Girl's Gotta Do what a Girl's Gotta Do
7DSJ - A Hairy Problem
A 7DSJ Sidestory
“Well, that’s two hours I’m never going to get back,” groaned Twilight Velvet. While it hadn’t been too much of a hassle to drive here – living on the eastern side of San Palomino had its perks after all – it had ultimately been another inane meeting of boring social service work. And being the Assistant Director of County Services in Equestria County, having almost all eyes on her meant she’d needed to keep up appearances, especially now that the Vibe incident was thankfully receding in memory.
But now that was all said and done with, so she could hop in her car and –
Wait, was that Sunset? wondered Velvet, as out of the corner of her eye she caught what clearly had to be her oldest daughter; Sunset Shimmer, walking down the opposite side of the street. While her younger daughter; Twilight Sparkle, was still recovering from a bout with chickenpox, it made sense Sunset would want to stay away from the house as the teen stated she’d never had the disease herself. After all, she’d gone along with Velvet’s niece Octavia Melody, as well as Velvet’s brother and sister-in-law to a swank affair down south in Los Angeles for a week. But Sunset had just gotten back from said trip and Velvet figured she would have wanted to stay more around where her tight-knit group of friends were.
Against her better judgement, Velvet immediately turned to shadow her adoptive daughter from the other side of the road, thanking the stars that where she’d parked her car was free parking. But moving her thoughts back to her daughter’s mysterious actions, there wasn’t much out on the east side of town that a girl in a place like Sunset would need. It was mostly just specialty shops of things Velvet was sure about being nothing that Sunset would take part in – especially not after the major turnaround in her life ever since moving from an abandoned warehouse into the family that had taken her in.
Past wineries and pet stylists, Velvet was stunned when it turned out Sunny’s business in the area was at a tack store. Indeed, no question about it, the flame haired teen had walked with purpose into Blazing Saddle’s Equestrian Needs and Feeds. Standing in pure confusion on the other side of the street, the matron was perplexed: Sunset had never shown any interest in anything equestrian related (despite the horse-pun related nature of, well, Equestria County and practically everything in it, including the suburb they were in). But after checking to make sure nobody was driving down the road, Velvet crossed with every intention of answering those questions.
“Sunny, dear, why are you in this tack store…and why are you buying horse shampoo?”
The voice of doom still reverberating in her ears, Sunset Shimmer turned around to see none other than her foster mother, Twilight Velvet, looking at her with concern.
“Uhhhh…” intoned Sunny, eyes darting rapidly between her mom and the large bottle of Original Mane N’ Tail shampoo – the Original horse to human crossover shampoo that helps to maintain and achieve fuller, stronger, longer, and healthier looking hair – in her hand, hovering two inches off the shelf.
“I mean, I know you have many interests, honey,” continued Velvet, “but equestrian interests never seemed to be your thing.”
Had the situation been different, Sunset would have busted out laughing. After all, the plain truth of it was that despite living on her own for four years as a human prior to her current accommodations, Sunset was still a freaking horse – a unicorn, to be precise – masquerading around as a teenager, and one of the strange oddities of being a horse in human clothing was the preference for certain shampoos. Back in Equestria, given humans didn’t exist, the shampoo question didn’t exist, but here on Earth where so many different products existed for both humans and domesticated animals alike, it presented a problem for Sunset when she discovered human use shampoos generally didn’t meet her standards. She couldn’t help it, she’d been a relatively spoiled brat – the ward of Princess Celestia! – and the bitch she’d turned into shortly after crossing over had demanded she find the closest thing to the luxury shampoos she’d loved back home.
As it turned out, an almost exact match to Hair Curler’s premium line of mane and tail care products, particularly the shampoo, was Original Mane N’ Tail brand shampoo. 32 ounces of something on par with the choice shampoos of Canterlot’s elite – and for only $6.19!
When she’d lived on her own in that decrepit warehouse, she’d never needed to worry about anybody figuring it out – and she’d been mean enough that she’d ask what the problem with it was of the offending party or parties. After all, it said right on the label ‘horse to human crossover shampoo’ so obviously it had been made with the intention of humans being able to use it. An exact reason as to why humans would want to use horse shampoo if they weren’t secretly Equestriani ex-pats like Sunset had never occurred to her, of course, but it had never been seen as a problem.
Now, however? Sunset had gotten lax. She’d foregone having to use her choice shampoo ever since moving in with Velvet, Twilight, Night Light, and Spike, but after all she’d been through and how close and comfy her adoptive home had been, she’d forgotten the whole ‘answerable to others’ part as to why she used horse shampoo. She’d been so distracted from having returned from LA and the whole deal with Tavi’s family crisis (including the part Sunset hadn’t told her about – the whole “Oh yeah, your ancestor La Musica probably was a refugee unicorn from a magical land of unicorns and pegasus ponies – like me!” part) that she’d just wanted to explore a little luxury that aside from the obvious problem, shouldn’t have actually raised any eyebrows at home.
