“... And then he SAID he was done, but ohhh no, the second I went to empty the bucket, well, you can guess what the little tyke did, Cuz.” Cheerilee took a deep pull on the straw sticking out of her second highball glass. The level of vivid crimson inside dropped by half.
“Mm-hmm.” Berry Punch stood by the round central table and stirred the wide glass bowl of her namesake concoction, and then set down the ladle before plopping down on one of the barrel-halves that served as stools in her living room. Her cousin was occupying another, and a third was heaped with the as-yet unmarked spelling tests that had accompanied her.
Cheerilee glanced out the living room window, where a sliver-thin alley between the buildings across the way offered a tiny slice of a view of the School of Friendship. “Don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “I love my job. I love those foals. ALL of them! It’s just … I don’t know.” She sighed, and then craned her neck to stare down at her own flank. “ … Should I have dreamed bigger?”
“What, a whole bouquet of daisies?” Berry said with a nod at Cheerilee’s floral Cutie Mark. “A dozen roses, maybe?”
That earned a narrow-eyed frown. “You know what I mean.”
And that, in turn, earned a counter-frown. “Do I? Do you think I’m ALSO aiming low, then? Think I could own a vineyard in the San Caballo Valley, or something?”
“No …!” Cheerilee waved her front hooves defensively. “I mean, I don’t think you’re aiming low! I don’t!” She risked a cautious, wry smile. “... Besides, you wouldn’t last a WEEK around those valley-folks before you’d knock somepony’s block off!”
Berry let a silent, stony beat pass before bursting into a hearty and infectious belly laugh. Cheerilee joined her.
“Seriously though, Cheer,” Berry asked, wiping away a tear, “what’s up? It’s not like this is the first time one of your students coughed up his breakfast for show-and-tell. Usually you’re beaming about them on Punch Night, no matter WHAT jam they’ve gotten into. What’s got you hindgazing this time?”
No reply came until Cheerilee had completely drained her glass. She wiped her mouth with a foreleg and heaved a deeper sigh. “It’s … It’s Bonnie, I guess? I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but if HALF of what Lyra kept letting slip is true, she had a whole OTHER career on TOP of the one she’s got. A glamorous, exciting, dangerous one. And now they’re married, and I’m … about to start reusing my lesson plans for the second time.” She hung her head. “I know things didn’t work out great for you marriage-wise, and I’m not asking for pity. But even you’ve got … Pinch.”
Berry nodded gravely. “I’d do it all again for her sake. Every stupid choice, and the stupid way it ended. In a heartbeat.” She glanced at the punchbowl, and then at Cheerilee. With a go-ahead nod in reply, she moved to snap up the ladle and refill Cheerilee’s glass. “What else? That’s not enough for three glasses. Not on a school night.”
“They didn’t even ask me,” Cheerilee said as she watched the expert pour. “Princess Twilight just went ahead and made every single one of her friends faculty, and put an EX-CULT LEADER in charge of the place, and none of them - not the Princess, not any of them - came round the schoolhouse for help. Not even ONCE!” She drained a third of the freshened drink in one go, and then sagged as she let out her breath.
Berry went back to her stool. “No way you’d have been able to do both jobs at once, and no way in TARTARUS you’d bail on those foals.”
Another big sip preceded the reply. “ … I know. It would have been nice if they’d asked, that’s all.”
Berry hopped right back off her barrel-stool and leaned in toward Cheerilee. “Hmmm. You SURE that’s it? I’m getting maybe … two-and-a-half-glasses vibes right now.”
Her cousin fidgeted on her own stool, and looked away. “I MAY have also seen Big Macintosh heading out to bring a big wrapped present to that special somepony of his.”
“Don’t tell me you’re carrying a torch for him!” Berry said, glaring. “You told me that was all because some of your students DRUGGED you!”
One more deep pull, and glass three was gone as quickly as it had arrived. “I’m not. Honest. And I’m glad he moved on! But …”
“... But it woulda been nice if he’d asked.”
Cheerilee silently nudged her empty glass in Berry’s direction.
• • • • •
Later that night, Cheerilee took three times as long as usual to trot the hundred-odd yards from Berry’s home to hers. She made a few wrong turns, some of them on purpose, and turned her bleary gaze to the pristine surface of the moon above.
“Even the queen of nightmares made good!” she mumbled to nopony. “Hmph! Show-off…” She got within a dozen paces of her front door, but then took yet another detour. One more quick sweep around the block.
With that pearly-white moon and an extravagant tapestry of stars, the night was bright enough for Cheerilee to cast a stumbling, shaky shadow. She kept her eyes on it as she trotted.
