Good Girls Are Bad Girls That Haven’t Been Taught
Shining Armor didn’t want to have sex anymore. That was the first sign. Whereas a few weeks ago, he’d been hinting and teasing and poorly hidden-innuendoing all over the place, now he seemed disinterested, even repulsed. He went to bed early, turned away from Cadance’s playful nibbles. Cadance was worried.
The second sign came in the form of the Spring issue of HeartFilly magazine, which Cadance definitely did not have a subscription to. On page 63, right after the horoscopes (which Cadance did not believe in), came the headline: “Why Stallions Don’t Want a Goody-Two-Shoes.” Being a pristine, polite, pink princess pony was out, the article said. Being a bad girl was in. Science proved it, according to the article.
Cadance never liked jumping to conclusions. She didn’t much like jumping at all, as her grades from gym class would attest. But Shining’s sudden change in libido plus the solid scientific evidence presented in the article brought her to only one conclusion: Shining was bored with her.
What was she supposed to do? Use a spell to force him to love her? Illegal and unethical. Talk it out with him? Shining was great at a lot of things, but talking was not one of them—it would just make the situation worse, if anything.
That left only one solution: learn to be a Bad Girl.
But from where? From who…?
Rainbow Dash clenched her fists. “I swear, Sunset, if you drop my mom’s mashed potatoes I’m gonna scream.”
“Calm down, Speedy,” said Sunset, placing a large plastic bowl of mash down on their picnic blanket. “We all know how much you love your potatoes.”
“Not just any potatoes—my mom’s potatoes.” Rainbow flopped down beside Fluttershy. “She makes these, like, twice a year, and I go up two dress sizes each time.” She pulled a spoon out from nowhere. “I call first dibs.”
Rarity grimaced as Rainbow popped the cover off the bowl. “A bit too… buttery for my tastes.”
“I kinda don’t really like how there are bacon bits in it,” said Fluttershy, picking up a vegan sandwich. Sunset nodded and joined her.
Rainbow glared for a moment, then shrugged and pulled the entire bowl towards her. “More for me.”
Sunset rolled her eyes, but still giggled. Since summer started, she and her friends had made a point of meeting every so often at the statue in front of CHS for a picnic. It was rare that everyone could make it—today, Applejack and Pinkie were helping out at Sugarcube Corner, and Twilight was off touring colleges—but Sunset still relished their time together.
Good food, good friends, and no interdimensional monsters to fight. She sat back against the statue and smiled, enjoying the quiet.
A bright light flashed from the statue behind her, and a skinny pink woman rocketed out of the stone. She fell face first into Rainbow’s mashed potatoes.
Everyone screamed and leapt to their feet—except for Rainbow, who stared, cheeks bulging. “C’mon, really?” she spluttered through her food.
The woman lifted her head out of the bowl, mash dripping off her cheeks, and groaned. “That wasn’t nearly as magical as I was expecting.”
Rarity raised a brow. “Dean Cadance? Is that you?”
“No,” Sunset said. “Princess Cadance.”
“Another princess?” Rainbow asked. “How many of you guys are there in ponyland? It’s like a cartoon.”
Cadance wiped off her face and took Sunset’s hand, rising to her feet. “Thank you. It’s been a while, Sunset.”
“Yeah.” Sunset rubbed the back of her head. “Last time I saw you, I was breaking into your castle to steal a crown. Sorry about that, by the way.”
Cadance giggled. “Apology accepted. In fact, that’s sort of why I’ve come today.”
“To steal a crown…?” Fluttershy asked.
“Not exactly.” Cadance wobbled over to Sunset and took her by the shoulders. “I have a proposition for you.”
Fluttershy and Rarity gasped. Rainbow backed away.
Blushing, Sunset put on a smile. “Yes, Princess?”
“I need your help,” Cadance said. “I want you to make me into a bad girl.”
Rarity and Rainbow both winced at that. Fluttershy raised a single finger. “Um, Dean—Princess, I don’t think that Sunset likes being referred to like that anymore. She might not appreciate this sort of offer—”
Sunset grabbed Cadance’s hand. “I’m in.”
Fluttershy blinked. “Oh. Really?”
“Are you kidding?” Sunset rolled her eyes. “Being a heroic magical girl is great and all, but I’ve been dying for a little taste of badness again.”
“Aha!” Cadance clapped. “Great! I knew I could count on you!”
“Trust me,” said Sunset. “You’ve come to the right almost-world-conqueror. With me by your side, you’re gonna be the best bad girl in either dimension.”
Cadance clamped her hands over her ears—they didn’t have “muzak” back in Equestria, and if they did, Cadance would have made it illegal years ago. Maybe all humans were tonedeaf? That would explain why they insisted on blasting this bastardization of music all over their shopping centers.
“Hands down,” Sunset whispered with a quick elbow to Cadance’s side. “It’s cramping your style.”
With a sigh, Cadance returned to her “cool” pose.
The first step to becoming a bad girl, Sunset claimed, was being a general nuisance to society. And the easiest form of societal nuisantry was loitering.
The two of them had spent the last hour leaning against a seemingly random wall in the middle of the Canterlot Galleria Mall, arms crossed, glaring out into the crowd. Not speaking. Not moving. Not… doing anything. And for all their supposed nuisantry, not a single person had acknowledged their existence.
Sunset painted Cadance’s face with dark makeup, put a streak of crimson red in her hair, dressed her up in a leather jacket and pants—neither fit, hanging off her frame like curtains. Sunset also wanted her to get a tattoo, but neither of them had the money for one, so Pinkie Pie loaned them a temporary one in the shape of a butterfly. It itched.
