Cheerilee awoke with a jolt as the door to the schoolhouse slammed open, a torrential wave of the usual fillies and colts pouring into their seats.
And it was at that moment that Cheerilee realized she had fallen sleep on her desk. Again.
With a yawn and a rather long stretch session, the mare stumbled to the front of the class, groggily eyeing the day's agenda from a slip of paper.
"Alright..." --Cheerilee yawned again-- "...class, today we're going to be taking a look at... leaf structures."
The class cheered with excitement. Their last science project had also focused on biology, and just like that time, this new assignment would likely mean a full day spent outside of the classroom.
As for Cheerilee, it meant a seemingly endless day of standing in the schoolyard, watching the class.
...And helping them. Of course she'd assist them on their project.
As Rarity stood outside the schoolhouse waiting for her sister to emerge, she couldn't help but stare through the window at the sleep-deprived teacher mumbling through her end-of-day announcements.
At long last, the final bell rang, and the tides turned as the flow of foals reversed, each pony heading their own way back home.
Sweetie Belle stood by her sister's side, waiting for a reaction from the elder sister.
"...Rarity?" Sweetie finally began, "What are you looking at?"
Rarity shook herself from her daze, and turned to her sister.
"What, dear?" she replied, "I didn't quite catch what you were saying."
"What were you looking at?" Sweetie Belle repeated, pointing in the direction her sister was facing moments prior.
Rarity sighed as she took a step towards the door of the schoolhouse. "Miss Cheerilee seems quite dreary, don't you think?" she asked in return, glancing back towards Sweetie.
Cheerilee struggled to keep her eyes open as she systematically sorted through assignments that she hadn't finished grading the night before, when she heard the door yet again open.
"What?" she snapped, far too tired to care anymore about putting on a friendly attitude.
Rarity jumped back in surprise, but nevertheless continued her entrance. As for Cheerilee, who didn't appear to notice, she simply continued to drag herself through the papers that lay before her.
"Oh dear," she began, weaving her way through the labyrinth of desks, "You seem awfully exhausted."
Cheerilee rolled her eyes as she stood up from her desk. "You think?" she replied, "An entire week's worth of assignments straight from whoever it is out there writing these things, and now I've only got a day to finish grading them! You'd think that it'd be easy for the teacher and hard on the student, but nooooooo, not when you're the one grading the same thing over and over!"
Rarity frowned as she floated a paper off of the quickly accumulating stack. She quickly scanned over the assignment-- evidently, it was a simple set of short-answer questions complete with their answers scrawled messily in pencil. What stood out, however, was the Official Seal of Canterlot that marked the top right corner of the paper. It was test season all across the Equestrian Education System.
Setting down the paper, Rarity had made up her mind.
"Miss Cheerilee," she began, "If you would allow me to, I could do the grading for you. I believe you deserve a good night's rest for all your hard work."
Cheerilee smiled for the first time that day. Just the thought of relaxation enticed her, and before Rarity could say another word, all that was left in the building was the echoes of the door swiftly releasing the sleepy teacher.
As for the lone remaining mare in the building, she quickly went to work.
Sweetie Belle blinked in confusion as her teacher practically flew out the door.
"Go home without me!" Rarity called from within the building, "I'm helping your teacher grade things!"
The filly shrugged, and turned towards the path home.
Question-by-question, word-by-word, Rarity flew through the assignments with ease. Her years of paying precise attention to detail and quality made quick work of the ungraded stack of papers.
However, a particular question on each one of them, seemingly added almost as an afterthought, made her smile.
42: Write a short paragraph about who is the most important pony in your life.
It was hardly even sunset yet, but Rarity had already finished the entire task she had been presented with. Every paper was sorted neatly into stacks, and the only thing left to do now, was to bring it back to Cheerilee.
The only problem now, was that the mare had nowhere to put the seemingly endless pages towering from the desk.
