She continued to scan the area and then something else white caught her eye. She couldn't help but laugh as she picked it up. Oh, she'd nearly forgotten about this. How could she have forgotten?
This item was different. It had affected them indirectly; to be honest, Applejack only put it with her scrapbook when she had found it discarded in the trash. It was dirty, and carried an imprint of dirt from a filly's careless step. It didn't look very imposing, and certainly didn’t look like something that would rock their relationship..
Yet Applejack could remember everything about that day…
* * *
* * *
“Hey Applejack? You’re a mare, right?”
Of all the questions Apple Bloom had ever asked her sister, this was by far the strangest. Nevertheless, Applejack decided to humor her sister and answer. “Yeah, Apple Bloom; Ah’m a mare, and have been for some time now. Why?”
“Do you know how to tell when a mare is pregnant?”
If her first question was the strangest, this was a close second. “Well, ya just know,” she said, opting to not mention the uncomfortable growth, sore hooves, and unintentional lactation that often accompanied pregnancy. “Why?”
“‘Cause I heard from Diamond Tiara who heard from Silver Spoon who heard from Bon Bon who heard from Lily who heard from Rose who heard from Shoeshine who heard from-”
“Can you get to the point?”
“That Cheerilee was pregnant!” Apple Bloom finished.
Applejack’s jaw dropped.
* * *
“No, I can’t say I’ve heard the rumor,” Rainbow said, “but I bet she’d make a great mother.”
“That ain’t what this is about!” Applejack hissed.
“Then what is it about?” Rainbow challenged. “So your brother knocked up his marefriend. Big whoop.”
“Big wh- Rainbow!”
“Whaat?”
“It’s one of the oldest unspoken rules of the Apple family! You ain’t supposed to mount a mare you ain’t married to!”
Rainbow smirked. “That has never stopped you.”
Applejack flushed red all the way to the tips of her ears.
“In fact, wasn’t it just last week you let me put-”
“Ap-ap-ap-ap-ap!” Applejack protested, shoving a hoof over Rainbow’s mouth. “That never comes out of the barn.”
Rainbow pulled the hoof off her mouth and grinned. “Well, you were coming in the barn, and-”
“Rainbow!” Applejack’s face resembled an apple more than a pony. “Be serious for once!”
Rainbow sighed. “Fine. But look, I don’t get what the big deal about this is!” Rainbow said. “My dad knocked up his marefriend, and here I am!” She paused. “Come to think of it, I don’t think they ever got hitched…”
Applejack facehoofed and was about to ask another question but she was interrupted by the door opening.
Mac stepped in, cheerfully grabbing himself something to drink. Applejack grabbed on to his yoke and spun him around.
“Tell us it’s just a rumor,” she demanded.
“What is?” Mac asked.
“That Cheerilee’s pregnant.” Applejack narrowed one eye. “It is just a rumor, right?”
She was expecting a firm ‘eeyup!’. What she got, though, was…
“Uhh…”
Applejack pulled his face down to hers. “Don’t tell me she’s pregnant,” she growled.
Mac gave a shaky smile. “Ok, Ah won’t tell you.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
Mac grinned. It was clear that while he was embarrassed, he was also proud of his accomplishment at the same time. “Eeyup.”
“Maaac!” Applejack scolded.
“What?”
“Granny Smith is gonna kill you when she finds out!”
“If. If she finds out,” Rainbow corrected.
“Granny is going to find out, Rainbow!” Applejack hissed. “She has a way of knowin’ these things!”
“Knowing what things?”
Everypony spun around to see Cheerilee herself, standing in the doorway with a look of confusion on her face. “Did I miss something?” she asked.
Rainbow saw no reason to break this lightly. “Are you pregnant?”
Cheerilee threw her head back and sighed in defeat. “So that’s what everypony’s been talking about today…” she mumbled. “I told Berry I might be. Might. Be. Maybe I should have waited until she was sober before sharing…”
“And maybe you should have waited until after you two were hitched afore you started makin' foals!” Applejack said accusingly.
Cheerilee hesitated. “Actually…”
“What?”
“We’re kindof already married.”
“You what?!” Applejack turned to her brother and gave him a look. Far from getting Mac off the hook, this buried him even deeper. He was no longer in the frying pan; he was in the flames and being doused with gasoline.
Cheerilee took the tiniest of steps back. “It was an accident…”
“How the hay do you ‘accidentally’ get married?” Applejack demanded.
