Date Fifty-One - The Laws of Attraction
Perfect Match smoothed the soft flannel blanket before patting the area just beside him. “It’s a little chilly, don’t you think?”
Cheerilee didn’t think it was chilly in the least. In fact, the thought of getting a little bit closer to this handsome pegasus stallion was getting her a little overheated. Breathe, Cheerilee. Play it cool. She blew her mane away from her eyes, then made a show of checking the blanket for any dirt before sitting.
“Wait until you see what I’ve brought for us,” Perfect said with a grin. “I really think you’ll enjoy some of this. Let’s see now…” He opened the large picnic basket and fished through it. “Ah! How about… smoked gouda with flax seeds and barley crackers?”
Cheerilee gasped. “Th-that’s my favorite! How did you know?”
Perfect tipped her a wink. “Just a hunch. You look like a gouda kinda girl. Hmmm. What else?” His ears perked up. “Oh, I hope you enjoy wine. This is a one of my favorites. It’s—”
“A Stonyfield Red Special Reserve!”
Perfect beamed. “You have excellent taste!”
“Well, actually, Berry does. We drink together.” Cheerilee winced. “I-I mean we go out together sometimes. For drinks!” Cheerilee’s face darkened as a slow flush crept up into her cheeks. “Not like that. She’s a marefriend. Th-that is, she’s a mare that’s a friend, not—”
“Shh.” Perfect gently pressed a feather-light hoof to her lips. It smelled vaguely of cedar and holiday spices, bringing with it visions of nights cuddling beside a crackling fire. “I understand what you mean, so relax. If anypony should be nervous, it’s me. The truth is...”
Cheerilee trembled as his hoof left her lips to cup her burning cheek.
“The truth is that I’m crazy about you, and I have been for a long, long time.”
Cheerilee swallowed hard, her eyes round as saucers. “R-really?”
“Since the moment I laid eyes on you.” Perfect edged closer, and his voice dropped down to a husky whisper. “It probably looks like I have it all. Wildly successful match and candle entrepreneur. A fifteen time winner of the Equestria Philanthropic Leader Award. Two Ph.Ds and ten Masters across various fields. Named “Best with Foals” by Mare Monthly.” Perfect looked away for a moment, and his eyes shimmered with welling tears. “But I don’t have a mare to share it all with.”
Cheerilee’s heart was pounding, and her hoof trembled as she laid it over his. “But… but you probably have hundreds of mares who’d—”
“Yes, but there’s only one that I want, you see.” Perfect’s crystal-blue eyes twinkled. “You don’t know what a chore it is, Cheerilee, to find a smart, caring mare who’s dedicated to art, education, and the future generations.” He shook his head. “I’d nearly given up… but then I came to Ponyville for that conference, and there you were.”
Cheerilee tried to respond, but her voice seemed to have disappeared. She settled from gripping his hoof more tightly.
A slow smile crept its way across Perfect’s ruggedly handsome face. His teeth were brilliantly white. “I could hardly believe my luck. Imagine, of all the seats to be assigned, mine was next to the most caring and clever mare I’d had the pleasure of speaking with in quite some time, and for her to be the recipient of the conference’s Leadership in Education Award. Why, I was enthralled!” Perfect leaned in, now only inches away. “And it didn’t hurt that you were the most gorgeous mare I’d ever seen.”
“We should probably spend some time together, then.” Cheerilee found her hoof in his mane, pulling him closer. “Lots and lots of time.”
“I think I’d like that…” Perfect’s lips brushed hers.
“AWAY, CRETIN!”
Forgotten picnic plates and glasses flew into the air as Cheerilee and Perfect scrambled away from each other. A cold wind sprang up, sweeping the basket away and wrapping the blanket around Perfect’s hooves just as he rose. With a grunt, he half-fell against a tree, then slid the rest of the way to the ground.
Landing a few yards away, Princess Luna’s eyes flashed when she glowered at the confused stallion. “Thou wouldst come into this realm—Our realm—seeking to prey upon a yearning heart?”
