"Okay!" said Izzy as she exited the fitting room, and struck a pose, like a model on a catwalk. "Does this 'sheep' costume make me look silly enough??"
Sunny turned to Izzy. Her eyes went wide, and she choked on her own saliva, and began coughing.
It's been over a year since the three races reunited. Besides enjoying the company of her new friends, Sunny had to make sure that the first contact between the various tribes would go smoothly. Millennia of lost history, blurred by all the collected propaganda that distorted the views of each other, made it hard for ponies to trust their new neighbors. And it was Sunny's job to undo the damage that the disinformation did. One of the things she's been doing in the past year was writing down and publishing all the stories she compiled (and edited) from the various journals of the Guardians of Friendship she owned, as well as history books of that era (which she managed, with a great difficulty, to procure), which miraculously survived to this day in the darkest corners of oldest libraries.
After reading the stories she shared, many ponies around the continent became incredibly interested in the lifes of Mane Six and the Princesses of Moon, Sun, Friendship, Love, and Explosions. Given today's culture, some of the things they learned about the mares' lifes gained huge popularity, and even (in a few notable cases) memetic value. Like the mysterious phrase "counting sheep". To the best of Sunny's knowledge (based on the scarce mentions of sheep in the books she recovered) the "sheep" were wooly creatures which jumped over fences, and which ponies used to count before they went to sleep. With not much more info than that, the "fanon" the "best guess" of how the sheep looked, they were dark-blue, small, strong-legged, fluffy versions of Princess Luna, who, like them, was a creature of the night. Sans wings and horn. (Sketches of Luna have survived the Dark Ages, so ponies knew how she looked, back then).
The memetic popularity of the sheep spawned production of countless sheep-inspired merchandise, because of course it did.
And now, before Sunny, who had problems holding back her laughter, stood Izzy in a costume of that truly ludicrous re-imagining of a midnight-blue creature from the world's past.
Sunny finally gave up trying to hold it in, and collapsed on the ground, half-chocking, half-sputtering, and full cry-laughing like a maniac. Izzy was so surprised by that reaction, that she started cackling, almost falling to the ground too.
"Do I really look so baaaaah'd?" she eventually bleated. (Another bit of trivia from the Distant Past: apparently, "sheep" used to "bleat".)
Sunny could not breathe, much less answer the question. Izzy just waited, smiling. Eventually Sunny gained enough composure to stand up and start browsing the shelves for a costume of her own. Izzy changed the subject:
"Do you think the 'sheep' also used Royal Canterlot Voice? …ah never mind! Right, right! I remember you said you wanted to ask me something? A bit earlier? About… about……" Izzy paused, and then shook her head. "Okay, I absolutely forgot what were you on about. Can you ensparkle me?"
"Ensparkle?" asked Sunny, still browsing.
"Yeah, like… ensparkle… make my mind bright… make me stop not-understanding something."
"…do you mean 'enlighten'?" (One of the costumes Sunny stumbled upon was a Sexy Nurse. She quickly skipped it with an annoyed groan.)
"Yeah! That! Boy, you Earth Ponies sure have weird words for things!"
Sunny smiled.
"Oh, okay. So I, ever since you mentioned unicorns being superstitious, I wondered why you, specifically, weren't. Why do you not do the Bing-Bong dance and song when ponies say Forbidden Words in front of you, like wing or magic or mayonnaise…" Sunny paused her perusal of the shelves. She turned to Izzy, and raised her eyebrow. "Also, what is up with that? Why is 'mayonnaise' forbidden?"
Sunny resumed flipping through the costumes, and she immediately stopped again, when she found a Shadowbolt costume. She heh'd, and, without even going into the changing room, she started trying it on right then and there, glancing at Izzy-the-"sheep", clearly still awaiting her answer.
Both girls had to step aside as more customers entered the costume shop, no doubt preparing for the incoming Nightmare Night (first one in over a millennium!)
When Izzy finished her thinking, she began speaking (her costume's poofy mane bouncing with her every move):
"Basically, I am not superstitious because I was so mega curious about the whole 'jinxie' thing, ever since I heard about it. The day after my mom and dad told me about it, I walked into a clearing, like a mile from my home, because I just had to try the Forbidden Words, to see what would happen."
Izzy re-focused her eyes on Sunny's. "I did not want to burn down my house or something, and so that's why I did not test those words indoors. And so I tested them in a clearing, did not say 'Bing-Bong', and…"
Dramatic Pause. Izzy was looking into the dark distance, beyond the nearby window. Sunny held her breath, just in case.
"…and nothing," Izzy finally said, turning to Sunny, who resumed breathing. "I said 'magic' and 'feather' and 'wing' and 'magic feather-wing' like a hundred times in a row, and… Nothing. No curse, no malady, no itch, no cough, not even a cold or a singular teeny-weeny-tiny sniffle – NOTHING!"
Izzy began pacing around the store, still talking, as her crazy sheep-mane's dance became even more bouncy. Most of customers were now in the other section of the store, so she did not need to dodge anybody.
"At first I suspected that just *I* am immune to the jinxies, but I changed my mind when I saw a few other unicorns accidentally say 'Magic' and forget to unjinx it. They just said it, not Bing-Bong'd even once, and then no bad thing happened to them, either. So… yeah: that experiment un-superstition-ified me good."
"Oh, okay, that makes sense. And the mayonnaise?"
Izzy smiled. "Mayonnaise is gross," she said simply.
"…that's anti-climactic."
Izzy laughed for the umpteenth time today–
Then, suddenly distracted and wide-eyed with wonder, she touched Sunny's orange spectral wings, apparently having forgotten that her friend has those now.
(Then again, Sunny's magic limbs kept dis-appearing and re-appearing seemingly at random. And none of the girls so far figured out yet any rhyme or reason to that. Magic was still a new and mysterious thing in this world.)
"Whoa… Your wings are so soft. Which makes no sense, since they're not made from feathers, but from… from…"
"Magic?" Sunny said with a smirk.
Izzy chuckled and nodded. Her ear swiveled to the side, and she suddenly said "Bing-Bong" in a casual tone.
"…why did you…?"
"I did it for his benefit," said Izzy, pointing her hoof sideways, in the direction where her ear swiveled a moment ago: a nearby unicorn stood frozen, with his face paused in an expression of shock. The weird position of his limbs plainly indicated that he was about to do the anti-jinxie dance. "…thank you…" he mouthed quietly, looking into her eyes with relief and gratitude. Then he walked away.
Izzy turned to Sunny yet again, and pointed to her Shadowbolt costume, and her wings.
"So, Miss Shadowbolt, will you take me for a ride?"
Sunny smirked, and made her voice go real deep. Evil-deep.
"With pleasure."
***
"WHEEEEEEEEEE! WE'RE SO HIGH! I'M THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD!!!"
"AAAHHH! Stop covering my eyes or we're gonna crash! Also this is a stupid decision! What if my wings disappear again, but this time mid-flight?!?"
"Oh, stop ruining the fun! Woooo! …oooh! Dive-bomb those two guys down there! They used to bully me when we were kids!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yes, worms! Run! RUUUUN FROM THE MURDER QUEEN!"
