The Ninth Bell Rings- A Bold Leap Forward, Not Over A Cliff One Hopes
Revised by: Cpl. Hooves
Edited By: Starwind Dood, Aziraphael, TheWattsMan, Brony2893, and (The Great and Powerful) Plyxe
Chapter 9- A Bold Leap Forward, Not Over A Cliff One Hopes
On this particular Sunday morning, Silver Spoon found herself pensively soaking in a bath that had been heated to a pleasant sizzle. As she soaked, her mind drifted to and fro in reflection of the near poetic highs and quandaries this weekend had bestowed upon her. Where one friendship had fallen, three more had risen in its stead. Where expectations and social stature had once held her captive, the reckless abandon of a magnanimous unicorn had liberated her from those inhibitions. For the first time in the longest time, she felt somehow lighter and refreshed, as though a great weight had been lifted from her back.
With a contented sigh, the filly leaned her head back against the edge of the tub and allowed a concurrent wave of scented bath water and fresh memories from the day prior to cascade over her. The sweet aroma of the honey-apple bath salts drew her mind back to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s confectionary antics on Sweet Apple Acres. Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, she could almost perfectly replay the fateful incident that had led to Applejack’s joint grounding of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in her head.
“Ya know what, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom said as she tugged at the straps of a particularly snug blue helmet. “I don’t think ya thought this through completely.”
“What do you mean? I totally thought this through!” the pegasus insisted, checking her own custom purple ‘brain-bucket,’ as she so affectionately referred to it.
“Really?” Apple Bloom cocked an uncertain eyebrow at her friend.
“Yup!”
“Okay then, explain to me how runnin’ downhill in Sweet Apple Acres on a ball of taffy three times the size of my brother is supposed to help us earn our cutie marks.”
“Earn our cutie marks?” Scootaloo chuckled and flitted her wings. “I just thought this would be awesome!”
“What? I mean you, you—”
“Where did you even get something like this?” Silver Spoon interrupted, pushing her glasses back up her nose before curiously poking the anomaly. She couldn’t deny that she was tempted to lick the massive boulder of sweets in front of her, but considering how much dirt road there was between Sweet Apple Acres and anywhere else, this thing had to be just covered in filth. Needless to say, Silver Spoon opted to pass.
“Pinkie Pie gave it to me,” Scootaloo confessed. Admittedly, that explanation made perfect sense to the inquiring filly for some odd reason. “You wanna hop on up here with us?”
“Err, maybe next time, Scootaloo.” Silver Spoon attempted to remove her hoof from the ball of taffy, only to find that the sphere of dental nightmares held her hoof fast. With one mighty tug, she managed to pull her hoof free, although a strand of the stubborn sweet managed to stay adhered.
“♫Your loss…♫” the pegasus hummed in a sing-song tone.
“I’m sure,” Silver Spoon replied sardonically, wiping her hoof on the ground to rid herself of the residue.
“Alright, Scoots, I’ve heard enough of this nonsense. We’re puttin’ a stop to this foolishness before my sister comes out and— waugh!” Apple Bloom had made an attempt to leap from the mass of sticky sweet candy, only to find herself firmly rooted in place. “What the hay? I’m stuck!“
“Well duh. It’s Sugarcube Corner’s specially stirred, super-sticky, surprisingly-strong, sugar-smackingly scrumptious saltwater taffy! I can’t even move my jaw when I eat this stuff!”
“Well, how the hay are we supposed to get out?”
“Huh,” Scootaloo tilted her head in thought. “I didn’t think about that.”
“I told ya! Ya didn’t think this through!” Apple Bloom barked. “Silver Spoon, help me offa this thing before— wait…” Apple Bloom paused. “Landsakes, it’s movin’! Make it stop! Silver Spoon, ya gotta make it stop!”
“Me?” Silver Spoon choked, flabbergasted. “What do you want me to do about that
“I dunno, just do somethin’!” Apple Bloom pleaded as she continued to fruitlessly struggle, squirm, and bounce against the menacing ball of sugar that was slowly rolling towards the decline of the hill it had been so meticulously balanced on.
