• Published 15th Nov 2013
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Cheerilee's Thousand - xjuggernaughtx



Cheerilee goes on one thousand terrible dates.

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Date Forty-Eight - Halt, Criminal Scum (Guest Chapter by Georg)

Guest Chapter by Georg

“It’s time to put all of this weirdness behind me. No more blind dates, no matter what dad says. No more horny elk or Wonderbolts, no exciting adventure dates in volcanos, no awkward purple unicorns or Daring Do wannabees… Wait a minute. I never dated Twilight, did I? Oh, well. Even royalty was a complete bust, even if I did get to hone my ocean survival skill training with Blueblood.”

Cheerilee trotted down the darkening streets of Canterlot past the older earth pony section of town, enjoying the sights of the historic old mansions that held wealthy families of earth pony nobility since the founding of the city.

“No more weird dates. And what could be less weird than a normal Canterlot police officer, far, far away from Officer Turnkey? A nice, quiet, sane pony who can arrest any of the nuts who normally break up my dates.”

Polite and lettered, from the neat invitation he had sent by pegasus post. Normally Cheerilee had a habit of reading her incoming mail with a red pencil in her teeth, even the junk mail titled ‘You may have won!’ or ‘One weird trick to raise your retirement income!’ They all had at least one red mark by the time she was done, but the letter from “Officer Law” was laid out perfectly, with correct margins, punctuation, spelling… She had to re-read it twice before realizing it was a request for a date, and it took a whole day of careful drafting with Chickago’s Manual of Style close at hoof to craft a polite response.

“Canterlot is a practical place, with no bloodthirsty ducks or volcanos to interrupt a nice, quiet dinner with a nice, quiet stallion, and since their police department certainly filters out any jelly-obsessed nuts or robots, this date will be just perfect!”

She paused, one hoof up in the air and in a dramatic pose in the middle of the street, looking at a rather bemused unicorn in a Canterlot Police Department uniform.

“Officer Law, I presume?”

The older unicorn snorted once and gave her a long evaluating look from nose to tail and ending with a slow shaking of his head. “Miss Cheerilee, I’m Lieutenant Forthright, Office of Public Relations. Murphy should be along shortly. The department requires us to provide oversight whenever a civilian liaisons with an officer during official business hours. Sign here, please.”

A clipboard wrapped in his magic aura floated over and hovered in front of her. Cheerilee squinted at the writing in the dim light of the nearby streetlight before just grabbing the proffered pencil in her teeth and scribbling something incomprehensible at the bottom of the page. There was a brief light that somehow tasted like cotton and the police officer trotted off, calling back over his shoulder, “Thank you, Miss Cheerilee. The cloud-walking spell should last until morning. We appreciate your help tonight.”

“Help with what? And why a cloud-walking spell?” she muttered, her previous cheerful optimism rapidly fading.

“Sorry about this,” rumbled a rich tenor voice from somewhere behind and above her. There was something about the voice that sent a little tremble up her spine and made her knees weak, a voice that fairly dripped tall, dark, and handsome. “Most of the patrol officers are down with the Feather Flu, so I volunteered for an extra shift tonight under the condition that our date not be interrupted except for emergencies. You don’t mind, do you, ma’am?”

“Of course no—” Cheerilee stopped as she turned around. She had seen Luna’s nocturne stallions before, most normally at a distance or on the covers of various romantic fictions which described their physical characteristics in meticulous detail. Officer Law was indeed tall, dark, and handsome. Tall, as he was seated on a fairly large cloud which had been dragged down to just above the street. Dark, as he was a deep shade of charcoal grey which fairly glistened in the streetlight, offsetting his short cut violet mane. And handsome. Very handsome, with sharp white teeth that showed as he talked, and a set of broad membranous wings that stretched out in slow beats to keep the cloud stable against the soft north wind that wanted to blow it down the street. Up close, those golden eyes were almost hypnotic, something out of a Bramble Stalker novel from her nighttime reading list detailing the fantasy lives of Luna’s creations, mostly involving musty old castles with pipe organs and nubile young schoolteachers… err… maidens. Definitely maidens.

“Ma’am? Are you all right, ma’am?” She was vaguely aware of a large hoof being waved up and down in front of her face, and she blinked twice before responding.

