No-Clop November 2017

Day 0 - You Are Cordially Invited…

Sunset Shimmer stared.

She re-read the letter in her hands.

Re-read it a third time.

And then stared a while longer.

She stared for so long in fact that she was starting to receive stares herself from people passing.

In hindsight, standing in front of her old high school gawking at a piece of yellowed parchment she picked up off the ground probably wasn’t the best way to avoid that.

But really, there was little other reaction she could have offered, that was just how stunned she was.

“Yo, Sunnybuns!”

Sunset Shimmer snapped out of her daze. The raspy, high-pitched voice was right in front of her, and as she looked up she found its owner, Rainbow Dash, dressed head to toe in jogging sweats and giving her a raised eyebrow and an amused smile from under a wide-brimmed baseball cap with “COACH” printed on it in huge block letters. “Oh, hey Rainbow Dash,” she responded, swiftly smiling back. “Didn’t see you there.”

“You wouldn’t have, I wasn’t a second ago,” she bragged, fingering a chain around her neck that disappeared under her sweatshirt but, Sunset was sure, ended with a particular magical pendant attached to it.

“Heh, well, super speed or no, I probably wouldn’t have noticed you anyway,” Sunset admitted with a chuckle. “I was kinda off in my own world for a minute.”

“I could tell, you haven’t even changed out of your work duds.”

“Oh, right, that.” Sunset glanced down at herself, indeed still dressed in the sea-green uniform of a sushi waitress, right down to a skirt that was far too short to be wearing outside in late October. “Yeah, I kind of rushed out the second I was off. Had to make it here ASAP.”

“‘Here’ as in CHS?” Rainbow asked. “The heck for? Got an interview for a teaching gig?”

“Puh, I wish.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “The only positions that’ve opened in the last five years were, well, yours, and when Mister Doodle retired. And he taught history. I know Principal Celestia likes me now and all, but I don’t think she trusts someone raised on pony history to teach human history.”

“Yeah, good point,” Rainbow nodded along. “So what’s up, then?”

Sunset hesitated briefly, wondering if this was the sort of thing she wanted to share just yet. It was pretty outlandish, at least by human standards. But it was only a brief pause. She knew she could tell her friends anything, and if she accepted the offer in front of her, they’d certainly want to know why she’d abruptly be absent for upwards of the next month…

“Well,” she began, “I got this really quick scribbled note in my journal the other day from Twilight - Princess Twilight, that is, obviously - telling me to be by the portal about ten minutes ago, because she was going to send me a letter. No idea why she didn’t just write it in the journal, or step through the portal and talk to me in person, but whatever, I assumed she had a reason. So I showed up, and found this just popping through.” Sunset held up the piece of parchment as she finished, offering it to Rainbow Dash. “Turns out it’s an invitation.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow answered, taking it curiously, and beginning to read.

Dear Sunset Shimmer,
You are hereby cordially invited to participate in the second annual Ponyville No-Clop November Challenge.
Details follow.
Due to your special circumstances re: current residence, you are also further invited to stay at the palace of friendship until the end of the challenge.
Please RSVP at your earliest convenience, but no later than October 31st, by return scroll.
Yours truly,
Twilight Sparkle

“No-Clop November?” Rainbow echoed, pausing her reading to scratch her head. “The heck is that? Do you have to like, not walk around for a month or something?”

Sunset chuckled helplessly. “Actually, it’s a crude pony slang term for masturbating.”

“Oh. Okay, so you basically swap in clop for fap, got it. Wait…” Rainbow trailed off, her eyes widening as she unfurled the rest of the scroll and continued reading the detailed rules. “So you have to not whack off--”

“Or have sex.”

“Or have sex?!” Rainbow echoed. “For an entire month?!” She looked up from the scroll to goggle at Sunset Shimmer. “Why in the hell would you agree to something that insanely stupid?”

“Read the last line.”

Rainbow’s eyes whipped back to the scroll, reading aloud this time. “‘Everyone who successfully endures to the end of the month will receive the grand prize of--’” Rainbow froze and did an impressive imitation of Fluttershy as she squeaked her next words, “‘…an o-orgy with all their fellow winners to satisfy their pent-up cravings?!’”

“Heh… eeeeyup.” Sunset smiled sheepishly. “Hell of a pitch, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say! Holy jesus… I kinda wanna get in on this!”

“Unfortunately, it looks like this one’s by invite only,” Sunset confessed. “Sorry, Dash.”

“Bah, lame!” she scoffed, thrusting the letter back in Sunset’s face.

Sunset snickered. “If it makes you feel any better, I doubt you could accept even if you were invited. I can take time off work, sushi season’s slow, but you’re right in the thick of the school year, Coach Dash. You can’t vanish off to Equestria for a month.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t rub it in,” Rainbow grunted. “In that case, maybe we’ll just have start our own No-Fap November!”

Sunset smirked. “With blackjack, and a distinct lack of hookers?”

“Shut up.” Rainbow gave her a glare without any real bite to it, swiftly morphing it into a smile. “So, you gonna do it, then?”

“Yeah, sure, why not.” Sunset shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do. Could be fun.”

Rainbow elbowed her ribs. “Could be real fun, eh? Eh?”

Sunset hastily batted Rainbow’s arm away. “Haha, well, I dunno, it says teasing and sabotaging each other is totally allowed, so I might not make it to the end. But honestly I’m just happy they thought of me. Aaaand if I do make it, well…”

Rainbow snickered. “Bow-chicka-wow-wow?”

“Heh, something like that. I wonder who else is in on this…”

“Well, you won’t find out ‘til you throw in, right?”

“Guess not.”

At that, Sunset tore off the bottom few inches of the parchment, which Twilight had conveniently left blank, and scribbled a brief note on it before folding it up and flicking it through the portal.

“…So, second annual, huh?” Rainbow mused. “Wonder how the first one went?”

“I’m sure Twi will fill me in before I go,” Sunset replied. “One thing’s for sure, telling the rest of the girls is gonna be… interesting…”

On the other side of the mirror portal, a strangely aerodynamic slip of parchment flew through the air and bopped an anxious Twilight Sparkle square in the muzzle. Hastily she snatched it out of the air in a burst of magenta magic, unfolded it, and read the best two words she’d heard all day.

I’m in.