“I-I’m not sure—”
“SILENCE!” The word slammed into Perfect, pinning him against the tree. “We will not tolerate thy untoward advances. BEGONE!”
Cheerilee had just started to throw a restraining hoof up when a crackling beam of dark energy erupted from the princess’s horn and enveloped Perfect. For a moment, his face writhed and bulged into grotesque shapes before he melted away.
“It is done. Thou art safe once more, but—”
“What did you do to him?” Cheerilee tore through the tangled blanket before whirling on the princess. “You killed him!”
Her eyes confused, Luna brought a hoof to her chest and took a step back. “Killed? We have killed nothing. He was merely woken from this dreaming state.”
“This is a… dream?” Cheerilee’s clenched hoof wavered uncertainly between them for a moment before she hung her head with a sigh. “Of course it is. I should have known.” She pulled her head back up to scowl at the princess. “But it was a really good one!” she said, stomping a hoof.
“We were afraid of this, Cheerilee. Thy concupiscent heart has left thee vulnerable.” Luna pointed to the various picnic items, and one by one, they melted away. “It went unnoticed, then, that thy amorous companion failed to bring thee the requisite band of woven laurel branches and morning glories?”
“I, uh…” Cheerilee looked away from a moment, but the surrounding forest held no answers. “What?”
Princess Luna shook her head. “And the Melody of Joining played upon a hoof-carved fife of his own creation. Was it heard? Your sire and dam, were they spoken to in accordance with the law?
“Law?” Cheerilee brow furrowed. “Equestria doesn’t have any laws about dating.”
The princess curled her lip. “Nay, citizen, you err. Such laws were established long ago to keep in check unseemly coupling, but it appears that Our sister has been lax in their enforcement. We have spoken to her several times on the subject, but to no avail. The words ‘prudish’ and ‘antiquated’ were unfairly levied upon Us, but the law still stands. It ill-suits the crown to show such apathy toward their own mandates.”
Cheerilee stared at Princess Luna for a moment. “Are you telling me that it’s illegal to date in Equestria?”
“Far from it!” Luna’s eyes widened, and her wings fluttered. “It distresses Us mightily that thy reaction to this news is not a joyful one. The fifty-seven steps to legal courtship were designed to ensure harmonious relations. Is that not what you seek?”
“Fifty-seven steps?” Cheerilee replied, her eyes bulging. “Princess, forgive me for being blunt, but you’ll never enforce that! Times have changed since… since whenever that was. Nopony will follow that.”
“We’ve seen the evidence of thy words in Our governorship of the night.” Luna leaned against a tree and sighed. Standing this close to the princess, Cheerilee could see bags beneath her royal eyes. “Since discovering the rampant violations, We have been run ragged. Still, We persevere.” Princess Luna pursed her lips for a moment. “Our sister simply does not understand the full magnitude of the problem. Oh, the walks under the evening moon! The brazen hoof holding! Why, We have even seen necking and unchaperoned embracing in flower-adorned gazebos and upon secluded verandas! These things just do not happen in sunlight. If only Celestia would listen!”
Cheerilee’s head throbbed. I can’t even dream without getting a headache now?
“Please, citizen, tell Us why thy face adopts such a dire cast, and why thou rubbest thy temple so.” Princess Luna dropped her gaze to her hooves for a moment. “Our efforts have been met with some unhappiness, but it is for the good of all Equestria.”
Cheerilee sat, then took a deep breath. Her mane rippled as waves of power rolled off the nearby princess. “P-pardon me, Your Highness, but…” Cheerilee licked her lips. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. “But did you ask any of the couples that you, um, rescued if they wanted rescuing? Or their parents. Or, well… anypony?”
Princess Luna offered Cheerilee a small, grim frown. “Ask? The law is written!”
“But nopony knows about the law, and it’s so stran…”
The princess’s eyebrows descended slightly.
“I-I mean, it’s so old-fash…”
Luna’s jaw muscle twitched.
“What I mean is that every policy should be reviewed from time to time!” Cheerilee finished in a rush. She wiped away a light layer of sweat that had collected on her brow.
