The Dark Of The Matineigh
Most days in Equestria were clear and sunny with virtually zero chance of precipitation. This was because the Pegasi, the winged ponies who ruled the skies over the magical land, were able to control the clouds. To those flying equines the clouds were as solid as a bed mattress, and about as soft, if not softer. Any chance of unscheduled weather came in the form of rogue clouds drifting into town from the feral skies of the Everfree Forest. However, the Pegasi, specifically the ones on the weather team, hardly ever let stray clouds run amuck.
For Cine Buff, the beautiful day was no rare treat and consequently, he felt no obligation to spend his time outside enjoying the weather. Rather, his day would be spent inside the dark, slightly cool air of the local movie theater. He would have to make up for missing the most anticipated film of the summer the night before.
Last night had seen the premiere of Flicker Filming’s newest feature production, “Gone With The Windigoes,” starring Vivien Neigh and Clark Stable. It was about a mare named Scarlet and her love-life during the time of the three great pony tribes feuding over food so many winters ago. That was as much as the early teasers of the film had told Cine. Today, however, he would see for himself what the motion picture had to offer in terms of story, character, and faithfulness to the setting.
It was not out of pleasure that he went to go see the film; not entirely, for Cine Buff had managed to secure a column in the Ponyville Express for his movie reviews. “Gone With The Windigoes” was to be the subject of this week’s review and therefor, Cine needed to see the movie today in order to prepare his critique for the printing press in two day’s time. He might’ve given himself even more time by seeing the film on its midnight premiere, but Cine was not a fan of overcrowded theaters and over-enthusiastic fans that were surely present at last night’s showing. No, today would see him sitting comfortably in a row of plush red chairs with both leg rests unoccupied and no unicorn horn obstructing his view in the dark of the matinee.
Regal Sisters Cinema was only a five minute’s trot from Cine’s flat in the center of town. When he had finally saved up enough bits to get his own place, Cine had made certain that it would be close to the theater, his natural habitat so to speak. He barely took note of the other ponies going about their daily routines as he made his way for the ticket booth beneath the impressive marquee which, had it been nighttime, would’ve lit the surrounding buildings up like the lights of Manehatten. Already, he was lifting his snout to the sky in hopes of catching a whiff of popcorn and fountain soda.
Inside the ticket booth sat a Pegasus stallion named Stubs, casually flicking through an issue of “Power Ponies” and chewing on a wad of pink bubblegum. His acne-ridden face scrunched up as he caught sight of a tan Earth Pony making his way toward the ticket booth, his muzzle pointed skyward. It took Stubs a moment to realize that the Earth Pony was in fact Cine Buff, the cinema’s most frequent patron.
“Good afternoon,” drawled Stubs when Cine had reached the glass window of the booth. His voice was rather nasally and contemptuous.
“Good afternoon, Stubs,” greeted Cine through the glass. He smiled and took a moment to look the teenage stallion over.
The ticket handler’s coat was a dark shade of red, almost brown. His spotted face betrayed his age and his looks. The red vest he wore had four holes in it; two for his forelegs and two for his wings. Actually, “wings” wasn’t an accurate description of what protruded from the Pegasus’s sides. Cine had been told that many years ago, when Stubs was just a foal, he had been diagnosed with a degenerative disease which would spread from his wings to his heart had it been allowed. At the time, the only solution was to amputate the wings, which the doctors had done, but they spared a small portion of the limbs in order to preserve his Pegasi magic. Stubs could control the clouds, but since his days as a foal he had been grounded for life.
At first, Cine had disliked the rude and haughty nature of the teen, but when he’d learned of the Pegasus's past, he grew a soft spot for Stubs. He always made an effort to be friendly towards him, even if the feeling was never reciprocated.
“Lovely day today, huh?” Cine observed, attempting to strike up conversation.
“Same as always,” remarked Stubs, not even looking up from his comic. “Besides, it doesn’t make much of a difference to us, does it? You, always sitting in the theater. Me, always sitting here having ponies fog up my window with their nosy noses.”
