//------------------------------// // Design // Story: (Not) Black and White: A Displaced Fic // by Masterweaver //------------------------------// For ponies, clothing is more a statement than a necessity. To be fair, they have their fur coats, which gets rid of most of the necessity of clothing, and they're remarkably colorful, so their visual identity is easy enough without the clothing, and they have their cutie marks, which for cultural reasons would mean anything that covered that would be considered problematic. The practicality of having pockets is easily given over to the practicality of saddlebags, and while protective gear exists it's not usually more than a vest and headgear. Almost all pony clothing, therefore, has an ancestry of form before function. This means that what clothing ponies do use tends to be either incredibly delicate or uncomfortable but resilient. There is some in-between, mind, but the idea of wearing clothes all the time usually translates only to accessories like collars or hats or... sleeve cuffs for some reason? I still don't understand how that came about. So the ponies that do make clothes are always specialists--either as artisans or as dedicated crafters. And for most of them, finding out about a creature with what to them would be strange proportions and an ingrained need to wear clothes almost all the time.... Frankly, it was a stroke of good fortune (a phrase which so aptly covers so much that happened to me in Ponyville) that Rarity not only lived nearby, but was Twilight's friend and accustomed to strange visitors. I'll admit, being mistaken for a quote giant black squirrel unquote might have been a little bit annoying, but once I managed to get out that I was there for an outfit the unicorn flipped from 'is my home infested' to 'let's butter up the customer.' And I guess Blake helped out there too? I only wanted ordinary spare clothes but where Blake's from, custom fashion is the norm, so her constant mental words were just enough to keep me from drowning in fashionable jargon. That didn't mean I ever meant to talk to her outside clothing things, though. Differences in societal norms, I suppose, it wasn't that I disliked her or anything, especially with the discount--it was more, you know, 'when would we meet, why, what do we have in common?' Well, as it turns out, a job opportunity came up and we discovered a mutual dislike of Diamond Dogs. Yes, yes, it's a stereotype. The catgirl hates dogs. Boo, hiss. Look, just let me lay this out... "I'm not saying you can't use your semblance," I muttered under my breath as we walked down the road. "I'm saying, how do we explain it?" Magic. "You do realize that this is a world where that won't work? Magic is a well studied phenomenon, just saying 'it's magic' will have Twilight strapping us down to a table again." She's not... that bad... "She is." Okay, fine, she is, Blake conceded. But she knows when to stop and she always asks permission and she could be so much worse, you know? "Just because things could be worse doesn't mean they couldn't be better. You've heard the way her voice strains when she asks the 'how was your day' kind of questions, right?" ...I know I'm supposed to be the paranoid one, but I honestly think she just wants to be our friend. Ruby was like that for our first few days at Beacon... when she wasn't goofing off... I rolled my eyes. Or Blake's eyes. Well, they were my eyes at the moment, so I was fully justified in rolling them. Hey! I can reminisce, that's perfectly normal! "It's always the same, you know. Fond memories, cute stories, and then you say 'I miss them' and go into a little quiet angst session." Well excuse me for not immediately being able to cope with being a prisoner in my own body! "Gah, I know, I'm sorry, it's just... this gets remarkably circular sometimes and I feel like we play out this song and dance once every day and... this sucks, I get it. And I'm trying to be sympathetic, really. I just feel like every time this happens... it all goes back and... I don't know." I shrugged helplessly, turning around a bend in the road and waving as I caught sight of a white unicorn. "We'll talk about this later, I guess. Hey there, Rarity!" "Briar, hello!" Rarity waved a hoof. "Thank you ever so much for agreeing to help me out today." "Thank you for giving me a job I think I could actually do," I replied. Mining. Of all the things you could have agreed to do, you had to pick mining. "Oh pish and tosh. You really mustn't give up hope yet, darling, with those clever fingers and your sizable height, I'm sure you'll find a niche somewhere." People die in mines, you know, Blake helpfully informed me. "Oh, so you're only interested in me for my body?" I quipped with a wry grin. "How very shallow of you, Rarity." Rarity tossed her mane haughtily. "Well, I was going to ask you