• Published 9th Aug 2012
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The Serenade of Silver Belles - Your Antagonist



After a falling out with Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon discovers she has feelings for Sweetie Belle.

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The Fifth Bell Rings- Well, That Escalated Quickly

The Serenade of Silver Belles

By: Your Antagonist

Edited By: Starwind Dood, Aziraphael, TheWattsMan, Brony2893, A one Mr. Xozjain, Cpl. Hooves and (The Great and Powerful) Plyxe

Chapter 5- Well, That Escalated Quickly

Dry mouth. Shallow breathing. Light beads of sweat slowly condensing on the fur. The inability to process or verbalize any rational thoughts. These symptoms indicated that Silver Spoon had, for all intents and purposes, been stunned by mere words. Words that she surely had to have misheard. After all, there was no way any sane pony could have suggested that. “I’m sorry, come again? I don’t think I quite heard you. There must have been something in my ear, I mean, for a moment I almost thought you said—”

“Bungee jumping,” Scootaloo repeated.

Silver Spoon swallowed a hard lump, the likes of which she’d never felt in her throat before, as the realization that Scootaloo was dead serious finally sank in. “Yes, that’s what I was afraid you said.” Silver Spoon continued to let the throes of stunned silence wash over her, uncertain of how to respond to such a ludicrous notion. Was this normal behavior for the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Were they honestly and truly so hellbent on getting their cutie marks that they were willing to go so far as risking their lives to obtain them?

“Yup!” Scootaloo chirped. For a moment, Silver Spoon briefly wondered if Scootaloo had heard her thoughts, but quickly had any belief in the pegasus’ psychic abilities dispelled with what Scootaloo said next. “Bungee jumping! Won’t this be awesome?”

Silver Spoon opened her mouth to inject some rationality into the situation, but quickly found the air abuzz with a voice of reason from an unexpected source.

“Scoots, that’s absolute crazy talk!” shouted Apple Bloom. “We can’t go bungee jumping! What if we get hurt!? Where’d you even come up with such a thing?”

Scootaloo flashed a toothy grin and answered simply, “Spike told me all about it!”

“Spike told you about this?” Apple Bloom asked rhetorically, but Scootaloo still nodded with pride. “Didn’t Spike also tell you about a certain something else?”

“Uhhh, well—”

“And didn’t that something else almost get us killed and covered in tree sap?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So are you sure you should really be takin’ Spike’s advice?”

“What is this ‘something else’ she’s talking about?” Silver Spoon asked Sweetie Belle.

“Oh, well…” Sweetie Belle grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. “You remember when I told you about that little zip-lining incident?”

Silver Spoon nodded in affirmation.

"Yeah, she’s referring to that.”

“I see… and when you say Spike, you mean that dragon that lives in the library, right?”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

Being an honor student, Silver Spoon had spent a fair amount of her time studying in the library. Although, for all the time she’d spent there, she’d never actually held a conversation with the curators longer than a simple “hello” or asking for a reference guide. However, on more than one occasion, when her curiosity got the better of her, she found herself watching Spike out of the corner of her eye, as dragons weren’t exactly common in Ponyville. He certainly didn’t smile much from what she’d seen of him, but that could have been attributed to the fact that when she chose to watch him, the Cutie Mark Crusaders—oddly enough—were usually running amok in the book emporium, grating on the drake’s nerves. Silver Spoon wondered if Spike was joking when he put the thought into Scootaloo’s head, or if he knew just how far the pegasus was willing to go to find her special talent.

Regardless of Spike’s intentions, however, the fact of the matter was that Scootaloo had taken the dragon’s advice wholeheartedly, and was willing to put herself and her friends in danger over it. “I’ve thought about it,” Silver Spoon announced, “And I’m with Apple Bloom on this: We can’t bungee jump, it’s just not safe.”

“Yeah Scoots, let’s just head back to Ponyville and do somethin’, y’know, a little bit safer?”

“What!?” Scootaloo shouted. “After that long trip over here, hauling that heavy junk, and setting up all this equipment, you just want to pack up and go home?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but this just sounds plum foolish.”

“Oh yeah?” In the blink of an eye, Scootaloo bolted over to Sweetie Belle and draped a foreleg over the unicorn’s neck, drawing her close. “Well, Sweetie Belle thinks this is an awesome idea, and she’s with me on this one hundred percent!”

“I am?” Sweetie Belle asked, flabbergasted.