Cadance grimaced as couple after couple passed them by. Kissing, hugging, holding hands. How many bad girls did this universe have to support so many happy relationships?
Without warning, Sunset lifted herself off the wall and smiled. “Heck yeah, we really stuck it to the man there! Let’s go.”
“Hm?” Cadance raised a brow. “What happened? Why are we leaving?”
“We’ve been loitering for exactly one hour and sixteen minutes,” Sunset said, pulling out a ticking stopwatch. “That’s the longest we can stay and still be bad girls. Any longer and it just looks like we don’t have anything going on with our lives.”
“Do we have anything going on with our lives?”
Sunset blinked, then shrugged. “Not really. But still, c’mon—it’s time for your next lesson.”
Cadance ran to follow after, tripped on her too long pants, and fell on her face.
The two (bad) girls stood in the alleyway next to Sugarcube Corner, staring up at a blank brick wall. Sunset giggled and tossed Cadance a can of black spray-paint.
“Okay, next activity: the ancient art of graffiti,” Sunset said. “The bane of gentrifiers everywhere.”
“Um.” Cadance glanced between the wall and her can. “How does this work?”
“Y’know, it’s like painting!” Sunset said, struggling to take the cap off her can. “You draw on the wall with the spray-paint, and make art. You also gotta come up with a unique signature—your ‘tag.’ I barely remember mine.”
“Is this legal?”
“Not at all.”
“Oh.” Cadance cringed. “I guess I didn’t realize being a bad girl would involve doing bad things.”
“Laws don’t dictate morality, Princess.” Sunset shook up her paint. “Now get to work.”
Cadance pursed her lips, but considered the wall before her. Bright red brick, held together with dirty gray cement—what image would suit such a canvas? What mural would bring beauty to this neighborhood for years to come, filling any passerby with hope and joy? What painting could possibly convey the storm of emotions inside her—love, pain, lust, angst, menopause, desire?
She shook up her can and drew a small smiley face.
“Done!” Cadance chirped. She turned to Sunset. “How does it look?”
“Gimme one sec.” Sunset gripped her can with both hands, thumbs jammed down hard on the nozzle. She pushed until her fingers went white, but nothing came out. “Ugh, what is with this? Did we get a busted can or something?”
She turned the can around to look in the nozzle and pushed down again. A blast of neon green paint shot out and splattered all over her face. Sunset let out a yelp and fell onto to her rear.
Cadance gasped and took Sunset’s hand, lifting her up. “Are you alright?”
“Hey!” a police officer yelled from the sidewalk. “What are you kids doing back there?”
With a squeak, Cadance threw up her hands. Sunset fell back onto her butt.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Sunset and Cadance met up outside the police station, minus two cans of spray-paint and plus ten hours of community service each.
“Well,” said Sunset, hands on hips. “That sucked.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” Cadance said, grinning. She turned and hiked up her shirt, showing off a picture of a dragon on the side of her torso. “While I was in the jail cell, I finally got a real tattoo!”
Sunset stared. “Cadance, we were only in there for an hour.”
Cadance frowned. “You don’t like it?”
“I’m starting to think this bad girl thing isn’t going to work out,” Sunset said as the two began to walk. “Whenever I tried doing something bad, I felt this weird… voice in my head telling me not to. Call me crazy, but I think getting hit by the Elements of Harmony made me physically incapable of being a bad girl anymore.”
“Oh, darn it all!” Cadance said, hanging her head. “Without you to teach me, Shining Armor is going to leave me for sure! That magazine was right—I’m not worth much.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Sunset said, darting in front of Cadance to stop her. “You got this ‘be a bad girl’ idea from a magazine? Let me guess: HeartFilly?”
Cadance sniffled. “How did you know?”
“Because we’ve got HeartGirl magazine here, too, and let me tell you: it’s trash in both dimensions.”
Blushing, Cadance looked away. “I really only like it for the quizzes—”
Sunset took Cadance by the shoulders. “Listen. We don’t know each other super well. But Twilight talks about you all the time, and I know that you and Shining Armor love each other. He got with you, married you, had a kid with you, and is sticking with you because you are you. Not some magazine-created badass.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I do.” Sunset laughed. “And, honestly? You wanna be a bad girl? Being yourself is the baddest thing of all.”
Cadance gasped. “Was… was that the real point of all this?”
“No, I’m just good at improv.”
“Oh.”
“C’mon.” Sunset threw her arm over Cadance’s shoulder and pulled her close. “Let’s get some ice cream, and get you home.”
“Ooh, ice cream!” Cadance clapped and hurried along with her. “Do you have pistachio in this dimension?”
And so Cadance returned to her world, confident in her beauty, grace, and sexual prowess. She stepped into her home with her head held high, ready to be her best self.
Only to find Shining Armor, his face painted with dark makeup, a streak of crimson red in his hair, and dressed up in a leather jacket and pants—neither fitting, hanging off his frame like curtains.
Apparently, he had read a similar article, and was distant because he felt Cadance was bored with him. So he went to Spike to learn how to be a bad boy, and come to woo his wife.
Cadance rolled her eyes and laughed.
Then the two had a lot of sex.
Sitting by the fireplace, Dean Cadance sipped tea and flipped through a well-worn crime novel. She loved Saturdays—the entire world seemed to stop for a day, allowing her all the rest and relaxation she deserved. No students, no bizarre magic disasters. Just normalcy.
“Um, honey?” called Shining Armor from the doorway.
She didn’t look up from her book, fingering through the pages. “Yes, hugmuffin?”
“The police are at the front door. They say you owe community service time for vandalism.”
Dean Cadance’s head shot up. “Excuse me?”
