//------------------------------// // Date Six - What The Duck?! // Story: Cheerilee's Thousand // by xjuggernaughtx //------------------------------// Cheerilee broke into a cold sweat as she backed away from the line of menacing ducks. “What exactly is going on here?” she said quietly to the cringing stallion. “You didn’t say anything about a pond!” Summer Blaze whispered, his eyes wild. As three more ducks landed nearby, he skipped back, ramming his rump painfully into a tree. “Why in Equestria would I?!” Cheerilee shot back, trembling as the ducks began to advance. “We were going on a scenic walk! The pond is beautiful!” To her left, a duck pulled out a small whetstone, running it along the edge of its bill. The swick-swick sound the stone made sent a shiver up the mare’s spine. “Usually,” she finished quietly. “Look, I just got into some trouble with ducks a while back,” Summer Blaze said, his voice quivering. “It’s nothing, really. Just a misunderstanding, but you try telling that to a bunch of ducks!” Cheerilee felt the familiar pressure building behind her eyes. Until a few moments ago, the date had been going so well that it was almost a relief when the ducks had suddenly landed all around them, encircling the pair and terrifying them with a cacophony of menacing quacks. Why would I expect anything different? Cheerilee thought, sighing. “We’re gonna have to make a break for it,” Summer said, scanning the line of foul-tempered fowl for a weak link. “If they catch us, we’re done for!” “Why am I done for?!” Cheerilee hissed. “You’re the one who’s apparently double-crossed the ducks! What does it have to do with me?!” She winced as the mallard before her raised its webbed foot. A nearby pochard curled his foot into a fist, slamming it into the mallard’s outstretched appendage. As they ground fist into palm, the mallard squeezed, cracking the pochard’s knuckles while they both stared at the mare with malice. “They aren’t going to care!” Summer said, swallowing hard. “It’s guilt by association with these guys.” “S-so what are we going to—aah!” Cheerilee said, skipping away as a duck lunged in, pecking aggressively at her hoof. “No choice!” Summer Blaze said, rearing. “We’re gonna have to run for it!” Snarling, the stallion lowered his head and charged the line of ducks. As they scattered, several surrounded him, pecking Summer viciously and tearing out chucks of mane. The rest took to the air, diving at Cheerilee. Squeezing her eyes tightly closed, Cheerilee screamed as she shot after the stallion. All around her, she could smell the pungent aroma of unwashed feathers and blood. Sweet Celestia, what have I gotten myself into this time?! she thought as she risked cracking an eye open. She regretted it immediately as a duck rose directly in front of her, stabbing at her face rapidly with its blood-flecked bill. Shrieking, she reared and swatted the duck with her hooves, wincing at the sound of breaking feathers as it spiraled into a nearby bush. Several strides ahead of her, Summer Blaze leapt erratically, attempting to dodge the multitude of angry anatidae that bedeviled him. “Quick, in here—argh!” he shouted as a pecten latched onto his ear. Spinning, Summer slammed his rear hooves into the door of the park’s tool shed. “We’ll be done for if we stay out here in the open!” Too frightened to respond, Cheerilee poured on as much speed as she could muster and dove into the tiny shack, shivering and bleeding from several painful nips. Summer leaned against the door, forcing it closed as the weight of several dozen ducks slammed into the other side. With a grunt, he pushed it closed, pressing his body against the door. Cheerilee pointed with a shaking hoof at the flapping wings caught between the door and the jamb. Grimacing, Summer Blaze opened the door a hair as she poked at the wings with a rake, forcing them outside. Both ponies shrank from the horrible quacking that surrounded the half-rotten wooden structure. “Grab those bags of fertilizer!” Summer said, pointing into the corner behind Cheerilee. “I broke the lock when I kicked the door open. We’ll use the bags as a brace!” Grunting, Cheerilee curled her hooves around the rough seam of the closest burlap sack, straining to wrestle the heavy bag into position. Summer Blaze’s muscles stood out from his neck as he fought to keep the door closed. On the other side, the ducks were rhythmically slamming into the door over and over; an avian battering ram. With a shout, Cheerilee lifted the bag, heaving it the last few feet before returning for another. “I just can’t believe this,” Summer Blaze muttered, pressing the heavy bag against the door. With its additional weight, the ducks were making far less of an impact. “Of all the places we could have gone, we ended up at a pond.” “Well, how was I supposed to know you’d make enemies with every duck in Equestria?” Cheerilee growled as she dragged a second bag across the dirt floor. “It’s not your fault,” Summer sighed. “You couldn’t… It’s… I don’t even know where to start.” “Find a place,” the mare said, groaning as she heaved the second back onto the first. Wiping her brow, she stared at the stallion until he looked away, embarrassed. “If I’m going to be trapped in a smelly tool shed, surrounded by blood-thirsty ducks, I should at least know why!” “Well, the truth is that I don’t even know why, exactly,” the stallion said, hissing as he probed some of his deeper wounds to check the damage. “What do you mean you don’t know?” Cheerilee cried, waving her hooves above her head. “How can you get attacked by ducks everywhere you go and not know how it started?!” “Look, I’m not exactly fluent in Duck, okay?!” he shot back, rising to his hooves again. “I just don’t know for sure.” Both ponies cringed as the ducks hit the door with greater force, and Summer Blaze hopped on the stack of fertilizer, pressing his back against the door. Cheerilee skipped nervously into the center of the room as the ducks began to stare in from the gaps in between the walls' wooden planks. “Well, you’ve got to have some theory!” Cheerilee said as her eyes rolled slowly up to the ceiling. The tin roof was groaning from the weight of who knew how many webbed feet. “It all goes back to bread crumbs,” the stallion said. “Excuse me?” Cheerilee said, blinking. “I was at this lake in Detrot several years ago, and there were all these bags of bread crumbs just sitting around!” he replied, leaning his head back against the door and wearily closing his eyes. “None of the ducks were even touching them. Just bags and bags of delicious crumbs.” “You’re telling me that you ate all the ducks' crumbs and now they hate you?” Cheerilee said skeptically. “No,” Summer said, shaking his head. “Well, yes, but that’s not the whole story.” The stallion rested his forehead in a hoof. “Look, I just really like bread, okay?” he said, gazing across at Cheerilee with an eye rimmed with fatigue. “When I saw all those bags, I just went nuts! How was I supposed to know it was supposed to be a peace offering between the warring duck and geese gangs?! I mean, who’s even heard of that?! The geese stomped off and the ducks declared some sort of vendetta on me.” “What?!” Cheerilee shouted. “If you think I’m going to believe—” “Look out there, will you?!” Summer Blaze shouted back, pointing his hoof to where a duck was trying to force its bill through an especially large crack in the wall. “I know it’s insane, but these ducks are serious!” Summer dropped his head back into his hooves. “It’s been hell…” “If you want to know hell, buster,” Cheerilee said, rubbing the aching space between her eyes, “you should try getting a decent date in this town!”