Date Twenty-Seven - Blue Belles and Green Mushrooms
Cheerilee leaned over the velvet rope, peering into the display. “Look at that!” she breathed.
“I know! Isn’t it something?” Blue Belle pointed to the placard. “It says here that this vase comes from the Sumareian Era. The level of detail is just amazing!”
Cheerilee nodded, stepping quietly to the other side of the display. She didn’t want to miss any of the exquisite craftsmaneship. “Oh, I never thought an exhibit of this magnitude would ever tour through little ol’ Ponyville!”
“You should see the collection in the Manehattan Museum of Cultural History,” Blue said, shrugging. “This is nice, but that exhibit was truly incredible!”
Cheerilee ripped her eyes away from the mask, her ears perking up as she stared across at the mare. “You’ve been to the M.M.C.H.?”
“So many times!” Blue replied, rolling her eyes theatrically. “I used to live five blocks away. Volunteered there for a while, too.”
Cheerilee clasped her hooves to her chest, sighing. “Oh, that would be like a dream come true. If it weren’t for the foals, I’d seriously consider moving there.”
“That’s right!” Blue Belle said, smiling. “You’re a teacher, too! When did you start?”
Cheerilee put a hoof to her chin. “Well, it was right out of college, so… about fifteen years ago, I guess.”
Blue Belle gave her a big grin. “It’s been seventeen years for me. It seems like it was only yesterday.” She trotted over to a nearby ceremonial mask. “Time just flies, doesn’t it?”
“It’s the foals,” Cheerilee said, nodding. “They’re so ‘in the moment.’ Every second with them feels so important.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Then you look up one day and find out that fifteen years has gone by…”
Blue Belle elbowed her lightly in the ribs. “Well, just wait until you get to where I am. It’s even harder at seventeen years.”
Cheerilee’s brow furrowed. “Well, I guess…”
Blue tilted her head, squinting at the mask. “So how many do you teach?”
“Right now, I have twenty, but it fluctua—”
“Yeah, they stuck me with twenty-three this year. Oh, did you notice these?” Blue pointed to a series of stylized foxes carved onto the brow of the mask. “But twenty-three! Sweet Celestia, it’s so much more difficult!”
Cheerilee scratched her mane, looking away for a moment. “I… I suppose, but I don’t see that it would make that big of a difference.”
Blue smirked, rolling her eyes. “Oh, you’ll see one day. They’ll stuff a few extra foals in on your class one day, and then you’ll see.” Blue trotted to a bench and sat, groaning with relief. Lifting her rear hoof, she began to massage it. “All this walking,” she said with a small, apologetic shrug. “So tell me a little more about yourself. Where did you grow up?”
Cheerilee hesitated for a moment before sitting. Something about this conversation was bothering her, but she couldn't put her hoof on it. “Well, my family owns a farm just outside Croopersville. We didn’t have much, but we managed. They even put away a little money to help with my college tuition.” Cheerilee rubbed her eye as it threatened to tear up. “I don’t know what I would have—”
“Oh, I know exactly how you feel,” Blue Belle said, working on her other hoof. “My family was on a farm, too, but my father died.” The mare fished for a handkerchief in her saddlebags. Sniffling, she blew her nose into it. “Even though we usually didn’t have enough money for meals more than a few times a week, my mom somehow managed to save up enough money to put me through college.”
Cheerilee leaned away, squinting at the royal-blue mare. Let's try something.
Blue Belle turned, looking behind her for a few seconds before turning back. “What?” she said finally.
Cheerilee kicked her hooves out in what she hoped was a casual manner. “I was really lucky, though,” Cheerilee continued. “I was accepted into Celestia’s Junior Officer Training Corps. They helped Mama pay for my college courses. We couldn’t have done it otherwise.”
Blue Belle gasped, her hooves flying to her cheeks. “No way! Me, too! What rank did you get?”
“I’m a, um…” Cheerilee cycled through military ranks in her mind, trying to remember which fell where. “Uh… corporal?”
Blue Belle nodded. “I was a captain.”
Cheerilee arch an eyebrow, frowning. “You must have been very talented. Why didn’t you stay in the military?”
“Well, why didn’t you?”
Cheerilee ran her tongue slowly along the inside of her teeth as she considered how best to answer the question. “Well, the truth is, I’m still in the military.” she finally said. “I do covert missions—”
“Me, too! I’m part of Celestia’s secret guard!” Blue blurted before slapping a hoof over her mouth. “Ooh, I shouldn’t have told you that!”
Cheerilee pursed her lips, crossing her legs tightly across her chest. “But my real passion is marine biology. I just returned from the Gallopagos Islands yesterday where we discovered three new species of fish.”
Blue brought her hoof to her face, casually examining it for nicks and cracks. “That’s so amazing! I just got back this morning from the Hayman Island where we found thirty-three new kinds of monkies.”
