We're about to head to our formal evening feast with Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor, but I have a moment to write, so I might as well describe our dresses. Rarity brought one outfit for each of us (even Spike), and they're amazing, as always. She also insisted on doing our manes and tails to match. However, there is one tiny problem.

In polite society, clothing is used for four purposes: decoration, badging, utility, and comfort. Now, if you grew up in a small community, you might think that more clothing equals more modesty, right? However, this is not usually the case. With a few rare exceptions (almost all of them utility wear), clothing is designed to draw attention to the pony. A lowered tail and our constant familiarity with nudity make being naked as a jaybird just about as modest as it gets (for equines, anyway).

Fashion is all about drawing attention to the curves of the body, and pulling the eye to what you wish to highlight. Proper fashionable attire will showcase the face and mane, the curves of the withers and croup, and perhaps the haunch and cutie mark. Daring fashion uses subtlety to guide the viewer to, shall I say, less appropriate areas of the body, but it does it in a clever way that makes it seem playful. Fetish wear is intended to force the viewer's eye somewhere it would never ordinarily go.

As I'd feared, all of the outfits Rarity brought with her fall into the last category. The old Rarity would never have designed anything this smutty. I wouldn't allow these outfits to be worn around Spike if I had any say in the matter. However, we need to dress up for our feast, and something in my gut tells me my brother and sister-in-law will not be disappointed by six ponies and a dragon dressed like a herd of (pardon my tongue) whorses. (At least the dresses are gorgeous, I suppose.)

One odd note: it's very common to hide the cutie mark with a skirt, but it looks as though our outfits were designed to allow the cutie mark to show through, then intentionally modified to block each mark completely from view, almost as though Rarity changed her mind and altered the dresses later. Even curiouser, the typical use of the bearer's cutie mark as a motif for a fashionable ensemble is conspicuously absent. This is despite the fact that each dress is clearly intended for one specific pony (style and color coordination make this quite obvious). Each of the dresses also features a small amount of gold or copper, which makes them look expensive (Spike's is the exception). Only Rarity and I have the gold accents. She mentioned to me that copper might be more appropriate for my personality (whatever that means), but the gold matches my tiara, so she went with that.

Rarity's dress is by far the most intricate of the seven outfits, so I'll begin there. It's a skirt and saddle combination made predominantly of black vinyl with gold accents and a small amount of blood-red organza. The haunches are covered tightly by vinyl and a strap around each thigh above the stifle (from flank to rump, in other words) holds them in place. The vinyl is sectioned and sewed together.

One special piece extends from the top of the rump and collects around the dock of the tail in a collar of sorts made from tight ruching of the vinyl. It covers the first dozen or so centimeters of her tail, and forces it to poke directly upwards, creating a beautiful fountain-like effect of curly violet hair. It's simply incredible: I've never seen anything quite like it before. It might be appropriate for an evening out if it weren't for the fact that the caudal side of the dock is uncovered, as is the entire rump. Instead of a proper covering, two loose curtains of sheer red organza cup each cheek. They attach at the sides of the dock and at the top of the lower straps, and there's a substantial gap between them where everything is basically just, well, hanging out there. (Yikes.)

Her saddle area features one of those cupped, seat-like saddles with a golden horn at the withers-end. It's made of vinyl, wraps tightly around the barrel, and has a poofy organza trim connecting it to the haunch-pieces. The "seat" is thick and firm, and quite apparently was designed for Spike to ride atop it (I'm not kidding; more on that in a moment). The saddle has two straps with golden triangles dangling at the end of each one. Rarity calls these "stirrups", and I think they're designed for Spike's feet to rest in. She says there are additional pieces which are even more inappropriate (a collar, reins, and a muzzle-piece), but she chose to "hold back for the sake of modesty". (Did I neglect to mention that my friends are going completely bucking insane?) There are also two golden rings whose purpose escapes me, so they must be simply decorative: one on the cranial side of the tailpiece, and one through the metal saddlehorn itself.

