Date Forty-Five - The Right End of the Wrong Stick (Guest Chapter by InquisitorM)
Guest Chapter by Inquisitor M
Cheerilee’s ears pricked up. The world outside was dark, oppressive, cloying, and smelled oddly of tiramisu.
She spasmed and thrashed, throwing off the duvet and sitting up, panting, on the bed. Sunlight streamed in through the open curtains and her pillows lay haphazardly at opposite ends of her bedroom.
It didn’t take a schoolteacher to conclude that she was forgetting something. She rubbed her eyes, stretched, and the fog of sleep slowly made way to a thumping of blood that threatened to burst her brain like a balloon.
What in Equestria did I…
A letter still sat on her sideboard: an old date request that had ‘delusional dork’ written all over it. She’d gone to see Twilight—well, snuck in to see Twilight would be more appropriate, accompanied by an imagined lecture by an equally imagined mother about how low her daughter had sunk to be sneaking around out of shame.
Cheerilee dove face-first into where the pillows should have been.
“Ow.”
Rubbing her snout, she looked back to the sideboard. The nail in the coffin had been signing off as what was probably his roleplay-character’s ‘class’. Yet, Shining Armour was rumored to be just such a dork and he had always seemed okay, so she’d implored Twilight for advice on exactly how crazy she’d have to be to consider dating the author of this particular letter.
Twilight’s vitriolic reaction to the mere mention of her brother’s friends, the ‘nerd patrol’ as she called it, confirmed all of Cheerilee’s suspicions. Granted, there was some chance that a full fifteen-minute aside about some long-standing feud over the relative merits and statistical probabilities of two-dee-six versus dee-twelve—whatever that meant—implied she might have had more in common with them that she was willing to admit to, but then, Cheerilee didn’t want to date her, either.
Then… what happened then? She’d said something that made Twilight scoop her up in her magic and race out the door. The memory was fuzzy. Probably due to having her head clouted against the doorframe on the way out. That explained the headache, at least.
Cheerilee’s ears pricked up again: somepony was knocking at her front door.
She quickly ruffled her mane and sped downstairs. Behind the door stood a strapping young pegasus wearing the waistcoat of a royal courier.
“Would you be Miss Cheerilee?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Special delivery from the office of Her Majesty, Princess Luna.”
If the colt looked slightly confused, it was probably because she was staring at him with her mouth hanging wide open.
She was still staring a moment later, too, give or take an uncomfortable minute for the courier.
He placed the letter between her teeth and gently drew her jaw up with a hoof.
At some point he flew away, but that wasn’t important right now.
Twilight had run straight to Rarity’s and explained everything—including the embarrassing parts. And then… and then Rarity had guessed his name. Rarity knew who this stallion was: not some closeted nerd in need of a good talking to about how much of a catch he really wasn’t, but a genuine paladin—an ex-guard sworn into Princess Luna’s personal service!
And not just a courteous, disciplined, intelligent ex-guard, either; if Rarity’s enthusiasm counted for anything, he was the kind of handsome, rippling-muscled Adonis that had mares swooning in droves—the kind just asking to have his haunches shaved so that a mare could melt ice-cream on its hotness and spend several hours licking it back off.
“Oh!” Cheerilee said, still staring through the empty doorway.
There had been something of an impromptu celebration involving a sugar rush from endless quantities of tiramisu—quantities that might make for an interesting and awkward question to ask Rarity someday—and an emergency letter being drafted without her knowledge and sent by—
She dropped to the floor, the letter falling from her mouth. Several long breaths later, the room finally stopped spinning.
Twilight had taken the scroll away to send via Princess Celestia.
Cheerilee gulped: the letter before her bore a crescent-moon seal. Having friends in high places, while certainly useful, could also induce sphincter-clenching terror, it seemed.
Pulling gently on the seal, she opened the envelope and carefully withdrew the letter inside: To Miss Cheerilee. I need to see you. If you can, meet me at the Runaway’s Hill outside Ponyville at 4pm. Yours, Paladin Seeker.
She looked up at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Last night’s sugar-fuelled coma had wasted the entire morning. She breathed on her hoof and wafted it under her nose.
Tiramisu.
Still. That didn’t matter.
“A date!” Cheerilee sprang to her hooves and ran around the room. “A gorgeous date that comes with references!” She stopped in front of a framed picture of her mother.
“Suck it, mom! I have a hot date!”
She gave it a big, lip-smacking kiss and charged upstairs.
~~~
Cheerilee paced back and forth. Maybe being fifteen minutes early wasn’t such a good idea after all: the wind out on Runaway’s Hill was doing horrible things to her freshly-fluffed mane.