“Uh, I guess?” Cine replied, sensing that the ice wouldn’t be so easily broken.
“I never guess. I know,” Stubs retorted. “So I know you’re here to see Flicker Filming’s so called masterpiece.”
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” Cine asserted, proudly showing off his cutie mark a quill resting on a reel of 35mm tape.
“Yes, well...” Stubs began, eyeing the mark, “Last week’s review of ‘Mr. Smith Flies To Canterlot’ left much to be desired.”
Cine didn’t respond, thinking it would be so much easier to go back to hating the Pegasus.
Finally, he took deep breath, set a few bits down on the counter near the small gap in the glass and asked, “So, can I get the ticket then?”
“If you must,” answered Stubs, taking more time than necessary to mark his page while munching loudly on the gum. He was about to feed the small ticket through the gap when he paused, saying, “But first you have to promise me something.”
“What is it?” Cine asked apprehensively, looking down to see if he couldn’t just grab the ticket and rush inside. He couldn’t, the small stub just was too far from the opening the ticket, not the wing.
“I want you to stay away from my marefriend,” Stubs demanded.
“Who?” asked Cine, slightly taken aback.
“Golden Ticket, my marefriend. Duh,” said Stubs.
“Uh… does she know that?” Cine asked, seriously doubting a positive response.
“Of course she does!” growled Stubs, but then he started scrambling for words. “Well, I...I mean… We’re not going out ‘officially’, but we might as well…”
“Uh huh,” Cine responded, not trying to hide his skepticism.
Stubs was about to go into a full on explanation of why he and Golden Ticket were made for each other and should be going out when Cine saw his chance. The ticket handler in his distracted state had moved his hoof close enough to the gap in the window for Cine to snatch the ticket from his grasp.
“Hey!” shouted Stubs.
“Well, when you make it ‘official’,” Cine began, cantering towards the entrance, “I’ll be sure to leave you two alone.”
Cine Buff didn’t hear Stubs response, but perhaps it was for the best, as it probably would’ve extinguished any sympathy Cine had built up for the ticket handler.
On his way inside the lobby, Cine thought of the mare to whom Stubs had been referring to as his marefriend. He could hardly blame Stubs for liking Golden Ticket as Cine himself had grown rather fond of the mare recently. Golden Ticket was the other ticket handler who generally worked the night shifts at the theater. She was an Earth Pony with pale yellow fur. Cine had grown to love the way her light brown mane would swish about whenever he got her to laugh. For the past week, he had been mulling over whether to ask her to come watch the Summer Harvest Parade with him. The exchange between him and Stubs had given him the determination to ask her out before anypony else got the idea.
The relief of having finally made a decision on the matter showed on his face as he headed towards the snack bar.
“Hello, Lolli,” greeted Cine when he reached the counter. Lolli Pop looked up from the cash register at the sound of Cine’s voice.
“Oh, hello there, Cine!” she happily greeted in return. Like Stubs, she had a red vest, but because she was an Earth Pony, she didn’t require any extra holes in hers. Her tan fur was similar to Cine’s coat, but her mane and tail were a soft shade of cyan. She always wore a toothy smile and she showed it when she asked, “You look awfully pleased about something. What's up?”
“I guess I’m just glad to be back,” answered Cine. It wasn’t exactly a lie because in actuality he was happy to be in the dim lobby of the cinema about to experience another film.
“Pfft, it hardly seems like you ever leave!” joked Lolli, laughing a girlish laugh. “So what’ll it be today, Mr. Critic?”
“Think I’ll just have a small popcorn and soda today,” Cine responded, planning to go out for a more substantial meal after the movie had finished.
Lolli’s smiled faded. “Oh, that’s what you always get,” she pointed out.
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “You never get any of my candies. Like these,” she said, holding up a clear bag of small red wrappers with the words, “FireCracker” written in golden lettering on the side. “They’re a new recipe I came up with the other day.”
“I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I guess,” admitted Cine, but upon seeing Lolli’s expression fall even further he quickly backtracked. “But I guess I can test out those new candies for you. I’ll take’em.”