Cheerilee’s eyebrows knitted together. “What do monkies have to do with marine biology?”
“They’re new,” Blue replied slowly, her voice filling with patience. “Sea monkies. Very rare. Nopony’s seen them before. I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard of them.”
Cheerilee put her hooves on her hips, her lower jaw jutting foward. “I galloped a 10K last week—”
“I won the Hosston Marathon!”
“—but I caught a cold right afterward!”
“I got pneumonia for nine weeks!”
Cheerilee jumped up, throwing her hooves into the air. “Okay, I’m done. This is ridiculous!”
“Huh?” Blue said, her face clouding. “Done with what?”
“This!” Cheerilee replied, motioning back and forth between them with a hoof. “You must really think I'm an idiot.”
Blue rose, her face turning purple as she flushed. “What’s your problem? I’m just trying to get to know you.”
“Well, I’m wondering if anypony knows you with the tales you tell!” Leaning down, Cheerilee scooped up her saddlebags and threw them over her back. “Thank you for a perfectly dreadful date.”
“Pfft! I’ve had way worse dates than y—”
Blue squeaked as Cheerilee’s hoof encircled her muzzle, squeezing it closed with a grip of pure iron. With a grunt, Cheerilee dragged the mare forward until their faces were just inches apart. Blue ceased to struggle under Cheerilee's intense, unwavering stare.
“No,” Cheerilee growled, shaking Blue’s muzzle slightly as she spoke. “No, you haven’t.”
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Poor Cheerilee, this date started off so well. But by the end, well, this sums it up.
Better luck next time I guess.
no one has worse luck
So, Cheerilee basically got roped into a date with a ponified version of Topper from Dilbert. Oof, that's rough.
Not sure what the green mushrooms in the title of this chapter represent, though, but whatever.
4052804 I'm referencing the 1-Up mushrooms from Super Mario Bros. I wasn't sure how many people would get it, but it amused me.
This reminds me of a SNL skit when Anne Hathaway was the host...
4052811 Wait...
Oh-ho~! You clever rascal, you.
Blue Bell, no. Don't even try. That is a fight no one can win.
Cheerilee should get an award for most consecutive bad dates.
4052815 Did it have a topper in it? I don't have TV, so I have no idea what goes on anymore.
Blue Belle sounded a little bit like me...
4053042 Uh oh. You're not a story topper, are you? I get very annoyed at toppers.
4053107 No, but sometimes I make the conversation all about myself. It's a nasty flaw of mine that I try to keep in check.
How did the submission to the contest go, btw?
4053127 Oh, well I have no problem with that, really. I'm very guilt of doing the same, but I don't lie. I'm just egotistical. I have a big, big problem with liars, though.
I never submitted that story. I'm actually working on it right now. I'm making a new, hopefully more fulfilling, ending. It's just about done. And I expanded a bit that explains why Scoots is desperate to live with Rainbow.
Oh, and I changed one thing that is important. I'll PM you about it, since I don't want to have a big back and forth about it here.
4053200 I imagine some of Humble's speeches in Granite were also some things old juggy wanted to say to Trixie, then.
And sure. PM me when you want.
4053271 Humble and I are intertwined in a lot of ways...
I instantly thought of this classic:
Thank you for this!
(P.S.: I got the joke. Nice!
)
4053329 Ha! I haven't heard that in a long time. I didn't know the name of the skit. I used to have this one a compilation called the Final Rip-Off. I have it on cassette, so it's been a while since I heard it.
4052769 This one wasn't even in her top 10
Was this Belle supposed to be a pathological liar?
4053354
I have the same album, but I bought it on CD(2 discs) back in... I'd say the late 90's sometime.
"Have so," stated Blue Belle in a manner of fact fashion. "Did you ever fall in love with a shattered fragment of Twilight Sparkle centuries before her birth and gain a legacy of lunacy for building an elaborate splinter reality for her to live out a recreated version of her own life for all eternity?"
Cheerilee just facehooved.
"Oh, and I can cast forth iteration spells," Belle added, "one of them summons radioactive sunlight." She paused for a second to confirm her oneupsmareship, "and I bet MY readers would get this reference."
4053670 She's a topper. She's always got a story that's one better than yours.
So, yes, in a way. It's a subset of pathological lying.
4053029
Totally. Any topic Anne's character brought up, the Topper would try to do one better... the best part was that they were working in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.
Ohhhh... She got a date with a 1-upper. That has got to be freaking annoying.
Hahaha, niiiiice.
I would have loved to see what dates Blue came up with... But that ending line is toooooo perfect.
~Skeeter The Lurker
4053707
Now I'm imagining a fic called The Worst Night Ever, in which this perfect gentlecolt is put into a time loop until he gives Cheerilee the worst date imaginable.
No one likes dating a Topper.
And Cheerilee is right; Blue Belle has no idea what kind of a monster she's just been dating.
