Just...Why?
“Sunset, thank goodness you’re home,” Sonata Dusk said hectically from in front of the Rainboom’s apartment. “I need something from you.”
All Sunset Shimmer could do in response was give a deep, calming breath as she tried to keep her sanity about her. A task that she’d already been arduously undertaking before she’d returned home for the evening and found Sonata sitting on her stoop waiting for her.
To say that Sunset’s day thus far had been strange would be a gross understatement of the highest caliber. It had been downright bizarre, practically to the point of being beyond comprehensible. When she’d lent her jacket to Aria Blaze a week ago for what the Dazzling had called a modeling job, the last place she’d expected to retrieve said jacket from was the middle of a cornfield. But that was, in fact, where she’d found herself only a short while ago; in the middle of a cornfield. As it turned out Aria’s so-called modeling job had been simply acting as a human scarecrow, which the girl had described as ‘modeling for the crows’. Naturally Sunset had questioned the logic behind anyone referring to being a human scarecrow in such a way, but she’d quickly put such thoughts out of her mind as soon as she’d felt a migraine coming on.
However, this didn’t mean that the whole scenario hadn’t taken at least a small toll on Sunset’s psyche. Perhaps it was because she was still so befuddled by the fact that Adagio had needed her socks to make sock puppets last week, or just that the Dazzlings were putting on sock puppet shows in the first place, but after what she’d just been through with Aria all the fiery-haired girl wanted to do was kickback, relax, and put the outlandish happenings of her day behind her.
But that clearly wasn’t going to happen now until she dealt with the third and final Dazzling at her doorstep.
“Alright, Sonata, what do you need from me?” The Rainboom exhaustively inquired, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“Um, can we go inside first?” Sonata asked softly as she looked to her left and then to her right. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
This was not something Sunset took as a good sign, for a couple of reasons. One, discussing what it was Sonata wanted from her inside almost assuredly meant this wasn’t going to go as quickly as possible. And two, if Sonata was feeling embarrassed by whatever it was she felt she needed from her, then what in god’s name was it she was about to ask for?
“Okay, come on in,” Sunset replied as she walked past Sonata and unlocked her front door, reluctantly choosing to accept the Dazzling’s request.
Once the door was unlocked Sunset stepped inside, followed closely behind by Sonata. The Dazzling promptly closed the door behind her, giving her the privacy between herself and Sunset that she’d desired.
“So what is it you need, Sonata?” Sunset then repeated, sounding a tad irritated now. “My boots? My hotdog costume? My copy of the latest issue of Swank?”
“N-No, none of those things,” Sonata replied tentatively, her eyes now fixated on the floor. “What I need from you is…um…well, i-it’s your…”
Steadily becoming more and more impatient with every passing second that Sonata didn’t just come out and say what it was she wanted from her, Sunset rolled her eyes in a very jeering manner.
“W-What I need is your…” The Dazzling continued. “Y-Your p-p-p-”
“My what, Sonata?!” Sunset inquired vehemently, making no attempt to hide her frustration. “My phone?! My PlayStation?! My plunger?! What, dammit, what?!”
“Your panties!” Sonata suddenly blurted out. “I need your panties!”
And just like that, all of the anger and frustration Sunset had just been feeling disappeared. Replaced by a sense of bewilderment so intense that she could’ve sworn she was about to lose consciousness. Thankfully she didn’t, though she did find herself unable to move her body at all, save for her right eye which began to twitch uncontrollably.
“You need my…panties,” The Rainboom managed to half-say, half-ask in her befuddled state as she felt what little sanity she’d still had left after leaving the cornfield slowly begin to fade away.
“Y-Yeah. Your panties,” Sonata confirmed as she brought her head up to look Sunset straight in the eyes, a very noticeable light pink blush now present across her face.
Sunset had no idea how to respond to this. Adagio asking for her socks had been one thing, so had Aria asking for her jacket, but Sonata asking for her panties? It was like she’d just entered a whole new world of madness that she’d never even conceived of before now. About a million and one questions flooded the fiery-haired girl’s mind all at once, but most of them she dared not ask aloud, lest she receive some answers that she really didn’t want to receive.
Even still though, Sunset knew she had to say something to the Dazzling. After all, she couldn’t just continue to stand there like a deer in the headlights forever.
“Just…why?” She eventually said in a very exhausted manner as she brought her left hand up to her face to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Why do you need my panties, Sonata?”
“Well, you see, I need them for-” The pony-tailed girl began to say before Sunset swiftly placed her right hand over her mouth.
“No no, I don’t want to know what it is you want them for,” The Rainboom clarified as she lowered both of her hands back down to her side. “I don’t even want to imagine what it is you want them for. What I want to know is why it is you need my panties. What’s so special about my panties that you need them as opposed to any other pair of panties out there?”