Lolli’s smiled reappeared in the blink of an eye as she said, “Really? Great!” She held out her hoof to accept Cine’s bits for the candies as well as the soda and popcorn. “Right, so one bag of ‘FireCrackers’, a small soda and a small popcorn. There’ll be ready in a jiffy!”
“Somepony called me?” came a voice off to the right. It was Jiffy Pop, Lolli’s twin brother. His coat and hair were the same colour scheme as his sister's, but he was taller and bulkier than the mare. “Oh, why if isn’t our most valued customer. How are you today, Cine?”
“Very well, actually. I’m here to see ‘Gone With The Windigoes’ today,” explained Cine.
“That one gave us some good business last night,” remarked Jiffy.
“Oh, oh look, Jiff! Cine’s buying my new candies, see?” said Lolli holding up the bag of candies for her brother to see.
Jiffy’s eyes widened as he took in his sister’s words. He was silent for a fraction of a second too long before he said, “Oh well, uh… that’s great, Lolli.”
Cine noticed Jiffy’s hesitation, but apparently Lolli hadn’t for she just continued to smile in earnest as she said, “Will you take care of the rest, Jiff? It’s a small popcorn and soda. I wanna go write down this momentous occasion so I don’t forget!”
Jiffy and Cine watched Lolli trot happily back into the backroom of the snack bar. When she was out of sight, Jiffy scooped a small bag of popcorn for Cine and loaded on a generous helping of butter. He was about to fill the small cup with soda when he once again hesitated.
“What’s up?” asked Cine, noticing the popcorn maker's odd behavior.
Jiffy opened his mouth to speak before closing it again. He did this a few more times before finally letting out a sigh and said, “Listen, Cine. Lolli is generally really good about coming up with new recipes for her candies and stuff, but recently…”
“Yeah?” Cine pressed.
“Well, she’s been looking at a lot of Middle-Eastern cooking books and… and she…”
“Go on,” Cine said, becoming more and more curious.
“She… she… Look, I’m just gonna give you a large soda instead of the small. Free of charge,” finished Jiffy in a rush.
“Wha…?” Cine started, but before he could say another word Jiffy had already shoved a box full of soda, popcorn and candies at his chest and tossed the carrying strap over Cine’s neck before disappearing into the backroom.
Cine was left standing at the counter puzzling over what had just happened. Apparently, Jiffy had just told Cine in a rather roundabout manner that the candies were duds. At least that was a much as the confused movie critic had gathered from the situation. He shrugged figuring the candies couldn’t be too awful, but decided that he would refrain from eating them before a braver soul had tested them out first.
Making his way over to the hallway that housed the theaters, Cine took a sip of the soda held securely in the box tray dangling from his neck. He had to admire the ingenuity of the simple yet effective device. It allowed Earth Ponies and Pegasi to carry their refreshments into the theater easily without having to perform a balancing act on their backs.
The walls of the theater hallway were lined with posters of the best-selling and iconic films shown at the cinema. At the beginning of the hall was a picture of the movie, “Transmuters” which was an action flick directed by Block Buster about a cult of Earth Ponies who attempted to use alchemy to overthrow a dystopian society ruled by Unicorns. It was mostly just eye-candy to Cine, but it had grossed many bits and fans. Besides that there were plethora of posters; "SuperMare", "Nightmare Night", "Dr. Strange Love", "Streets of Manehattan", "Hornheads", "1001: A Lunar Oddity", etc.
Then there was a poster of “Citizen Mane”, one of the most revered motion pictures in the history of Equestria. Directed, written and starring the great Horse-in-Dells, the film portrayed the life of wealthy book publisher through a series of well-paced flashbacks. After Cine had written an in-depth analysis of the film when he was still a young colt, he was able to gain his cutie mark and true calling in life. Many other posters were displayed, but Cine smiled most fondly at that one in particular. If he ever had a daughter, Cine would be sure to name her "Rosebud."
