A Bittersweet Lesson

by Novelle Tale

A Bittersweet Lesson

I took a deep breath. The scent of cut grass and dandelions lingered in my nose, a testament to the warm summer afternoon, and I couldn’t help the small, wistful smile that tugged at my lips as I pushed the schoolhouse door open.

“Hello?” I called, stepping inside.

The classroom looked empty, as I’d expected, but it didn’t feel that way. There had always been something about places like this, schools and libraries and shopping centers--the places where ponies congregate, the places that only exist for ponies to congregate. They always felt weird and wrong at night, and never as empty as they appeared. Like they were incapable of ignoring their core function even at midnight when everypony was asleep and not even thinking about work or school.

I shook my head to rid the wandering thoughts, and stepped forward, running one hoof along the desks as I slowly walked.

The desks were the same, everything was the same. But it was all so much… smaller than I remembered. I eyed a tiny desk chair. Had I ever been that little?

I paused as my hoof came to rest on the most familiar desk of all, and my wistful smile grew just a fraction larger. With barely a thought, I pulled the chair free and squeezed myself into it. My knees bumped the bottom of the desk roughly, but I just chuckled at the mild sting. It was proof that I had grown, after all. Even if, I thought forlornly, my wings never had. They buzzed listlessly at my sides, as if they could read my thoughts, and I sighed, closing my eyes and leaning my head back.

The classroom’s windows had all been pushed open, letting in a cacophony of cicadas along with the scant summer breeze, and all I could think of were all those last days of school that I had rushed through as a filly, eager to get outside and play, to try for another thousand Cutie Marks before the sun could set on summer vacation. Always rushing around, always trying, never still.

I found myself wishing I’d learned to sit and wait sooner.

“Scootaloo?”

I jerked forward, knees slamming into the underside of the desk as my eyes snapped open.

“Ms. Cheerilee?”

The earth pony teacher chuckled, leaning against the open doorway of her supply room that I hadn’t noticed was open before.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. What brings one of my oldest students for a visit?” she asked, striding over to the blackboard.

I blinked, once, twice, and paused, brow furrowing. Why was I here again, anyway?

“Um,” I offered eloquently.

Cheerilee chuckled again, grabbing an eraser in her hoof and rearing up onto her hind legs to begin the process of erasing the notes left behind by students.

“You don’t need to have a reason to visit this old teacher,” Cheerilee answered. The careful eraser swipes hummed quietly in the classroom, a sussurating bass beneath the summer cadence leaking in from outside, and unbidden, the knot of tension between my shoulder blades relaxed.

“You’re not old, Ms. Cheerilee,” I said, a quiet smile spreading on my lips, far less wistful than before. “You look the same as always.”

Cheerilee cut a sly glance back at her former student, the flash of her green eyes bright as grass against the slowly clearing expanse of blackboard.

“And so do you.”

I sputtered.

“I do not!” I insisted. “I’m an adult now, I’m--”

I bit my tongue, not wanting to say what I had been for some reason, and moved my gaze from staring at the board as Cheerilee wiped it clean to instead stare, narrow-eyed, at my old desk.

Quiet hoofsteps made their way towards me, but I didn’t glance up until the scraping of a chair across the floor made my ears twitch. Ms. Cheerilee settled it in front of me, squeezing herself into the tiny seat far more elegantly than I had. Our knees, both far too tall for such a small table, just barely brushed together under the desk.

“...All grown up?” she offered, not unkindly.

I blinked again, finally looking up into my teacher’s eyes. Her face was folded into a sad smile, brows pulled down ruefully.

“What?”

“You were about to say ‘I’m all grown up’, weren’t you?”

I swallowed roughly past the sudden knot blocking my throat and nodded instead.

Ms. Cheerilee hummed, crossing her hooves on the tiny desk and leaning back in her chair.

“Are we ever really grown up, though?” she murmured, almost as if to herself.

“What d’you mean?” I asked.