“See? She’s totally on board!” Scootaloo proclaimed, completely ignoring the interrogative tone in the unicorn’s voice.

“Scootaloo,” Silver Spoon started. “I don’t think—”

“Well, I guess that settles that! Now, come on girls, who’s gonna jump first?” Scootaloo’s eyes darted hopefully back and forth between her friends, expecting to see a risen hoof or a cheerful expression. Instead she was met with worried glances from the earth pony front. “Oh, come on, no volunteers?”

“Well, if you’re set on bungee jumpin’, why don’t you go first?” asked Apple Bloom

“Well duh,” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “I’m the only one who knows how to work the machine for pulling you girls back up,” she said, pointing to the small mechanical winch by her side.

“So why can’t you just show us how to work it so we can pull you up after you jump?” Apple Bloom pressed.

“Well, I— I mean—”

Scootaloo’s stuttering was all the farm pony needed needed to hear. She stepped closer to the pegasus “Oh, I see…”

“See what?”

Apple Bloom grinned slyly

“Apple Bloom, don’t say it.”

“A big—”

“Apple Bloom, I’m warning you,” Scootaloo growled.

“Orange—”

Apple Bloom…” Scootaloo hissed, crouching low, as though she were about to pounce.

“Chic—”

“I’ll do it!” Sweetie Belle shouted, jumping between her feuding friends.

“Wait, what?” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both asked in confused tandem. Neither of them had been expecting Sweetie Belle to volunteer for such a thing, and yet here she was, doing just that.

“I said I’d jump first,” she elaborated. “That way Scootaloo can show you girls how to work the machine and stuff, so she can go next. We came all this way, and neither of you two want to go, so that’s only fair, right?”

“Sweetie Belle, ya can’t—”

“I’ll get the harness!” Scootaloo interrupted, dashing to retrieve the piece of equipment in question.

Apple Bloom scowled at the pegasus and shook her head.

In Scootaloo’s temporary absence, Silver Spoon stepped forth to talk some sense into the unicorn. “Sweetie Belle, you’re not seriously going to jump are you?”

“Yup!” Sweetie Belle chirped.

“But what if you get hurt or something happens to the cable on your way down?”

Sweetie Belle grinned weakly at Silver Spoon’s concern before offering her rebuttal. “But what if it’s my special talent?”

“What if it’s not? What if you get hurt anyway? Why do you need to go this far just to get your cutie mark?”

Sweetie Belle averted her gaze from Silver Spoon’s and trotted closer to the edge of the cliff. She sighed as she looked out at the late afternoon sun sinking underneath the trees “So that we won’t get called blank-flanks by mean ponies anymore.”

There was that cursed word again: Blank-flank. Silver clenched her jaw in irritation.

“That’s why I’ve got to at least try.”

Sweetie Belle’s confession left a cold, guilt-ridden pit in Silver Spoon’s gut.

“C’mon Sweetie Belle,” said Scootaloo. “I’ll help you put the harness on.”

“Alright, I’ll be right there,” Sweetie Belle called behind herself before turning back to Silver Spoon. “Look, Silver Spoon, I know it’s a little hard to understand, but I have to try, okay? Wish me luck?” Sweetie Belle turned her back to Silver Spoon and trotted over to Scootaloo who began helping her into the bungee harness.

Silver Spoon sank to her haunches and shook her head as she tried to take in the whole insane situation. It was all there in black and white. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been risking their lives trying all these dangerous things to attain their cutie marks simply because they didn’t want to be teased by their peers any longer. An overwhelming feeling of guilt crept through Silver Spoon as she recalled her role in all this. While she hadn’t been the worst instigator, she was as much to blame as Diamond Tiara or any of the others who had teased the three for not finding out their special talents as quickly as the rest of the class. Thinking back on it, there was so much she could have done to help the three along their way, but instead she chose to join the crowd and criticized them at every turn. “This… this is my fault,” she muttered, remorse lacing her tone.

“This ain’t your fault, Silver Spoon,” Apple Bloom said, sitting down next to the guilt-ridden filly.

Silver Spoon turned to face her fellow earth pony, confusion splayed across her facial features. “What?”

“I said, you ain’t got nothin’ to feel bad about. This ain’t your fault.”

“How can you say that? After all the insults, all the bullying, all the abuse I put you three through with Diamond Tiara, how can you just stand there and say that this isn’t my fault? If we were just a little bit nicer to you, if we hadn’t given you such grief over your cutie marks, then maybe—”

Apple Bloom, much to Silver Spoon’s further confusion, simply chuckled at the declaration of guilt. “Is that what’s been eatin’ at you this whole time, Silver? Ha! This ain’t your fault, take my word for it.”