When he reached the entrance to the correct theater, he showed the usher his ticket and ventured into the darkness. At the bottom of the rows of seats, Cine looked up to examine how full the theater would be today. All seemed to be in his favor as there were only five other ponies sitting in the darkness; a pair of Pegasi sitting close to the screen, a lone Unicorn seated higher up more towards the middle, and a couple of Earth Ponies situated in the back left corner. Cine climbed the stairs until he was two rows above the Unicorn and made for the chair at the center of the aisle.
As he moved towards the seat there was a horrible sound of squishing and crunching coming from the floor every time he took a step. Cine looked down in disgust. It seemed that the theater janitor had yet to clean up completely after last night’s premiere. The sticky floor pulled a few hairs from the bottom of his hooves making him grimace.
“Sorry about that, buddy!” called one of the Earth Ponies seated above Cine; he was a stallion. “I just came!”
Cine just rolled his eyes at him. He heard that one too many times to even attempt a laugh.
“Oh hush, silly!” giggled the mare sitting next to the jokester. She looked down at Cine and said, “Nevermind him. He’s always like this.”
“But you still love me for it, don’t ya, babe?” said the stallion in a husky voice.
“Of course!” chimed the mare, looking deep into his eyes. In a second, her lips met his and an all out snog fest ensued between the couple.
Cine turned away from spectacle and made himself comfortable in the seat. After placing the soda in the right-hoof cup holder, putting the bag of candies beside him and setting the bag of popcorn in his lap, Cine rested his head back against the soft cushion. His body sank into the plush chair giving him a warm, soft feeling from his flanks to his withers. He had picked this specific location in the theater because it was level with the screen so he didn’t have to crane his neck upwards or downwards to view the movie.
As he started to munch on his popcorn and slurp on his soda in a vain attempt to drown out the noises coming from the two lovers behind him, the dim lighting in the theater went out completely and the screen sprung to life presenting the theater’s logo. A disembodied female voice called out into the darkness.
“Thank you on behalf of the management for having Regal Sisters Cinema as your theater of choice today. At this time we will ask that all Unicorns refrain from using magic so as not to disturb the other viewers and that everypony remain quiet for the duration of the film.”
“Boo!” shouted the Earth Pony stallion, tossing some popcorn at the screen and causing his girlfriend to giggle again. But no matter, for the logo of the cinema a white and a black Alicorn crossing horns disappeared only to be replaced by a diagram of the theater as the voice continued on.
“In the event of an emergency, please proceed calmly to the nearest fire exit marked here on the screen.”
“Oh yeah! Like anypony’s gonna be calm if there’s an emergency!” the Earth Pony argued. Once again, the voice pressed on despite the interruption.
“Remember to be courteous to your fellow viewers and enjoy the film,” the voice finished, and as it did so the screen flickered to show a paragraph of lettering that warned the audience of the consequences of pirating. The Royal Equestrian Insignia was stamped at the lower right of the screen.
“Pssh! They never bother to actually look for those pirates anyway. I got a box of bootleg movie reels in my closet back at home,” bragged the Earth Pony stallion. “Oh look, babe! The trailers are starting. They’re the only reason I come to this dump.”
Cine was beginning to get seriously annoyed with the stallion’s constant outbursts. However, even though he had “Buff” in his name, Cine had never shown any talent for building muscle and therefore tended to stay as far away from conflict as he could manage. So instead he sat in silent anger, knowing he’d never have the guts to tell the guy to shut up.
Using the popcorn as an outlet for his annoyance, Cine took a hoofful of the buttery puffs and chomped down hard on them, imagining each popped kernel was the head of the loud mouth stallion. He started to get so into it that before the trailers had even ended he’d already finished the entire bag. His hoof searched in vain for something else he could squash between his blunt teeth.
The last trailer shown was a teaser for a movie about a group of unicorns who go on a camping trip in the summer, but end up being hunted down by a group of psychotic hill billy goats. Cine missed the title of the flick due to another outburst by the stallion.
“Ha! My Goddess, those unicorns are crazy!” shouted the stallion. “They always gotta go looking for trouble!”
“Right?,” chimed the mare. “You better believe I’d be hauling tail outta there. No way some crazy goat’s gonna ruin my mane.”