Cheerilee chuckled, not meeting Applejack’s eyes. “Funny story, really…”
Applejack dropped to her haunches. “Ah’ve got time.”
Rainbow nodded and folded her forelegs. She wanted to hear this, too.
Cheerilee nodded and sat at the table. “Well… ooh, where shall I start? It was a beautiful, warm afternoon, and I was having a picnic with Macintosh in the park. Mac nuzzled me gently, and I could smell his musky, stallion scent wafting in the breeze-”
“Can I be the first to say ‘eww’?” Rainbow interrupted.
Cheerilee made the tiniest of grunts. “If you must.”
“Ok. Ewwwww.”
“Are you quite done?” Cheerilee asked flatly.
Rainbow thought for a second, and then sat up. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Anyway… We’d just gotten to the dessert when three of my students came up…”
* * *
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle came rushing up to the picnicking pair. They looked so excited that they couldn’t help but smile.
“Wanna help us get our cutie marks?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We need a perfect couple, and you two are just perfect!”
Mac nodded, and indicated his agreement by giving Cheerilee the slightest of nudges on her flank. Cheerilee responded in kind by swatting his with her tail.
“Great! Follow us!”
The two older ponies followed the three fillies back to their clubhouse. Mac opened the door for Cheerilee, and she couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the sight.
They’d set up a perfect wedding chapel arrangement there inside the clubhouse. Sure, the curtains were bedsheets and one was more pink than white, but it was still a very nice gesture.
Apple Bloom threw uncooked rice (though the large, moist white glob on the carpet indicated they’d tried cooked rice for their rehearsal), accidentally hitting Cheerilee in the face. Mac couldn’t help but laugh… and received an elbow in his ribs for his trouble.
When they’d marched up to the little stand (because you don’t just simply walk up the aisle on your wedding day), Scootaloo cleared her throat and began to read from the large book on the stand.
“Deer… deer? No… Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”
* * *
“Wait,” Rainbow interrupted. “So they were just acting out a wedding ceremony?”
“And you thought that counted?” Applejack chimed in, dumbfounded.
“I’m not done yet,” Cheerilee said primly.
* * *
“...as long as you both shall live.” Scootaloo looked up from her book. “Ok! You may now kiss the bride!”
Mac's mouth opened in surprise as he saw what Cheerilee was about to do a split second too late. She pulled his head down and quite forcibly stuck her tongue inside his mouth. He paused, enjoying the feeling of his mouth being violated before quickly returning fire, earning a pleasured whimper from Cheerilee and gags of revulsion from the three fillies.
Luckily for the Crusaders, Cheerilee pulled away before their fragile little psyches were shattered beyond repair.
Now looking a bit green (which clashed horribly with her orange coat), Scootaloo slid a paper over, accompanied by an ink pad. “Now stomp this paper.”
Mac and Cheerilee looked at each other and smiled. They really had gone whole hog on this. Mac chuckled as he lifted a hoof and placed it on the paper. Cheerilee quickly followed suit.
As soon as Cheerilee had, the three fillies quickly spun around, checking their flanks. All three sighed as they saw them as blank as the day they were born.
“Aww,” Sweetie Belle whined. “I thought for sure that’d work this time.”
Cheerilee smiled. “It was a good thought, and I really appreciate the gesture; but if you want to be able to perform actual weddings, you’d need a license.”
Scootaloo slammed the book shut. “We did get a license! Still nothing! Waste of bits, that’s all it was!”
Cheerilee felt a cold pit form in the bottom of her stomach. She’d drawn the logical conclusion, and she’d had enough past experience with these three that she wouldn’t put anything past them. “C- could you repeat that?”
“We did get a license,” Scootaloo repeated, pulling hers out of the book and throwing it onto the top of the lectern. “All three of us got one.”
“Ah, marryin’ ponies might get old after a while, anyway,” Apple Bloom said. “Maybe it's best we find somethin' else, anyway.”
Mac finally caught up. “Wait. We're actually married?!”
Scootaloo nodded, then paused; and then she said the smarterest thing she’d said all day. “Come to think of it, I don’t know how well we thought this one out.”
* * *
Rainbow paused. “Ok, now I’ve heard everything. I’m out.”
She turned to fly away, but Applejack grabbed her tail and forcefully pulled her back to the ground. “If’n Ah have to sit through this, so do you,” she growled.