“But—”

Apple Bloom cut Silver Spoon off in favor of continuing her explanation. “Some way or another, Scootaloo would’ve come up with some cockamamie idea just like this, and she’d still convince Sweetie Belle and me to go through with it. It’s just how we are.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “Aside from that, if it weren’t for you and Diamond Tiara constantly pickin’ on me, I never would’ve become friends with Sweetie and Scoots. If anythin’ I should be thankin’ y’all, although I wouldn’t touch that filly with a ten-foot pole.”

“Heh, I know what you mean.” Silver Spoon chuckled. “But, you can’t think this is in any way a good idea.” Silver Spoon pointed to Scootaloo, who had just placed a particularly tight-looking helmet on Sweetie Belle’s head, showing next to no concern for the unicorn’s horn.

“No, not really,” Apple Bloom admitted. “But just you watch, Sweetie’ll come to her senses and chicken out before she even gets close to thinkin’ about jumping.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Trust me on this.” Apple Bloom grinned in an attempt to convince Silver Spoon that she was speaking the truth.

Silver Spoon returned the smile five-fold. “Well, I guess I don’t have much of a choice now, do I?”

“Alright girls, clear the jump site, Cutie Mark Crusader Bungee Jumper Sweetie Belle is coming through!” Scootaloo shouted as she walked the unicorn to the lip of the cliff. “There’s no way we won’t get our cutie marks this time!” Scootaloo turned beaming towards an incredibly nervous Sweetie Belle. To say that the white unicorn’s face was absolutely pale would have been an oddly appropriate oxymoron for this situation. “You ready for this Sweetie Belle?”

"Uhhh… sure heh, heh. Of course I'm ready… ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Bungee Jumpers’, right?" Sweetie Belle said, absolutely unconvinced by the words coming from her mouth.

"That's what I like to hear!" Scootaloo cheered. "Now, get on up there!"

Sweetie Belle swallowed back a hard lump that had formed in her throat, gathered up her courage, and craned her neck over the edge of the cliff, taking in all that lay beneath the platform. The first thing she noticed was the height of the drop in question. It wasn't quite as high up as she thought it was going to be; it was far higher. The longer she stared, the blurrier her vision grew and the higher up it seemed she was. The next thing she noticed was that the bottom was nowhere to be seen. There was only the sound of violently rushing water racing up to meet her nerves from beneath the shadows of the forest's thick canopy. The one and only thing she could take solace in was how far the cliff face receded in from where she was standing. At least with that, she wouldn't scrape herself up on the way down. If she intended to jump, that is.

“Watch this,” Apple Bloom whispered to Silver Spoon.

"Ummm… Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle edged slowly away from the ledge. “I really don't think I want to do this."

Silver Spoon heaved a sigh of relief at the unicorn’s decision. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to pay a visit to the emergency room after all.

“Whoa, whoa, Sweetie Belle, what’re you saying?” asked Scootaloo.

“Well,” Sweetie Belle said, shuffling her hooves, “I think that Silver Spoon and Apple Bloom have a point. This just doesn’t seem very safe.”

“But, you’re already wearing the harness! And that helmet took forever to put on the right way!” Frustrated, Scootaloo began stomping towards Sweetie Belle, and in response the unicorn began to back away, nearing the edge of the cliff with each step.

“I know, but I—”

“And besides that—”

“Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom shouted. “Is your skull thicker than hog-hide or somethin’?”

“What!?” Scootaloo whirled around to shout back a half-baked retort, but was surprised to find Apple Bloom’s indignant golden eyes glaring in righteous fury only mere inches away from her own.

“Landsakes! What’s the matter with you!? Sweetie Belle said she don’t want to jump, so that don’t mean you go out of your way and force her! What kinda friend are you, bullyin’ her into doin’ something like that!? That’s somethin’ I’d expect from Diamond Tiara! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Scootaloo opened and closed her mouth several times in disbelief at what she’d just heard, but couldn’t quite find the words to convey how hard it had struck. As far as it went within the Cutie Mark Crusaders, being compared to Diamond Tiara was the gravest, most humbling insult any one member could bestow upon the other. “You’re… you’re right, Apple Bloom. I-I just got so caught up in this that I completely forgot about Sweetie’s feelings. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you, but I don’t think I’m the one you need to be sayin’ that to.” Apple Bloom pointed to Sweetie Belle cowering on the ledge as Silver Spoon finished removing the harness and helmet.

