate to find someone who shares her peculiar sense of fun. When that someone happens to be a wealthy stranger who appears in town suddenly, without explanation and with only one servant, that sets off alarm bells (for historical reasons, if nothing else--there is Derpy, and Dinky, but no Mr. Derpy: there’s a reason for that, and it’s not parthenogenesis).
A teacher can talk to a lot of people in the course of business, and after teaching for several years in a town the size of Ponyville, Cheerilee knows everybody. Above all she knows how to tune in to the grapevine without even appearing to listen—the barest rumor can be vital to the well-being of a teacher, not to mention her pupils.
So Cheerilee begins her own intel campaign. She could just ask Twilight straight out, but that would be tipping her hand (hoof?). At this point it’s rather like a spy movie: at first each carries out their surveillance unaware of the other. Then gradually they realize that someone else is watching them, but they don’t know who. Eventually they figure it out, which leads to one of those terse, professional sidewalk-café-in-Budapest scenes where they sit down and talk for the first time.
And that’s the start of their relationship.
Which was one of the things I was trying to suggest with the chess scene. It’s a metaphor for the backstory of their relationship as well as for the rising romantic tension between them, both in that backstory and in that scene. As well it’s symbolic of their personalities: they’re both very methodical, subtle, deliberate characters and it makes sense they’d approach a relationship that way.
It was hell to write—I can’t count how many times the dialog wandered off into the weeds and had to be brought back on track. But reading it several years later I’m surprised how well it works. The only thing I regret is that I couldn’t make the chess game real—the moves are all hash, in terms of playing an actual game.
There’s a bit more to tell you, but “the sure way to be boring is to tell everything.” So I’ll leave the rest for another time, perhaps, if there’s interest. 
Consider me interested.
Huh. Well, that aspect of it largely went over my head. Mostly because the idea of Bertie Wooster or Pinkie Pie having a single malicious bone in their collective bodies is laughable to anyone who knows them as fictional characters.
Still, I'd love to know more.
4227130
True, but the characters in the story don't necessarily know what we know about them. It's all part of the
hell we writers put them throughfun!Me, too!
4227130 Deceptive people think the most honest people in the world are as just as deceptive as themselves. The less 'there' there is, the more they are absolutely certain that it's really there, and there's some evil plot to hide there away from them. Hm. That would make a good Pinkie line.
Very slight tendency. We promise.
You KNOW I'm always interested in you writing more, Ed.
4227177
This is a tempting hypothesis but I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree.
People can become mistrustful if their trust is abused: "once bitten, twice shy." And people can also become mistrustful if they see the trust of others they care about likewise abused (as with guardians of elderly relatives). Hooves and Cheeriliee fall into this latter group.
Bertie and Pinkie, by contrast, are modelled on the sort of people who, while not stupid or naive, are naturally trusting. This is a fine trait that is usually spoiled by life. It hasn't happened with Pinkie partly due to luck (she's dealt with monsters, but no seducers), location (people in Ponyville are honest and kind) and her own resources (Pinkie Sense, her innate Power of Harmony and her friends). In Bertie's case, wealth and station--each a form of luck--have protected him from the worst effects of his misplaced trust.
Both Cheerilee and Hooves are experienced enough to know that luck eventually runs out. And both are clear-headed enough to know where their charges are vulnerable, affection for them notwithstanding. Hence their protective suspicion, each of the other's charge.
You wrote a blog post about Aubade without listing Aubade as the related story, or linking to Aubade.
Don't apply for a job in marketing, Ed.