Staring at the flickering image on screen, Tarnished Teapot continued to act as brave as possible. The Barn in the Woods was an awful movie. There was lots of screaming, lots of horror, and lots of killing. Tarnish felt a little queasy after watching a deadite pony vomit green goo.
“No! Don’t go down into the cellar!” Pinkie Pie cried out, almost causing poor Tarnish to jump out of his skin when she shouted. Beside Pinkie, Limestone shrieked and Pinkie Pie squealed when Limestone grabbed her. The two sisters screamed together in gleeful terror.
Beside Tarnish, Maud sat looking bored, staring at the screen. She leaned over and placed her foreleg on top of Tarnish’s foreleg, clutching his fetlock with her own. She turned her head and in a bored sounding monotone, she said, “I’m scared.”
Tarnish could feel her squeezing his leg. He glanced over at Maud. He could feel the muscles in her fetlock tensing and flexing. She didn’t look scared, but he could feel her trembling. Her breath smelled like licorice; Pinkie Pie had slipped in a licorice drop, surprising Maud with a piece of candy.
“This movie is awful. I don’t think I like it. But Pinkie Pie and Limestone are having a good time.” Maud leaned over a little more, getting closer to Tarnish. “Marble had the right idea, watching Prancedance with mom and dad.”
“That looks like oatmeal with green food colouring!”
Leaning a little closer to Maud, Tarnish was glad that they were the only four ponies in this particular show; Pinkie’s outbursts might have been embarrassing otherwise. For all of their screaming and shrieking in terror, it was clear that Pinkie Pie and Limestone were enjoying themselves.
“That’s what she gets for going down into the cellar!” Limestone shouted. She gestured at the screen, waving her hoof with wild abandon. “A pitchfork, right in the gizzard!”
“Oh, that looks awful.” Maud stared at the movie screen with a blank expression upon her face. “I guess I was wrong. As it turns out, she had plenty of guts. Look at them. They’re all over the floor.”
With a slow turn of his head, Tarnish turned to look at Maud. “You do have a sense of humour…”
Maud blinked. “Sometimes, like an ancient evil, it escapes. I once roasted Discord, the Disharmonious Spirit of Chaos. Ponies told me I was funny.”
Unable to help himself, Tarnished Teapot grinned at Maud’s deadpan delivery. If he was a little braver, Tarnish might have leaned over just a few inches more and kissed Maud upon the cheek, but at the last moment, his common sense told him no. A little necking, a little hoof holding, that was all fine and good. But kissing was a whole different issue. You needed permission. A sign. Some clear signal that it was okay to pucker up and go planting tulips.
But it was tempting. Tarnish wasn’t certain what had just come over him, but the feeling was strong. In the dark theatre, lit only by the flickering light of the projector and the movie screen, Tarnish was almost overcome by how beautiful Maud was. He began to breathe a little heavier.
Planting tulips sounded like a great thing to do. A wise pony had once said that the only thing better than roses on your piano was tulips upon your organ. Blinking, Tarnish tried to get his fevered mind back under control. He leaned back a little bit, gave Maud some room, and took a deep breath, holding it for several seconds so he could calm down.
“Tarnish, is the movie scaring you? You’re acting funny,” Maud whispered as she looked over at Tarnish. On the screen, some dreadful deadite pony was tap dancing in the eviscerated bowels of some now dead teenage filly, while singing, “Hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal, send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire…”
Somehow, after taking a deep breath to calm down, Tarnish had forgotten to start breathing once more. He sucked in a deep breath and concentrated upon breathing and tried not to think about how close Maud was, or how tempted he was to give her a smooch.
“I think Tarnish is a scared little colt,” Maud said to her sisters.
Oh, this was bad. Tarnished Teapot whimpered. “I’m not scared…”
“Denial is always the first sign of a problem,” Pinkie Pie said, never once taking her eyes off of the screen. “That’s what I learned when Twilight Sparkle helped me with my PheNOMNOMenons problem.”
“What?” Limestone asked.
“I had a problem with a certain delicious treat, but I’m okay now. I’ve admitted that there was a problem and I’m in control—”
“Look, I’m not scared!” Tarnish said in his own defense.
“Denial!” Pinkie waved at the screen. “That looks like applesauce with red food colouring. I wonder what Applejack would have to say about that.”
“I’m not in denial!” Tarnish snorted in defiance and shook his head.
Tarnish felt Maud’s fetlock give him a gentle squeeze and then he heard her say, “Don’t worry Tarnish, I’ll keep you safe.” He felt the hot, awkward sting of embarrassment. Somehow, everything had gone wrong and now the theatre was the horror show.