“But it’s all about them, isn’t it?” she continued. “All those bright little foals. Every one of them that ends up a success, that’s me, too. That’s my legacy, right? As much as it’s their parents’. Yeah…” She frowned. “Isn’t that enough? Always used to be. All about them, just them.” Her frown deepened. “... And not a thing for m-”
Her shadow fell on a pair of polished, peach-pink front hooves.
A mare’s deep, formal voice spoke up: “Forgive the lateness of my arrival, but I have journeyed far and only just arrived. I have come seeking answers. Are you the one known as Cheerilee the Teacher?”
“Wh-What?” Cheerilee hoisted her eyes upward, and stood face to face with a living cut-out from the dogeared and ink-stained Ancient History textbooks she’d been meaning to replace.
Somnambula.
THE Somnambula.
One of the Pillars of Equestria. A co-founder of the guiding principles of ponykind that had inspired the likes of the Royal Pony Sisters Themselves. Banished to the void and released present-day to bear witness to the world she’d helped both build and save. A sleek, elegant, Pegasus, larger than life and slightly petite, clad in gossamer-fine linen and polished gold, with violet eyes lined in bold black kohl.
Somnambula tilted her tiara-topped head. “You resemble the description I was given. This seems to be the home to which I was directed. Am I mistaken?”
The question jarred Cheerilee out of her shocked freeze. Sweet Celestia, SAY something!
Cheerilee the Teacher stood up straight, gave a firm nod … and let out a sudden and echoing belch.
• • • • •
“I am SO sorry…” Upon welcoming Somnambula into her home, Cheerilee had immediately fled to her kitchen to splash cold water on her face.
The living legend covered a polite titter with a hoof. “I am not offended. You are clearly late of a revel, and wine casts turbulent spells upon the stomach.” Somnambula took a step deeper into the cozy living room. “Ah, but meantime, my belongings still sit outside!” She gave two sharp stomps on the wooden floor.
“All right, I’ll be here.” Cheerilee rinsed her mouth out and then shook her head to clear it of inner fog and outer soaking while she waited for her guest to fetch her things.
Somnambula stayed where she was, puzzled. A moment later, she stomped again, tipped her head back a little and raised her voice: “O house servants, your Mistress entertains a guest!” When no answer came, she called out in the direction of the kitchen next. “Good Cheerilee the Teacher, where is your house staff? Has only your well-dipper stayed awake to attend your return home?”
“My … my what?” Cheerilee finally returned to the living room to join her visitor. “It was only me in there. And here, too. I, ah, live alone.” She sat down, looked to one side, and self-consciously rubbed a foreleg on the back of her neck. “No … staff.”
Somnambula stared, aghast. “You, a herald of knowledge, must carry your own water? Prepare your own meals?” She frowned. “Does this land have no respect for learning?”
Cheerilee frowned back and muttered aside: “Sometimes I wonder.” She tried to soften the moment with a vague shrug. “It’s not that bad, though, really. I have a well-pump right in my kitchen, and the icepony never misses a delivery, so it’s not like food and water are big problems …”
“A well of your own is a worthy amenity, indeed.” Somnambula stepped toward the kitchen. “And you trade personally for snow-clouds? At least my own tribe shows you the respect you are due!” She looked this way and that. “But where is it leashed, then? Is there a roof-hatch?” She craned her neck upward.
“There’s no snow-cloud,” Cheerilee said carefully. The fading buzz of Berry Punch’s sweet, fruity concoction was giving way to a dull, throbbing headache already, and the confusion of the moment was doing her no favours. “It’s just an icebox.” She trotted in after the Pegasus, and displayed the upper and lower decks of the appliance. “Ice-blocks from the cold-house get delivered up here, and they cool whatever I keep down here. When the ice melts, I get water for cooking and cleaning ready at hoof. You see?”
Somnambula’s eyes darted as if following a hummingbird, taking in every detail. She spread her wings, sat upright, and kicked the air excitedly with her front legs. “Incredible! I see now that the boons from your scholarly knowledge benefit you more than servants ever could.” She dropped her legs and smoothly slid into a courtly bow. “Forgive me for underestimating you, Cheerilee the Teacher.”
“Um, sure, yes.” Cheerilee was still standing next to the open icebox like a salespony mid-pitch. She nudged the doors closed. “But, if you don’t mind … you said earlier you had questions, or something? What’s all this about? Why’d you come all this way? Shouldn’t you be seeing somepony like Princess Twilight if you’ve got a, uh … Pillars … problem?” She winced.
Smooth.