Cine grinded his teeth. He just wanted to turn around and tell the idiotic pair that it was just the plot to some damn movie and that the whole theatre didn’t need a full disclosure on their opinions of it. Absentmindedly, Cine reached into the bag of candies, ripped open one of the wrappers and stuffed it into his mouth.
Now, let us just take a moment to digress and discuss the Scoville scale. The Scoville scale is a measurement of pungency (in other word “spiciness”) of chili peppers and other such spicy foods. This scale was named after Wilbur Scoville, an American pharmacist, after he developed the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912. Units used in the scale are referred to as Scoville Heat Units or SHU for short. One of the hottest peppers on the scale, the “California Reaper”, ranks in at around 2,000,000 SHUs.
Because the scale was developed on Earth rather than Equestria, scientists have never been able to rank Lolli Pop’s “Firecracker” candies, but we’ll just have to assume that they would definitely give the “California Reaper” a run for its money.
The candies didn’t reveal their incredible heat to Cine right away. If they had, the poor movie critic may have had the chance to spit out the seemingly harmless sweets before he had stuffed his mouth so full that his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. Lolli Pop had constructed the sweets so that the outer layer was a pleasant fruity taste, but as the saliva ate away at the top shell, the candies would become spicier at an exponential rate.
Cine had just enough time to bring the empty popcorn bag to his muzzle before he spat out the candies like a spray of buck shot.
“Hey buddy, if that trailer was enough to make you sick I’d hate to sit near you at an actual horror flick,” joked the stallion, causing his marefriend to let out a shrill cackle.
Steam was spouting from his nostrils and ears so it was impossible to curse out the pair at that moment. His eyes watered causing tears to streak down his face which was at that point bright red. Agony was dancing across his tongue as the spices embedded themselves into his taste buds. He searched desperately for something to quench the fire in his mouth.
Grabbing the large soda which Jiffy had given him, Cine drained the cup’s contents onto his flaming tongue. Within seconds, he had gulped down the drink and was fishing for ice cubes to suck onto in order to stave off the heat. Thankfully, the soda had helped the burning slightly, although the stinging sensation would probably last for quite awhile longer. Cine made a mental note to never test out one of Lolli’s creations for as long as he lived.
During Cine’s ordeal, the movie had already started. The Earth Pony pair behind him had gone back to slobbering on each other’s faces which was quite disgusting, but at least it kept them quiet for the most part. At one point, Cine Buff could’ve sworn he heard some squishing noise that could definitely not have been made with just lips against lips, but he didn’t dare turn around to check what it was. For the most part, he just sat in silence making mental notes on certain qualities of the film that he would certainly point out in his later review.
It was about halfway through the film when it hit Cine. It came like lightning out of the clear sky. He twisted his hind legs in order to create a temporary dam which bought him about ten more minutes. His efforts proved to be futile in the end as the large soda he had guzzled in his haste to clear away the spicy heat had gone straight through him and was now looking for an escape route. Cine waited until the last possible second in order to catch as much of the movie as he could, but his screaming bladder made it far too difficult to concentrate.
Finally, he rushed from the theatre, nearly falling on his way down to the bottom row of chairs. The Pegasi seated at the front gave him a curious glance as he galloped past and out into the hallway of posters. Luckily, Cine had been to the theater enough to memorize where the closest bathroom was and made a beeline for the stallion’s room.
As he raced down the hallway, two obstacles decided to appeared to test his bladder. The first was three fillies racing out of another theater screaming about some kind of giant seed or something that sounded similar. They blocked the hallway so that Cine had to vault over them like he was competing at the Equestria Games. He assumed that the fillies had snuck into some horror flick and got their tails scared off of them, though he couldn’t remember hearing about a horror movie with a giant seed or whatever the fillies had said.
The second obstacle was Golden Ticket.
“Hello, Cine,” greeted the mare with a gentle smile as Cine raced up to her. The bathroom was just around the corner.
“H-hello,” said Cine, slightly breathless. He danced on the spot trying to hold back the rapids. “Wh-what are you doing here? Don’t you work the night sh-shift?” he asked, peering over her head to the doorway that lead to relief.