Princess Luna stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “We are pleased thou art a teacher, for there is wisdom in thy words. It is apparent that Our customs have fallen from favor.”
“I’m so glad that you—”
Luna pulled herself up to her full height and tossed her head back. The air around her sizzled with arcane energy. “So We shall return to the castle and declare a new minister! One to travel the length and breadth of Equestria reminding all citizens of Our laws of courtship. The heart is bold, and left unchecked, emotions will run wild. Chaos reigned in Equestria before, and that is a darkness We would not have anypony suffer again!”
Cheerilee squeezed her eyes closed and slapped a hoof over the left side of her face. “But it was a dream! We can’t even dream about love?”
Princess Luna shook her head. “The world of dreams has many doors for entry and many paths upon which a sleeper might tread. Nightly, I observe countless—” The princess’s lips curled into a small moue “—distasteful fantasies played out in the minds of Equestrians. Those dreams are of little consequence, for they are fully within the mind of a single citizen. Thy dream, however, was of a different sort. When two hearts cry out for one another, they sometimes find each other in this realm. No longer is the dreaming purely innocent then. It is a true sharing, and if those two were to meet, the fires would burn brightly indeed! The blazing heat of such love would surely lead to ashen regret.”
Cheerilee shot to her hooves. “Are you saying that Perfect Match truly loves me, and you just woke him up?”
“Nay.” Luna patted Cheerilee on the head several times. “Perfect Match is but a construct of thy subconscious. There is no such pony, but the connection was true. Somepony with desire sent out a call, and thy yearning heart returned it. Thy mind just gave the emotion form.”
Stepping away, Princess Luna’s horn glowed, and she began slowly fading from view. “We must depart to other dreams, Cheerilee, We cherish thy wisdom and wish for thee a prolonged courtship someday.”
Cheerilee charged forward “Wait!”
Waving, Luna disappeared from view.
“Who is it? Who is—”
~~~
“—my true love?”
Gasping, Cheerilee bolted upright in her bed. Her hooves were still shaking while she fumbled her way free through the tangled mess her sheets had become. According to the small alarm clock she kept on her nightstand, it was two-thirty in the morning.
Right. No time to waste! Cheerilee swung her legs off the end of the bed, then trotted to her writing desk. After lighting the lantern hanging above, she fished out a piece of parchment and her inkwell. I hate to complain, but Celestia really has to do something about this one. Time to call in that favor Twilight keeps trying to push on me. Cheerilee hunched over the desk, then stabbed her quill into the inkwell in the automatic strokes of a pony who has graded thousands of papers. So, what’s the best way to report a princess diplomatically?
Touching quill to parchment, Cheerilee meant to write a letter “D”, but instead watched as her hoof made a long, double-curved line, then another that mirrored the first. She stared down at the large heart that now occupied the majority of the space. Slowly, her lips twitched up into a spreading grin.
“Cheerilee plus…” she said while writing inside of the heart. For a moment, the quill hovered over that empty space before three drops of ink fell from it into an almost perfect row.
“You’re out there,” she whispered at the heart. It felt odd not being angry, but for the time being, it was enough.
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I'd say this is the best of all chapters so far until I get that chapter I asked about for so long, but seeing as I forgotten what it was I asked for, I'll just declare this as the best chapter ever!
it's great to see that your back and writing chapters again!
5475971 I'm glad you liked it! I didn't expect it to go to where it went toward the end.
Two P.h.d. and ten Masters*...I'm gonna call it, Perfect Match is Twilight.
It would be pretty funny as the hundredth last date, especially since she's already a reoccuring character and there's a bit of an arc to their story.
*by the way, xjuggernaughtx, I pettily hate you, the way a cat hates hates baths, for making it seem that they're easy to get, even though I know this is comic gross exaggeration
Whoa, is this... an actual plot? I'll be damned. I wouldn't mind if the story followed this path at all.
5476000
Yep. No matter if it was planned or not, it was hilarious! Though you almost felt bad for Cheerilee...
5476018 I've been weaving in threads for a plot for some time now, though I don't really have any idea of where it's going. I just leave things in the story I can pick up on later, like the romance-obsessed robot or the ducks. It's just things to enrich the story down the road.
