Sunset Shimmer ran into the Canterlot City library as quickly as her legs would allow her, hoping that she wasn’t too late to catch at least part of the Dazzlings’ sock puppet show. As she walked past the main desk and headed for the kid’s section where Rainbow Dash said the show was being held, she couldn’t help but recall the events of the day thus far that had brought her to this place.
It had only been a few hours since Adagio Dazzle had shown up at her door, but it felt more like a few days to Sunset. In all likelihood due to the fact that the Dazzling’s visit had been both completely unexpected and so incredibly bizarre. At first Sunset had assumed that Adagio had come seeking revenge against her for the whole Battle of the Bands thing, but that assumption had been quickly disproved when the poofy-haired girl explained that the purpose of her visit was because she was in need of her socks. Needless to say this left Sunset with a great deal of confusion. Confusion that only became compounded when she asked Adagio why it was she needed her socks and simply received an ‘I just need them, okay?’ in response.
Naturally Sunset had refused to give up her socks to the Dazzling initially, but when she noticed that Adagio hadn’t been wearing any socks she quickly changed her mind. Making the assumption that the reason Adagio was asking for her socks was because her and her sisters couldn’t afford new ones, she hastily grabbed what pairs of socks she could and gave them to the Dazzling, no questions asked.
After Adagio had thanked her and was on her way, Sunset then went about the rest of her day like normal. That is, until she got a call from Rainbow Dash saying that the Dazzlings were putting on a sock puppet show at the library. Instantly realizing why it really was that Adagio had wanted her socks, and wanting to see what a sock puppet show put on by the Dazzlings looked like, the fiery-haired Rainboom made haste straight to the library.
“Where was the kid’s section again?” Sunset quietly asked herself as she looked around the massive building for any signs of the sock puppet show.
Just as Sunset considered asking one of the librarians for assistance, she heard the faint sound of children laughing coming from the southern-end of the library. Figuring that most likely the cause of the laughter was the sock puppet show, Sunset hurried over to where she’d heard it coming from and sure enough found the kid’s section, along with Rainbow Dash who was standing just outside of it, watching the show from afar.
“Rainbow,” The girl said softly, gaining her friend’s attention.
“You made it,” Rainbow Dash said. “And just in time for the best part too.”
Sunset gave the rainbow-haired girl a puzzled look.
“How do you know the best part is coming up?” She asked confusedly.
“Look at what story they’re telling,” Rainbow replied with a head nod directed towards the show.
As Sunset turned her head to get her first good-look at the sock puppet show being put on by the Dazzlings, she expected to see that they were performing something like The Lion & the Mouse or The Mitten. She was wrong, and what she saw instead instantly made her jaw drop.
“No way,” She said in complete disbelief as she now found herself staring at sock puppet versions of Adagio, Aria, Sonata, Princess Twilight, and Rainbow Dash.
“Mwahaha,” The sock puppet Adagio said. “The Rainbooms are defeated, we are victorious!”
The crowd of about a dozen or so kids then booed the Adagio puppet.
“I don’t think so,” A different puppet said from off-stage.
It was then that a sock puppet Sunset appeared from stage-left and placed herself in-between the Twilight and Adagio puppets, just as the Rainbow Dash puppet exited the stage.
“We will never be defeated by your dark magic,” The sock puppet Sunset continued. “Because we believe in…the magic of friendship!”
As soon as sock puppet Sunset said this, streamers of various rainbow-colors shot out from stage-left and rained down onto the sock puppet Dazzlings.
“Noooooo!” The trio of sock puppets said as they slowly descended below the stage, causing all of the kids to cheer.
“Remember, kids,” The sock puppet Sunset addressed the audience. “The magic of friendship is the strongest magic there is.”
And with that, the curtain drew closed and the show ended. The group of kids gave a final cheer before dispersing throughout the kid’s section of the library with their parents and friends, which was when the Dazzlings came out from behind the make-shift puppet theater.
As Sunset watched in utter bewilderment as the Dazzlings started to take down their theater and gather up their various sock puppets, she began to question if she was in the real world right now or simply having a fever dream of some sort. No matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t fully wrap her head around what she’d just seen; The Dazzlings putting on a sock puppet show for a group of kids of their defeat by her and the rest of the Rainbooms at the Battle of the Bands. And ending it by saying that the magic of friendship was the strongest magic there was.