The light pink blush on Sonata’s face rapidly deepened until it eventually turned a dark red.
“I…I need your panties b-because…” The Dazzling began to answer, trying to think of a way to explain things without revealing what it was she wanted them for. “…because you’re the only one I know who w-wears the kind I need.”
Now it was Sunset’s turn to dawn a light pink blush across her face.
“How do you know what kind of panties I wear, Sonata?” She inquired lamentably.
“I may have…caught a glimpse of them back at the library,” Sonata answered. “When you were helping us load up our van.”
Sunset wasn’t sure which fact was more upsetting to her; That Sonata had taken a gander at her undergarments, or that she’d apparently put herself in a position for the Dazzling to be able to do so. Regardless though, she was feeling about as uncomfortable as one could possibly feel at the moment and wanted all of this insanity to end, right here and now. And she knew of only one way to make that happen.
“You just want one pair, right?” She asked reluctantly.
“Right. Just one,” Sonata confirmed.
“Alright then,” Sunset then said. “Wait right here.”
Sonata went right back to staring at the floor as Sunset turned around and made her way through her apartment towards her dresser. Once there she opened the top left drawer and pulled out a single pair of white bikini panties, the only kind she owned. Unlike some high school girls, like Rarity for example, Sunset never felt the need to own multiple kinds of panties. She completely understood why some girls liked to have more than one kind for variety or for special occasions, but she just wasn’t one of those girls. She was much more like Applejack, and believed that functionality was more of a priority than style when it came to clothing. Especially underwear.
And so, with panties in hand, Sunset returned to where Sonata was still standing and held the piece of clothing out in front of her, trying her best to be as nonchalant as humanly possible despite the sheer awkwardness of the entire situation.
“Here you go,” She said, the slightest hint of embarrassment evident in her voice.
“Thanks,” Sonata replied as she took the cottony undergarment from her and placed it into her pocket.
Sunset had assumed that once Sonata had taken her panties that she would leave, but she didn’t. Much to the Rainboom’s chagrin.
“Hey, um, Sunset,” The Dazzling then said, now sounding as timid as Fluttershy. “Can I…have your copy of Swank too?”
The twitch that had plagued Sunset’s right eye earlier instantly returned with a vengeance, and she could’ve sworn she could actually feel her mind sinking even further into madness.
“Sure, why not?” She answered somewhat witlessly.
Within the blink of an eye, Sunset hurried over to the table where her copy of Swank was, grabbed the publication off of it, and hurried back over to Sonata.
“Here, take it!” She frantically told the Dazzling as she practically shoved the magazine right in her face. “Just take it and go! Please!”
“Okay, okay,” Sonata replied, clearly feeling a bit uneasy now, as she took the magazine and backed up towards the door. “T-Thanks again, Sunset.”
A second later Sonata hastily opened the door, stepped outside, and closed the door behind her, leaving Sunset alone in her apartment.
Now that she finally had the alone time she’d been desiring since leaving the cornfield, Sunset made her way over to the couch and plopped herself right down onto it. She then took a few deep, calming breaths and reached for a universal remote control located at the other end of the couch, which she promptly used to turn on her TV. The program that came on was a rerun of an old medical drama show, which Sunset had never been a big fan of, but she didn’t really care what was on at the moment. All she cared about was having something to watch that would help her keep her mind off of everything she’d just gone through with Sonata.
Thankfully, Sunset’s strategy proved to be an effective one. After a few hours of watching TV, and a few hours of playing video games as well, she’d managed to remove the interaction she’d had with Sonata earlier from the forefront of her mind. She hadn’t put it behind her entirely, but at least by bedtime she’d stopped focusing on it so much.
And so as Sunset tucked herself into bed and shut her eyes, she silently hoped that tomorrow would be a much more normal and relaxing day than today had been.
The next morning, Sunset awakened to rays of sunshine seeping into her apartment through her east-facing window. Since it was the weekend, and therefore meant that she didn’t need to get up right at the crack of dawn, she pulled the covers over her head in an effort to get a little more sleep. While this did help in blocking out the sun, it didn’t help block out the sound of her phone, which started to ring about a minute later. Reluctantly, Sunset removed the covers from her person and leaned over to pick up her phone from the nearby nightstand.
“Hello?” She said groggily as she answered the phone, not even bothering to check the caller ID before doing so.
“Morning, Sunset!” Twilight Sparkle chipperly greeted her. “Are you ready for today?!”
“Huh?” Sunset replied as she pulled herself out of bed. “What are you talking about, Twilight?” What’s today?”