Silver Spoon looked around for any available tools. There were none. She thought about leaping in front of the ball and bucking the behemoth back into a neutral standing position, but she was too small, and the thing was too far gone. As far as she was concerned, the only thing she could do in this situation was shrug, sit on her haunches, and watch the scene before her play out. She’d feel guilty about it later, but as of now, this fracas was too good to pass up.
“This is bad!” Apple Bloom shouted as she continued to fight against the pull of the taffy, an act that only caused the mass to pick up more velocity.
“This is awesome!” Scootaloo cackled as she was quickly sucked under the mass of candy, contributing to the rolling speed.
“This is interesting,” Silver Spoon said to herself as she watched her friends and the taffy hurtle down into the orchard, more specifically, towards a remarkably huge tree. The candy’s course was perfect in the worst possible way, and in a matter of moments, it slammed into the tree like a cannon shell, spraying globs of taffy-borne shrapnel everywhere. Panicked about the well-being of her fellow Crusaders, Silver Spoon galloped towards the crash site. Upon arriving, she found that the pair were thankfully still intact, although Apple Bloom, due to the massive wad of taffy on her back, had been propelled and affixed to one of the higher branches.
“Are you two alright?” Silver Spoon asked, stepping carefully towards the crash site so as not to step directly in any of the sticky candy.
“Ugh…” Apple Bloom groaned. “We are for now…”
“What do you mean ‘for now?’”
“Apple Bloom!” A mare’s voice howled. “What was that racket!?”
“Silver Spoon,” Scootaloo coughed. “You’ve got to get out of here, save yourself!”
“But what about—”
“Just go before she comes, it’s already too late for us!” Apple Bloom bellowed.
“I can’t just—”
“Run!” the doomed fillies shouted in tandem.
Silver Spoon cast one last worried glance at the pair before turning and galloping away as fast as she could. Behind her, the banshee-like report of a merciless ear-chewing grew fainter with each stride the fleeing earth pony took.
Silver Spoon sighed as the memory passed. From what Scootaloo had told her later that evening, the two would be steadily cleaning the taffy from the tree until late Sunday evening, but allegedly it was worth it. In a rational frame of mind, the bathing filly had gotten off easy, as she wasn’t built for physical labor, but considering that she had just spent forty minutes lounging in the bathtub and would likely spend another thirty in the waters before working up enough enthusiasm to actually do anything of some significance, perhaps she would have been better off staying with her friends. After all, chores on Sweet Apple Acres would have at least given her something to do with the day.
“Hmmm… What to do, what to do?” she mused aloud, absent-mindedly stirring the water with a hoof. With a hearty sigh, Silver Spoon slid even deeper into the waters, going lax as the water embraced her body like a velveteen blanket. In the blissful silence that followed, her mind drifted back to the concluding events of Friday evening, and the hundreds of unanswered questions that had been eating at Silver Spoon since that happy little incident. A word of closure would have been wonderful, maybe some explanation for the unicorn’s actions at the least. Was it intentional? Had it been out of gratitude? Was it born of amorous intent? Was it spur of the moment or had it been planned?
Silver Spoon sat up and rubbed her temples as the questions poured forth with a greater frequency, branching off into their own little logically illogical tangents, teasing her imagination with a range of scenarios. “Gah! I’m so confused! Why did she have to do that?” she whinnied a mite louder than she had intended to, unaware of her mother’s presence just outside the bathroom door.
“Silver Spoon, baby?” The concerned voice of Silver Spoon’s mother called from outside the door. “Are you talking to yourself in the bath again?”
“N-no, mother!” Silver Spoon frantically splashed and scrambled for her reading glasses, which had slid from her nose and into the misty waters at some point during her soak.
“Look, it’s alright, honey,” the parent sighed. “When I was your age, I had an imaginary friend too, and we’d—”
“Mom, I do not have an imaginary friend!” Silver Spoon cried as the mortification only a parent could impart upon their offspring gradually set in.
“Okay, okay… your invisible friend,” the mare said in a soothingly supportive tone.
“Ugh! You don’t understand!” Silver Spoon cradled her face in her forehooves, silently praying to Celestia that her mother would be distracted by something shiny on the ground and lose interest in this little back and forth. However, it seemed as though her prayers had fallen on deaf ears.
“Silver, I just want you to know… well, if you ever need to talk, about anything, then you can always—”
Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong.
