Things had calmed down considerably since Rarity had collapsed onto the ground. Rainbow and Applejack had laughed as much as they could, Pinkie Pie had finished her snack, Fluttershy had finally re-emerged from behind her hair, and Twilight and Spike had just been sitting through the whole thing, waiting for Rarity to get back up again. That didn’t take long however, as a couple of gentle slaps to her cheek from Sunset brought her back pretty quickly. The fashionista took stock of what was going on around her and thankfully, in her eyes anyway, Twilight had elected to put her shirt back on.

So, with all the dramatics out of the way, at least for the time being, Rarity cleared her throat a little and looked somewhat embarrassed at how she reacted to all this. Twilight, meanwhile, simply looked at her friends with a great deal of confusion.

"Okay, does somepony want to tell me what in the hay just happened?"

The assembled girls all looked at each other, as if daring each other to be the one to tell her what this was all about. Eventually, it was Sunset who stepped forward, waling to stand beside Twilight before placing a hand on her shoulder.

"It's a human thing. They generally don't go around unclothed."

Twilight glanced down to Spike after hearing that, and saw that he had just as much confusion in his face as she did, before looking up at the rest of the girls.

"Is that true?"

The girls all nodded to various degrees in response to Twilight's question, leading the latter to scratch her head a little.

"But...why? I mean...you all know what other humans look like without clothes, right?"

Rainbow chuckled at that before answering.

"Of course we do! We just...don't show it, that's all."

The Princess shook her head at that.

"But...there's just no practical reason to do it, at least not in the kinds of warm weather you guys have right now. I mean..."

Stopping briefly, Twilight walked over to the nearby bed and sat down, unlacing one of her boots and pulling it off, revealing her long, pink sock underneath.

"...the whole shoes thing I get. Human appendages don't seem as sturdy as hooves when it comes to walking on stones and stuff. But the rest?"

Standing up again, she started pulling at the hem of her shirt.

"There's just no real reason to have this stuff on!"

As the girls stood there, observing Twilight's display and rant, they all understood that she still didn't really grasp all this. As if on cue, Pinkie Pie, who had been silent during all of this, stepped forward and started speaking.

"Oh, it's all mostly from centuries of competing cultural and religious customs that have managed to maintain a grip on present-day society without any real practical reasons to back it up."

The rest of the group, needless to say, stared at her with wide eyes, prompting her to frown and shrug her shoulders at them.

"What? I'm not allowed to know stuff?"

Twilight, shaking her head to recover from this unexpected statement from her friend, finally put the pieces together in her mind.

"So...you wear it because...you're just told from birth that it's not okay to not wear it?"

The girls all looked at that and pondered for a moment before looking at Twilight and just nodding and murmuring in agreement. The young Princess clearly showed some hesitancy of accepting this attitude of "just because" that her friends were displaying, but her attention was soon grabbed by Sunset, who cleared her throat slightly. Looking at her, Twilight listened as she spoke.

"Believe me, I had a hard time adjusting too. Think of it this way. Them walking around in this world unclothed would be like a pony in Equestria walking around with all their fur shaved off."

Twilight's eyes practically bulged out of her skull as she heard that, looking utterly mortified at the idea.

"But that's completely obscene!"

Sunset chuckled at that, content that Twilight had got the message. And as Twilight considered this carefully, she began to understand why it seemed so normal to some of them. The group seemed content at the moment their their out-of-town friend was starting to accept all of this, but that feeling was brief and fleeting as a look of curiosity began to grip Twilight once more.

"Okay...I think I get it now. But I still have a few questions."

Sunset was the first to answer her.

"I had to go through this myself. What do you want to know?"

Twilight turned to face her before speaking.

"Well firstly, what was that thing on my chest, underneath the shirt?"

Sunset, in stark contrast to how she normally acted, started to blush slightly.

"Oh, that. That's, erm...a bra."

Twilight raised her eyebrow at that.

"That's a weird word. What does it do?"

Sunset turned to the others, her face making it very clear that she was far more uncomfortable with discussing this than she expected to be. Unfortunately, none of the others seemed willing to really come out and say anything, despite all knowing the answer Twilight was looking for. Rarity, albeit hesitantly, stepped forward.

"Well, Twilight...a bra, or brassier as I prefer to call them, are there to...er...hold a lady’s more...private...er..."

The way Rarity was fumbling her words made it obvious to all of them, even Twilight, that she wasn't going to be able to get through this. Making a decision to help her failing friend, Rainbow Dash stepped forward and, in typical Rainbow Dash fashion, simply blurted out what was on her mind.

"Oh geez! She means breasts! They're for holding breasts!"

Rarity's head snapped in Rainbow's direction, with a face that said she was either horrified at Rainbow's forwardness, or that she was about to pass out again. Rainbow, not regretting her outburst one bit, simply shrugged her shoulders at Rarity. Twilight, meanwhile, looked at the group as if they'd just said that pigs could fly or something. Turning, she looked straight at Sunset, clearly wanting some clarification.

"Breasts? As in...?"

The former student of Celestia merely folded her arms and nodded, confirming what Twilight had suspected. The Princess then turned to the rest before speaking again.

"But that's...just weird. Aren't those things supposed to be down here?"

As she spoke she pointed her finger down to her lower torso, just beneath the area where her navel was. The other girls all looked to where she was pointing and then looked at each other, with some, mostly Fluttershy, looking quite shocked at the mere implication that what Twilight described would be the norm in any circumstance. Rarity, who had long ago stifled a gasp after hearing Twilight's words, cleared her throat once more before replying.