“There’s not too much else to tell,” Cheerilee said with a shrug. “We talked to Twilight, and she looked through all her books. Turns out they’d filled out the paperwork right and there's no limit to the officiator’s age on the Ponyville books, so it’s legally binding under Equestrian law.”
“You’re kiddin’.” Suddenly, something else made sense. “Did you say two months ago?”
Cheerilee nodded.
“Is that why her allowance disappeared that week?” Applejack asked, more to herself than to anypony else. “Sendin’ away for that license?”
“I could believe that,” Rainbow said. Scootaloo had asked for money about two months ago, too, come to think of it…
“I’m not kidding,” Cheerilee reassured her. “In the eyes of the law, Mac and I are legally married.”
“So why didn’t you tell anypony?”
“It’s not exactly how I hoped my wedding would be,” Cheerilee admitted. “I was hoping for something a little more… romantic. And with my family there. And Berry as my best mare.”
“And a better honeymoon?” Rainbow suggested, waggling an eyebrow suggestively. “Or did you just go out and consum-thingy it in the orchard? I hear the south fields are lovely this time of year…”
Cheerilee blushed bright pink, and Rainbow threw back her head and laughed so hard she almost forgot to flap her wings.
Applejack brought them all back to reality, and Rainbow back to the ground with a quick stamp of her hoof. “If you're done tormentin' the happy couple… Ah don’t know how we’re gonna fix this so it doesn’t turn out lookin' awkward for everypony,” she admitted.
“I’d rather not admit I was tricked by a trio of fillies,” Cheerilee said.
“Nope,” Mac agreed.
Applejack continued. “And if the Apple family gets wind of a private wedding that nopony was invited to, they'll blow their stacks.”
“Eeyup,” Mac agreed.
“'Cause that's not how an Apple gets married.”
“Nope.”
“It’s a real family affair, with more family and food than you can shake two sticks at.”
“Eeyup.”
“So get married again,” Rainbow suggested. “But the right way this time. With cider. And awesome pegasi, like me. But especially cider.”
Applejack rolled her eyes.
Cheerilee shook her head. “That’s bigamy.”
Rainbow cocked her head. “Biga-who now?”
Cheerilee rolled her eyes.
Rainbow continued, “Look, at my job, if there's no paperwork it didn't happen. Even if everypony in town can see that the sky is covered in clouds that they watched you put there, unless you filled out an LF-193, you won't get paid a bit. So what counts in getting married is the paperwork, right?”
“Yeah?”
“So just do another wedding thing, with flowers and family and food and cider and everything, but just say you'll take care of the paperwork after the wedding, so it doesn't get soaked in the barrels of cider you guys will have there.”
“Rainbow, enough with the cider!” Applejack scolded, grabbing her tail and forcefully pulling her back.
Cheerilee, however, had been listening to the other parts of Rainbow's idea. “Actually, that's not a bad idea. We'll just never sign the paper. It won't legally have happened, and everypony's happy.”
“Eeyup,” Mac agreed.
“Seems a bit shady…” Applejack murmured.
Mac raised an eyebrow. “You wanta tell our family why they ain’t comin’ to my weddin’?”
Applejack paused. “So how we settin’ this thing up, anyhow?”
“Leave that to me,” Rainbow said. She took a step forward and coughed once before throwing her head back and resting the back of one hoof dramatically on her forehead. “Oh, woe is me! Oh, woe is me! If only Pinkie Pie were here! She’d know the perfect way to throw this party!”
“But I am here!”
Everypony jumped as Pinkie Pie spoke. She was standing in the circle, as if she’d always been there.
Rainbow brushed some imaginary dust off her barrel and turned to leave. “My work here is done.”
* * *
Later that night, Applejack slid close to Apple Bloom. “So, Ah heard what you and your friends did with Mac and Cheerilee…”
Apple Bloom’s face went white. “Y- ya did, didja?” she chuckled nervously.
“And Ah was wonderin’... You still have that card?”
This was not what Apple Bloom had expected. She answered slowly, expecting a trap. “Uh… yeah. Prolly in a junk drawer somewhere. Why?”
“Just wonderin’.”
* * *
* * *
Applejack set the license down and continued looking at the table. If the license was here, then… yes, there it was. She picked it up and saw how it gleamed in the candlelight.
The little golden ring she’d used the first time she’d proposed to Rainbow Dash.