The Pillar nodded. “Ah, yes! I have already accepted your gracious hospitality, but I have neglected to better explain myself! Once more, my apologies.” She gave another bow, quicker and shallower. “To answer your question, I have in fact already met with the Princess. However, the Crown’s school there is for Unicorns alone, and the libraries deal mostly in magic, fiction, and ancient times. I have need of more … contemporary … schooling. And so, I came here, to Ponyville. To the place where the Princess learned worldly ways.”
“Schooling?” Cheerilee squinted through the building headache. “Well, if you decided to come here, why didn’t the Princess point you toward her own school?” She sagged, very slightly. “It’s amazing.”
Somnambula shook her head. “It is indeed. But again, it does not teach that which I hope to learn. The Princess’s new academy is a place to teach the Pony ways of friendship and harmony, and if I may be so boastful, they are lessons my friends and I learned centuries before this town was founded!” She covered another winsome chuckle, and then locked eyes. “No, Cheerilee the Teacher. You are the one I need.”
“Just …” Cheerilee swallowed. “Just Cheerilee.”
Somnambula took a step toward her. “Yes. Just you.”
Cheerilee looked away from that piercing black-lined gaze, glad — not for the first time — that her dark hide tended to obscure blushing. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to call me Teacher.”
“On the contrary,” Somnambula replied, “that is exactly why I have sought you out.”
“I … what?”
The icebox’s improperly-closed upper door creaked open again. Cheerilee was grateful for the waft of icy air.
• • • • •
The next noon, after a hasty excuse and a gravely distracted half-day of teaching, Cheerilee sat at the café’s open terrace, sharing a table with the only friend she had with any familiarity with managing adventuresome housemates.
“She just showed up on your doorstep?” Lyra’s horn glowed golden. She magicked up her silverware and started meticulously slicing the crusts off her cream cheese, cucumber and watercress sandwich. “And now you bailed on her to get a snack. With me. Somnambula. THE Somnambula, from, uh …”
Cheerilee spoke in a harsh whisper while glancing to and fro at the surrounding tables. “... From Somnambula. And yes! She’s back at my house right now, and she’s going to sit in on the afternoon lesson. So could you PLEASE keep your voice down? I asked you to go to lunch because you’ve got experience and I need advice. I’m trying to keep it on the down-low. I don’t want this to be a whole big … thing!”
With the crusts excised, Lyra turned her attention to cutting the sandwich into four precisely equal quarters.”Dunno if that’s avoidable? This isn’t exactly a visit from a traveling salespony. The Pillars are the biggest news since Princess Twilight and her friends. Your students will talk.” She squinted, focusing on her delicate task. Her tongue subtly poked out from one side of her mouth.
“Maybe you’re right. But this isn’t some crazy epic adventure this time - I checked! She just wants me to teach her, that’s all.”
Lyra completed one slice, wiped the knife on the cut-off crusts to remove excess cream cheese, and prepared for the second cut. “Teach her? Teach her what?”
The hayburger on Cheerilee’s plate was untouched, its golden-brown bun as pristine as a desert sand dune. “Well … um, everything, pretty much. Everything she missed since the Pillars vanished. All the history, all the inventions, all the big cultural moments. All of it.”
The slice was perfect; the four halves of the sandwich were absolutely identical. Lyra nodded proudly and set down the knife. “Oof. Tall order. You gonna do it?”
Cheerilee inhaled to reply, but stopped short when Lyra suddenly buried her face in the plate and started loudly, messily devouring the sandwich. Cheerilee stared silently until half of the thing was gone before finding her voice again. “Wh-... Why didn’t you pick those up with magic?”
“Hmph…?” Lyra looked up and licked crumbs, cream cheese and a sliver of cucumber off her chops. “Oh, no way. Magic makes cream cheese taste funny.”
“Then why did you bother cutting it?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not some tacky slob, sheesh!” She snapped up the remaining chunks of ruined sandwich and then licked the smeared plate clean.
Cheerilee turned her attention from the squeaky sweeps of Lyra’s tongue to the simple golden wedding band sitting at the base of the Unicorn’s horn. She fidgeted in her seat. “So anyway, what’s new with you? How’s Bonnie?”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Lyra chided with an accusatory hoof-wiggle. “You didn’t answer my question!”