"Um...no, dear, they are not down there. At least, not on humans, anyway."

Twilight was clearly having some difficulty with her current anatomy far more than she thought she would, or perhaps ever even thought about, but she tried focusing on other matters for the time being. In particular, a thought came to her as she turned her head towards Sunset.

"You've been a human longer than I have. How hard was it to get used to this sort of thing?"

Sunset folded her arms and afforded herself a brief chuckle.

"Pretty hard, at least at first. The first night I was in this world, I actually tried getting rid of my clothes. I was so used to being an unclothed unicorn that it just didn't matter to me."

She smiled a little, thinking back on those memories that, in hindsight now seemed amusing to her.

"Didn't get very far though. Some people were walking on the other side of the street to me and gave me pretty weird looks. Didn't take long to figure out that keeping clothes on was probably the best idea."

Twilight nodded at that. If nothing else, nopony could argue that Sunset Shimmer was pretty quick on the uptake when it came to getting used to new situations. Feeling a brief moment of kinship with the girl, who Twilight only now started to consider just how hard it was to live away from her world for so long, she put her hand on her shoulder, and the two said nothing, merely giving each other a small smile. It was a pleasant enough moment, but the Princess then removed her hand and placed both on her hips before speaking to Sunset a second time.

"So...any other clothing surprises I should now about?"

Sunset considered that for a while before regaining her blush from earlier.

"Well, er...humans also have underwear for..."

She glanced over at the other girls, noticing that Rainbow and Applejack had started snickering, which showed that they probably figured out what she was going to say. Instead of shouting it out as Rainbow did, she leaned in and began to whisper in Twilight's ear. After a few moments, Twilight's eyes widened as she faced Sunset, who nodded at her. Mouth agape, Twilight turned to her friends.

"Really? You have clothes for THOSE too?"

The whole group looked embarrassed at that statement, but nodded all the same. However, it didn’t take long for Twilight to consider something important.

"Oh yeah. Girls here in this world don't have tails, do they? So you wouldn't have any natural means to cover that part up. I guess it makes sense then."

Sunset, who had also been struggling to suppress a giggle at all this, nodded at her Princess friend. Twilight then spoke up again.

"But wait...what about the males? Doesn't their stuff just, you know, go back inside them?"

Everyone in the group, even Applejack and Rainbow this time, looked at her as if she'd just pulled off her face to reveal herself as an alien or something. Twilight raised an eyebrow at this behaviour and turned to Sunset, who shook her head at her, giving her the answer she needed. Not seeing how the others might find this inappropriate to discuss, Twilight simply pondered on that.

"Huh. So it just stays out? Interesting. I could probably write a whole book on that."

Spike, who had been silently sitting quietly and listening to all this, merely slapped his head at Twilight's obliviousness to all of this. By contrast, Rainbow let out a chuckle at her friends words.

"You know, if you asked some of the guys at school, I doubt they'd say no to helping you with tha-AGH!"

The rainbow-haired girl had been swiftly silenced by an elbow from Rarity, who looked at her with some disdain at her friend's behaviour. Her expression then swiflty changed to one of calm and understanding as she approached Twilight and placed hand on her shoulder.

"Um, Twilight dear? I know this must all be fascinating to you, but you must understand that this sort of thing isn't usually discussed like this, at least in polite..."

She then stopped and cast a glance back at Rainbow.

"...well, mostly polite company."

Rainbow frowned at her before Rarity looked to Twilight once more. After a few moments, Twilight let out a sigh and then smiled to all of the girls. She said nothing, but it was clear that her curiosity and confusion about all this was sated, at least for the time being. Besides, the young Princess knew there was still the matter of her pyjamas to deal with, and so gathered them up before making her way towards the door to find someplace more private to change into them. Before she left however, she was stopped by Applejack.

"Don't y'all worry, Twi. Down at the farm, me an mah family are used to seein animals going about like y'all describe. Ain't nothin to be embarrassed about."

Twilight smiled at her, appreciating her friend's understanding. The farm girl then continued.

"Heck, we've even got a couple of ponies down there."

Twilight’s eyes widened at that.

"Really?! Ponies in this world?! I can't wait to meet them! I bet they have all sorts of interesting things to talk about, like what it's like to be a pony living in this world."

Applejack then looked somewhat nervous as she responded to that.

"Um...well...the ponies here aren't like the ones in yer world, Twi. They're more like...er...cows and sheep and such."

Twilight tilted her head.

"In what way?"

"Well...mostly it's cause they can't talk," Applejack answered.

Twilight gained a sudden look of confusion on her face, turning to look at Spike, who had a similar expression, before facing Applejack again.

"But...cows and sheep can talk!"

All of the girls suddenly fell silent as they looked at Twilight after she'd said that. They looked at her, trying to figure out if she was making a joke or something. When it became clear that she wasn't, all of them gained looks of utter shock on their faces. That is, all of them except Pinkie, who walked up to Twilight with a look of sheer excitement as she started bouncing around.

"Okay, that settles it! I have DEFINITELY got to get myself to Equestria if they've got stuff like talking cows in it!"

Seeing this display, Twilight chuckled a bit.

"I'm sure you'd love it, Pinkie, but with all due respect, we kind of already went through a period when we had more than one of you around at the same time. I don't think we could handle a second."

This time it was Pinkie's turn to be curious.

"Ooh! Really? What was it like?"

Chuckling once more, Twilight turned from her and the other girls and finally made her way out of the room, her pyjamas still in hand.

"Trust me, you DON'T want to know!