“No, officer. I haven’t been drinking. Oh!” Cheerilee inhaled deeply while taking in the sight of the large cloud occupied by the handsome police officer and the wicker picnic basket by his side. “A picnic in the sky?”

“It’s perfectly safe, ma’am. We’ll just be a few hundred feet up. I picked a spot that has a beautiful view of the stars and all of Canterlot. There’s no better place to watch the city. That is, unless you’re afraid of heights, ma’am.”

“Heights? No, of course not.” Just falls, and the abrupt stop at the end.

Cheerilee eyed the thick cloud and prodded it with one uncertain hoof. It felt spongy, more like a giant marshmallow than a puff of vapor insufficient to hold up a rather healthy earth pony who had not been on civil speaking terms with her bathroom scale for several weeks.

“The cloud-walking spell seems to be holding. For now. Is that—” Cheerilee nosed open the picnic basket and took a deep sniff. “Eggplant Florentine with truffles, marinated with hydrangea petals in a light wine sauce. My favorite. How did you know?”

The police officer shrugged. “It was in your file. I picked dinner up from a cousin who works at Le Creux downtown, ma’am. Nothing alcoholic for me, ma’am. I’m still on duty.”

Le Creux?” gasped Cheerilee. “Their waiting list is legendary. It can take years to get a table.”

“I wouldn’t know, ma’am,” said Officer Law. “If you would please step on board, my shift has already started, and I’d like to get to my post.”

Five minutes later

“Ma’am, you can stop checking the knot. We’re safely anchored.”

Cheerilee lifted her hooves off the knot and looked down off the edge of the cloud to the very, very, very distant tree where the other end of the cord was tied. “I’m just nervous, Officer Law. I’ve had a few bad experiences with being this high before. Not that I’m used to getting high. In the air, that is. Except college, but everypony there was—”

She closed her mouth with a snap and tried to look up at the somewhat nearer stars.

Don’t talk about the past. Think about the future. The past does not matter. Everything that happened before is gone, and nopony will ever remember it. Think only about this evening, and what that very handsome young stallion with the nice flanks over there has planned.

“It’s a very nice view,” she blurted out, yanking her gaze from his muscular rump to the rest of Canterlot, spread out below their dining location in the glitter of streetlights and windows.

“Thank you, ma’am.” The officer placed two tall candles on the tablecloth and lit them before returning to rummage in the picnic basket.

“I can’t help but notice that you can see all of the VanHoofer estate from here,” said Cheerilee, looking down into the broad fenced yard that surrounded the huge mansion and trying not to figure out how much expensive statuary she would break if anything fell off their dining cloud.

“Yes, ma’am. There’s been a spree of jewel robberies lately, and I’m on stakeout here tonight. It’s more efficient use of my time.” There was a clinking of plates and eating utensils as the nocturne officer found what he was looking for in the picnic basket and began to distribute dinner across the candlelit tablecloth.

For her part, Cheerilee just sat back on the cloud Cloud! I’m sitting on a cloud! and tried to relish the peaceful night under the stars with the handsome stallion.

It was quiet. It was romantic. It was perfect. It was starting to get ominous.

Food poisoning? Not from Le Creux. Nothing that a few more weeks on my diet won’t fix.

Migrating dragons? No, wrong season.

Tornadoes? No, only a few scattered clouds in the perfectly beautiful night sky.

Mass invasion by extradimensional beings hungry for the blood of schoolteachers? Well, maybe.

It was almost a relief when he finished setting their dinner out and opened up a set of thick folders. “Now, before we get started, I just want to get on the record that your name is Cheerilee, AKA Blackcherry Lee, also AKA The Magenta Mangler?”

“It was only for one time in college,” interrupted Cheerilee through a bite of eggplant. “There was a charity wrestling event, and the top prize was five hundred bits. So what else is in that file?”

“Just a few unexplained incidents that we wanted to get straightened out for your records this evening.” Those soft golden eyes looked up and Cheerilee could feel a little of her heart melt under their deceptively warm gaze. Or maybe it was the Parmesan cheese on the delicious eggplant settling into her arteries. “Nothing criminal, of course, other than the ridiculous allegation from Prince Blueblood that you turned into a fearsome monster and stole his enchanted rowboat.”

“Completely false,” she agreed, eyeing the thick folders and trying to calculate how many potential years of jail time they represented.