“Yeah, you’re right…” Scootaloo sighed. She turned around and began trotting towards Sweetie Belle, opting to sit down on her haunches a foot away. “Look, Sweetie Belle… I know what I did was stupid and selfish of me. I should’ve thought a little more about how you’d feel and I shouldn’t have asked you to do something that I—” The pride-wounding words were caught in Scootaloo’s throat, but they would not come easy for the filly. “—that I was too afraid to do myself!” she finally managed to choke out. “And I’m sorry! I’ll understand if you—”

Scootaloo found herself cut off by Sweetie Belle, who launched herself at the pegasus, seizing her in a vice-like hug. “I forgive you, Scootaloo,” she said softly.

“Just don’t go doin’ it again, okay birdbrain?” Apple Bloom said as she rested her forelegs on the pegasus’ purple mane, causing the three to tumble over, giggling.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, now get off of me!” Scootaloo howled.

Silver Spoon felt a little left out but contented as she watched her new friends celebrate their strengthened camaraderie. She wouldn’t have minded watching the touching scene of friendship a while longer, but it had just occurred to her that she was still sitting on the edge of a very steep cliff with nothing to keep her from plummeting to an untimely demise. “Ummm, I don’t mean to break up the mood here, but is there a chance that we could move somewhere that isn’t so… close to the edge?”

Scootaloo chuckled as she rose up from the pile of crusaders. “What’s the matter Silver Spoon, got a fear of heights?”

“Yes, actually, I do. That being said, I’d be most appreciative if we could move this elsewhere before—”

Crack

The section of the cliff Silver Spoon and the Crusaders had been standing on gave a sudden and unnerving downward jolt. As a result, Silver Spoon lost her balance and stumbled into the ground, resulting in another jolt, this one twice as sharp as the last. Panic surged through her as she stood up cautiously and attempted to assess her situation, but a horrified scream from Apple Bloom summed up what she saw very quickly.

“Get the hay off this thing, it’s gonna fall!” the farm filly cried as she and Scootaloo leapt from the crumbling platform onto more stable ground.

Silver Spoon attempted to step forward, but the rock had begun to rapidly tilt at such an angle that the filly was forced to crawl along it to gain any semblance of traction.

“Hurry up and jump, we’ll catch you!” Scootaloo shouted.

Silver Spoon clawed and grasped at the smooth surface of the rock, scrambling up frantically inch by lifesaving inch, believing that she just might make it off the unstable platform before it finally went over. That is until she heard Sweetie Belle’s terrified shriek from her right.

“Girls, I need some help! I’m slipping, and I can’t grab on!”

“Sweetie Belle, hang on! We’re gonna get y’all outta this!” Apple Bloom shouted.

The rock jolted again, and both Silver Spoon and Sweetie Belle were sent sliding further down the small patch of tilted rock.

“We’re gonna fall!” Silver Spoon screamed, her heart in her throat.

“I don’t want to die like this!” Sweetie Belle cried as she felt her hind legs kick upon air.

The angle of the rock segment was too far gone now, bordering on near vertical. Silver Spoon could no longer gain any height nor traction on the slope. She scratched wildly at the rock, but it was to no avail. Up until this point, she’d done a remarkable job of not looking down, but now that the moment was upon her, she felt she had no other choice but to face her end straight on. Yet as she looked down, she saw something. She had been expecting to look down and gaze upon a gluttonous pit of overbearing and absolute despair reaching up with its ravenous darkness to lay claim to its foolhardy prey.

Instead, amidst that panic-fueled atmosphere, through the horrified screams of Sweetie Belle from below and Apple Bloom’s from above, her terrorized and adrenaline-jacked mind managed to only pick out the words of Scootaloo. The pegasus’ hoarse cries played through Silver Spoon’s ears like a choir of angels serenading the visage of a deus ex machina in its purest form. Through her blurry-eyed tunnel-vision, Silver Spoon saw her lifeline shine through as clear as day. While she had once thought it to be a horribly contrived concept, the bungee-harness had to be without a doubt the most beautiful thing she’d ever laid eyes on in her entire life, and it was only two feet away.

Grab the bucking harness!” Scootaloo’s voice rang through again.