to donate your remarkable imagination to some of my designs, but with that remark I might as well close up shop and call it a day." I'm serious about the dying. It was a major problem on Remnant. I rolled the eyes that were currently in my posession. "What a shame. In all seriousness, though, this is... safe, right? The mines aren't going to collapse on us or anything?" "I've been down here dozens of times," Rarity assured me with a dismissive wave. "It's completely safe. Well, in a purely structural sense. Honestly, it's the inhabitants that are the largest issue." "Ah, yes, the cave dwellers. Bats, bugs, eyeless salamanders, I can understand why a lady of your tastes might be a bit squeamish around critters with too many joints." "Oh, no no no darling. I may have a professional distaste for flyspiders and the like, but..." Rarity paused. "Did... did you say eyeless salamander?" "You only really get them in the very deep caves," I explained. "Never saw one in person, just pictures, but without light they evolved to just not have anything. It's an all smooth head, pale white body--they've got red frondy gill things though, like something between ears and a mane." "Hmm. Well, I've never seen one of those," Rarity mused, leading us into a surprisingly bright cavern. "Or heard of them, actually..." "Maybe they don't exist in Equestria," I allowed. "Maybe. Anyway, as I was saying, the animals in here are merely annoyances with which I have to put up. I may enjoy my refined tastes, but I am not so detached as some of the Canterlot nobility. A few bugs and some bat guano, I can handle. Oh, before I forget, I made this for you." She levitated a white hardhat out of her saddlebags; midway to the back it jutted up, with a few slits in the intervening vertical surface and a triad of thick ridges reinforcing the structure lengthwise. The emblem that graced my thighs was emblazoned in black on either side. A purple ribbon secured some sort of glowing gem above the bill in the front, and was tied up in perhaps a bit ridiculously big bow in the back. ...she actually designed a hardhat that would work around my ears, Blake murmured with a soft voice. That's... actually impressive. "Well, uh, thank you Rarity." I took the hardhat and settled it on my head cautiously. "You have no idea how much this means." "Safety consciousness does not have to mean unfashionable." "I mean, this had to have been difficult to make--" "Yes, I had to scrap the original idea of just cutting holes for your ears--they're rather high up on your skull, if I may be entirely honest." The unicorn gave me a worried look. "It's alright, isn't it? It's not pressing down or causing uncomfortable echoes or anything?" I twitched the ears under my hat experimentally. "Slight restriction of motion, but nothing I didn't experience wearing the ribbon. It's fine." If Remnant had these, it could... it might not change much, but it might be a start... "Ergonomics are always important," I agreed. "Quite, yes." Rarity cleared her throat. "As I was saying, it's not the creatures of the underground one should be worried about. It's more the monsters." "...how are we defining monsters here?" "Oh, don't worry, most of them don't come near Ponyville. The closest are the quarry eels, and they all nest in the walls of Ghastly Gorge. I'd be more worried about a maulwarf--they're technically herbivorous, but they've got magic-resistant skin and their claws are maybe twice the size of princess Celestia. Of course, they're rare and I don't think they come this far north. There are also the tatzelwurms--ghastly creatures really, they have an extra jaw and three tentacle tongues and they carry so many diseases... of course they're only found on the edges of Equestria, usually, they're actually quite wary of larger vibrations and stronger creatures." Rarity flicked her tail, putting on her own helmet--an orange thing with a blue ribbon. "No, we should be quite safe down here, as long as we don't attract the attention of Diamond Dogs. And given how well I handled them last time, that won't be that much of an issue anyway." "Diamond Dogs?" I couldn't quite suppress a grin. "What, will they sing us to death?" Rarity gave me a confused look. "...no. Why would they do that?" "Right, sorry. Famous musician back home, sang a song called 'Diamond Dogs.' I just... anyway, seriously, are they dogs made of diamonds?" "They're subterranean canids that have a preference for shiny gems," Rarity explained. "When they found out about my gem-locating spell, they kidnapped me and tried to force me to work for them." I frowned. "Wait, you were enslaved?" "Mmm, not really. They are rather dull, it was easy enough to work them over. So it's not very likely they'll give us any trouble. Come along then, we've jewels to gather." And thirty minutes later we were in an underground cell.