“Culture-Con, remember?” Twilight answered. “You said you’d go with me this year.”
Sunset had, in fact, promise Twilight about two weeks ago that she would go with her to Culture-Con, an annual convention held in Canterlot City celebrating multiple aspects of pop culture. The only problem was that today wasn’t the day of the convention.
“Culture-Con’s not until the third Saturday of the month, Twi,” Sunset reminded her friend.
“Um, it is the third Saturday of the month, Sunset,” Twilight informed her.
“I’m pretty sure it isn’t,” Sunset said as she turned to look at a nearby calendar hanging on the wall. “It’s only the secon-”
The stupefied girl stopped herself mid-sentence as she gazed upon the calendar and saw that Twilight was indeed correct; it was the third Saturday of the month already.
“Oh phooey,” She softly said aloud in response to her sudden realization.
After yesterday Sunset had really wanted today to be as uneventful as possible, and going to Culture-Con was about as far away from uneventful as possible.
“So, are you still able to go with me?” Twilight inquired, sounding a tad wounded. “Because if you made other plans for today than I understand.”
Despite how much Sunset desired a quiet day all to herself, the last thing she ever wanted to do was break a promise she’d made to Twilight. So, much like the time she’d put on a carrot outfit for Applejack’s holiday card, she decided to make a personal sacrifice in the name of friendship.
“No no, I can still go,” She assured her friend. “It’s just that since I thought Culture-Con wasn’t for another week I didn’t finish putting my Link costume together. But I have a few old Halloween costumes lying around in my closet, so I can just wear one of those instead.”
“Oh, okay. Great!” Twilight replied vivaciously. “I’ll be over in about an hour to pick you up. Bye!”
Before Sunset had a chance to say bye back, Twilight hung up.
With an exhaustive sigh, the Rainboom then put her phone back down on the nightstand and headed for her closet to choose a costume to change into for Culture-Con. While it was true that Sunset did have a rather extensive collection of costumes already within her apartment, many of them were ones that she considered…more suitable for a party than a convention. Like her hotdog costume for example. However, she figured the vampire ensemble she’d worn to Bulk Bicep’s party last Halloween would work well enough, since vampires were still pretty popular within some sub-sections of pop culture.
It didn’t take long for Sunset to get changed into her outfit, and as soon as Twilight arrived to pick her up she was ready to go. When she got into Twilight’s car she noticed that her friend was dressed up as Spider-Girl…or Spider-Woman…or Spider-Gwen…one of the female spider-characters from the Spider-Man comics. She wasn’t sure which one. Regardless, once they were together in the car they were off to Culture-Con.
The drive downtown to the convention center was fairly short, and parking turned out to be less of a hassle than anticipated. Which was strange since the number of people at the convention turned out to be fairly large. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people cosplaying as various pop culture characters were packed into the building, making it seem much smaller than it actually was. But despite the large crowd, Sunset and Twilight were able to attend many of the panels and events that the convention had to offer, and only stopped to take a break when it came to be time for lunch.
“Are you sure that’s all you want to eat, Sunset?” Twilight asked as she sat down to eat a burger.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Sunset replied as she paused from eating her cookie. “I’m not that hungry. Plus I really don’t want to spend $20 for a burger or a single plate of nachos.”
“Suit yourself,” Twilight said before digging into her food.
After about another minute Sunset finished her cookie, and then as she waited for Twilight to finish her burger a query popped into her head.
“So, what’s next on the itinerary?” She inquired.
“Tha caustom khantast!” Twilight answered with a mouth full of food.
“The what?” Sunset asked as Twilight swallowed her food, unable to understand her friend’s mumbled words.
“Sorry,” Twilight apologized. “I said the costume contest! I just love seeing all of the great cosplay outfits people come up with for these types of conventions!”
The idea of going to see the costume contest wasn’t exactly an exciting one for Sunset. When she’d found out that Culture-Con was having one she’d planned on entering it with the Link costume she’d been putting together for the convention, but since she hadn’t finished that costume in time and been forced to go as a generic vampire instead she’d decided not to participate. Though, of course, this wasn’t something that she was going to raise with Twilight and risk raining on her parade. And so once again, she decided to suck it up in the name of friendship.
“Okay, sounds good,” She told her friend.
Twilight just responded with a warm smile and then went back to eating her burger.
A few minutes later Twilight finished her lunch, and as soon as she did she and Sunset headed off to Hall H where the costume contest was being held. The two of them were amongst the first to arrive and thus were able to get spots close to the stage, much to Twilight’s delight. The room gradually filled up over the course of the next half-hour, and not long after the occupancy limit had been reached the contest began.