Ms. Cheerilee tilted her head side to side, considering her answer.

“When I was younger, just a little younger than you, I was sure I knew what I wanted,” she began. “I had my Cutie Mark, and I’d always been a good tutor--I didn’t think teaching ponies would be any different.”

“...Was it?” I asked quietly.

“Oh yes, absolutely,” Cheerilee answered, nodding her head emphatically. “It was hard, much harder than tutoring had been. All those ponies had been adults, or near to it, but fillies and colts? They’re a whole other barrel of apples.” She glanced down to her Cutie Mark, three smiling flowers peeking up at her.

“Happy little flowers aren’t much of an indicator for destiny,” Cheerilee said with a sad laugh. “I spent so much of my early adulthood doubting myself, because every time I struggled with a student with a learning disability or somepony acting out, I put it down to me and my own failures and inabilities. Maybe I’d chosen wrong. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this after all.”

Cheerilee looked up from her flank, warm green eyes firmly meeting my gaze.

“It took me a long time, too long, to learn how to be patient with myself. We aren’t born perfect, and we certainly don’t become perfect when a magical symbol appears on our flank.”

I bit my lip, wings buzzing uncomfortably at my sides.

“But you’ve always been the perfect teacher,” I said.

Cheerilee barked out a laugh. “Oh Scootaloo, it’s sweet of you to say, but I’m not any more perfect than anypony else.” She finally uncrossed her hooves to reach out and rest one on mine, magenta smudging chalk dust onto my own orange fur.

“All I ever did was my best, and I doubted myself a lot along the way. That self-doubt can be harmful, and honestly? The only thing that ever worked for me was to stop questioning myself, and to learn to be patient with myself, as I continued learning, too.”

“About teaching?”

“About everything, really, but yes, teaching, too.” She squeezed her my hoof. “It’s the nature of ponies to learn. We don’t all learn at the same speed, and we’re constantly adapting and changing even as adults. Your age doesn’t determine when you stop learning. Your mindset does.”

I let the silence stretch after that calm pronouncement, with only the buzzing hum of summer left to fill it. After what felt like several minutes, but was probably only a few moments, I squeezed her hoof back.

“I’m ready to be an instructor at the School of Friendship,” I said.

Cheerilee nodded, eyes crinkling upward in a smile.

“I haven’t taken the usual life journey as a pegasus.” My wings beat twice against my sides, as if understanding my reference to them. “But that... it doesn’t take away, from what I have to offer to my students. From the lessons I have to teach.”

Cheerilee shook her head this time, her smile taking on a bittersweet tilt.

“Patience, huh?” I tapped my free hoof against the desk once, twice, three times. “I think I can do that.”

Calm blossomed in my chest, the knot in my throat dissolving like dew in morning sunshine.

“I know you can,” Cheerilee said, loosening her grip and patting my hoof two final times as she stood. I followed suit, standing as well. We were eye to eye, now, myself and this mare who had taught me so much. It was strange, to be level with someone you’d always looked up to.

“You’re the best teacher anycreature could ask for,” I said, voice cracking as I stepped forward to hug Cheerilee. The earth pony wrapped her arms around my neck, and I buried my nose in her blossom-pink mane. She laughed slightly.

“I don’t know about that. I only ever tried my best. That’s all you need to do, too.”

“Scootaloo?”

I blinked, turning my head to the still-open door of the schoolhouse. A shaft of golden sunlight stretched across the room as the door opened wider, and a head poked in.

“Scoots? There you are--ah. What’re you doin’?”

I blinked again, owlish in the bright light now filling the room, and looked down, finally noticing that I was on my hind legs.

“Oh.”

I lowered myself back onto four hooves, shaking my head slowly.

Apple Bloom stepped into the classroom, her hoofsteps loud on the wooden floors. “The memorial reception’s ‘bout tah start. Do ya think you’re ready?”

Right. The memorial. I bit my cheek and let out a long, low breath, one I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Apple Bloom reached out a hoof to wipe off the chalk dust pressed into the front of my black dress, but otherwise didn’t comment on it.