At least I’m getting a last meal. Ooo, he brought honey glazed baby carrots.

“And a criminal damage to property claim that apparently involved a robot?”

“Totally not my fault.” I blame these deviled eggs with pimentos and cheese, Officer Law. Let me see about their punishment.

“I see, ma’am. And the near drowning and hypothermia that landed a young stallion named Caramel into the Ponyville hospital?”

“Totally the Ponyville weather service’s fault,” she said, hoping he would not mention the restraining order Rainbow Dash had taken out against her as well as the tendency for her house to be randomly struck by lightning as of late.

“And an ongoing gang war between the Ducks and the Geese?”

“Isn’t that an alarm bell?” Cheerilee pointed down at the moonlit VanHoofer estate where two dark-clad ponies were slipping out of an open window, each holding a bag.

“Halt, criminal scum!” bellowed Officer Law, extending his wings with a solid ‘whump’ and springing off the cloud in a muscular leap that knocked over several of the dishes in their picnic/interrogation. “Stop right there! This is the police!”

“And this is the police evidence folder,” murmured Cheerilee, pulling out the first piece of paper and feeding it into the candle as she watched the officer dash away into the distance. “No stolen rowboat. No eyewitness reports of a rampaging robot.” She looked at the next sheet with a frown. “I thought this was supposed to have been expunged from my juvenile record when I turned eighteen. Oh, well. It’s gone now.”

She looked down at the moonlit estate where a dark winged shadow had just gone around a corner in hot pursuit of his prey. “Officer Law, did you want any more of the Eggplant Florentine during our little interrogation? No? Oh, well. More for me. Oh, and you brought spice bread. How thoughtful.”

The empty metal container that used to hold the main course turned out to make a fine fireplace, and Cheerilee occupied her time waiting for the return of her date by building a warm fire against the chill evening air. Some of the papers made fascinating reading while she ate dinner, but after tossing the final empty folder into the fire and raising the bottle of sparkling grape juice, she settled down comfortably in the cloud and looked back at the VanHoofer estate to give a salute to the absent police officer and his excellent taste in cuisine.

“To Officer Law. Thank you for giving me the best date I’ve had in weeks, even though you weren’t here to enjoy it.”

As she lifted the glass with the last of the grape juice, she noticed something puzzling about her surroundings. A very distinct shift of perspective in fact. She could still see the VanHoofer estate, but it was considerably farther away than she remembered. And shrinking.

The anchor rope was still tied to the cloud, but it only took a moment to pull up the slack rope and stare in disbelief at the broken branch at the other end. The gentle northern breeze had already carried her away from Canterlot and was pushing her over the forest below at about — she pulled a sextant and a map out of her purse and took a few sightings.

“It’s a good thing I’m prepared this time. Brisk breeze from the north, blowing at approximately…” She trailed off, scribbling numbers and measuring vectors on the map. “And they said Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry would never be useful. Let’s see, I need to know elevation, given an object falling—” She peeked over the edge of the cloud at the forest far, far below and released the empty pot that once held dinner, counting seconds until it vanished below. “Let’s just say 3,000 meters. Given that the cloudwalking spell will fail when the cloud passes over the Everfree Forest, I’ll need to reduce my terminal velocity from 54 m/s by boosting my drag coefficient…”

Rummaging around in her overstuffed purse, Cheerilee pulled out a copy of Introductory Physics and turned to the experiments at the back of the book. “Ok, class. Time to apply our theoretical knowledge to a real-world problem. Catapults. Trebuchets. Ah, here we go. Parachutes. The tablecloth will do for the chute and the anchor cord for the lines, so all I need to do is scale the parachute up to approximately—” Cheerilee’s voice got soft for a moment ”—kilograms and get it all put together before the cloudwalking spell expires or I get blown into the Everfree Forest.”

A familiar duck landed on her cloud in a little flurry of feathers, followed by a second, and then several more, all of whom eyed her with subdued malice.

“Or I get caught in a migration,” added Cheerilee, looking around the darkened sky as she heard the oncoming whisper of distant wingbeats.

“Piece of cake,” she added, taking the last piece of cake off the dessert tray and starting to tie the rope onto the tablecloth. She worked slowly at first while watching her hostile audience, then speeding up as the sound of wings grew louder and the cloud continued to float through the night air in the direction of home.

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