In Search of Dawnbreak
A loud knock echoed through the home of Cheerilee, waking the slumbering teacher. She opened one ire-filled eye and aimed it at the clock, groaning when she realized it was too dark to actually read it. Another round of knocks echoed through the dark house. Silently cursing whoever would bother her at this late hour, Cheerilee flailed her hind legs until the bedsheet fell off, allowing her the freedom to roll from her warm bed and trundle to the front door.
Grumbling death threats under her breath, Cheerilee threw the door open. “What do you--Twilight!?” All previous claims of feeding a certain pony their tail vanished as the teacher watched her friend shiver in the cold night air. “Twilight, is everything okay?”
“Cheerilee I... I have to talk to you,” Twilight said. Both the cold air and the stress of attempting to walk a straight line had sapped most of the conviction her decision initially instilled. The only thing that drummed up enough courage for her to even knock was the last thought Rarity planted in her head: that Cheerilee might be sad because of her.
“Alright, but come inside,” Cheerilee demanded, mistaking Twilight’s wobbling as cold shivers. “Come on, come on.” The teacher ushered her purple friend over the threshold, shutting the door soundly behind her, and steered her towards the couch. A few moments later saw a small but warm fire burning in the fireplace, and just enough candles lit that visibility was possible.
It was only then that Cheerilee begin to suspect something might be amiss, a suspicion that a sniff was quick to confirm. “Twilight... have you been drinking?”
“Well, maybe a little bit...” the unicorn replied, looking down at her hooves.
Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. “A little bit?”
Twilight nodded. “I was with Rarity and Fluttershy with two bottles of white wine and--”
“You had two bottles?!” Cheerilee scooted forward quickly. Taking Twilight’s head in her hooves, she turned it this way and that, trying to make sure the unicorn was okay. “Dear Celestia, you’re insane! We need to get you to the hospital now!”
“No no no no...” Twilight fumbled around with her hooves until they came to rest on Cheerilee’s. “Rarity had two bottles at her house. I only drank one.”
Cheerilee gently rose from the couch, somewhat put off by Twilight nuzzling into her hooves. “Y-You’re going to have a terrible headache tomorrow. Let me just get you some water...” Excusing herself, the teacher quickly made her way to the next room, careful not to let the librarian see the dusting of blush on her face.
While letting the water run for a moment to get nice and cold Cheerilee allowed herself a moment of thought. All that stuff in the library, the close sitting, falling on top of me, sleeping on me in the mineral bath at the spa. Now she shows up drunk at my door in the middle of the night. The teacher shut of the tap and headed back to the main room with the water. Can this day get any stranger?
Returning to the main living area, Cheerilee made a beeline for Twilight, offering her the water. “Here, it’ll help with the headache tomorrow.”
“But I need to tell you something tonight,” Twilight replied, moving the water glass to a table piled high with school papers, lesson plans, and other assorted things.
“Uh, okay. What is it?” The teacher watched with mild curiosity as Twilight seemed to freeze for a moment before closing the distance between them on the couch
“You’re, um, you’re really pretty, Cheerilee.” The sweet words were offset by the rancid smell of alcohol on Twilight’s breath. Even still, the compliment brought a familiar warmth to Cheerilee’s cheeks.
“T-Thanks, Twilight, but I just got out of bed. I must look terrible.” The teacher laughed dismissively, torn between hoping more compliments were to follow and hoping they would stop altogether.
Much to her surprise, a third option happened. Twilight reached out and placed one of her hooves over a fuschia hoof of the teacher. “I’m being serious. You’re really pretty, all the time. ‘M kind of jealous, you must get all kinds of attention from all of the ponies...” She trailed off, lavender eyes staring at something just over Cheerilee’s shoulder.
“No. No, not really,” Cheerilee replied with a bit of a snort. Still so, so far... “Every year I tell my students that they are my special someponies, but really there’s just this... one mare I’ve had a thing for. It’s been a couple years, though, I’m not really expecting much.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Who is she? Whats her name?”
I tried it once today... one more can’t hurt, and if it doesn’t work out, she’s drunk. She won’t remember tomorrow. Cheerilee laughed softly. “If I told you it wouldn’t be as much fun, would it? How about I tell you about her, and then you guess, okay?” Twilight nodded eagerly, already entertained by the simple game. “We’ll call her... Dawnbreak.”