5476015 I watched my mom nearly kill herself getting a Ph.D, so I have some sympathy for the process.
Not enough not to use it for comic effect, but a little.
5476015 Wouldn't surprise me. But I can see how akward it would be if the prized student of Princess Celestia suddenly were to come out and reveal that she "swings the other way" so to speak.
...thousands of miles away, a dragon as old as Equestria stirred in his slumber and scratched his lips. It was such a nice dream, and this other dragon seemed like such a nice drake. If only she was real.
He rearranged himself on his mountain of gold and gems, carefully reaching out with one massive talon to wind up a tiny music box before settling back down to sleep. In the background, the music box tinkled out its cheerful tune.
"A you're adorable, B you're so beautiful..."
This is where I started questioning what was going on and
after this I just said "yep it's a dream, no way this would actually happen."
So thank you for forever making me doubt when Cheerilee have something not bad happening to her...
Well, this is definitely before Season 2. Guess Luna needed to practice her psychoanalyst skills after a thousand years on the moon.
On the plus side, this was a step up from the time she dreamed about Daring Do being a jerk.
I forgot Cheerilee's love life is so bad she can't even win in her dreams.
I thought it might've started in medias res for a good reason. Since, supposedly, you can't recount how you wound up where you are in a dream.
And is that... could it be... hints of... an ongoing storyline?! Nay, 'tis too much to ask.
Nice to see you writing again, xjx. Did you know Skywriter's latest is about a Cheerilee partly defined by a lonely and spurned heart? Sounds up your alley.
5476405 I've actually been writing a lot, but it's all on lots of different stories. A couple of thousand words on ten projects means nothing really gets done...
WHAT?! Now he's making Cheeri-stories, too? Man, you give a guest author an inch and they take a mile! I guess I'm going to have to go read it and then tell him how good it is! What a talented bastard he is...
5476430 Don't worry; it's merely somewhere between "quite good" and "very good", which in my mind as a Skywriter fan represents a fairly scandalous hooves-of-clay moment. (But he's a pegasus, so who cares what's up with his hooves if he's flying everywhere?)
Darn it, Luna!
Get with the times!
5476466 She's with the times! Ye olde times!
i5.photobucket.com/albums/y169/S1apSh0es/sweetie-belle_image-macro_metajpg_zpsc2a1e850.jpg
I find it quite scary that this could actually happen in the United States.
Our politicians make really bad decisions based on their religious beliefs and I wouldn't be surprised if relationships became monitored and policed. Ethnical likes and heterosexual only relationships.
Probably wasn't intentional, but this was quite a thought-provoking chapter for me.
When will poor Cheerilee get a date that actually goes well?
5476184 Why would you wish that on some poor dragon?
5476227 There is no room for doubt. Every encounter is terrible. All of them.
5476252 Actually, Daring Do was a real encounter. I changed it quite some time ago after they made Daring Do a real pony.
5476330 The only love that Cheerilee gets is in a tennis match.
You know that now you have to shoehorn in an aside at some point where Cadence was verbally or physically assaulting Luna when she found out about this.
But Luna, there was this wedding everyone told you about! I mean, what, shouldn't you have been berating Shining Armor for--
Wait, nevermind, he probably actually did all of that. Because he is THE HUGEST DORK.
Aw does this mean we have a huge overarching plot where cheerilee will get the pony of her dreams?? she deserves it already after all the crud she's had to take
5479119 Dammit, no. It's just a mistake on my part. For some reason, that's the one thing I always forget about writing this season one story. I've done that like four times now with Twilicorn.
5478897 That was always the plan. Well, maybe not always, but it has been for a while. It's just unlikely that this story will actually get that far. I mean, we have nine hundred and forty-nine dates left...
To be honest, I never expected this story to take off the way that it did. I never thought so many people would care what I did with Cheerilee, so what was once just a way for me to blow off some boredom and write some ridiculous stuff has kind of morphed into my main story. With that comes certain differences in the way that I view what I'm doing. I'm more serious and conscious now of what I put her through and what it will mean in the future chapters than I was at the beginning.