The whole thing made so little sense to Sunset that she began to worry that her brain was going to short-circuit trying to figure it all out.
“I gotta admit, that wasn’t half-bad,” Rainbow Dash commented very nonchalantly.
“Uh-uh,” Was all Sunset could utter back in her befuddled state.
“Welp, I better get going now,” Rainbow then said as she turned around to leave. “That book report on War and Peace isn’t going to write itself. Later, Sunset.”
“Later, Rainbow Dash,” Sunset replied as her friend left, never taking her eyes off of the Dazzlings.
Amongst the many thoughts running through Sunset’s head as she continued to stand just outside of the kid’s section, one quickly came to the forefront of her mind; What now? Should she just leave like Rainbow Dash had? Should she go and talk to the Dazzlings? These, among other possible options, ran through the Rainboom’s head so quickly she barely had time to process them all. But she knew what it was she needed to do, if for no other reason than for the sake of her own sanity.
Almost as if she were on auto-pilot, Sunset took a few steps forward into the kid’s section.
“Hi,” She said once she was close enough to the Dazzlings.
As soon as the Dazzlings heard Sunset’s greeting, all three of them ceased their packing-up and turned to face her.
“Sunset!” Sonata shouted blithely, earning her a few shhh’s from some nearby library patrons, as she wrapped her arms around the girl in an unexpected hug. “Thank you so, so much for the extra socks! We wouldn’t have been able to put on our show without them.”
“Y-You’re welcome?” Sunset replied, finding herself so caught off-guard by the pony-tailed girl’s hug that she could think of nothing else to say in response.
“Did you see the show?! Did you like it?!” Sonata then asked, a little softer now, as she let go of her.
“Well I only caught the end of it,” Sunset told the Dazzling. “But yeah, I liked it…I guess.”
Sonata immediately dawned a wide smile and gave a happy squee when she heard Sunset say that she liked the show. At which point Adagio came up placed her right hand over her younger sister’s mouth.
“Will you keep your voice down, Sonata,” The eldest Dazzling scolded her sibling. “I don’t want to lose any future potential jobs at this library because you’re being too loud.”
“Mmrry,” Sonata mumbled meekly through her sister’s hand, which Sunset assumed was an apology.
As Adagio removed her hand from Sonata’s face, Sunset leaned over to the side a bit to see the plethora of sock puppets the Dazzlings had used in their show. Aside from the ones she’d seen during the show, she also saw sock puppet versions of Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Principal Celestia, Vice-Principal Luna, and even Trixie. There were a few others as well, but she couldn’t make out who any of those ones were supposed to be. Though she was able to recognize that some of them had been made from the socks she’d given Adagio.
“So, you three made all of those sock puppets?” She curiously inquired.
“No, only Aria,” Adagio answered. “We only had about a day to put this whole thing together so we had to divvy up the jobs. I constructed the theater, Sonata wrote up the script, and Aria made all of the puppets.”
When Sunset heard Adagio say that she and her sisters had put their show together in only a day she was instantly amazed by it. But even more so she was amazed at hearing what job it was that each Dazzling had done. She’d never figured Adagio to be so handy, or Sonata to be able to write a script. And she’d especially never figured Aria to be so good with a sowing needle that she could make so many incredible-looking sock puppets.
“You made all of these yourself, Aria?” The Rainboom asked the pig-tailed Dazzling. “That’s really impressive.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I actually like making sock puppets or anything,” Aria replied, in her usual tsundere fashion, as she joined the conversation. “I just happen to be good at it is all.”
Sonata tried to stifle a giggle at her sister’s embarrassment but failed, which only made Aria shoot her a rather annoyed glare.
“But like Sonata said, thanks for the extra socks,” Aria then told Sunset. “We really did need them.”
“Don’t mention it,” Sunset replied, sensing a good opportunity to hopefully get another of her questions answered as she did so. “But…can I ask why it was you needed my socks?”
The Dazzlings just looked at each other confusedly for a few seconds before Adagio spoke up.
“No real reason,” The poofy-haired girl answered. “We just needed more socks and figured yours would do nicely.”
This wasn’t exactly the answer Sunset had been hoping for, but she knew that, in all likelihood, it was all she was going to get from the Dazzlings, and thus decided not to press the issue. Instead, she thought she’d try to get yet another of her many questions answered and turned her attention towards Sonata.
“So why did you go with the Battle of the Bands for your show?” She asked. “I mean, I would think that’d be the last story you’d want to share with anyone.”
