Twilight thought she had a prepared herself and her friends for what the town had to offer, she was wrong. The structure of the forest made it impossible for passengers to see ahead until they were practically pulling into the station. Seeing several ponies going around very little or no attire was quite the shock for most of the group. Pinkie, as always, was the exception and actually made a few comments about how free all the ponies looked, even going as far strip down to nothing on her way out the doors of the train, by the time she had come to a stop the pink mare was now holding all her clothes in a neat little pile and was standing next to her friends in her birthday suit with an even bigger grin than before she left the train.

Twilight, Fluttershy, and Starlight were all feeling somewhat embarrassed at the sight before them. Applejack made a few light comments about the practicality of the attire and lack thereof some ponies had as they passed. Rainbow just made a few comments about the idea of a clothing optional community being somewhere between cool and awesome. Rarity looked like she wanted to faint but held herself back, also seeming to be thinking of a polite way to comment on the town’s aesthetic. And Pinkie, of course, was not only fully embracing the no clothing necessary policy of the town but also zipping around having short six to ten second conversations with several ponies for a minute or two before zipping back to her friends, to all of which her traveling companions, minus Rainbow, just facepalmed.

After they had been waiting for almost a half hour Flurry Heart finally came to meet the seven ponies, she was in something that looked like a jade formal dress that decided to get a little extra revealing while still being what it was intended to be. “Sorry for the wait, everypony,” said Flurry, “Spike started a new project a few days ago, and I was helping with the shipment, mom insisted I look over a set of special shipments for it the other day. I see you’ve noticed the town aesthetic. Don’t worry; you get used to it. Daring Do regularly parades around the place with a complete lack of clothes, our school teacher is now regularly going about town and teaching class in a tiny swimsuit, and our fashion expert can be regularly going about in nothing but lingerie.”

It was at this point Rarity decided to have a little breakdown, “They all just go about in overly revealing, potentially erotic, attire? That’s a bit more than avant-garde, don’t you think?”

“Sure, it seemed a bit salacious at first. Very few of the residents took up the opportunities presented with the clothing optional approach to the town, only about a third of the foals are let outside with any lack of attire, and another third regularly go to class in swimwear. But that’s a discussion for another time.”

“I’m just surprised by how many ponies are willing to go along with it all,” said Starlight.

“Well, when you see the leader of the community going around in the buff almost everyday it tends to cause the rest of the population to reevaluate their ideas of what is socially acceptable around town, doubly so when the town’s primary educator and most fashion-forward member parade around town in extra revealing outfits. Also, Spike in just a pair of pants is a regular sight around town.”

At this point Rainbow just burst out laughing; Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Starlight all gave looks of embarrassment. Applejack just rolled her eyes, and Pinkie commented sampling the town’s sweets. Flurry just giggled at all of this before continuing, “Daring assigned everypony to their first positions in the town. Dinky wanted to work in the post office, mostly since her mom once had the job, but Daring decided to put her in charge of the main bathhouse.”

“How did that work out?” Twilight inquired, hoping desperately to get away from awkward thoughts.

“Pretty good,” said Flurry, “especially after she just decided to follow the bathhouse policies outside her work environment.”

“Wait,” said Starlight with concern, “isn’t one of the bathhouse policies to be completely without attire while you’re there?”

“Yup," said Flurry, "and everypony who works in the bathhouses is thankful for the furniture and equipment that’s water resistant. Dinky was a bit body conscious at first, but now she’s openly going about the town in the same manner as Daring. Stellar Weave is the mare that runs and operates the fashion outlet here; she was pretty quick to embrace the aesthetic Daring was going for.”

“But you said she goes around in just her underwear,” said Rarity, coming out of her stupor.

“Indeed I did,” said Flurry with a grin, “and she has a figure on par with most fashion models, she recently admitted to Daring and I that she feels most comfortable in nothing save lingerie. I didn’t pass that little note along to my parents; I think it best to let everyone with a connection to this project know when they get here, just in case we have a security breach regarding the reports.”

“I suppose it’s a reasonable precaution,” said Twilight, “especially given what happened recently. How are things regarding that problem?”

“Mom and dad are handling it, but given his talent, they have to be extra careful in how they approach things.”

“Care to clue us in,” said Starlight, “Twilight didn’t really share the details.”

“The main reason I’m here,” said Twilight, “is because I forgot to put up the wards and security spells that are meant to cover the entire town, I thought that Starlight could help with that since she has a talent for magic as well. It was all brought to my attention, and embarrassment, after a stallion with the ability to use an invisibility spell on himself rather expertly came in and almost sexually harassed Stellar Weave.” Rainbow broke out laughing for a few minutes at Twilight's admittance to being a little scatterbrained.