“Yes, but I forgot my vest here last night. It was hectic, y’know?” she mused.
"N-no kidding,” answered Cine distractedly.
“Yeah,” she laughed, not noticing Cine’s predicament. “Actually, I’m glad I ran into you.”
“Is that so?” Cine asked, inching his way past her and closer to his goal.
“Yeah, you see when I just came in now Stubs asked if I wanted to go to the Summer Harvest Parade with him,” she began.
“N-no joking, huh?” said Cine, though he was beyond listening to anypony right then.
“Yeah, but well I… I didn’t really say I’d go cause I was wondering… well, I was wondering if you might ask me or something,” she finished, blushing slightly.
“Uh huh,” Cine murmured. He had managed to slip past her and was now making his way for the tiled wonder.
“So… are you?” she pressed, her red cheeks were in danger of catching on fire.
“Sorry, I gotta go!” shouted Cine, losing all pretense of pretending to listen to her and rounding the corner into the stallion’s restroom. Golden Ticket lowered her ears as she watched Cine run away from her question not knowing that she had simply caught the critic at a very bad moment.
No other stallions were present in the restroom which meant that Cine didn’t have to wait for a free stall. He sat on the porcelain throne with a heavy sigh as he relieved himself. As he sat in under bliss, he idly pondered why so many stallions brought quills with them into the bathroom; the stall had all manner of graffiti on its green walls. He finished his business and went to the sink to wash his hooves.
He nearly laughed as he reflected on the past couple of minutes he felt as if he were in a movie himself. Had he waited another moment, Golden Ticket would’ve had to change her name to Golden Showers….
Cine stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror in utter horror. How could he have been such an idiot? Golden Ticket, the mare who had been haunting his dreams for the past fortnight, had just given him an invitation to make his move.
Before he was entirely conscious of what he was doing, Cine raced out of the restroom searching desperately for Golden Ticket. He turned the corner of the hallway looking in every direction, but he saw no sign of the mare. Instead, he saw a group of ponies cantering down the hallway toward the lobby. At the front of the pack was an usher with a terrified look on his face.
“Sir! Hurry! Follow me!” he shouted at Cine as he corralled the stampeding herd behind him into the main lobby. “You need to evacuate the building this instant!”
“Wha…” Cine attempted to ask, but was pushed into the mass of ponies before he could articulate his question. The crowd pushed and shoved themselves out of the main entrance and onto the street outside the cinema. “What is going on?!” shouted Cine to the crowd at large.
“There was a monster!” screamed one mare.
“It ripped through the movie screen!” added another.
“It was huge! Like Goddesszilla!” shouted a stallion, squinting his eyes and overemphasizing the last word.
Most anypony else would’ve thought that the whole world had gone crazy, but Cine had lived in Ponyville long enough to know that random, strange occurrences weren’t actually that random or strange. He was just contemplating what they should do when the owner of the cinema came rushing out into the crowd.
“Everypony, everypony please calm down,” said the owner to the crowd at large. “The incident appears to be isolated, but we’re going to call in the Royal Guard just to be sure. I suggest you all go home and rest easy knowing that the situation is being taken care of,” he added.
“What about the movie I was watching!” shouted the same Earth Pony stallion that had been annoying Cine back in the theater. Cine rolled his eyes at the thought that the stallion had been far too busy kissing his marefriend to pay any attention to the film anyway. The stallion, however, had managed to rile up a few costumers with his outbursts.
“If all goes well, the theater will be reopened tomorrow,” said the owner with a nervous smile. When he continued to get a few glares from the crowd he added, “And of course, everypony here will be given a discount as well. Now, please, I must get back and brief the guards on the situation. Thank you for your cooperation!” The owner turned on his back hooves and nearly ran from the crowd back into the lobby.
“Tsh, this bites,” mumbled the Earth Pony stallion to his marefriend. “I didn’t even get to finish my popcorn."