“Yeah, Sonata,” Aria chimed in mockingly. “Why did you go with the Battle of the Bands?”
Sonata didn’t reply right away. She just looked off to the side in discomfiture as she tried to figure out how she was going to answer Sunset’s question.
“Um, well, you see…” She began to say. “We only had the one day to get this show together, and I…couldn’t really think of any other stories that I could write a script for in that short of time.”
Surprisingly enough, this explanation did make a bit of sense to Sunset. She couldn’t say for certain, but she was pretty sure that if she’d been in Sonata’s shoes she’d have just written about an actual event from her life as well. Maybe not her lowest and most embarrassing moment like Sonata had done, but something that she could easily remember and put down on paper.
“Yeah, you couldn’t have just downloaded a script for a puppet show or something off of the internet, could ya?” Aria replied, sounding positively peeved. “You just had to go with that story, didn’t you?”
Without even realizing it Sonata gave a sad whimper in response to her sister’s chiding, which caused Adagio to give Aria a piercing gaze.
“Knock it off, Aria,” The eldest Dazzling sternly instructed her sister. “The kids liked it and that’s all that matters.”
“Well I’m so glad the kids liked it,” Aria said sarcastically as she went back to packing up the rest of the sock puppets.
It wasn’t difficult for Sunset to see that her questions were starting to cause some tensions to rise amongst the Dazzlings. There were still plenty more questions that she had and wanted to ask, but she thought it best to stop here. She didn’t want to be responsible for causing a rift to form between the three sisters.
However, there was one question that she felt she could ask without doing any harm.
“Do you want some help packing up?” She inquired.
For a brief moment each of the Dazzlings looked at Sunset with bewildered expressions on their faces.
“Sure, I guess,” Adagio answered, clearly sounding confused by the offer. “Thanks.”
Sunset just gave a confirming nod as she went about helping the Dazzlings pack up their sock puppets, props, and theater.
Between the four girls it took no time at all for them to get everything packed up and out to the Dazzling’s van, which was parked out back behind the library. Once they were at the van, Sunset began to think that maybe she’d made a mistake in offering to help the Dazzlings with their packing. There were only a few boxes of sock puppets and props plus the make-shift theater that needed to be loaded into the van, but trying to get them all to fit into the van’s small confines proved to be a bigger challenge than she’d expected. After about 15 minutes and a dozen or so attempts to figure out a configuration that would work, they finally got everything into the van.
“Never thought I’d have to play a real-life version of Tetris,” Sunset quietly remarked to herself.
“Yeah, we really should’ve remembered how we loaded all this stuff up the first time,” Aria replied, causing Sunset to slightly wince that the girl’s unexpected response. “Thanks for the help.”
“N-No problem,” The Rainboom responded, trying to regain her composure after being caught off-guard by Aria like that.
“So hey, Adagio mentioned that after you gave her your socks you said that if we needed anything else we shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” Aria then said.
As soon as Sunset heard Aria bring up her earlier offer to Adagio, she got the uncanny feeling she was about to experience some major déjà vu.
“Yeah, I told her that,” She replied.
“Great,” Aria said as she held her right hand out. “Because I need your jacket.”
Even though Sunset had more-or-less seen this coming, she still felt as confused as an old person in an Apple store.
“You need my…jacket?” She asked in her confusion.
“That’s what I said,” Aria replied plainly. “So can I have it?”
It was difficult for Sunset to tell whether or not Aria was being serious in her request for her jacket. Despite how much the Dazzling seemed to be sincerely asking for the article of clothing, she couldn’t help but get the sense that she was being messed with. Perhaps even tested, if you will. After all, she couldn’t put it past any of the Dazzlings, especially Aria, to ask her for something just to see if she would hand it over like she’d done earlier with her socks.
Luckily though, Sunset had learned from her encounter with Adagio about how to gauge these kinds of things.
“Why do you need it?” She inquired, expecting another ‘I just need them’ type answer like she’d gotten from Adagio.
“I need it for a modeling job,” Aria answered, much to Sunset’s surprise.
“A…modeling job?” She reiterated.
“Yep,” Aria replied as she took her right hand and grabbed ahold of her vest. “I’d wear this but it doesn’t have sleeves. So can I have your jacket?”