“Hmmm, we weren’t expecting any company today… I wonder who that could be…” the mother mumbled to herself as she trotted away to attend to the door.
Relieved to be alone at last, Silver Spoon stood up to pull the plug on her bath. However, as she did, the muted crunch of glass cracking under-hoof caused the filly to wince and groan simultaneously. In a manner of speaking she’d found her reading glasses, albeit in the worst possible way. Silver Spoon cautiously pulled herself out of the tub, taking her time so as not to cut herself on any shards that might have scattered themselves in the water, before pulling the bath plug. It only took a moment for the water to drain out and reveal the remains of her beloathed spectacles. The frame itself was intact, only slightly bent; it could have easily been salvaged with a small application of force to either side. The lenses, on the other hoof, were destroyed beyond repair. While the right lens had a massive crack reminiscent of a cobweb running through its entirety, the left lens had been shattered altogether. Only remnants of the glass remained in the actual frame as the rest had presumably been sucked down the drain.
Silver Spoon batted the remaining shards out of the left lens and tried on her horribly mangled spectacles. What remained of the right lens had retained a quarter of her normal visual range, so at the very least she wouldn’t have to stumble through the day with the grace and acuity of a drunken mole. With another frustrated moan, Silver Spoon collected her prized pearl necklace from its resting place on the bathroom sink before staggering, near-blind, out the door and downstairs to the foyer.
Upon descending the final steps, Silver Spoon overheard her mother chatting idly with somepony at the front door. In the interest of avoiding any further filial humiliation by her mother’s tongue, the filly crept down the stairs, taking care to soften her steps so as not to draw any attention to herself. Unfortunately, due to her severely impaired peripheral vision, she failed to notice the corner of a particularly loose rug at the base of the stairs. In her hushed haste Silver Spoon slipped on the corner and hit her chin on the floor, which sent her glasses sliding away and towards her mother’s hind hooves. Needless to say, as the glasses collided with the mare’s legs, Silver Spoon’s stealth approach had been utterly foiled, but perhaps for the better.
“Oh, Silver dear,” the mother greeted, turning to face her shakily-recovering daughter. “I was just about to call you down. You’ve got another guest.”
“A guest?” Silver Spoon asked uncertainly as she felt around for her glasses. She knew for a fact that Scootaloo and Apple Bloom would be cleaning that tree all day, and from what she’d heard about Applejack, it wasn’t likely that the farm mare would allow them to skimp out on their punishment so easily. She doubted greatly that Diamond Tiara would be arrogant or foolish enough to directly try the gray earth pony’s patience two days in a row. It was more likely that the pink filly was out making life miserable for some unfortunate classmate of theirs in lieu of the preoccupied Cutie Mark Crusaders. And as far as she knew, Sweetie Belle was spending the day with her parents clear on the other side of Ponyville. Or so she thought.
“This charming filly was just telling me where she acquired this absolutely divine piece of couture.” Silver Spoon’s mother gestured to an all too familiar fluffy-maned unicorn adorned in a flowing white cotton blouse accented by a pale-yellow skirt covering her haunches. As Silver Spoon had been deprived of her glasses, the most she could see was an unintelligible yellow blur, but the moment she heard the high-pitched crack of the filly’s voice she immediately recognized the source.
“Oh right, my sister Rarity made it for me!” the unicorn chirped.
“Well, your sister must be quite the accomplished seamstress then, hm?”
“Yup! She’s kind of famous in Canterlot and she even has her own shop here in Ponyville!”
“Does she now?” The mare cocked an intrigued eyebrow.
“Mhm,” Sweetie Belle tapped a hoof to her chin in thought as she attempted to recall her sister’s welcome jingle. “Carousel Boutique: Where every… something is… something… something and magnifique? I think it’s something like that…”
“Well then,” the older mare chuckled, softly patting Sweetie Belle’s mane as she trotted past the filly. "I think I’ll leave you and Silver to each other’s company while I pay Ms. Rarity a visit; and thank you for the information little Miss… oh dear me, I never got your name.”
“Sweetie Belle.”
“Sweetie Belle; such a pretty name,” the mare repeated, reaching down to pick her daughter’s glasses off the ground. “Silver, sweetheart, what happened to this pair?”