“I don’t know…!” Cheerilee morosely snapped up the sour pickle spear sitting next to her burger, and chewed pensively before speaking on. “It’s a really unusual opportunity to flex my skills, but I haven’t taught anypony older than schoolfoals in YEARS. And I’m not … I mean, how can I …” She looked away. “Don’t you think a Pillar of Equestria deserves better? How can I teach history to somepony who MADE history? Who am I? Just some small-town schoolmare. What if I disappoint her? ”
“Aww. Hay.” Lyra reached out and gently chucked Cheerilee’s shoulder with a forehoof. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a schoolmare in the WEIRDEST town in Equestria. You lived through all of it. Nightmare Moon. Discord. The Cutie Mark Crusaders!”
Cheerilee struggled to keep frowning. “I spent the whole Discord crisis teaching a tomato garden to sing.”
“Hah! See? That just proves my point. Even when the world went crazy, you still kept teaching! You can DO this, Cheer. Totally. I say go for it.”
To avoid conceding the point, Cheerilee finally dug into her burger.
• • • • •
Full of lunch and uncertainty, Cheerilee trotted back home to pick up her guest for the second half of the day. She dipped her head to nudge the fence-gate open and called out: “Somnambula? I’m back!” She went inside, but no answer came. “Somnambula…?” She trotted out the far door into the back yard. “Are you-”
Cheerilee stumbled to a halt.
The Pillar of Hope was hovering in midair above the lawn, covered by the shade of a dark stormcloud and obscured by its sheeting rainfall … and nothing else. The Pegasus’s face was angled up into the spray, washing her viridian mane back like a tropical waterfall and drowning out her hostess’s approach. Her wings cast droplets in all directions with every wide, languid beat, and a few splashed down and blended with the anxious sweat suddenly dotting Cheerilee’s hide.
“I …” Cheerilee cleared her throat before trying again with a little more volume. “Somnambula? I’m back!”
Somnambula finally opened her eyes and noticed the arrival. “Ah! Hello again, Cheerilee the Teacher. I lost track of time.” She reached up with both wings to stroke the cloud with her pinions and urge its downpour to slow to a stop. She alighted on the grass and trotted closer, still bare and dripping. “Rain clouds are precious things in my homeland, and the notion of using so much water for washing was a luxury I couldn’t help but experience first hoof.”
“A lot of Pegasi around here take rain-showers. But in the desert you can’t, hmm?” Cheerilee looked to one side while quietly worrying that even her vivid hide might not be up to the task of hiding her latest blush.
“Never. At most, a water-bath is a royal indulgence or a medicated necessity. It is our custom most times to wash with dust.” She paused with a frown. “... Is something happening nearby?” She turned to follow Cheerilee’s averted gaze.
Cheerilee sat to wave away the confusion with her forelegs. “Ah…! N-No, sorry. I was just … I mean, I walked in on you bathing. You aren’t dressed …”
“Neither are you.”
The chuckle Cheerilee forced out gave forced chuckles a bad name. “Uh-huh-huh, true, yes, I guess not. But, I thought that in ancient times, Ponies wore clothes most of the time? I hope you don’t think we’re all being, you know, immodest?”
Somnambula laughed. Rich, melodious, sincere belly-laughs that shook more droplets off onto the emerald grass. “What a strange thing to say! What does modesty have to do with anything? Does my body seem … boastful?”
With visible effort, Cheerilee snapped her gaze back toward her guest and her casual, sodden nudity. “... Uh, maybe a little?” She shook her head to clear it. “Anyway, if you’re done, you can dry off and get dressed. It’s just about time for the lesson.”
“Certainly! I am eager to see you ply your trade, Cheerilee the Teacher!”
A few minutes later, Cheerilee tried to ignore the constantly rolling wave of stunned stares and awed whispers she and her guest rode on the way from her home to the schoolhouse. This was Ponyville, after all. Something with at least three heads would probably rampage through the street any minute, and the populace would forget she had a cornerstone of Equestrian history staying in her spare room…
“Well, ah, this is it,” Cheerilee said as the simple one-room building came into view. The assigned monitor was just hustling the few foals who’d taken the longest with lunch back inside for afternoon classes.
The Pillar trotted up to stand beside Cheerilee. She nodded. “With only Ponies and not as many other folk as the School of Friendship, I can see how a more … efficient … building could help with-”
Cheerilee cut her off. “It’s small.”
“Maybe a little.”
“First lesson,” Cheerilee said after a deep, cleansing breath. “Priorities have changed since your time.”
She led Somnambula inside, pausing to give an approving nod to the silver-maned, bespectacled filly in the monitor sash on the way.
The chattering class fell into a stunned silence as soon as they entered.
“Ah … as I said earlier today, this afternoon we’re going to have a special guest sitting in on the class. So let’s all be on our best behaviour and leave her be while we focus on learning, all right?”