Even though Aria had given a very straightforward answer to her question, Sunset was reluctant to give the Dazzling her jacket. Her socks had been one thing, but this was the custom-made jacket that she’d saved up so much money for, the jacket that she’d worn to the Starswirl Festival, the jacket that had made Rarity swoon the first time she’d seen it. There was just no way she could part with it.
However, her desire to help Aria was so strong that she couldn’t tell the girl ‘no’, placing her between a rock and a hard place. Fortunately though, she was able to quickly come up with a solution that would work for everyone.
“Okay, you can have it, Aria,” She said as she started to take her jacket off. “But only for your modeling job. I want it back when you’re done.”
“Fair enough,” The Dazzling said as she took the jacket from Sunset. “The job only goes until Friday, so you can have it back then.”
After Aria had thrown Sunset’s jacket into the van with everything else, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“I’m texting you the address of the place where the job’s at,” She then said as she taped the screen. “You can come by at the end of the day and get it.”
As soon as Aria finished talking, Sunset’s phone gave a little ding. The girl pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw that she had a new text message with an address in it, which led her to wonder something very important.
“Wait, how do you know my phone number?” She asked with a small hint of wariness in her voice.
“I just do,” Aria very ambiguously said as she walked over to the driver’s side door of the van, opened it, and got inside. “Thanks again for the help and for the jacket.”
Sunset said nothing as she watched the Dazzlings’ van pull out of the library parking lot. As soon as the van was out of sight she headed over to her own car as a thousand and one questions began to reel through her mind once more, not the least of which being the question of whether or not she’d actually get her beloved jacket back from Aria.
The next few days passed by fairly quickly for Sunset, and as soon as school ended on Friday she got into her car and made her way to the address that Aria had texted her. About ten minutes into her drive, Sunset began to question if she’d entered the address into her phone correctly. Aria had told her that she was doing a modeling job, which the Rainboom assumed was somewhere in the city. But the route that she was following right now was taking her to the outskirts of Canterlot. When she reached a red light she doubled-checked the address she’d put into her Maps app and found that it was indeed the same as the one from Aria’s text.
“What kind of modeling job is this?” She wondered aloud just before the light turned green.
It was about another five minutes before Sunset reached her destination; a small ranch style house next to a massive cornfield.
“Okay, this can’t be the right place,” She said as she once again checked to make sure she’d entered the address into her phone correctly.
Once again though, Sunset found that she did have the right place. It was at this point that the girl began to wonder if Aria had given her the wrong address by accident…or on purpose. She still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that the Dazzling had just been messing with her, in which case she knew she’d probably never see her jacket again. But she decided to give Aria the benefit of the doubt and believe that she had given her the correct address.
After turning her car off, Sunset got out of the vehicle and walked up to the front door of the house. She rang the doorbell once she got there and soon enough someone answered the door.
“Can I help you?” A large, middle-aged man with an accent not unlike Applejack’s asked her.
“Um, yeah, I’m looking for Aria Blaze,” Sunset replied, feeling a tad intimidated by the man’s size.
“Oh, you must be the girl she said would be by,” The man answered pleasantly enough as he stepped back a bit and waved her inside. “She’s out back. Just follow me.”
Sunset entered the house and followed the man out into the backyard, stopping only when he did at the edge of the massive cornfield.
“If you just keep going straight through here you’ll reach her,” He told her as he pointed out towards the large cornstalks. “I’d take you through myself, but I left a kettle on the stove.”
“That’s fine. Thank you,” Sunset said as the man headed back towards the house.
As Sunset stared at the countless stalks of corn in front of her, she once again began to wonder just what kind of modeling job Aria had taken that would require her to be out in the middle of a cornfield.
“Maybe she’s modeling…cowgirl attire?” She said aloud, though quickly dismissing that idea since her jacket was by no means cowgirl attire.
Knowing that she wasn’t going to get any answers by simply standing around, Sunset set off into the cornfield.
It was difficult for Sunset to weave her way through the corn stalks, but she did her best to keep going straight like the man had said. The last thing she wanted was to lose her sense of direction and end up wandering around aimlessly in the cornfield all night. It wasn’t long before she saw what appeared to be a straw hat sticking out above the stalks in front of her, taking it as a sign that she was getting close to wherever Aria was at.
“Aria?” She called out to see if her suspicions were correct.
“Over here,” The Dazzling called back from fairly close by.