“I’d rather not say,” Silver Spoon mumbled as she took the wrecked spectacles from her mother’s hoof, promptly returning the mangled frames to their resting place on her nose. The collision with her mother’s legs had cracked the glass even further and effectively reduced the filly’s already terribly limited vision to almost point-blank range.
“I just don’t understand how you managed to go through two pairs of glasses in a single weekend… I guess we’ll need to make an appointment to see the optometrist this week.” The mare sighed and shook her head as she bent down to kiss her daughter on the forehead. “I’ll see you later, Silvy, and make sure Ms. Sweetie Belle gets home at a reasonable hour: you both have school tomorrow.”
“Yes, mom,” Silver Spoon replied as the older mare trotted out the door, leaving behind a half-blind Silver Spoon, a beaming Sweetie Belle, and a wealth of awkward silence in her wake.
Silver Spoon’s mind was going a mile a minute with things to ask Sweetie Belle. Why was she here? What was with the kiss? Why was she wearing a dress? Yet, every time she sought to vocalize one of her queries, her mouth refused her, causing her jaw to work uselessly as the fillies stared at each other for a while. After what seemed like a small eternity, Sweetie Belle, thankfully, chose to break the silence.
“Hold on, Silver. I have something for you.” In one swift gesture, Sweetie Belle reached into her blouse and fished out a simple, but elegantly crafted wooden case that she promptly presented to Silver Spoon.
Silver Spoon took the case from Sweetie Belle and curiously shook it a few times, trying to evaluate the contents of the container. “Hmmm… what is it?”
“Why don’t you open it and find out?” Sweetie Belle suggested with an expectant grin.
Silver Spoon hesitantly opened the case to reveal that a pair of glasses sat inside. No. Not just any glasses, her glasses. Even through blurred and obscured vision, she could recognize the shape and color of the hipster-frame glasses. The earth pony took the familiar baby blue frames from their resting place and held them before herself in astonishment and disbelief. “Sweetie Belle, these are my—”
“They sure are!” the unicorn ecstatically interrupted.
“But how did you—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sweetie Belle dismissed the earth pony’s concerns with a wave of her hoof, but Silver Spoon wouldn’t have any of it.
“What do you mean ‘don’t worry about it?’ How could I not worry about it? They fell into the Everfree Forest, and—”
“And I went and got them back for you,” Sweetie Belle cut in. “It was nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!” Silver Spoon argued. “Running into the Everfree to find these silly things; that was reckless of you!”
Sweetie Belle sank to her haunches, crossed her forelegs and pouted at Silver Spoon’s lambasting. “Well, if you don’t want them, I could always just take them back to where I found them…”
With a malcontented sigh, Silver Spoon paused to replace her mangled spectacles with the near-mint pair in her hoof. “You didn’t have to do that… but thanks, Sweetie.”
“Like I said: it’s nothing. Besides, with all I’ve got planned for today, I don’t think you want me to lead you around by your hoof all day, do you?
“What do you mean by ‘all you’ve got planned?’” Silver Spoon asked.
“Oh, shoot! That’s not how this was supposed to go!”
Silver Spoon rose an eyebrow at Sweetie Belle’s outburst. “How what was supposed to go?”
“O-oh, umm…” Sweetie Belle fumbled with her hooves and over her words as her cheeks gradually adopted a bright pink hue. “Well, I was going to, you know, see if you weren’t busy. If you weren’t then I was going to ask you if you’d maybe, possibly, on the off chance that you had nothing better to do—”
“Just spit it out already!” Silver Spoon snapped.
Sweetie Belle, prompted into action by Silver Spoon’s outcry, covered her eyes with her hooves and let loose with both barrels. “Do you want to spend the day together? Just the two of us… alone… together?”
Silver Spoon’s heart skipped a beat as her mind registered the odd request. It wasn’t so much the request that struck her as odd, but rather all of the preparation that had led up to this particular moment. Sweetie Belle blowing off her parents, the unicorn’s beautifully crafted dress, going off into the Everfree Forest just to find a pair of easily replaced glasses; it all seemed like a little much just to ask Silver Spoon to spend the day with her. It was almost as though there was something more to this invitation than Sweetie Belle had let on. Still, it wasn’t like she had anything else to do, and if she was lucky she’d get the unicorn to sate her throbbing curiosity regarding Friday. “Sure.”
