“This seems oddly familiar,” Celestia mentioned.
Her date shrugged, filling up his wine glass with an amused smirk on his devilishly handsome features. Not from a bottle, but instead from his cane, the top acting as a never ending wine fountain.
“I have no idea what you mean, my dear,” Sheogorath said, sipping from his glass while staring at her with those strange, demon-like eyes of her that bore through to her very soul, like he was sizing her up as prey rather than… well, other types of prey you typically don’t eat… most of the time.
“It’s just that I have this weird sense of déjà vu.” Celestia frowned, tapping her hoof on the table and humming under her breath. “Yet I just can’t put my hoof on it…”
“I prefer hooves over fingers myself. Nasty things, fingers. You never hear about getting entrails stuck in your hooves, but somehow, it always gets into your fingernails!” The Daedric Prince broke out into a rambling, giggle-filled laugh, broken up into snide chuckles and psychotic cackling that would put even the best—or rather, worst—mental patient to shame.
Celestia pouted her lips, inspecting Sheogorath closely. At first appearance, he seemed more normal than the typical god of chaos like you’d expect. Sure, he was dressed in ridiculous yet lavish manner, his outfit’s colors clashing together in such chaotic way that it looked like he picked bits and pieces from the wardrobe of a nobleman and put them on without a care in the world. He was tall, slender, overall scrawny, with a hawk-like nose and trimmed beard with styled back hair that had an air of sophistication about him. But the more she looked at him, the more her mind began to wonder to… unpleasant places.
Picking up his plate, Sheogorath forced it in front of her face and asked, “A slice of cheese, my dear, a slice of cheese?” The piece of cheese on the plate looked at Celestia with blinking eyeholes in the swiss and smiled, resembling Sheogorath with an uncanny yet cheesy resemblance. “It’s positively magnificent!”
Grimacing, Celestia pushed the plate away and shook her head. “No, no, I think I’m quite alright. I’m… lactose intolerant.”
“My, my, being intolerant of lactose now? How very uncivil of you. And what did lactose ever do to you to make you hate it so much?” Sheogorath’s eyes shined with a malicious light, another incoherent giggling fit breaking out again.
Sighing and rubbing the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof, Celestia asked, “Listen, Sheogorath, do you know someone by the name of Discord? Tall, dark, draconequus, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony? Has a knack for chocolate milk and cotton candy?”
Sheogorath slapped his knee and laughed, his eyes glowing a vibrant yellow. “Ah, Discy, of course I know him! We were good buddies in college! I haven’t talked to the ol’ chap in years! Why, he’d go on and on about chocolate milk this and chaos that, while I talk about chaos that and cheese this! Ah, good times. Except for the not so good times, which were almost all the time!” Sheogorath crossed his arms after that large outburst. “I hate chocolate milk.”
Celestia got out of her seat and took a couple of steps back. “Yeeeeeeeeeah, I think I’m just going to, um… be going now. It’s not you, it’s me… well, actually, it is you, but I was just trying to make you feel better. I’ve already had too many back experiences with Discord in the past to know that anyone who used to be his buddy isn’t the type of suitor I’m looking for.” However, just as she turned around, Sheogorath was in her way, leaning down on his cane to meet her eye to eye.
“And why would you be leaving? The date’s just getting started, the shindig is getting shinny, the party is just getting perkier by the minute!” Sheogorath clapped his hands together and sighed, thumping his cane twice on the floor. “Unless, of course, this is an end to our arrangements.”
“Well, I have to admit—”
“Oh, bemoan the night and the day and twilight hours between them for such an occurrence to befall one such as yourself!” Sheogorath declared, holding a hand to his forehead in an over-dramatic prose. “For it is not the evening tides that drag you away, but your own heart that does! I would say mine, but that blasted internal organ played hooky centuries ago, and I haven’t found him since.”
Already Celestia had sneaked around him, tiptoeing to the nearest exit from the restaurant as fast as her hooves could take her.
All the while, Sheogorath continued his mindless tirade, picking up with, “Is it not obvious that our relationship is how the common squirrel wants the enticing nut? I’d like to think of myself as the squirrel, of course. Nuts are a bit too nutty for me. Who knew? But still, it was never meant to be! And it has all become so clear to me, I am astonished, nay, horrified I didn’t see it before!”
Celestia opened the doorway, but instead of a miraculous escape for the ramblings of a Mad God, she got a solid wave of cheese that fell on top of her. She was at the bottom of a pile of cheese upon cheddar upon swiss and even aged chelsea. Poking her head out from the cheesy pile, Celestia was once again confronted by the crinkled smile of Sheogorath.
“You see, my dear, I’m just too good for you,” he said, winking.
“Actually, I think I agree with you.” Looking over herself, Celestia sighed. “I’m much too cheesy.”