That is, until she saw the empty boxes that peeked from behind the ajar door of a nearby storage cabinet.
A few brief moments of unshameful packing and giftwrapping (using her own hoofmade designs, of course), Rarity exited the schoolhouse with a bundle of boxes in tow. Precariously, she stepped over the puddles from a recent drizzle that she hadn't even noticed earlier on. There was almost no doubt that Cherilee likely slept through it all anyways.
Finally, Rarity arrived at Cheerilee's doorstep. Though she hadn't particularly paid much attention to where her sister's teacher lived, Ponyville was still small enough of a town anyways that it only took a few minutes to find the location in question.
She raised a hoof, hesitant to yet again disturb the ill-rested teacher. She carried on and knocked anyways, however, as she knew that Cheerilee would be delighted to know that the work had been finished.
A few seconds passed. Then a minute. Two minutes.
Rarity knocked again.
Silence.
"Hello?" She called in her loudest voice, "Is anypony home?"
From the floor above her, she heard a muffled crash, followed by the sounds of a drowsy mare rushing down the stairs.
Cheerilee opened the door to find Rarity, with two large, gift-wrapped boxes sitting beside her.
"Huh?" Cheerilee groaned, rubbing her eyes with a hoof, "You're done already?"
Rarity nodded.
Cheerilee gazed lazily into the orange-yellow sky of the sunset. Her stomach briefly grumbled, catching Rarity's attention.
"...I suppose you haven't eaten yet, have you?" Rarity began, "How about we go and find a place to eat?"
Cheerilee yawned.
"Sure, I guess." she proceeded to mumble, lumbering back into the depths of her home, "I just gotta fix my mane real quick. You can come in if you'd like."
Rarity followed the mare inside, setting the gift-wrapped boxes of papers on the floor beside a worn couch. As Cheerilee stumbled back up the stairway, Rarity couldn't help but take in the lonely household of the mare. Aside from the aforementioned worn couch she was now sitting on, the room was practically bare, save for a lone bookshelf and a small table with images of whom Rarity assumed to be Cheerilee's parents.
Cheerilee, now wide awake, strolled alongside Rarity through the streets of Ponyville. It was a quiet time of day, with most ponies having already since closed up shop. The few remaining eateries open tended to be crowded with families and ponies of all ages. In addition, they tended to be quite noisy for the tastes of the two mares.
Eventually, they found themselves standing before "Daisy's Sammiches", a recently-opened restaurant that Cheerilee had vaguely remembered eating at before. They weren't quite closed yet, but the notable lack of any large number of ponies within the building seemed to signal the end of the day as far as the employees were concerned.
Rarity and Cheerilee sat facing each other at a small table beside the storefront window. Two sandwiches sat between them-- A daffodil sandwich for Rarity, and the cheaper "Dandelion De-lite" for Cheerilee. And a hayburger to bring home for Sweetie Belle, as far as Rarity was concerned.
At first, the two ate in silence, but as the background chatter began to die out as the sky grew darker, it became rather awkward for the two to simply listen to each other's chewing noises.
"So..." Cheerilee began as she finished her last morsel of food, "How were you able to grade those assignments so quickly?"
Rarity swallowed. "Excuse me, darling, but what did you say?" she replied, squeaking momentarily from an unexpected burp.
Cheerilee chuckled. "Nothing," she answered, "I was just wondering how you finished so quickly."
"I believe it may be due to my focus on details." Rarity began, staring down at the empty plate in front of her. "Activities such as my own tend to make one rather fast in going over the little things."
"Huh." Cheerilee mumbled, "You're almost better at my job than I am, if that's really the case."
Rarity smiled, looking into the eyes of the mare that sat before her. For the first time Rarity was able to get a close look at Cheerilee. And just like the assignments she graded, there was just a little something extra that just made her smile.
"Aw, darnit." Apple Bloom groaned the next day as she received her graded paper, "I thought that Bloomberg was the right answer!"
