Or Things We Do For Spite
Sluuuuuurp
Sunset slurped on a cup of coffee loudly. So loud, in fact, it drew the eyes of those around her. But she didn't care. Someone who slurps does not care in the slightest if others are bothered by their slurping. And that was Sunset right now. Literally not giving a fuck that she slurped.
"You know I hate that sound," replied the girl across from her. Tucked under an inexplicable beanie, Starlight's hair draped, and under that hair, she had eyes that eyed Sunset. As eyes were wont to do.
That beanie confounded Sunset to no end. Why did she have it? Or maybe more apt, where did she have it?
"Sluuuuuurp," Sunset actually said as she glared at Starlight.
"Can you not make a scene?" Starlight's beanie flopped as she rolled her head. "I actually like this diner, and I don't want you making it awkward."
If Sunset had another pair of eyes, she'd have glared twice. But she didn't so she opted to narrow her eyes more.
"It's our anniversary," Sunset mumbled into her coffee. Literally, because it wasn't intelligible through the bubbles.
"Okay, why are you trying to piss me off?" With Sunset so focused on the hat, it was almost like Starlight's beanie was the one talking.
She inhaled her coffee. Not literally. She slammed her mug upon the table, sending a shockwave rippling through the aged wood fibers, down the metal affixing it to the wall, and through the booths on either side.
The couple behind Sunset cleared their throats in unison as they stood up. "Check please…"
"Yes! Let's check, please!" Sunset pointed an accusatory finger right at Starlight's beanie.
Starlight's beanie shivered. "Are you on drugs or what?" she asked, but when Sunset just pointed without breaking eye contact, she snapped her fingers getting her attention. "My eyes are down here!"
"Look, this bothers me." Sunset slammed her hand on the table
Another shockwave tore out through the wood, and another group getting up. This time from behind Starlight. "Check please!"
"Yeah, sure. I mean, I just came through a magical portal on the one break I get when some disaster isn't happening to see my girlfriend and she's tripping on acid." Starlight crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "And this bothers you?"
Sunset sat back down cocking an eyebrow herself. "What? No!" She thrust her finger at Starlight's beanie once more. "That!"
"My hat?"
"Your hat! It's our anniversary and you still have that hat!"
Starlight leaned back in her booth. The space between the two seemed to grow as silence settled in. When Sunset didn't elaborate, Starlight rolled her eyes. "You going to connect those two dangling plot threads or am I going to have to ask?"
"We have been together for an indeterminate amount of time, and every single time you come through that portal you have that hat on!" Tirade subsided, Sunset took a deep breath and threw her arms into the air. "Explain!"
Starlight nodded for a few seconds before taking a short breath herself. "It's kind of hurtful you know it's our anniversary but can't remember how long we've been together…"
"Don't change the subject!"
"Did you guys want your check?" A waitress asked pointing a piece of paper at the two girls with eyes ready to roll at the slightest amount of sass.
Starlight pointed behind Sunset. "They did."
As if on cue, the waitress rolled her eyes and shuffled over to the two annoyed patrons.
"Everypony comes through fully clothed, why are you making a big deal about my hat?"
Sunset slammed the table once more, this shockwave made her empty coffee cup jump slightly. "No one else had a hat, Starlight! You're hiding something."
"What do you think I'm actually my hat? That I can't take it off or something?"
Hand swiping fast, it was as though Sunset slapped the argument straight out of the air. "I've never seen you with it off!"
Starlight glared.
Sunset glared back.
"Check?" asked the waitress again.
Both girls pointed behind Starlight without breaking eye contact.
"No, this is fucked up." Starlight brushed her hair out of her eyes for a second. "Do you just think I'm a hat that happened to take the shape of a pony, fell in love with you, and when I come to this world I revert to a hat but have a human body to control like some sort of meat puppet?"
Sunset nodded seriously. "That's exactly what a pony-shaped hat piloting a body would say…"
"This sort of gaslighting is exactly what you did to Twilight when you two broke up."
Sunset gasped. "You take that back!"
After a second, Starlight shook her head. "Like, okay, no. She was legit F'd in the H. Girl just did things. But still."
A small sigh and Sunset nodded. "I appreciate you getting me out of that relationship. I was enabling her sociopathic tendencies and the dog cock and ball torture dungeon powering the city was going too far. Also, I think she just started keeping Scootaloo in a cage."