“Thankfully,” said Flurry, picking up for her aunt, after Rainbow's laughter died down to a set of low snickers and chuckles, “Ms. Weave is resourceful and has a talent for a type of spell that can actually work as a counter to invisibility spells, even if that’s not what she usually uses it for.”

“Care to elaborate,” said Rarity with interest.

“How about you ask her yourself,” said Flurry, gesturing to the mare in question passing by, from the distance she was from them it was hard to tell just what she was wearing other than it was electric blue. “How about I take Twilight and Starlight to speak with Daring so they can get the town’s protective spells up? The rest of you can explore the town. Fluttershy, the students here expressed a desire to go and meet the gremlins, how about you see what you can do on that front. Of course, that will mean talking with the teacher, Eventide Note, and the troupe.”

“Um, is there anything I should know about her or the school? If you don’t mind telling me, that is,” said Fluttershy.

“As I said before,” said Flurry, “about a third of the students are regularly in the nude, a third are in swimwear, and a third are semi-normal clothes. As for Eventide, she’s now regularly seen about town and the school in a tiny swimsuit; it would be barely legal in just about any part of Equestria proper.”

“She always dresses like that?” Twilight said with surprise.

“Of course not,” said Flurry, “up until near the end of her first week of teaching she dressed far more modestly, how most of you are dressed now is a pretty good comparison to what she used to dress like.”

“What changed? If you don’t mind telling us,” said Rarity.

“Sorry, I’ve already blathered enough as it is,” said Flurry. The seven looked at each other with a bit of concern; Flurry motioned it was time to get things underway. The seven grabbed the bags they had brought with them, in Rarity's case, it was three bags while the rest only brought a single bag.

Twilight’s friends started peeling off as Flurry led the way to Daring. Fluttershy made a go for the eastern boundary, probably because the gremlins would be less embarrassing to be around for her. Applejack decided to check out the main bathhouse, perhaps due to the communal nature of her family. Pinkie made a beeline for the dining establishments, for a few seconds a literal line of cartoonish bees could be seen trailing her like some kind of tail. Rarity headed for Mystique Elegance the moment she was informed that was the town’s boutique, the building’s design had thrown her off until Flurry had clarified what the structure was. Rainbow decided to get an aerial view of the town then go and see what Spike was up to. Twilight and Starlight kept following Flurry to Daring.

******************************

“Okay, about this how do you think it should go,” said Daring once they got the pleasantries out of the way, “tell me if this plan is a bad idea. We set up a series of nodes to keep the spells up and stable; it could possibly increase their power. Then once the town starts expanding, we start putting up more as the town gets closer to expanding outside the reach of the protective spells.”

“That could work,” said Twilight, she put on her thinking face, “that way when the town is expanding we don’t have to recast all the spells, just set up a new node point.”

“It’ll also act as a security measure in itself,” said Starlight, “since there won’t be a central or undefined point for the magic around the town it means anypony trying to undo our work will have a much harder time and probably get caught in the act.”

“Since I’m not really knowledgeable about these sort of things, I’ll leave it up to you in deciding which spells should be used. But I suggest you at least have a decent distribution of wards, detection, and other protective spells.”

“A reasonable suggestion,” said Twilight, “we want to have the spells be as diverse as possible. The nodes will have to be fixed points though.”

“I’ll get you a town map,” said Daring as she got up, her assets and pregnant belly giving a bit of a jiggle as she stood up and walked out of the room to retrieve the item in question.

“You know,” said Starlight, “thought seeing her in the nude would be way more distracting than this.” Twilight only nodded, she hoped her friends were having better luck.”

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Applejack was conflicted, on hand a bathhouse would be great place for the whole family to wash up almost all at once and they could redirect the dirty bathwater to the fields to water the grove but on the other it could take away a bit too much space on the farm and would be far more work than raising a barn. She would have to have a talk with her family about this, and chances are they would all have to witness a bathhouse before deciding on the matter. There was also the matter of strangers seeing her unadorned body when she came into the building proper.

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Pinkie was excited about the bakery; it had such tasty cakes and treats. The cafe was nice too, especially with its open-air aesthetic. But what got her really excited was Spike’s new project, which was still a few days out from completion. It could be used to host parties, if she could ever convince him on that front, and had a variety of places to spend your time. She also liked his ideas for the menu items, even going as far as to suggest a few new additions in the aesthetic of the establishment. She had almost surprised him with her in-depth know-how of the demographic the place was designed to cater to, until he remembered it’s Pinkie Pie that he was talking to.

