Holidays Unearthed

by Bookish Delight

2: The Chase

As Wallflower and Juniper walked along snow-covered grass, the former listened intently to the latter, who delighted in regaling Wallflower with stories of working in the movie industry. These days, Juniper worked more ‘alongside’ said industry—by Juniper’s own admission and nomenclature—at the Canterlot Mall Cinema.

But either angle fascinated Wallflower, if she was being completely honest—a view into worlds which were completely out of her element. Where beauty met technology. Where fame was alluring, mysterious, and something Wallflower could only dream of having.

Wallflower left it up to Juniper most days to decide which parts of her world she wanted to talk about. There were some days when Juniper was okay with ranting about the latest Marevel movie rush crowds—she was quite good at recounting hilarious customer service stories involving pedantic canon arguments, screaming children, and indignant parents, amidst snack machines, sticky floors, and soda fountains refusing to work correctly.

On other days, she was content to reminisce on her days working with Canter Zoom, one of the greatest directors in the business and her now-estranged uncle. Today was one of those days. Fortunately, Juniper was just as much a never-ending fountain of stories here as well, but these were just as often fascinating as they were entertaining—inside scoops that one would never find in the papers or on movie coverage sites.

“So Canter goes into his office,” Juniper was saying, “and he sees the crash test dummy prop from three scenes ago. I have to give it to Cheese Sandwich: when he goes for a prank, he goes for quality and quantity!” Juniper waved her arms, gesturing around a mock office while showing no regard for the cool breeze around them. “The dummy’s sitting back in Uncle Canter’s very expensive ergonomic chair, holding a phone up to his ear, wearing totally nothing—thank goodness those things weren’t anatomically correct—and with what totally looks like blood smeared all over his chest!”

Wallflower’s eyes went wide. “Was it, really?”

Juniper chuckled. “Thankfully, no. Canter moves closer to the dummy, realizes it is a dummy, then also realizes it smells like hot dogs. Cause the ‘blood stains’ are actually words, written in plain ol’ condiments from the lunchroom.”

“Seriously?” Wallflower giggled. “What did it say?”

“And I quote,” Juniper said, holding up one finger, “‘NOW I HAVE A KETCHUP GUN, HO HO HO.’”

Wallflower recognized the line, but blinked anyway. “Wait, like, from that movie we watched last week with the skyscraper?”

Juniper half-gushed, half-gasped. “That’s it!” she said with a squeal. “You remembered!”

“Of course I did,” Wallflower said. At Juniper’s insistence on it being a holiday season movie (which Wallflower didn’t get either, but it didn’t matter, she’d had fun), they’d recently watched all of Pie Hard—alone and cuddled together in Juniper’s private home theater. Her face warmed as she failed to elaborate on the exact reason for her suddenly sharp memory. “That… doesn’t mean the reference makes sense here, though.”

“You’re totally right!” Juniper snapped her fingers. “But it’s the nature of the prank that counts here. It doesn’t always have to make sense or have a reason behind it—just the fact that you pulled it off is enough. Especially with a prank as elaborate as that one.”

“Ahh, I see.” Wallflower nodded, her mouth open slightly. “Your uncle had to be mad, though.”

“Are you kidding?” Juniper giggled incessantly. “He laughed like an idiot! Unfortunately for Cheese, Uncle C used to be a huge prankster himself back in the day, and everyone on set had already learned never to challenge him… except a certain new intern who hadn’t had the chance to learn studio history yet.” Juniper’s eyes glinted as she adjusted her glasses. “The next payday, instead of Cheese finding a check in his envelope, it was instead a cryptic notice that served as the first clue to a scavenger hunt. It took him five hours running around the studio and the surrounding five blocks to finally learn that Uncle Canter had given the check to me to hold.” Juniper’s giggles turned to outright cackles.

Wallflower followed suit. “Okay, that is amazing.”

“Isn’t it, though? We had a lot of fun on that set, but no one ever crossed a line, or endangered anyone…” Juniper’s giggles faded, and she took on a sighing, faraway look. “…until recently, anyway.”

Whenever Juniper fell suddenly silent, it was a coin flip as to whether it was a good thing or not. Wallflower hunched on it being the latter this time. Placing a hand on Juniper’s arm, she said, “We don’t have to talk about studio life if you don’t want to, you know.”

Juniper sighed again. “I do know. Trouble is, I like talking about it with you. With you listening, I’m finally able to process the past instead of running away from it. I’m able to think about the good times again, acknowledge how much I miss them, without totally falling apart.” She turned to look into Wallflower’s eyes, and Wallflower could see them dancing with hope amidst sadness. “What I’m saying is, you’re a massive miracle worker, in an adorable small green package.”

Wallflower’s face heated again. “Okay, but promise me you’ll stop the moment it hurts. All right?”

Juniper nodded. “You got it.”

Wallflower squeezed Juniper’s arm, leaning into her, and the two continued down the trail pressed closer together. “So, whatever happened to… Cheese, was it? Does he still work there?”

“Nah. Despite being outdone by Canter, he actually had a real knack for good-natured comedy. He went indie about a year before I did. We’ve met at a couple film festivals. He better watch out, though, cause I’m right behind him—” Juniper stopped suddenly, her hands in her coat pockets, staring at the sky with a smile.

Silence again. This time, Wallflower guessed in the other direction. “What is it?” she asked anyway?