"Right, and because of how fucked up that whole thing was, I'm pretty sure you caught a little of that F'd in the H too. You really didn't have to tell her Spike was secretly plotting to overthrow her because he discovered human ovaries were better electrical conductors ." Starlight's eyes fell serious upon Sunset's.
The girl squirmed under Starlight's gaze. "He was plotting it, I saw it in his eyes."
"Sunset, it's okay if you want to break up with me." Starlight sighed, shaking her head. "I was actually about to say we should see other people myself. I feel like we're just going through the motions in some one-note bastardized relationship, like an author who no longer cares and just writes without thinking. "
Sunset slammed her hand on the table again, this time with a crack. Not the table, probably her hand. She was too mad to care. "Wait, what?"
"Look, I don't know what the hell we were thinking. I mean, just because we're two extradimensional horses in a world of monkeys doesn't mean we have to date each other, right?"
"B-but I…" Sunset dropped in her seat, slouching. After a moment her slack body stiffened with rage. "I wasn't dating you just because we're both ponies!" she said through clenched jaws. "And they're apes, not monkeys!"
"Close enough." Starlight shrugged. "I mean, I don't know if it's this place or the things here, but everyone loses their damn minds over the stupidest stuff. And between us, I think you've gone a bit native."
"Okay, this is exactly why I was going to dump you!" Sunset pointed her finger at Starlight once more. "You've got this—"
"Check?" the waitress asked one final time, annoyed beyond belief.
Sunset snatched the piece of paper and crumpled it. "We didn't ask for the damn check! Can't you see we're breaking up?"
The waitress rolled her eyes. "Like I care," she muttered as she walked away.
Sunset took a deep breath. "You act like you're so much better than the rest of us when you're just a basic bitch!"
"Did you listen to yourself? 'Basic bitch?' Sunset, you're like mentally 30 in their years."
Sunset snapped her fingers, channeling all the ghetto she had absorbed from MTV. "I'm sick of you talking down to me and talking about how great Equestria is. They don't even have smartphones!"
"Oh, for Celestia's sake!" Starlight crossed her arms.
"Take yourself back to Equestria where you can snuggle up to your side bitch because I know you're cheating on me."
Starlight slammed her arms on the table. "Like you haven't gone back for a pity fuck with Twilight while I was gone? It took you two years to finally break things off with her!"
"That doggy dong danger dungeon was making money, I couldn't just walk away!"
Starlight slammed the table again. "Because you're a whore!"
"Better than a slut, at least I got paid to help Twilight!"
"Fine!" Starlight threw her arms up in the air. "You know why I'm really breaking up with you?"
"Not that it matters!"
"Because I have HIV, idiot!" Starlight yelled.
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, not that I care! I'm a goddamn horse so as soon as I go home I don't have to worry about the Human Immunodeficiency Virus!"
"B-but…" Sunset's eyes went wide. "We…"
"Yeah," Starlight said matter of factly, nodding. "I was going to tell you to come back home, but fuck it. Enjoy your AIDS."
Sunset's eyebrows furrowed. If she had some coffee she'd slurp it right now in contemplation but her mug was long since dry. Perhaps it was a metaphor for her heart at this point, so tainted by canine cock and ball torture dungeons and abusive relationships that she could not longer writhe out any more caffeinated beverage from it. Perhaps the human world had really changed her that much. She was never this cold before. Except way before, but that was pre-friendship lasering. Perhaps Starlight, in all her pretentions and AIDS was right.
Suddenly Sunset snapped her gaze back to Starlight right as the girl was about to stand. She reached her hand out. And in one fell swoop, she yanked it.
Starlight's hat was in her hand.
And as suddenly as Sunset snatched the hat, Starlight's body went limp. Her head smacking the table with one final thunderous this.
"I knew it!" Sunset yelled.
After a second a small snicker broke the reverberating silence. "Give me back my hat," Starlight rolled her eyes and snatched her precious hat from Sunset's naive grasp. The girl stood up, finding the staff staring at them bored and everyone else had cleared out. So much for not wanting to make it awkward.
"Hold on!" Sunset called after her. "So do I really have AIDS?"
Starlight nodded as she waved goodbye. "Yup."
Author's Note
Check?
