Author's Note
When in times of trouble,
When you feel things getting rough,
Sit somewhere quiet, stare into space,
And fill your head with fluff.
Oh yes it's movie night
Bunkering down and getting snug to watch a film or two had been a tradition for James and Alice since back when they were tiny little baby children. As life had progressed they had kept up this tradition, as often as they could, life often doing its best to get in the way.
For a good while life had intruded very thoroughly indeed, and the tradition had withered on the vine for a bit. Thankfully though, the comings and goings of things had led them to now being roommates, allowing the tradition to once against flourish.
All of which is to explain why it is that James and Alice are, of a Friday, getting ready to stay in and not go anywhere and to have a very good, lazy time doing so.
It had been Alice’s turn to acquire snacks and supplies for the evening and this she had done. In fact, she’d really done it. The selection was quite hefty - James might even have gone so far as to call it beefy. He looked at the spread. Something about it struck him as off.
“Is it my imagination or is this considerably heavier on the snacks than we usually do it?” He asked.
“It is,” Alice said, fiddling with something and so not giving her response her full attention.
James briefly ran this laconic non-answer through his head to try and work out what his friend might have been driving at. He knew her pretty well, so he got pretty close:
“We expecting someone else?” He asked. His powers of deduction were potent, albeit mostly limited to situations involving snack foods. Alice nodded, finishing up her fiddling and moving over to him to talk more properly.
“I invited a friend. Hope you don’t mind, just she seemed a little lonely and a little down lately and she’d be all on her own tonight otherwise,” she said. James had zero issues with this, for James was a light and breezy soul able to roll with just about anything life might throw at him, unexpected company ranking very low on the difficulty scale.
“Nah nah, more the merrier. Anyone I know?” He asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. After all, he’d be finding out soon anyway.
“It’s Maple,” Alice said.
No immediate bells were rung for James.
“Maple? That doesn’t - oh, wait. The horse?” He asked.
That’d be Maple Syrup, a friend of Alice’s from work, and not a horse.
“Pony. And yes,” Alice said.
“Huh. Okay,” James said, digesting this information.
Alice raised a warning finger.
“Don’t be weird.”
Wounded by the mere insinuation that he might ever be weird James took a step back and put his hands to his chest.
“Weird! Who’s weird? No-one’s weird here! It’s fine! Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, No matter how many limbs they have,” he said.
“She has four limbs, the same as you.”
He thought about this for a second, then the clouds parted and the light broke through.
“...oh yeah.”
“Just be nice. She’s nice. Little lonely like I said, seems a bit down. Think she might just be having a bit of a bad week. Hoping she can have a pleasant, friendly night,” Alice said.
“We can do that, don’t you worry. It’ll be the friendliest, pleasantliest night she’s ever had. Promise,” said James, holding a hand up in solemnity. This did very little to reassure Alice, who pointed two fingers to her eyes and then used those same two fingers to point at James, putting him on the bit.
“I’m going to be keeping an eye on you,” she said.
“So mean to me…” James said, pouting.
-
Ever since the issues involved in travelling between the limits had been resolved, ponies were a reasonably common sight this side of things, much as humans were now (presumably) a fairly common sight on the other side, among the ponies. It had been jarring at first, then novel, and now settling happy into normal. Just how things were.
Of course, the process of moving from one limit to the next was so widely-known that it’s barely worth commenting on. Everyone knows how it happens. They might not know the exact details on how it works, but they know what it involves. The steps needed are pedestrian, mundane and frankly a little bit boring.
So there’s no need to go into that.
-
It did not take long for the bell to ring.
When it did, Alice went leaping up to go and answer the door while James continued to slowly meld with the sofa. From this sedentary position he was able to hear the hellos and the how-are-you’s, the door close again and then the approach. Hooves on carpet did not sound that special. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.
Heaving himself upright he was standing by the time they entered. If it had just been Alice he wouldn’t have moved, but meeting someone new, in James mind, required standing.
And so, standing, he saw Alice and trotting along next to her (and closer to the floor), Maple.