Pinkie was able to try so many samples without having pay a single bit, the owners of the dining establishments were okay with it so long as they got honest feedback from somepony that wasn’t part of the community. They wanted to make sure they weren’t just making a few things that only they liked; Pinkie was glad for the opportunity to meet such a challenge. Also, she really liked the atmosphere the whole town seemed to exude.

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Rainbow was bored, bored, bored; she was stuck waiting over a month for her next show with the Wonderbolts, and her next practice session with the team was still a solid week out from her current position. The aerial view of the town was okay, Spike’s project was a bit too nerdy for her, and she had nothing to do. The only solace she had was that they would be heading back home before the day was done.

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Fluttershy was happy to hear the gremlins were more than happy to entertain the foals and had brought a few gremlins back to the town to meet them all. The gremlins also wanted to make sure Daring was keeping up with her end of the bargain, and were satisfied she was, for the time being. Fluttershy ended up having a full body blush when she saw what the inside of the school looked like; she thought the outside was cute. Even with the warning about the attires of the teacher and students she still blushed so hard she almost passed out. Thankfully, Eventide had a bit more free-flowing class style due to being new to the whole teacher thing; she had also been notified that Twilight would probably bring her friends along for the ride sometime that week.

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Rarity was conflicted about fainting, blushing, looking aghast and being in awe when she saw the display for the boutique. There was a night themed, slightly frilly, set of lingerie on a mannequin between a twilight themed one-piece bikini with a section opened to display the gut area and an elegant looking day themed evening dress that wouldn’t look out of place in Canterlot. The swimsuit and evening wear in the display were pretty standard, especially in places like Canterlot and Manehattan, but to actually have mare’s undergarments on display in the window, not even adult attire shops did that. After nearly gawking at the display for a few minutes she entered the shop. A little bell above the door, not unlike her own shop’s, announced her arrival into the store. The inside was displaying undergarments, for both males and females, openly alongside the standard faire for a shop of this kind.

“Welcome to Mystique Elegance, where your style meets a different aesthetic,” came the voice of Stellar Weave as she came into Rarity’s view. Flurry wasn’t joking, Stellar Weave had a body fit for a model and then some, but the fact she was in morning orange lingerie was a bit off-putting for Rarity. “Ms. Rarity, it’s a pleasure to see you in my humble shop. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Rarity blinked few times to get her bearings and said, “Just inspecting the place, darling. Why are there undergarments on display in the window?”

“It’s to go with the town’s aesthetic, I know most ponies from outside the community will probably be put off by the fact there’re unmentionables on display for any passerby, but it’s a reflection of my sense of comfort.”

Rarity gave a polite cough before saying, “Yes, Flurry Heart informed us of your...preference in attire. I suppose a town aesthetic like this makes it easier to get measurements. I was also informed you have a talent that helped deal with an intruder, what do you usually use it for?”

“It’s a little trick I discovered when I was inspired by you to pursue a career as a fashion designer,” Rarity was touched by the sentiment and showed it, “it allows me to see distortions in the world around me, I use it for finding items that are easy to lose around the place. I haven’t lost a single needle since I began pursuing this career.”

Rarity gave a good-natured chuckle; she remembered how she lost a few needles during her early attempts at fashion. “I’m guessing that’s your talent, so being able to teach it to somepony else isn’t in the realm of possibility.”

“Not at the moment, but Daring and I did discuss the possibility of Princess Twilight studying it and figuring out how to replicate it so that it can be taught. However, the distortions I see with it are more akin to silhouettes; I just get general outlines with hardly any detail.”

“That’s still impressive in and of itself. It’s better than most ponies have, I have the ability to detect gemstones. Arguably an advantageous ability but there are times I think about having an ability like yours, it would make finding what I’m looking for at times considerably easier.”

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After a few minutes Daring returned with a map of the town, “Dinky drew this up with assistance from Flurry,” said Daring as she entered the room with the rolled up map. “I’ll leave you two to decide the best points for the nodes, when you’re done with that I’ll see about making sure you get to where you need to for it all. And if we have to put up some new fixtures to make it easier I’ll make sure the new ones match the town’s aesthetic.” With that, she left the two mares to plan on their own.

Author's Notes:

I’m actually unsure of where to go from here, I have some ideas but they feel a little hollow.

I thought of doing another Celestia chapter but scrapped it when I noticed how the chapter was just touching on a plot point best saved as something in the background, I thought of continuing the Twilight and Friends visiting point started here but in trying to write that it felt like it wasn’t really going anywhere, I got the idea to have Luna progress her understanding of her Draconic counterpart but it feels like something that might be better served elsewhere. So, right now, I’m stuck on where to go from here. Suggestions are welcome, also send the more detailed ideas to me via PM to avoid potentially spoiling things for the other readers.