Wasting no time Sunset hurried to where she’d heard Aria’s voice coming from, and soon found herself in a small clearing and standing in front of what was easily the most bizarre thing she’d ever seen; Aria Blaze, wearing her jacket and a straw hat, standing atop a perch with her arms extended outwards and grasping a pair of poles sticking out at each end.
“Hey,” The Dazzling casually greeted her.
“H-Hey,” Sunset greeted back as she stared up at the girl in sheer bemusement. “How’s it going?”
“Eh, not too bad,” Aria answered. “My arms are getting a little tired from holding them up like this all day, but other than that I can’t complain.”
“That’s…good,” Sunset replied.
Just as Sunset finished speaking a crow abruptly landed on Aria’s perch, just above the girl’s left arm.
“Shoo, shoo,” The Dazzling uttered as she removed her left hand from the post and shooed the bird until it flew away.
Every single neuron in Sunset’s brain started blazing like crazy as the Rainboom tried to process just what the heck it was she was witnessing right now. By all logic and evidence it appeared to her that Aria was acting as a sort of human scarecrow, but she was having trouble figuring out why exactly this was.
“Is this your…modeling job?” She inquired aloud.
“Yep,” Aria simply replied. “Just modeling for the crows.”
Just then another crow, possibly the same one from only a moment ago, landed on the post just above Aria’s right arm.
“BEAT IT!” The Dazzling hollered as she removed her right hand from the post and vigorously waved her arm at the bird, causing it to give out a loud, frightened caw before flying away. “I swear, these damn things never learn.”
“And you’re…getting paid for this?” The fiery-haired girl then inquired.
“$15 an hour,” Aria said with a small hint of pride in her voice.
Sunset failed to see how anyone could consider what Aria was doing right now as modeling, especially Aria herself. The more she tried to make sense of all of this though, the more she could feel a splintering migraine starting to come on. So rather than risk getting one seriously bad headache by continuing to try and apply reason to the situation, she just decided to switch off part of her brain and accept things for what they were; absolutely ludicrous.
“Welp, since you’re here now I guess that means I’m done for today,” The Dazzling said as she let go of the poles and began descending from her perch.
Once Aria was completely off of the perch and firmly on the ground, she took Sunset’s jacket off and handed it to the Rainboom.
“Thanks again for the jacket,” She said. “The farmer told me it could get pretty chilly standing up there without one, so your jacket really was a big help to me.”
“Glad I could…help,” Sunset said as she took her jacket back and put it on.
“Time to get paid,” Aria then said propitiously as she started making her way across the clearing back towards the ranch style house.
Figuring that Aria knew her way back to the house, Sunset followed closely behind the Dazzling so as not to once again run the risk of getting lost within the cornfield. Soon enough both girls made it back to the house, but before Aria went inside to collect her pay she turned around to address Sunset.
“Hey, you wanna go get a burger or something after I get paid?” She asked the girl. “You know, as thanks for letting me borrow your jacket and all?”
Truthfully, Sunset didn’t really want to go get a burger with Aria. At least not right now. Right now all she wanted to do was go home and put all of this absurdity behind her, so she quickly turned the part of her brain she’d shut off earlier back on so she could come up with some excuse for why she couldn’t grab a bite to eat with the Dazzling.
“Oh man, Aria, I’d love to,” She started to say frantically. “But I have a…a thing with, um…Aqua Glacier, from my math class. We’re…going to study for an upcoming test together at my apartment...in like half an hour.”
“Alright,” Aria said as she entered the house. “Have fun with that.”
Having successfully avoided going out to eat with Aria, Sunset made her way around the house and back to her car. As she got into her vehicle though, she began to feel a little bad about having lied to the Dazzling the way she had. In all honesty she had no real objection to sharing a meal with the girl, she just didn’t want to do it at this particular time. So as she started the car she figured she’d call Aria up in a couple of days and see if she could get a raincheck on those burgers. After all, she had the Dazzlings’ number in her phone now from when she’d gotten that text from her back at the library.
Once on the road it only took Sunset about 17 minutes or so until she got home. As she turned the car off and got out, she looked forward to a nice and quiet evening free of any further ridiculousness. However, when she saw a certain someone sitting on her stoop she instantly knew her evening probably wasn’t going to be nice and quiet.
“Sunset, thank goodness you’re home,” Sonata Dusk said as she stood up and ran on over to the Rainboom. “I need something from you.”
Author's Note
Two Dazzlings down, one to go.
