Chapter 15: “GLITTERFRIENDS!”
“I can’t believe you got free golf for a year. A year!” Runway whines.
I trot along happily as we make our way home, the sun just starting to set. My sister just kind of plods along. “I can’t believe you broke a hundred. In mini-golf.”
She glares daggers at me, or tries to. She’s not really good at it. It’s more like toothpicks. “Oh shut up.”
“Ooooh, scary,” I say mockingly. It’s rare that I find something not flying-related that I’m better at than she is, so I take my victories with exactly NONE of the grace. “Y’all just mad.”
“Your darn right I’m mad!” she shouts, gathering some looks from passerby. “Look, let’s just go… do something else. I don’t wanna go home without like, actually having fun. FOR ME,” she adds, as I open my mouth to retort.
“Well, what do you like besides mini-golf?” I ask politely, refraining from making any more jokes. For now.
“Well...” she things for a moment. “I like drinking. I like sex. I like shopping. Getting my hair done,” she muses.
“Runway, we have tried literally all of those things over the last week, to wildly varying degrees of success. There’s gotta be something we haven’t done that would cheer you up,” I reason.
She’s quiet for a moment while she thinks. “Well, we could go watch a movie? What’s playing, anyway?”
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There it is. The most beautiful thing either of us have ever seen. It’s big, it’s colorful, and it’s totally awesome.
It’s the poster for the new Glitterfriends movie, which came out on Friday. “How did we miss this?!” I yell in a very girly voice, shaking Runway’s shoulders.
She shakes mine back. “I don’t know! But we have to like, totes watch it!”
“I KNOW!”
We rush the ticket booth like a couple of idiots, which we probably are. But I mean, come on. Glitterfriends.
There’s no line, it being relatively late on a Sunday. Fortunately, the next showing is in a few minutes. “Two please!” I say to the obviously not-happy-to-be-here ticket stallion. Some teenager who needs the summer job for Celestia knows what. Acne cream, most likely.
“That’s 16 bits.”
Runway drops a dozen or so on the counter. “Um, I’m like, two short...” she whispers, panicking a little.
“Don’t look at me, I paid for the mini-golf!” I’m getting worried. There’s no way just one of us is going in there, and I don’t have any cash on hand. I debate flying back to my apartment to gather some more money and wonder if I have the time, when the sound of money hitting the counter distracts me. I look up in time to see the ticket guy counting out the cash, and I look to Runway. “What, did you find more?”
She shakes her head. “No, I thought you did. I was looking at the ground for dropped change. What did-”
“Here’s your tickets, ma’am,” drawled the ticket guy. “Please move along.”
We look around for our mysterious benefactor, but to no avail. Grabbing our tickets, I decide to chalk it up to some random pony being nice, which isn’t as common in Cloudsdale as it is in, say, Ponyville, but it’s not unheard of.
“Wait,” Runway says quickly, holding out a hoof to stop me. “How are we gonna get snacks?”
I raise me eyebrow at her. “You actually pay for theater snacks? It’s highway robbery!”
“But it’s DELICIOUS highway robbery!”
I give her a deadpan stare. “Runway, I don’t care how many adjectives you use, nothing makes highway robbery sound good.”
She opens her mouth to argue, and I quickly cover it with my hoof. “THAT IS NOT A CHALLENGE.”
“...fine. Let’s go watch our stupid awesome movie without snacks.”
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I don’t know where the snacks came from. We were inches from the theater door when there was a blur of… something… and we suddenly had popcorn and drinks in our hooves. We didn’t even have a chance to verbalize our surprise when the sound of the Glitterfriends theme song rang out through the door.
Taking our seats in the front of the theater, we end up sitting next to the only other pony in the room. A mare in a hoodie and sunglasses who seems to be staring a little to intently at the screen. I swear her little bit of mane sticking out looks familiar, until I notice she isn’t wearing pants, and I recognize her cutie mark.
I wait for the title card to fade out, as the screen starts listing all the actors, and whisper to our neighbor, “Captain?”
She jumps out of her seat, her popcorn flying everywhere and her soda nearly falling to the ground. But she’s got good reflexes, and at least the soda is safe. She turns to glare at me. “SHHHHHHH!”
I can’t help but smile. “Captain, I thought you said you only used to watch the show. I thought it was only okaayyyyy…...”
“Sh-shut up,” she growls, pulling her hoodie down and her glasses off now that her cover’s been blown. “I just… I like some of the actors they got for the movie, ok?”
Runway leans over my shoulder. “Wait… was that you who dropped the extra coin on the counter so we could buy our tickets?”
She blushes, really deeply. “Well, uh...”
Then something clicks in my head. “YOU were the one who gave us our snacks! I only know a hoofful of ponies that fast!”
She sinks into her seat, obviously regretting her life decisions.
Runway and I look to each other, then scoop her up in a big hug. “GLITTERFRIENDS!” we cheer.
“Shut up and watch the movie!” she barks.
-------Thirty minutes later--------
“Glitterfriends!” The three of us sing along with the movie at the top of our lungs. “Friendship sparkles to the eeeeeeeennnnnnnnnd! Happiness around the bend! Not just a trend! We’re forever Glitterfriiiieeeennnnds!”