“Really?” Sweetie Belle asked, peeking ever so slightly from between her hooves.
“Well, why not? You went through all this trouble after all, and I didn’t have any other plans, so, sure. What did you have in mind?”
As those very words left Silver Spoon’s lips, a massive toothy grin began to spread across Sweetie Belle’s. Before the earth pony could so much as blink or react, Sweetie Belle had seized her friend’s hoof and taken off galloping with such speed that the sheer force of the wind trailing behind her forced the weighty front door to slam shut.
As Silver Spoon practically flew behind Sweetie Belle like a mere kite, she could only marvel at the unicorn’s ability to run on three legs while hefting roughly her own weight, wearing a dress no less. Silver Spoon couldn't help but wonder just where exactly she was being so intently rushed off to, but wherever or whatever it was, at least she'd be with Sweetie Belle which meant that she was only a few short lines of inquiry away from deciphering the true nature of the unicorn's feelings. The soon-to-be motion-sick filly had a sneaking feeling that things were going be drastically different after today, but she couldn’t shake a lingering question from her mind: would this change be for better or for worse?
Chapter 9 End
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Yay! Playdate!
>.> you must hurry on to the next chapter tute sweet.
Commence read.
Do you mean so much of the text to be in italics?
You didn't close the italics tag at the end of the flashback. Other than that, I am glad to see the new chapter up!
I suppose commenting on the italics would be redundant at this point. So I won't. I will say that the first few paragraphs felt like you were using the thesaurus in Microsoft Word to replace every third word with the biggest word you could. It felt fairly unnatural. Still, it's not that bad, and I suppose it is a good way to try out new words. Otherwise, I'm still very much enjoying this story.
An update! HUZZAH!
It's amazing how Sweetie Belle shrugs of her adventure into the Everfree like it was nothing. Oh well, that's the logic defying 'Power of Love' for you.
Now begins "The date scene"! Lights... camera... ACTION!
On another note... I could not help but think of this song during Scootaloo's latest daredevil act:
(Then there's THIS relevant situation!)
(And here be the acapella version!)
Haven't seen these videos in a while? Well you know what they say: "What goes around, comes around!" Nyuck nyuck**
to the face**
loving this story but it didn't need to continue in italics after the memory ended
This is a great chapter. I don't know how you do it, writing something so masterfully like this. You're awesome.
good good and i do hate u for not making chapt longer
btw wassup with all ze italics
Love this chapter, and I find it awesome that you mentioned a couple other stories featuring this pairing. It's quickly becoming one of my favourite pairings, and now I have 2 other stories to read.
Why is most everything this?
1899122 its a memory of what happened between chapters
If that picture is anything to go by then Sweetie's got something special planned for Silver. Also, yay for update!
I think this phrase (from the flashback) is missing something at the end. No punctuation, no conclusion to the thought, it just ... stops.
This was the cutest thing I have read, seen, or otherwise observed in, like, at least a month. Bravo.
YES! After that ridiculously long time in between chapter 8 and 9 I was just about to give up on ya. Thank god you posted the next chapter.
I decided to reread this just for the hell of it and noticed somethin we all missed somehow.
Accidental double quotations at the end there^
Sweetie Belle is just so, ADORABLE!!!
“Well, I was going to, you know, see if you weren’t busy. If you weren’t then I was going to ask you if you’d maybe, possibly, on the off chance that you had nothing better to do—”
Dammit, Sweetie Belle! That's MY home-run swing!
Sweetie Belle has unlocked: Date
congradulations
Sweetie Belle's cuteness must be weaponized. This shit can bring a entire continent to its knees.
Really love that sweet, adorable cover picture.
Nice art
i will NOT talk about the thing everypony else is! I refuse! ... Crap, I accidentally hit the button, didn't I?
In all seriousness, great chapter, love the awkwardness, hope to see more soon, but I'm curious about the DT confrontation... Oh well, just gotta keep reading!
3494022 I will talk to shining armor about having her cuteness liquified and used in a gas bomb.
3494022 Already done. I currently have a weapon that fires highly concentrated balls of cuteness that renders the target completly unable to do anything for at least a day. Animal tamers have replaced usual tranquilizer darts with it because of how potent it is
3494022
im working on it give me a day and a half and we will have the cuteness nuke