“Ooh, what a great Daenerys Targaryen costume!” Twilight gleefully remarked as the first contestant, dressed as the infamous Mother of Dragons, came out onto the stage and started striking a few poses to really display the details of her outfit.
“Eh, it’s alright,” Sunset less-than-enthusiastically retorted, clearly not as impressed by the costume as her friend.
A number of other contestants soon followed, the best and most notable among them being a Darth Maul, a Neytiri, and a BoJack Horseman that kind of creeped Sunset out. Eventually it got to the point where all but one contestant had gone, by which time Sunset was ready for the contest to be over with so that she and Twilight could move on to some other part of the convention.
“So what do you want to do next, Twilight?” She asked her friend as she turned towards her.
Twilight started to turn towards Sunset to answer her but stopped about half-way, and then mysteriously dawned a very puzzled expression on her face.
“Who is that supposed to be?” She said randomly as she pointed up at the stage.
Sunset immediately turned around to see who it was Twilight was pointing at, and what she saw caused her to dawn the same puzzled expression as her friend. What she saw was a girl holding a flag that read ’SOX’ on it walking across the stage, wearing nothing but a white cloak coat over her body and a pair of white bikini panties over her face.
“What the…?” She uttered softly to herself as the mystery woman took center-stage and struck a commanding pose.
“I AM BLUE SNOW, FOUNDER OF SOX!” The girl declared, sounding very familiar. “AND I AM HERE TO FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO TELL DIRTY JOKES!”
Then, within the blink of an eye, the girl reached into her cloak with her free hand and withdrew many pieces of paper from it that she proceeded to throw into the audience. Slowly but surely, the pieces of paper were caught by various members of the audience, Sunset and Twilight among them. As Sunset brought the paper up to her face to have a good look at it, the sound of mostly male voices hooting and hollering could be heard throughout the room, much to her confusion. That is, until she took a look at the paper she was holding.
“What the…?!” She practically shouted as she realized she was holding a dirty picture in her hand.
At first Sunset looked away from the paper in embarrassment. But as her mind began to process what it was she’d just seen, she felt compelled to bring her eyes back to it, feeling that she’d seen it somewhere before. It took Sunset’s brain a second recall where it was she’d seen it, but soon enough she remembered; it was from the copy of Swank she’d given to Sonata less than 24 hours ago.
And that was when Sunset realized who the girl on-stage with panties on her face really was.
“Oh my god,” She uttered as she stared up at Sonata Dusk.
“DIRTY JOKES ARE OUR CIVIL RIGHT!” Sonata shouted as she started to exit stage-right, rather hurriedly, as a couple of convention workers started to approach her from stage-left. “DOWN WITH THE PEACE MAKERS!”
Some members of the audience began to cheer as Sonata rushed off the stage. Sunset, however, was not among them. All she could do was continue to look up at where Sonata had been standing with a thousand yard stare in her eyes, her mind putting the pieces of the puzzle together as to why Sonata had asked for her panties the other day.
“Oh my god,” She repeated, now sounding downright nauseous.
“Yeah, I know how you feel, Sunset,” Twilight spoke up as she dropped her piece of paper onto the ground. “The way some people go too far with their cosplay like that makes me feel morbid too.”
Sunset didn’t dare correct Twilight’s inaccurate assumption as to why it was she was feeling morbid at the moment. She knew she could never reveal to anyone the part she’d inadvertently played in helping Sonata with her totally brazen and insane stunt.
Never.
“Let’s get out of here, Twi,” The distraught girl said as she headed for the nearest exit.
“Oh, um, okay,” Twilight replied as she followed behind Sunset, clearly caught off-guard by her friend’s sudden decision to leave.
As the two girls exited the hall and made their way through the convention center, a question popped into her head that she couldn’t seem to stop asking herself; Why had Sonata been so embarrassed to ask for her panties and magazine but not to do that? It was a question she realized she’d probably never get the answer to, but in all honesty that was fine with her. Much like how she hadn’t wanted to know the answer to the question of what Sonata intended to do with her panties yesterday, she had a feeling she didn’t want to know the answer to this question either.
Eventually Sunset reached the main entrance to the building and stepped outside, causing Twilight to grab a hold of her shoulder and stop her.
“Wait, you meant get out of here as in leave?” She asked.
“Yep,” Sunset replied as she turned around to address her friend. “Right now I just feel like I need to go home and get some rest.”
“Oh, yeah, alright. I get it,” Twilight said. “It’s been a pretty busy and…interesting day. Do you want a ride?”
“No thanks, I think I’ll walk,” Sunset replied as she turned back around and started to walk away once more. “I can use the time to rethink my policy of giving people my clothes whenever they ask for them.”