There was no way out of this, so Tarnish sat back in his seat and tried to endure what was certain to be an awkward half an hour to forty five minutes, or however long it took for the movie to be over.
It was much later than he thought when Tarnish emerged from the movie theatre. He stood, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight, and he came to a conclusion after several moments of thought, a conclusion that he spoke aloud. “We’re not going to get back to the farm before dark.”
“No, we’re not, which is why we’re going to be camping out and having a lovely night out below the stars,” Limestone said to Tarnish. “We do this all the time. Come on, I bet mom and dad are in the cafe across the street.”
Following Limestone, Tarnish glanced over at Maud, who walked beside him. He saw her glancing at him, which caused his heart to begin pounding, and then she turned away, looking ahead towards the cafe.
“Oooooooooh ice cream sounds so good right about now,” a prancing, pronking Pinkie Pie proclaimed, practicing perfect pronunciation.
“Maud, I had a nice time, thanks for seeing a movie with me.” Tarnish hobbled ahead on three legs and wished that he had something more clever to say.
“I had a lovely time, thank you, Tarnish…”
The cafe was air conditioned and the sweet smell of ice cream tickled Tarnish’s nose. Tarnish, still in a romantic mood, rushed ahead on three legs so he could be a gentlecolt and help Maud get seated. Lacking a useful second foreleg, he took a risk and used his magic to pull a chair out for Maud to sit in. He waited for something awful to happen, but nothing did. He grinned at her and then went to say, “May I show you to your seat?”
But that isn’t what came out of his mouth. Fumbling his words, either because of his nervousness or because of his treacherous magic, what instead came out of Tarnish’s mouth were the words, “May I sew you to a sheet?”
A spoon clattered to the table after Cloudy Quartz dropped it. Igneous groaned, a deep rumbling sound that came from the base of his throat. Marble squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, feeling what the ponies of Germaney called fremdschämen.
“Oh, well, this is awkward,” Pinkie Pie said, summing up the situation in a manner most succinct. She shook her head.
Grinning a huge, toothy grin, Limestone giggled. “Tarnished Teapot, you are supposed to ask a mare that in private… you never say it in front of her parents.”
“It… it was… it… it was… was… an… it was an accident.” Tarnish, feeling mortified, wanted to sink down into the earth, never to be seen again, perhaps becoming part of a nice sedimentary rock.
Sitting down in the offered chair, Maud said, “Thank you, Tarnish.”
Fanning herself with one hoof, her lips pressed together, Cloudy recovered her spoon and looked at everything around her while trying not to look at Tarnish. After several moments of struggle, she let out a snort and the corners of her mouth attempted to curl upwards. “Tarnish, dear, you should take a seat. Don’t feel bad, little slip ups happen.”
Sighing, Tarnish went to sit down. The chair had other plans. It reared up on two legs in a heroic pose and then took off, running through the dining area of the cafe, causing everypony present to stop what they were doing and stare. Standing there, feeling miserable, Tarnish sighed once more. “I’m gonna go sit in the wagon. Hopefully, nothing else bad happens.”
“Tarnish wait,” Maud said, reaching out her hoof and touching Tarnish, ignoring the awestruck ponies all around her that were watching as the chair went racing around the tables. “Don’t go… it’s not so bad—”
“I feel humiliated, just like I always do,” Tarnish replied as he started for the door.
“Sit down,” Igneous commanded. “I’m not about to let you go off and sulk in the wagon. You just park your backside in another chair and you stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Igneous gave the young colt a hard stare and then pointed at a chair with his hoof. “Sit. Don’t make me tell you again.” Igneous glared at the rest of the chairs around the table, his brows furrowing. “No more shenanigans… if any of you tries to run away, I’ll turn you into kindling. I have a pickaxe in the wagon that’ll do the job nicely.”
Glancing once more at the door, Tarnish debated what to do next. Closing his eyes, he hung his head, swallowed, and then decided to stay. He backed up and then tried to sit down once more. This time, his chair stayed put.
“Sometimes things on the farm misbehave,” Pinkie Pie said, explaining her father’s behaviour. “I used to think the house was haunted, but Maud says it’s something else. Sometimes, daddy has to scold stuff to make it behave.”
Opening his eyes, Tarnish gave Pinkie Pie an incredulous stare, but noticed that both Limestone and Marble were both nodding. And so was Igneous.
“It’s true.” Having said what needed to be said, Igneous returned to eating his ice cream, a sour looking scowl upon his face as he glared at the chairs, just daring them to move.
The running chair ran out of whatever it was that was animating it, and it stopped, becoming a normal chair once more. Several of the patrons stood around, gawking at it with wide eyes and open mouths.
Taking a deep breath, Tarnished Teapot felt a little better…