Spike has a black-and-red tuxedo which matches Rarity's dress perfectly. It would be adorable, if it weren't for the draping on the front which delicately skirts around and highlights his... ugh. His "sheath" area, I suppose would be the most anatomically correct way to say it. Spike begged me desperately to allow him to ride Rarity into the dinner, and I reluctantly agreed to it. If we're going to be doomed to look like the stars of some illegal pornographic showcase, I might as well be nice to him while I still can (everything is about as inappropriate as it could be anyway, so I've pretty much given up trying). To make matters even more horrifying, Spike now has a, um... he has a minor wardrobe issue. Involving the, let's say, erectile tissue of a male dragon, which I have only viewed in my peripheral vision. I am unbelievably embarrassed by this, and he is blushing as well but doesn't seem to mind it nearly as much as I do. I didn't even know he was old enough to do that in response to visual stimuli, so maybe he's already hit puberty? Or perhaps it's more of an autonomic reaction, as I've heard can happen with young foals. Dragons are something of a mystery, either way. One of the reasons I allowed him to ride Rarity is that she suggested if he holds his (once again, I cannot believe I'm writing this down) penis against the saddlehorn it may cool it enough to force it to retract. I'm not going to glance over to see if it works. I never want to see that part of my number-one assistant's anatomy, period.

I'm a terrible guardian, I just know it. If our situation were any less weird, I'd be petrified of losing custody of Spike because of all this. He deserves better. I'm so sorry, Spike, I truly am.

I'll give a shorter description for the rest of us. Fluttershy's outfit is a silken teal and spring-green affair, completely sheer except for the straps which block her cutie mark. Her mane and tail are woven together in a tight braid which pulls her head tightly enough that the combined braid hovers above her back. This forces Fluttershy's tail to go straight up whenever she shyly drops her gaze, which is a pretty clever tactic to counteract her shyness I must admit, but an extremely obscene way to do it. She is constantly blushing, but smiling nonetheless. Rarity wanted to braid Applejack's tail into her mane a similar way, but that wasn't about to happen so instead she braided the tail separately and wrapped it into a braided bun. AJ is wearing tight, dark-brown chaps and a similarly-colored saddle (which also seems designed for Spike). It sports a copper saddlehorn, similar copper "stirrups", and some brown-dyed silk rope used as accents to connect the pieces. Pinkie Pie's tail is tied down flat to her back with multiple neon cyan and yellow straps of nylon fabric, leaving nothing to the imagination, but Pinkie doesn't seem to mind. Her legs feature fishnet stockings, one in cyan and the other in yellow (there's a lot of color criss-crossing on her outfit, sort of harlequin-like), and a large circle of copper metal blocking her cutie mark on either haunch. Rainbow Dash is in a dress that looks like a cross between a running suit and something a pole-dancer would wear; it's difficult to describe, to be honest. The fabric is a sheer chromatic white using rainbow hues. At the moment, it looks like she's an even mix of embarrassed and pissed.

As for my outfit? Sorry. I don't wanna talk about it. Let's just say it uses muted, deep red and orange and violet hues, and it looks a bit like a wedding dress that's three sizes too short. Oh, and Spike could ride this one too, which will probably happen sometime around never. The accents are gold rings. They match my royal tiara (which I'm wearing) very well, but that's not exactly much consolation. I like the manestyle, at least. It features an odd sort of straightened braiding of my mane which makes it look like it's made of ribbons (my tail is similarly styled).

We're about to be escorted to the dining hall by a couple of guards. I hope neither of them is Flash Sentry, but I'm all but certain he'll be assigned to take us. Everypony knows I have a crush on his double from an alternate dimension, and surely he must know it by now as well. (Arrgh! How did this sort of thing get out so quickly?) Anyway, the guards are going to get quite a show, and they'll probably think a lot less of us because of it, but we might as well get this thing over with. I'm so eager to finally have some answers to my questions that I can almost ignore the dress I have to wear.

Applejack looks like she's chomping at the bit, she's so nervous. It might be the (presumed) Flutterbite. I really hope she's going to be okay.