James did not have a lot of personal experience with ponies. It wasn’t as if he’d been actively avoiding them - he had no reason to do that - it was more just that there hadn’t been any call to interact with any. Sure, he’d passed them in town or stood in queues behind them, but that had been about the extent of his close contact.
Up until now, obviously.
She was very cute looking, but then weren’t they all?
“Evening,” he said, hoping this was sufficiently non-weird.
“Hello,” Maple said, smiling.
“Maple, this is Jamie. Jamie, Maple,” Alice said, making hand gestures of introduction. James’s face wrinkled.
“Don’t call me Jamie. I was Jamie for like the first year you knew me and then never since. You know this. It’s James,” he said. She did this sometimes, though rarely, and clearly without meaning to. Still irritating, though.
“Hello Jamie,” said Maple.
“See? Look what you did. I’m ruined,” he said.
“Oh shush, you’re blocking the door and standing in the way of the blankets,” said Alice. James could not deny this and so moved. The next minute or so was taken up with wriggling into comfortable positions, spreading out blankets, distributing drinks, ensuring bowls of snacks were in easy-to-reach positions and establishing the location of the remote control
Once all of this was done things could get started.
“Alright. Maple, as guest, you can pick,” James said, holding the control out for her.
“Oh no, it’s fine, really. I’m happy with anything,” she said. James could accept this answer. He held the control out for Alice instead. He hated choosing.
“No complaints,” Alice said, taking it and getting picking.
“Chocolate raisin?” James asked, offering the bowl to Maple.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a hoofull (hoof-full? Hooful?) in a way that James could not quite comprehend but had been delighted to finally get to see up close.
“Twiglet?” He then asked, offering another bowl.
“Needsh to finisch the rashiens fhirst,” Maple said, struggling to chew fast enough to reply without having to do so around a mouthful of chocolate and raisen.
“I quite understand,” James said, having a twiglet himself and getting a bump in the side from Alice. “What?”
“I’ll have some,” she said by way of oblique wind-it-in warning, grabbing a handful as her chosen film got started. Since this wasn’t a DVD (or, as had been in the earliest days of movie night, a VHS tape) there were no trailers to feel nostalgic about or overblown F.A.C.T. PSA’s to mock, but that was life these days - fast.
The three sat on the sofa, munched, slurped, and generally did their best to let the tension of the week bleed off in a pleasant, non-threatening environment. At this moment the only concern was what was going on on-screen, and whether the snacks had run out or not. As the snacks were unlikely to run out and the film was just starting, concerns were minimal. Tension bled away.
Once the cold-open of the film had finished and the empty space of the titles and establishing shots started, James took up a bowl of popcorn (classic movie night stalwart) and, between handfuls, leaned towards Maple and asked:
“Can I ask you a question, Maple?”
“You can ask me anything you like, James,” said Maple.
“Thank you. If you don’t have fingers, how did you ring the doorbell?”
Seemed a reasonable enough question to James and indeed Maple was set to answer when Alice, apparently deeming this a weirdness violation and being unhappy on Maple’s behalf, cut in.
“And like that you’ve lost your popcorn privileges,” she said, leaning over to grab the bowl and move it out of his reach, or at least far enough away that he’d have to put effort into reaching it.
He was all set to point out, again, how mean she was to him but he was beaten to it:
“She’s so mean to you!” Maple gasped, hamming it up for all she was worth.
Finding an ally, James whirled around from Alice to look at Maple, eyes wide.
“I know! But no-one sees it so no-one ever believes me!” He cried.
Maple and he were inexplicably on the exact same wavelength here. Strange minds thought alike, plainly. She knew just what to do next.
“Well I believe you. I saw the whole thing! You poor boy!”
“I know!”
“Come here!” Maple declared, spreading her forehooves and leaving a James-shaped space which he filled without a moment’s hesitation. Hugging and cooing and minor hair-stroking followed. Alice watched all this, nonplussed.
“Everyone’s turned against me. I don’t believe this,” she said.
“Shh, I’m comforting him,” Maple said over the top of James’s head.