She stopped, taking a few long breaths as a shadow passed over her. A steel-grey pegasus swooped down and slammed into the ground, his toned legs rippling under his immaculately groomed coat.
“Hello,” Cheerilee squeaked, her whole face flushing as she tried desperately not to think about ice cream.
The stallion fanned his wings and stretched each leg and shoulder in turn as two dozen butterflies gently kissed Cheerilee’s insides.
“Miss Cheerilee, my name is Seeker—” the pegasus bowed deeply “—paladin in the service of Princess Luna.”
His voice was confident and strong, but the smile set into his exquisitely-chiselled muzzle carried a formal air, rather than a warm one.
“I’m afraid there has been a mistake, and I came to correct it personally.”
Cheerilee froze as the butterflies sprouted teeth.
“No?” she replied in another high pitched squeak.
Seeker raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“No… please?” she said. It was a little less squeaky, but carried a tremble that quickly spread to her legs, and her lips. “Pretty please?”
“I am sorry,” the paladin continued. “It seems that you have been the victim of an abhorrent lapse of judgement. A prank, if you will.”
“No,” Cheerilee said again, weakly, grinding her teeth as her head drooped.
“The letter you received was not sent by me, but by the unicorn you will see approaching from your right.”
Sure enough, a brown, plain-looking stallion jogged, puffing and flushed, across the empty field towards them.
“No!” Cheerilee stamped a hoof on the ground. “No, no, no, no!” She stamped both hooves a few time more. “It’s not fair!”
She fumed in silence, growling with each breath, until the unicorn arrived and collapsed onto the grass, heaving and groaning.
“How could you!”
“My lady,” he said between breaths, “I am a… horrible… excuse for… a unicorn… and I sss… submit myself… to your… punishment…”
“He might require a few hours to be of any use,” Seeker said, stepping beside Cheerilee and making her skin tingle as their coats brushed. “I made him run all the way here from Canterlot. He thought it would be funny to set me up on a blind date under false pretences. While I am disturbed by his disrespect for my lack of eligibility, involving you is a far more egregious offence, so I leave the nature of his restitution in your hooves.”
“I’m sorry for shouting,” Cheerilee said quietly, ears folded down.
“Don’t be. Vanilla is stripped of all rank and privilege until I hear that you are…” The stallion leaned in. “…Satisfied. Thoroughly and deeply”—she shuddered—“satisfied with his long and impassioned apology.”
The smell of him reached her and she couldn’t help but sniff: oils, cologne, sweat.
“I’m dying,” the still-puffing unicorn wailed. “Everything’s going dark!”
“Shut up, Vanilla. You don’t have permission to die yet.” Seeker smirked and gave Cheerilee a wink. He leaned closed closer and whispered tantalisingly into her ear…
“Oh!” she squeaked, blushing profusely.
Seeker stepped to one side, lifted one of Cheerilee’s hoofs, kissed it gently, then took to the air with a mighty leap.
She rubbed one leg against the back of the other, grinning like a schoolfilly.
“Oh woe is me!” Vanilla waved his hooves through the air melodramatically. “Abandoned to the pits of my own folly! Woe is me!”
Her grin faded, replaced by a deep scowl.
“Oh, shut up, Vanilla. You don’t have my permission to die yet, either.”
~~~
Amethyst Star flopped sideways onto Cheerilee’s shoulder, releasing a long moan from deep in her throat.
“So… good...”
Cheerilee wrapped a leg around her friend and massaged her own, bloated belly.
“Oh the horror!” Meadowbreeze shouted, mock-fainting and holding out a hoof towards the table full of emptied plates.
Lily, spread across a long couch, feebly waved a hoof in her friend’s direction. “Urgh. Don’t make me come over there and hug you,” she said, slurring the words. “I think I might explode.”
The other three mares giggled together, and Amethyst cuddled into Cheerilee’s chest. “Thanks for inviting us, Cheri. I needed this.”
“Yeah, I needed this too,” she replied, a warm smile spreading across her face. “And not just the food, or the dancing, or the unimaginably expensive wine.” She hugged the mare pressed against her and sighed. “I can always trust you girls to get me through. So what do we think? Is his indentured servitude over or shall we stretch it to a another picnic tomorrow?”
“What was that about dentures?” Amethyst said.
“Uuuungh,” Lilly added.
Meadowbreeze giggled. “Definitely. Can I have him when you’re done with his punishment? I love a stallion that can make me laugh.”
The door to the kitchen flew open, and a sweaty, grease-stained unicorn wearing a ‘Don’t Kill The Chef’ apron plodded in with another plate of food. “Meadowbreeze,” he said with a frown, “I’m increasingly of the opinion you’d be happy with any stallion sufficiently tied up.”