Cine didn’t bother listening anymore to the stallion, but instead started jumping up and down trying to catch a view of Golden Ticket through the crowd. He thought he might have seen the top of her mane, but a dark red coloured stallion blocked his view of her and the dispersing crowd was now pushing him in the opposite direction. It took him a moment to realize that the red stallion was probably Stubs. He was just about to start pushing ponies over when a voice distracted him.
“Hey Cine!”
Turning around, Cine came muzzle to muzzle with Lolli Pop; her brother Jiffy was standing behind her.
“Pretty crazy what happened back there, huh?” asked Lolli.
“Yeah, I guess. I was in the restroom at the time so I didn’t really know what was going on,” Cine said.
“Yeah, its too bad that we won’t be able to make anymore sales today,” said Lolli, her ears turning down. However, they sprang right back up when she said, “Luckily, I managed to save a few of my ‘Firecrackers’! How’d ya like them anyway?”
Lolli held up another clear bag filled with the lethal sweets to show Cine.
“Oh, well… they were definitely like nothing I’d ever had before,” admitted Cine. “Wish somepony had told me how much of a punch they packed,” he added, throwing Jiffy a dirty look. The popcorn maker shrunk behind his sister, but Lolli took no notice.
“Yeah! That’s what I was going for!” squeed Lolli. “You can have these, Cine,” she said, shoving the bag into Cine’s hooves. “That’s a thanks for being my taste-tester!” said Lolli, showing a toothy smile that nearly blinded Cine and Jiffy with its brilliance and naivety.
“Er, thanks, Lolli,” said Cine, hesitantly accepting the bag. He was just thinking of the trash can that the bag would be going into once he got back home when the Earth Pony passed by still mumbling under his breath. “Actually, I think I know who deserves these more than I do,” said Cine.
“Oh really?” asked Lolli. “Then you’d better go give it to them! See ya later Cine!” she said, trotting happily off with her brother still showing Cine a very apologetic expression.
Cine gave Jiffy and understanding smile before chasing after the stallion. He was only a few steps ahead.
“Hey!” called Cine. The stallion turned to face him.
“Oh, look. You’re that dorky looking pony from back in the theatre, aren’t you?” asked the stallion.
Cine ignored the insulting description and forced a smile onto his face.
“Yeah, I heard you didn’t get to finish you refreshments and stuff so I thought I’d give this to you. They’re new candies from the theatre lobby,” said Cine, present the bag of candies.
“Oh really? Wow, thanks bud,” said the stallion, taking the candies from Cine. “And I thought you were just some movie nerd, but you’re actually pretty cool. C’mon babe,” added the stallion, leading his marefriend down a separate street. “Thanks, pal,” he called back.
“Oh you won’t be thanking me for long, buddy,” Cine murmured, all the while keeping a fake smile plastered to his face and waving at the couple. After the pair disappeared around a corner, Cine put his hoof down with a big sigh.
He’d gotten his revenge, but still wasn’t feeling too elated. The day hadn’t gone at all according to his plans; he screwed up asking out Golden Ticket, there was still a stinging sensation on his tongue from the candy, and he hadn’t gotten to watch the film. Making his way home with heavy hooves, Cine thought of how he was going to manage writing a full review in just one night and that was assuming the theater would be reopening tomorrow.
Just as he reached the street where his flat was on, Cine noticed someone heading in the opposite direction. It was Stubs. The teenager had his head down to the ground and there was a clearly defined scowl showing on his face. He didn’t notice Cine as he rounded the corner, but instead passed right by muttering under his breath.
Cine wondered what the amputee Pegasus was doing on his street when he caught sight of another pony standing alone on the curb. His jaw nearly hit the ground. It was Golden Ticket. She was waiting in front of his flat. When she noticed the movie critic she smile and waved a hoof at him.
It took a few moments for Cine to collect himself, but finally he managed to return the wave. He looked back at Stubs who was just turning down an alley and then back to Golden Ticket. Cine realized that Golden Ticket must’ve turned down the poor teenager.
The worries he had of completing the column review in time as well as the tingling feeling on his tongue floated away from his mind as he trotted up to Golden Ticket with a big smile. After all, tomorrow was another day.