The class took in the reasonable, polite proposal and considered it for a long, silent moment before completely disregarding it.
“I saw a statue of you in a museum!” one colt piped up.
“Can you make a sonic rainboom?” asked a filly to his right.
“How come you have eyes?” added another to his left. “I thought you didn’t have eyes!”
Somnambula offered a bemused chuckle and pressed down the questions with both front hooves. “Please, little ones. I am simply here to watch and listen - just like you. If you wish to know more about me, perhaps you should pay more attention to your teacher!”
A wave of motion swept through the students as they all whirled around to track Cheerilee’s trot to the front of the class. Several inquisitive hooves reached up, however.
“Questions later, and History later,” Cheerilee said in her firmest tone, “and only IF you pay attention in Geography!” Once the students were all settled with pencils gripped in brightly smiling jaws, she took one more deep breath and then tugged down a nation-scale map over the blackboard. “Now, then. Ponyville was founded with the blessing of Princess Celestia, who then lived in the capital on top of … anypony? Petunia - that’s right! Canterlot Mountain. The oldest nearby cities in Equestria mostly follow the east coastline, here, including Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and … anypony? Truffle - yes! Baltimare. Ponyville was part of the expansion into the Undiscovered West and especially the Mysterious South, where large areas of open territory still divided Canterlot from remote southern settlements like …” Cheerilee surveyed the classroom at large, and locked eyes with her guest. “... Somnambula.”
The Pillar smiled, softly and subtly, and nodded. Cheerilee nodded and smiled back with markedly less grace. When had the classroom gotten so quiet? The world seemed to shrink down to nothing but those decorated amethyst eyes and that calm, knowing smile. Finally, though, an imploring squeal snapped her from her daze:
“MISS CHEERILEE! I said, can I PLEASE use the privy? I gotta GO!” The little blue colt was squirming and bouncing in his seat.
“Oh…! Ah, yes, of course, you’re excused…”
Cheerilee flicked her tail and ears and gave her head a shake for good measure before resuming the lesson. She did her best to keep her eyes on task and off of her guest.
• • • • •
After the lesson, the siren-song of the school bell sent the foals stampeding out without a second thought about their illustrious guest.
Somnambula flew to the front of the classroom, wing-flaps stirring papers abandoned on desks. She hovered in front of the map and gingerly reached out a hoof to touch an unfamiliar place-name.
“The world has grown so much since we’ve been away,” she whispered. “In the new homeland … in Equestria … we’d scattered far and wide as a means to protect us from menaces like the Windigos. Hoping not to store all our rain in a single cloud. My kinfolk chose the desert for its vacant beauty, for the wonder of glowpaz crystals. But also, out of fear. And now …” She touched another new name. And another. “Now, Ponykind has reached out in every direction. We have conquered our fear. What was once broken is now whole.”
Cheerilee swallowed down a slight lump in her throat. “... Well said.”
“We missed so much, my friends and I.” Somnambula alighted, and turned to face Cheerilee. “I am glad to have seen your lesson. Your skills are indeed remarkable. That said, I worry I may have placed an undue burden on you, asking you to share so much, when you already tend to foals so prone to …”
The teacher chuckled. “Mayhem?”
Somnambula chuckled back. “Eagerness, let us say.” She took a step closer, and this time politeness left Cheerilee with no choice but to meet those piercing purple eyes. “If I have treated you unfairly, please - you must tell me so.”
“No, no … it’s okay.” Cheerilee stepped closer too. “I want to help. I do. Teaching is what my Cutie Mark is all about.” She turned slightly and nodded at the flowers marking her flank.
Somnambula squinted and then nodded. “So I see. Sacred tomb flowers. You are a protector of precious things.” Before Cheerilee could reply, the Pegasus half-turned as well and reached back a wing to tug up her gown and show her own Cutie Mark; a broad golden necklace. “Much like myself - this wesekh is an amulet of protection.”
They stood nose to tail now, side by side. “It’s … beautiful.” Cheerilee felt her face heating up. “I … I must say, I never thought of my flowers that way before. But I suppose there’s nothing more precious than foals …”
Once again, the world blurred and shrank. The quiet classroom grew quieter. Cheerilee heard her pulse thudding in her ears. She broke off, turning hard back toward the map and the blackboard, and the world came back into focus. “Uh…! But, a-anyway, like I said, I want to help. So, let’s get started? We do have plenty of ground to cover.” She glanced at the map. “Literally…!”
Somnambula’s dress dropped back down as she took a seat on the floor between rows of tiny desks. “By all means, Cheerilee the Teacher. Let us begin.”