Meadowbreeze burst into raucous laughter, but Amethyst’s horn glowed and a rolled-up paper flew over and swatted the stallion on the nose.
“Bad pony! No having fun. Bad. Pony!”
Vanilla prostrated himself and covered his head with his hooves.
“Yes Mistress! Sorry Mistress! Bad pony!”
A few more swats and the attack ceased. He lifted a leg and cracked an eye wide open.
“So… uhh, now that you’ve had your third helping of your second main course, can I start on desserts? I have a lovely tiramis—”
“No!”
Stats
Page generated in 0.035 seconds
Total duration
1,050 users online
1,907,658 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Huh. Whaddya know? Cheerilee came out on top this time. And you know what? I think she totally deserves reprieves like this. It's certainly a welcome change of pace from all the nonsense she's put up with thus far. Good on ya, Cheers.
Um, okay. Did Cheerilee dump that unicorn off on the flower sisters or something?
The program you just watched was a recreation of real events with the names changed to protect the innocent.
After finally being released from duty by Cheerilee, Vanilla was awarded the purple heart after surviving a day of watching over the Crusaders.
Cheerilee is still awaiting sentencing on charges of torture.
The crusaders are related to Equestrias living weapon - the Elements of Harmony and were thus found to be above the law, the attorney attempting to prosecute them was given life in prison.
That ending was suspiciously positive.....
Booooooooo!
Give Vanilla to The Crusaders. That'll teach him.
4799996 you sir have made a fantastic observation. Casinos intentionally avoid having clocks in their facilities so the patrons don't ever feel the need to leave.
You are Sherlock Hooves.
4801595
4801695
Don't worry. Future Cheerilee is going to travel back in time to the hill and spirit Past Cheerilee away before she meets up with Seeker and Vanilla.
"I am in the nick of time, you are in great peril!"
"I don't think I am!"
"Yes you are, you are in terrible peril."
"Look, let me go back there and face the peril."
"No, it's too perilous."
"Well, let me have just a little bit of peril?"
"Absolutely not! It's unhealthy."
Did anyone else find the Paladin's speech suspiciously implicative?
I'm glad Cheerilee came out on top in this one, and I would not be surprised if it took several nights before they considered Vanilla sufficiently punished.
So another receives their comeuppance, and it's only slightly at Cheerilee's expense.
Now I'm trying to remember if Amethyst has had any history with Cheerilee so far. She seems to be cuddling pretty intimately there.
Victory of sorts for once, not bad.
4801816
4799996
What do they care? Their customers can't leave anyway!
What's the bet that Seeker is gay? That would more-or-less match up with Cherilee's luck right now.
Well... at least she got a personal slave out of this one!
Not exactly a victory, but a helluva consolation prize.
This guest author was a genius for making things so good for Cheerilee this time around. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see how it would all go horribly wrong the whole time. This fits well with Finagle's law, which states that the perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. It allows for things to go well for you for a bit, too, just to screw with you.
4806495 'Well' would a bit strong. I mean, Cheerilee didn't even get a date at all! But I did have to get special dispensation for a small, secondary victory.
After so many chapters, the story just wasn't that funny anymore to me that I was leaning towards the "dark" tag right about now.
Then you come up with this chapter. Good job!
5843424
Okay, so it's a bit late but here's what I think happened.
► Cheerilee has an old letter requesting a date from Vanilla, signed as Paladin Seeker.
► Cheerilee assumes from the 'Paladin' bit that it's a role-player.
► In her desperation, Cheerilee reconsiders the letter and asks Twilight what she knows of role-players in general and the reasonableness of dating one in specificity. (She knows that Twilight's brother, Shining Armour enjoys role-playing games.)
► Twilight discusses this with Rarity, who recognises the name on the letter as a genuine paladin of Luna rather than a "closeted nerd".
► The trio; Cheerilee, Rarity and Twilight have an impromptu celebration involving a large amount of tiramisu that Rarity happened to have. (It seems that 'Paladin Seeker" is quite the catch.)
► Twilight sends a scroll to Celestia. Presumably Celestia passes this on to Luna to pass on to Paladin Seeker.
► Cheerilee receives a letter from the real Paladin Seeker for a meeting.
► Seeker explains about the letter being a fake, introduces Cheerilee to the pony who wrote the fake letter (Vanilla) and leaves the manner of restitution to Cheerilee to decide, almost as a bonded servant.
► And then we see the aftermath; Cheerilee's invited a couple of her friends to join her in taking advantage of Vanilla's servitude until Cheerilee's satisfied according to Seeker's orders.
This one was confusing. But a few of the jokes made me laugh, so that's all that really matters.