“Should we go raise a toast tah the best teacher Ponyville’s ever seen?”

I smiled and nodded, glancing around the empty classroom one last time. If I stood still long enough, I could almost hear the decades of laughter and learning echoing back like a smile.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked, hip to hip, to the door of the classroom, so calm and quiet compared to the early evening din outside.

“Ya know, I think she’d be proud of us,” Apple Bloom said mildly before stepping past the threshold.

I glanced at the slowly setting sun and closed my eyes, pausing to drink in the warmth of the fading day.

“I think so, too.”

---

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! :)

I was practicing writing in first-person POV for this one, and my usual third-person bled in a few times. I think I got all the POV shifts fixed, but if you find any, please do let me know.

Thank you to The Red Parade for running the fifth 'Colorful Characters' contest, and thank you to everyone who read & commented on my story for the contest--and anyone who does so here.

Comments

[BaeroRemedy]

I loved this story, it nearly brought tears to my eyes when I read it. Just so well done. Thank you for putting it up on the site.

[The Red Parade]

This was amazing and I loved every second of it

The interactions were so visceral and real and the twist of the story just drove it home, brilliantly done in every single avenue.

Fantastic stuff! :D

[23 KM To Nerdiness]

soloquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Motivational-Quotes-Stay-Amazing.jpg

[VanillaWaffle]

Ooooof, that ending hit just right.

[Soul_Eater]

I had to read it and re-read the end, it then clicked about Cheerile. Epic story!

[PoneFluff]

That ending just hits with the feels, absolutely fantastic

[mushroompone]

Oh gosh this one really spoke to me, both as a teacher and as a student

You did a wonderful job of describing the classroom and setting the mood. You also did a brilliant job of making these ponies feel like ponies-- it's not an easy task, what with all the foreign body language, but it comes across really strong in this piece.

I'm always, always, always a sucker for people deciding to teach. This one, I think, is especially heartwarming because we really wouldn't expect Scootaloo to want to teach, but it makes perfect sense! And I'm sure Cheerilee would be very proud of her little ponies.

All of that would have been emotional enough, but you had to smack me with the feels at the end there. Now I have no choice but to lay here contemplating this for a few hours and feeling deeply wistful.

Thanks for such a lovely story!! I'm glad to see you're posting more

[Isseus]

I really wish you'd used the Death tag on this story, so I would have known to avoid this story. I came expecting a bittersweet story, now I'm feeling really down.

[Gambling_Sam]

Holy crap that ending hits right in the feels, huh?

Easily one of the best one chapter stories I have ever read.

[link4]

interesting, i read another story- but this one was one of the cmc visiting cheerilee after she retired

[Shekhshoukh]

Bro...

[iAmSiNnEr]

I loved it. That is all.

[Pete100]

Ok, I did not see that coming.

[OneLonelyPickle]

Bro! Right before the end I was thinking, "Where is this going?" And it all makes sense and is worth it at the end. Great execution of this one, dude!

I can't imagine what the stories that got second and first place were like...

[Cerulean Blue]

The first part really hit me - I'm at that same stage of life (wait, I'm an adult now).

That thin bit where Scootaloo wakes up - somethings wasn't quite right, but then the last part of the story came in and it all fit together.

This story really hits the mark, and evokes really well that bittersweet feeling (among others) that you were aiming for.

[lambda]

This is fantastic! I love the ending.

[Xena Skywalker]

This was a very good and very sad one-shot. What a twist near the end of the story.

[6-D Pegasus]

10831991
I still think it fits the title^^, that even when she's gone, her words and memories continue to teach and encourage her students, is the message here xe

[spoonlol]

Had this one on my read later list and I'm glad I finale got round to it, a very nice yet sad story in such a story time. Great work

[PonyofEntropy]

My eyes sting with wetness. Great story!

[Appleody]

That was unexpected. Very nice