4053707 If this isn't TSC then I have no idea. I'm behind 2 chapters there but the 33,000 word one is holding me back a bit.
Loving this series. Poor Cheerilee, lol.
4053333 You're very welcome! I love jacking up Cheerilee's life for your pleasure.
4054723 I can't stand one-uppers. That last line or two is pure self-insert for me.
4056230 I actually came up with that ending about halfway through and wrote it down at the end. Then I sort of worked backwards to it. I just really liked the idea of Cheerilee not at all entertaining the idea that this stupid mare would even come close to what she's been through.
4056555 That's… that's horrible! And funny! Horribunny!
4060041 TSC?
4057156 For some reason, every group of friends I've had seems to have one topper. It's never someone in my immediate circle. It's someone that someone else knows. Someone we run into at parties occasionally, and everyone hates. Inevitably, we all wonder just how this person that everyone can't stand ends up at all of these functions. No one will know just how they glommed onto the group.
4065351 Rocketknightgeek mentioned part of a story and I believe he meant The Sweetie Chronicles or TSC. I figured he'd (or she'd) get the reference by the initials if it was the story mentioned.
Actually, now that I think about it, that part of TSC was borrowed from another fic where Blueblood was in a timeloop (Groundghog Day style) and had to keep repeating til it was done right.
The last line can only be read in the most threatening of voices.
Loved it, know WAY too many people like Belle, to point where a friend & I joked that he'd probably try an 1-up me even up to death...
So, has Cheerilie run out of stallions or what?
You need her to take Derpy.
4053107
Yeah? Well I get absolutely infuriated at them! I petition their ISP to revoke their internet access when I was working at the region telco as a fibre engineer. (This, of course, was after I met and shook hands with the Dalai Lama, but before I started the successful eco-awareness campaign on Kickstarter to save orphaned puppies from oil spills).
4065356
In my experience, those are typically the people with the lowest self-esteem...
Poor Cheerilee! How long until she gets truly desperate and starts ogling a one-eyed diamond dog?
4070413
Grrr!
This is the damn truth!
Ohh, man, poor Cheerilee. Someday, perhaps around the 500th date, I figure there'll be nothing left that surprises her and the combination of determination and desperation will result in something like the following:
Runes and symbols in a series of circles lit with green and purple energies, dark magic forbidden to even the most well-learned of unicorns under most circumstances replicated masterfully with the right combination of enchantments. Helped by the timing of the planets aligning, of course. The powers of fear and hatred began to focus, a vortex of sheer darkness swelling like a beacon for all that was wrong in the world as a deep, throaty voice sounded.
Crrrrystaaaallssss...
From the nexus of evil sprouted a single, dark hoof, followed by the rest of the physical form of King Sombra. Opening green and red eyes, he peered about, equal parts curious as to how he came to be alive once more and eager to resume his rightful place as master of the world. He saw a table, covered with a thin white cloth, two candles and two chairs in standard positions for a thing he hadn't permitted his crystal slaves to partake of since the start of his dark reign. He heard a voice.
"Good, it worked." he turned to see a fuchsia mare throwing off a black cloak, leaning a magical staff on a nearby wall as she cantered to the table and took a seat, maintaining unblinking eye contact, face completely neutral as she stared him down, her eyes unflinching like the shimmering stones of his castle. "King Sombra, right?"
He nodded uncertainly.
Cheerilee indicated the other seat, still holding him with an unblinking stare more intense than any that should have been possible from a mere earth pony. "Bring it on."
He had felt angry when the pony sisters had sealed him away. He had felt angrier when he was torn apart by the crystal heart. Today the dark lord felt something he could not easily identify...
Fear...?
---
And it STILL wouldn't be as bad as being stuck upside down next to barf factories for 5 hours, stuck in a volcano, or drifting through the sea for two weeks.
Two questions:
-What does Cherilee mean when she says "about fifteen years ago?" If that's when she started teaching the she's a LOT older than I thought, another chapter plced her in her twenties, which would be impossible unless she was some kind of prodidgy.
-Why is this called "Green Mushrooms?"
4304142
Yeah, I remembered that too. However, it said that she thought/referred to herself as being in her "early twenties" or even "mid-twenties" with using quotation marks, so you know it is not to be taken seriously. That chapter I believe was written by a guest author. I guess that puts her in her mid-thirties (if ponies age like hoomans)
This takes me back to a few friends I've had just like this. Also takes me back to a certain scene from Zombieland.
4304142 You've probably figured it out by now, but a green mushroom, in Mario, represents a 1-UP. In this chapter, Blue Belle is constantly trying to make it seem like she has done harder things or better things than Cheerilee, something that's commonly known as 'one-upping' someone.
I was almost expecting some last line that only the readers would see or something that implied Blue Belle really was all those things she claimed to be.
Finally, the topper!