“Nothing bad, actually. It’s just… I’m really glad I can say lines like that now. I’m happy that I feel I have somewhere to go, something to work towards again… even if it’s nothing near what I expected.”

Wallflower nodded. “I’ve had the same feelings lately too.”

Juniper’s face lit up. “Seriously? That’s awesome! What’s cooking in Wallflower-land?”

Wallflower said nothing, only shifting her eyes. Was there anything she could say that wouldn’t spoil the surprise?

Fortunately, Juniper seemed to catch on. “Oh, I see,” she said, with a mock-pointed glare and smirk, and a dismissive wave. “Some secrets to keep? It’s fine, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not like we’re girlfriends or anything.”

“It won’t be secret for long, I promise!” Wallflower said, thinking ahead to what she knew she had in store for Juniper in just a little while, and doing her best not to fantasize about Juniper’s possible reactions yet again. “I don’t ever want to keep secrets from you,” she added, and she meant it. "Bad secrets, anyway. I reserve the right to hold surprise birthday parties and stuff."

“First: thanks, I appreciate that. Second: it’s fine, I’m totally just messing.” Juniper giggled, then looked up at the sky once more. “So yeah, here we are. We can just… be ourselves, be outside, look at the sun, and be happy. Oh, and wear gorgeous stuff while just being gorgeous.” Juniper let go, stepping back and sizing Wallflower up with a wink. “By which I do mean both of us,” she added, ignoring Wallflower’s failing to hold back a blush. “And just think: all it took was for us to take a chance on each other. Along with a few other people. And a few other people taking chances on us. Okay, I should probably stop before this becomes a social skyscraper.”

A thought came to Wallflower—something she wouldn’t normally go through with, but she’d found herself feeling more playful in recent months than she ever had over the rest of her life. “So,” she said, with a smile not unlike that of a small kitten just having caught the family bird, “are you trying to say that the real cure for our sadness was the friends we met along the way?”

Juniper stopped, stood stock still, and blanched on the spot, which was exactly the reaction Wallflower expected.

“I understood that reference,” Juniper slowly said, her face showing the look of a girl close to crumpling in annoyed laughter, “and let the record show that I despise you for it.”

Wallflower was close to the same. Putting her mittens to her mouth, she replied, “You made me this way!”

“I also told you to use these powers for good! You know the penalty for terrible memes!” Juniper bent down to the snow, picking up clumps in her hands; Wallflower followed a second later. Juniper managed to hurl the first snowball a mere second before having to dodge Wallflower’s, and the laughing chase began, the both of them throwing snow back and forth at each other.

Wallflower ran further down the trail, towards the denser forestry ahead, tossing snowballs as best she could behind herself while doing so. However, Juniper’s longer legs allowed her to slowly gain on her quarry, and it wasn’t long before one could almost reach out and touch the other—

Which was when Wallflower heard a desperate yell.

“Ohnostupidlongcoatwallflowerwatchout—”

Juniper must have tripped in the show, as Wallflower had barely avoided doing no less than a dozen times. On instinct, Wallflower gasped, running back into Juniper’s path and catching her. The two landed softly below, Juniper on top of Wallflower, the snow-covered grass below them crinkling and crumbling.

---

It took some moments for Juniper to realize what had happened.

“Huh?” she said, looking around, seeing where she was, putting two and two together, and then smiling down at Wallflower. “Whoa. My hero. Just another reason I’m happy you let me into your life.”

“I mean, you seemed nice enough at the time?” Wallflower reached up, placing her hand on Juniper’s cheek. “And I needed someone, too. Thanks for showing up.”

They laid there, simply enjoying one another’s company, Wallflower very conscious of the temperature between them, and Juniper’s breathing—when she felt something else, too. “Junie?”

“Yeah, Wall?” Juniper said.

“Really enjoying this trope.”

Juniper sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

Wallflower smirked. “Scalp’s freezing now, though.”

“Oh!” Juniper giggled sheepishly. “Right.” They picked themselves up, brushing snow off of each others’ outfits and hair, and Juniper cleaning her glasses. “You gotta admit, though: that was a total movie moment.” She paused, then added, “Also, a ton of anime—especially if you do it with zero self-awareness whatsoever. Anyway, that’s probably enough silliness. You’re the one who originally called this meeting, and I’m still wondering why.”

Wallflower nodded, looking towards the forestry that was close to them now. Their snowball fight had carried them closer to their destination faster than Wallflower had predicted.

In other words, it was now or never.

“I wanted to show you something,” Wallflower said with a beckoning gesture. “Follow me.”

Comments

[Tums Festival]

Like the story about Weird Al er Cheese Sandwich. 'Good natured comedian' is probably the best way to describe him.

All of this talk of winter beauty is making me hope we actually get some snow in my state this year.

[The Voice in the Water]

Okay, Wallflower and Juniper are super cute right now.

[Pete100]

She turned to look into Wallflower’s eyes, and Wallflower could see them dancing with hope amidst sadness.

What does that mean?

Juniper must have tripped in the show, as Wallflower had barely avoided doing no less than a dozen times. On instinct, Wallflower gasped, running back into Juniper’s path and catching her. The two landed softly below, Juniper on top of Wallflower, the snow-covered grass below them crinkling and crumbling.

What had just happened?

Wallflower nodded, looking towards the forestry that was close to them now. Their snowball fight had carried them closer to their destination faster than Wallflower had predicted.

So, she started a snowball to get to the destination faster?