Silver Spoon, guided purely by survival instinct, released whatever semblance of a grip she had on the rock and slid down, forehooves outstretched towards the harness as she rapidly descended towards the end of the surface. Frantic, she lunged towards one of the outstretched straps and caught it with her teeth. This minor victory was short-lived, however, as Sweetie Belle’s screaming reminded her that there was still more to be done. With the little time afforded to her, she quickly slipped a foreleg into one of the straps and hurled herself down the rock, forehooves extended towards Sweetie Belle’s waist, just as the unicorn’s grip failed her. Silver Spoon instinctively wrapped her hooves around Sweetie Belle like a boa-constrictor the moment she made contact with her, and Sweetie Belle returned the favor twice as hard.

Crack

The rock had broken clean away from the cliff at this point. Had Silver Spoon not jumped and caught Sweetie Belle, the pair would still be travelling with their earthen companion, finding out just how deep the descent into the Everfree Forest would take them. However, the two now-airborne fillies had two new issues to deal with: freefall and recoil forces.

The fall was nothing like what Silver Spoon had been expecting. The first thing to hit Silver Spoon, as the initial shock from jumping subsided, was the uneasy sensation of weightlessness which was soon accompanied by the rapid sting of wind whipping past her face and through her mane. Had she, like her unfortunate passenger, not been wearing glasses, she would have found her vision blurred by tears and sheer wind pressure. A condition that would have been preferable to having near-perfect sight at this particular instant. The fast-approaching darkness of the seemingly bottomless canopy below drove Silver Spoon to tighten her already vice-like grip around Sweetie Belle’s waist, although in the unicorn’s blinded, frenzied state, she hardly noticed the increase in pressure.

Silver Spoon was so focused on the fall that she failed to notice the harness strap had begun to dig into her shoulder. Regardless, she quickly became savvy to the fact that her descent was slowing to an abrupt halt. Silver Spoon, having forgotten the nature of this particular cord, heaved a sigh of relief. A sigh that quickly turned to a scream in her throat as the cord stretched, tensed, and rocketed the pair back into the air. The sheer change in velocity dragged Silver Spoon’s glasses from her face, pulling the vision correctors into the abyss below. Now blinded and disoriented, all Silver Spoon could do was hold on as tightly as she dared to Sweetie Belle, so as not to allow her new friend to meet a similar fate.

The world flew by in a rush of unrecognizable colors, wind, and racing thoughts. Whatever shrieks she had in her throat were abandoned in favor of grit teeth and a braced gut as she felt gravity laying claim to herself and Sweetie Belle yet again. The second fall wasn’t quite as intense and nerve-wracking as the first, but without her glasses all Silver Spoon could do was clench her eyes to shield them from the wind and bear the pull of gravity.

As the momentum of the second bounce faded, so did the peak of her adrenaline high. There were several residual bounces that ensued, but none were quite as remarkable or shock-inducing as the initial freefall. As her thoughts returned to their normal pace, Silver Spoon could feel Sweetie Belle’s body shivering and shaking in time with her own. The worst was over for now.

As they hung above the canopy in absolute silence, neither filly chose to speak. All they could think of was how grateful they were to be alive and able to hear Apple Bloom’s voice cut through the silent atmosphere, providing much needed relief to the pair. “Scoots, they stopped bouncing, pull em’ up quick!”

“Already way ahead of you!” Scootaloo piped up.

Indeed Scootaloo was, as Silver Spoon could feel the harness around her shoulder tighten up, slowly pulling the fillies to safety an inch at a time.

You ahead of me? Well, that’s a first, now ain’t it?”

“That was so funny I forgot to laugh,” Scootaloo replied sarcastically. “Just help me pull them back on the ledge, okay?”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes as she trotted over to the ledge and offered a hoof to Sweetie Belle. “Grab on to me Sweetie Belle, I gotcha,” she cooed to the shaken unicorn.

“Hey, Silver Spoon, I’ll help you up,” said Scootaloo. The pegasus reached out and grabbed Silver Spoon’s hooves, dragging the earth pony as far away from the ledge as possible.

Silver Spoon, relieved to finally be on solid ground, looked at the blurred yellow and orange shapes of her new friends and saviors. The filly opened her mouth as though to give her thanks, or perhaps even portray her life changing experience to the two, but no words would come out. Instead, her vision began to tunnel and her head began to spin. A moment later, she blinked and found herself face down on the ground, before finally giving into her body’s demands and passing out.

Chapter 5 End