Cheerilee tapped a hoof against her muzzle in thought. She grinned, trying to offset the maniac fluttering of her heart. “Well... she’s a little smaller than I am, probably around your size, actually. She’s purple, a light lavender color really, with a darker mane striped with a light pink down the middle. She’s... kind, funny, sweet, beautiful, and very, very smart. She’s actually a full-time student under a very prestigious teacher from outside Ponyville.”
With each trait revealed, Twilight’s eyes grew wider. “Woah, really? Me too! Are you sure I haven’t met her?”
Trying her hardest to refrain from laughing, Cheerilee pressed on. “I’m almost certain of it. In fact, I would bet that you saw her, today even.”
The teacher watched thoughts fly through unfocused lavender eyes. “I haven’t seen anypony like that today...” Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Are you sure I know her?”
“Positive. Think back a little further. Yesterday, maybe?”
Once again the gears began to churn. “Ummm... I guess it could be Amethyst Star...”
If it wasn’t for the absurdly cute face drunk-Twilight resorted to while thinking, Cheerilee probably would have just dropped her charade.“Um... no. I’ll give you another hint. Her name starts with a ‘T’.”
“Hmmmm... Is it Twinkleshine?” Cheerilee had to resist the urge to drive her hoof into her face with great force.
She did drink an entire bottle of wine, according to her. “Twinkleshine isn’t purple, doesn’t have a two-tone mane, isn’t a student, and is not your size.” Maybe I should just give up... or give in...?
Twilight’s expression fell quickly. “Can’t you just tell me?” she whined. “I’m never going to guess right...”
The pleading look aimed her way broke the little part of Cheerilee still willing to continue the charade. She mustered the last scraps of her courage and tossed a silent prayer to Celestia that she wouldn’t be smote, and that Twilight would finally understand. “Well, I tried, back in the sauna today, you remember that?”
Twilight nodded, transfixed by the mystery. “Well,” the teacher continued, not totally sure that Twilight could even hear over her rapidly beating heart, “I was.. I was trying to say that my crush is... is you.”
The tipsy unicorn raised one hoof to her chest slowly. “M-Me? But... But I’m...” Cheerilee waited impatiently while Twilight worked her way through every trait of the so-called ‘Dawnbreak.’ “Oooohh...” Before Cheerilee could even stop laughing, Twilight lunged forward. She struck the off balance teacher hard, her momentum sending both of them over the arm of the couch to the floor.
For the second time that day, Cheerilee found herself underneath Twilight. She watched with fascination as the purple unicorn crawled slightly forward, bringing their muzzles in line before swooping down and mashing their mouths together. It only lasted a second before the stress of the day and excesses of wine took their toll on Twilight. She pulled back slightly, eyes heavy and happy, content to fall asleep on her friend’s chest.
Cheerilee waited a moment to catch her breath. “T-Twilight?” Gently, she poked the unconscious unicorn with a hoof. “Just like prom night...” Cheerilee sighed, before gently rolling Twilight off of her. She placed the sleeping pony on her back and headed towards the stairs.
--_--_--_--
Dim light, the remnants of the bright light of dawn’s battle with thick drapes fell across Twilight’s face. She let out a high-pitched whine, wincing with shut eyes as the sound stabbed her head with needles of pain, as did her pained whimper. After several minutes of painful experimentation, the conclusion was finally drawn that it was simply better to lie quietly in her warm bed forever.
Or until the headache went away. Whichever came first.
Time passed, but the boredom didn’t. There simply wasn’t anything to do with eyes shut as tight as possible without pain; even thinking in extended bursts was too much to ask for. It eventually became too much and so, ignoring the quiet protests from the part of herself that despised pain, Twilight slowly cracked her eyes open.
Confusion instantly washed over her. This room was nothing like any bedroom she stayed in on a normal basis. To make matters worse, no matter how hard she tried, Twilight couldn’t remember anything after Rarity forced her to leave the library. The entire night was a fuzzy block of swirled colors. Even trying to decipher her fractured memories brought a stab of pain to the poor unicorn’s mind. Just as a subdued panic attack was about to set in, Twilight spotted a note out of the corner of her eye, propped up against a full glass of water.
Twilight,
Have some water when you get up. I put a bit of my sister’s hangover cure in it, so it should help your headache. When you feel up to it, come downstairs. I imagine you’ll like to know what happened last night
--Cheerilee
Fueled by the promise of filling the gaps of her memory, Twilight slowly sat up. Tentative pooling of magical power showed that anything even in the realm of basic telekinesis simply wasn’t going to happen. Refusing to let something that simple stop her, Twilight carefully plucked the glass from the table with her hooves and took a cautious sip. The first taste was bitter and lukewarm, but carrying a promise to destroy the accursed headache, it was a small price to pay. She drank the whole thing as fast as she dared, waited for the pain in her head to dull, then slowly made her way out of the room.