“Hold me tighter,” he said, voice a little muffled. Maple, continue to gently and supportively coo, did just that. All very overblown, played to the hilt. True commitment to the schtick.
“For the love of…least I have the popcorn…” Alice muttered, munching, glowering.
Perhaps a minute passed. At least one thing on screen exploded though it might have been more.
“Psst,” hissed Maple, looking down. James looked up, at least as best he could.
“Hmm?” He went.
“Is the joke over?” She asked, quietly.
James looked to Alice, seeing her attention was very much on the film and the popcorn and not at all on them anymore. The joke had achieved its purpose. He looked back up to Maple again.
“I think so,” he whispered.
“So I should probably let go, shouldn’t I?” Maple asked.
“Probably. And I should probably get off of you,” James said.
“Probably.”
Neither of them did anything.
“I am pretty comfortable,” James said.
“You are pretty warm,” Maple said.
They looked at one another moment longer, both shrugged, then both silently agreed to just keep it going. After all, it was both warm and comfortable, so what was there to be gained from moving?
Still, Maple and James were each inwardly concerned that the other was only putting up with the situation on sufferance. Thus:
“You don’t mind?”
“You don’t mind?”
This they both said together, before both descending into helpless tittering at the perfect timing. Alice, further along the sofa and having this whole thing just on the very edge of her hearing, looked over at last.
“What are you two whispering about over there?” She asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
More tittering. Alice decided not to pursue it. Talking petered out, the movie burbled and explosioned on. Eventually, following a nadir that had no real emotional impact as it was obvious that nothing truly lasting or significant would come of it, it climaxed, and then it ceased. Credits rolled as triumphant music swelled.
“Well that was my pick, now what are we - are you two asleep?” Alice asked, only now noticing that both James and Maple both had their eyes closed, Maple with her head lolling and James with his resting on Maple’s chest, gently rising and falling.
No immediate response. She poked James and he snuffled, shifting slightly and snuggling more fully into Maple, who snoozily gripped him more firmly. Alice only now noticed that Maple was also drooling a little bit, most of it landing on James. Alice rubbed her face and took up the remote.
“I’m watching Star Trek, then,” she said. And she did.
-
Eventually, Maple did have to go home.
There was a requisite, slightly awkward bit where James and Maple woke up and, in their grogginess, found themselves still wrapped around one another and, in James’s case, a little damp for reasons he couldn’t quite work out, but both of them got over this far faster than Alice would have expected. They laughed it off, in fact! Like they’d done it before!
James even got a hug goodbye when he walked with Maple and Alice to the door! Had to get down on one knee for it, but that was pony hugs for you.
“That was nice,” James said, yawning despite having only just woken up. “Wasn’t too weird, was I?” He asked. Paid to check these things. Alice looked at him sideways.
“A bit weird. Just a bit. But not too much,” she said, her smile lopsided but genuine.
“In fairness, she was also pretty weird,” James said, though in a way that suggested he felt this was in no-way a bad thing and might in fact actually have been a pretty good thing in his book.
“Well, she left happier, at least. So there’s that,” said Alice. This was undeniable. Maple had had a veritable spring in her step on the way out, and a definite swish to the tail that hadn’t been there when she’d arrived. James beamed and gave a thumbs up. Two thumbs up, in fact. The Double.
“I’d say that’s a success, then! But if she’s feeling down again next week she’s more than welcome. Hell, anytime she wants to, really. You were right! She is nice!” He said.
Alice just gave him a flat look.
“What?” He asked.
Still with the flat look.
“What?” He asked again, worried now he was failing to pick up on something obvious.
“I don’t know what I thought was going to happen tonight but I didn’t think it was going to be that,” said Alice, walking on past him and heading to the bathroom.
“Going to be what? What? Alice? What are you talking about? Did I miss something? Alice? Alice!”
But she was gone. James was left standing, adrift.
“Whatever could she have been driving at?” He asked the air. Then he felt a tickle and looked down, picking something off of himself. He held it up and was briefly utterly baffled as to what it might be, but then he got it. “Oh hey, pony hair. Ooh, long. Colourful. Fancy.”