Poor Cheerilee, even the dates in her dreams get ruined.
At first I thought Perfect Match was a changling. Has Cheerilee had any dates ruined by changlings yet?
I suspect Luna's real problem is no one has initiated the 57 steps on her in a long time. Cadance getting her
laida date might help with that.My guess is Perfect Match is really Caramel, since he's gone on more dates with her than anyone, and seems willing to get himself killed to keep trying. But I would also accept ancient dragon.
This is too good to be true.
And it is. Luna?
Yep, it's Luna.
Celestia is going to need some extra good cake after cleaning up this mess.
That was a surprisingly hopeful note for the chapter to end on.
5479576 Something occurred to me while reading this chapter, have you thought about skipping dates? Could do a few in the hundreds and then pick back up again in the 900s. Would give plenty of place to slot in guest chapters while allowing for a more manageable endpoint.
5487352 I'm kind of up in the air about a lot of this. I have several ideas about how to proceed, but I just haven't decided yet. Since lots of authors will be gathered in one place at BABSCon, I was thinking of bouncing some stuff off of them and seeing the reactions.
5487338 Yeah, I felt that the story needed some freshening up, so I wanted to give Cheerilee a bit of a new perspective. Luna ruined her night, but also greatly improved her outlook to a certain degree.
5486614 I was so excited when that comic was announced. Not only was it a Cheerilee-focused issue, but one that fit into the framework of this story (Georg wrote that chapter, though, so I can't take credit for the idea) was really thrilling.
5485692 Thanks! I'm very happy to hear that you're finding it entertaining.
5480346 Changelings haven't been introduced yet, since they didn't show up until the end of season two. We are still in season one in this story. I could have one, but it would have to be done in such a way that it didn't raise a bunch of attention. Otherwise, the ponies might be tipped off that changelings are around before A Canterlot Wedding. Additionally, I'm just not terribly interested in changelings.
I did have them mentioned in, what was it? Chapter forty-nine? I forget, but whatever the conspiracy theorist chapter was.
5487469 Oh, I forgot about that the conspiracy theorist one, that was awesome. I guess it makes sense this story is time stamped, otherwise Cheerilee would have become convinced her dating life was cursed by Discord or something for kicks.
I just remembered, Tirek's been out and wandering around in that cloak since mid Season 2, and he has to do something to get close to ponies to steal their magic... I wonder if he's tried dating them?
This might be the most cruel one so far.
Also, I love how you take a concept that could easily fuel a long fic and uses it as just another failed date for Cheerilee.
5489490 I've thought about that many times. All of these dates could just be stories. I'd have so many stories by now...
And to me, this was one of the nicer ones. I mean, her date got jacked up, but at least Luna inadvertently gave her something to be hopeful about.
5489601 I dunno, there is just something about how she gets taunted with that being so close to her, just to get it taken away, that strikes me as particularly cruel.
Dude if she ends up finding her true love and it turns out to be a terminal cancer patient I'm going to fume, cry, and fume some more.
Luna wouldn't have told Cheerilee who he was anyway. Some things need to be found out the normal way or they lose their value.
5487707 Probably not, seeing as A. He's a centaur and B. He hates ponies.
5495487 What you say is true, meaning it would take a set of truly zany circumstances for them to date!
5496073 True. I hadn't considered that level of cruelty. Perhaps it is the most cruel of them all.
As a bonus chapter, I think it would be fun to see "Perfect Match" upon waking up from that dream, with maybe a few clues for the astute to play with.
5504748 I'm planning on bring Fancy Pants back at some point. I love that guy, and I don't think he'd be too terrible phased by the whole deal.
5502838 You know, I've almost written bonus chapters quite a few times for this fic. I'm not sure it's a rabbit hole that I dare descend. I have a billion other stories I could spin off of this one, but so little time in which to write them...
5504820 Then maybe let some unsuspecting su-... er, guest author handle that perilous journey on your behalf? Just a few thousand words, and you're not letting them take the hit for you or anything like that, honest.