Much like the bedroom, most of the downstairs windows were covered by heavy curtains, shrouding the house in a sort of twilight-esque light. In the dim room, Twilight could just make out Cheerilee curled up on the couch, trying to read a book by candlelight. “Hey,” Twilight rasped, wincing at the sound of her own voice.
Cheerilee turned her head towards the voice, smiling when she saw the source. “Hey yourself. How’s your head?”
“A lot better after that glass of water you left for me.” Slowly, Twilight made her way to the couch and took a seat. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Yup, Berry Punch. She was a bit of a party mare in highschool... and college... and after college... and when she met Carrot Top... and after... but I think she’s calmed down now. Maybe.” The teacher hummed to herself, trying to remember. “Anyway, I kind of learned how to deal with a hangover pretty quickly, even though I don’t do much drinking myself.”
“I don’t blame you.” Twilight winced as a group of foals ran past the house, talking and laughing loudly. “So, um, what did I do last night? All I remember is that Rarity was at the library when I got back, and I’m... pretty sure Fluttershy was involved, and cake. How did I end up here?”
Cheerilee chuckled nervously, trying her best to tame the butterfly hordes of her stomach. “How, uh, how much do you want to know...?”
An image of Fluttershy’s cabin in the wee hours of the morning, the two of them curled together flashed through Twilight’s mind. “All of it. I need to know everything.”
The soft fabric of the couch rustled as Cheerilee adjusted her position. Well, she asked... “W-Well, you came here around maybe...midnight? I’m not sure, it was too dark to see the clock. I was worried about you, so I invited you in. You... you told me you were drinking with Rarity and Fluttershy, and had... um... had an entire bottle of wine.”
“A whole bottle?” That explains the terrible headache and dry mouth... Twilight nodded. “Go on.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, too.” The teacher shuffled her hooves, events of the night previous replaying perfectly in her mind’s eye. As they should, considering she hadn’t stopped thinking about what happened. “So I got you a glass of water,” she motioned to the untouched glass on the table, “but you ignored it and... um... and started talking about how pretty you thought I was.”
A small blush began to work it’s way up Twilight’s cheeks, but she remained silent, prompting Cheerilee to continue. Small parts of conversation and memories were beginning to work their way back, but there were still many holes to be filled. “You, um, you then asked if I had any crushes...” The librarian leaned forward slightly, trying her best to hide her curiosity. “...so I described her to you. You, uh, you didn’t get it, though.”
Twilight visibly deflated at the mention of Cheerilee having a crush, but the prospect of a challenge propped her back up, at least a little. “Could you describe her now? I think I might have a better chance sober.”
“S-Sure, if you want...” Cheerilee began to rub her forehooves together, attempting to burn away her newly-acquired nervous energy. “W-Well, she’s a... she’s a unicorn, purple, she... she... she’s beautiful, a-and very smart. Her mane is... is purple, with a darker shade of pink running--”
“It’s me? I mean, is it me, possibly?” Twilight interrupted. They made eye contact for a moment before both glancing away quickly.
“Y-Yeah, but you didn’t figure it out last night. I had to, um, to tell you,” Cheerilee responded. “Then you confessed a crush on me, tackled me over the arm of the couch, kissed me, and fell asleep,” she quickly finished.
Twilight’s eyes shot wide open, blush quickly tinting her face pink. “I did what?!” she spluttered. “Cheerilee, I’m so, so sorry.”
The teacher just laughed and waved a hoof dismissively. “You were drunk, we all do things we probably wouldn’t normally when we’re drunk. Besides, I really didn’t mind that much...” Twilight squeaked and buried her face in her hooves, though her blush still peeked through.
“So, um, so what now?” Twilight asked, slowly lowering her hooves.
Cheerilee glanced to the papers littering her table and sighed. “Now, I get to grade all those papers I’ve been putting off...”
Twilight slowly shifted closer to the teacher. “Do you... maybe... want some help?”
“Yeah, I think I’d like that.” The two huddled together, occasionally tossing smiles back and forth, and begun working through the mountain of ungraded assignments doing their best to break Cheerilee’s table.