Confronting her foster mother at the very horse store, however, was not what she’d been expecting.
“It’s…not for me,” lied Sunset, with a smile she hoped wasn’t obviously fake. “See, Applejack’s cousin, uh, Free Walk, is a rider for dressage competitions and–“
“What’s dressage?” asked Velvet.
“It’s like, I dunno, ballet for horses, I guess?” Being a native to a land where horses actually performed ballet like humans, Sunset cringed slightly internally. But it was still a better description than just ‘fancy trotting’ any day of the week. “Regardless, Walk is in town and Applejack asked me to pick up some shampoo for her horse, as this store is on the east side and so I lived closer to it than AJ. But what are you doing here, Mrs. V?”
Now it was Velvet’s turn to be in the awkward position. “Oh, I just got out of a meeting from the office complex just down the block, happening to see you walking down the street when I was heading to the car. I followed you just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. But I apologize for being suspicious, dear, you’re just helping a friend after all. Is that the only thing you’re picking up for this, er, ‘Free Walk’ person?”
It is now, thought Sunset with a tinge of disappointment. Being a horse, she still had slight horse tendencies and where Rarity would carefully examine the aftercare hair products at the upscale store at the mall, Sunset would do the same in this one now that she had her own money and not the stolen lunch money of other students. “Nah, this was just it.”
“Oh, because I could swear you looked as if you were window shopping for your own hair care products––”
“NO!” Sunset yiped all too loudly, then practically melting into a puddle of relief when she saw her foster mother’s smile, indicating the minor prank. “Uh, no, I was just making sure I got the right one,” she said, pointing to another bottle. “Almost got this one,” she grunted. “Walk said it’s disaster for manes.”
Especially since it made my hair smell like crap for a week, Sunset grimly remembered. She still intended to write that nastygram to the creators of Cowboy Magic brand shampoo when she got a chance. Smells like rosewater, my ass.
Unaware of her charge’s thoughts, Velvet nodded sagely. “Cool. Just let me know when you’re done paying for it and I’ll give you a lift back,” said Velvet, who then turned to take a look around the shop in curiosity.
Once she was out of earshot, Sunset sighed. “Now I’ll never get to use this stuff without being super secretive about it. And heaven help me if Spike ever finds this shit, I’ll never hear the end of it! Although….” Taking a quick look around to make sure nobody was looking, Sunset then lit the bottle up in her cyan aura. In a flash, the bottle appeared to be some kind of high-end green-colored human shampoo and nothing of the blue-and-yellow label, or the white color fluid within, was discernable. Smiling, Sunset restored the bottle to its true appearance – nobody needed to know this part of her secret yet.
The next day at school, during lunch, Sunset confided the incident to her five closest friends, being the only ones aware of her true nature aside from Principals Celestia and Luna.
“You told your mother what?” laughed AJ, wiping a tear from her eye. “Ah know mah family is big but Ah sure don’t have a cousin named Free Walk! And Ah may have been born on a farm, but I sure don’t know anythin’ about keepin’ animals on one, and certainly not a regular horse at that!”
“Yeah, keeping care of the magic one at this table is enough trouble as it is!” snarked Rainbow at Sunny’s expense. She failed to notice the brief cyan glow her soda emitted right before she opened it, resulting in a carbonated spray hitting her in the face. After recovering from the momentary shock, she put two-and-two together. “Okay, maybe I deserved that.”
“You’re also lucky that your mom didn’t know anything about tack stores,” piped up Pinkie. “Ruby Furlong’s Horse Goods is in eastern Canterlot and is closer to the actual horse track in the area. Blazing Saddle’s place is just for the more wealthy people living there to buy stuff for their horses and not have their conscience nag them about it. I’m surprised you can get shampoo there for the same price as a Target store, though – overall the stuff at Saddle’s is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more pricey than Ruby’s.”
“As much as I know this is something I’ll probably regret,” sighed Rarity, “I have to ask, Pinkie: just how do you know all this?”
“Oh, it’s just stuff I overheard while working at Sugarcube Corner,” nonchalantly replied Pinkie with a smile.
In the closet located within Pinkie’s room at Sugarcube Corner, in front of a large, fancy frame filled with pictures of Sunset Shimmer, sat a gift wrapped basket.
A basket loaded to the brim with high-end horse hair care product. Including the entire line of Original Mane N’ Tail care products.
