“Mittens”
By Breeziebee
One night in Ponyville, while foals slept warm in their beds, and mother mares watched vigilantly from the windows of their homes, the season’s first snow came. The clouds were pewter grey, pregnant with the promise of a thick blanket of powder. But when the ponies rubbed sleep from their eyes to peer into the brilliant white morning outside of their windows, they found it was closer to a mattress than a blanket. Colts and fillies were delighted, pulling on their winter gear, eager to be the first to dent the unblemished surface of the snow. Before the sun had fully risen, a hundred snowball wars had already been declared, which, even the grown ponies participated in.
But some ponies preferred to maintain their status as a bystander by sitting on the park benches, away from the line of fire. One of which was Lyra Heartstrings, the sea-foam unicorn with golden eyes and lyre cutie mark—though, she was far better known for something else; a certain deep obsession that made her stand out from the rest of Ponyville, like the black sheep of the herd.
“Lyra, what in Celestia’s kingdom are you wearing?”
Lyra turned to Bon Bon, who sat beside her on the park bench—sitting in the pose natural to normal ponies, while she read a hefty book and sipped cider from a travel mug. Lyra, striving against healthy pony posture to emulate the way humans sit, had been waiting for Bon Bon to ask that question, and had already prepared her answer. “Oh, they’re mittens, I made them myself, they’re made from polyester, which is popular in the human world, and they’re so soft and they keep your hooves warm, BON BON AREN’T THEY SO WONDERFUL?!”
Bon Bon blinked twice. “You mean like, socks?”
Lyra squealed with laughter, which had far more to do with the joy of mittens than Bon Bon’s ignorance. “No, silly! THOSE are socks!” She jabbed a hoof at a passing mare, whose legs were hugged by black and white-striped fleece that bunched around her hooves.
“No, those are hoof warmers.”
“Well—whatever. The point is, these!” She waved her hooves in Bon Bon’s face. What made her mittens, mittens, were the fingers—or, the sleeves where fingers would be, if she had any. They flopped lifelessly, without anything holding their shape.
“Your socks have… tentacles?” Bon Bon frowned and raised a brow.
“No! Not tentacles! Oh Bon Bon…” She laughed some more, rather loudly. Nearby ponies had turned their attention to her. “Fingers! Fingers are the sub-appendages that grow on hands! You know, the human equivalent of hooves!”
“Yes Lyra. I know plenty about hands.”
“Do you?! Really?! Aren’t they just marvelous?”
“Of course I do, Lyra. I learned about them from you.”
“Oh! Haha,” she rolled her eyes. “I do talk about them, don’t I?”
Bon Bon rolled her eyes with a resigned smile. “Only sometimes.” Bon Bon returned to her book, leafing through the pages, searchingly. Lyra waited, hoping the topic of her mittens would be reignited. When it was not, she pulled her mittens away from Bon Bon’s face, and sat on her rump, in her customary human sitting-pose. She tried watching two fillies smack snowballs into each other’s faces, but mittens itched at her mind. She turned back to Bon Bon.
“But can you imagine if everybody wore mittens?”
Bon Bon looked up from her book. “Don’t you mean everypony?”
“They’re so cute, they’re so—so—“
“Human?” Bon Bon offered.
“YES!” Lyra threw her hooves in the air, jumping onto her hind legs to ‘stand’ on the bench. She looked down at her friend, who had once more returned her attention to her book. “What are you reading, anyway?”
“The anthropology book you forced on me at horn-point.” She indicated Lyra’s unicorn horn with a waving hoof.
“REALLY?”
“Mmhmm…” Bon Bon frowned, squinting at the book.
“What?” Lyra rubbernecked over the book, but Bon Bon held it out of the way.
“Are you sure those things are mittens?”
Lyra laughed. “Of course they are, silly.”
“Then what are these?” Bon Bon held up her book for her friend to see. Lyra sat down, unconsciously sitting like pony. She poked her snout into the book, eyes scanning the text and image at the speed of Rainbow Dash. There, was a picture featuring a sock-like shape, with not five fingers, but one simple thumb. The corresponding text named it a mitten. But it was missing the rest of the fingers, so why--?
Bon Bon read aloud. “Mittens; made to protect the delicate human fingers from winter cold. As opposed to the design of the glove, mittens kept four fingers bound in a single sleeve of wooly warmth, while the opposable thumbs were kept separate for functionality. Mittens are popular among the younger human crowd, and sometimes used to keep babies from scratching their eyes with their fingernails. But winter gloves became the preferred alternative, with each finger being encased in separate sleeves, allotting for less restrain and more freedom to move and wiggle, and do things such as open doorknobs.” There was a smaller picture resembling what Lyra wore in the corner. “For more on gloves, see the revolutionary touch screen-friendly gloves.”
“But…” Lyra sat back. “How could I ever have confused the two…?” The pony was more deflated than the time she’d found a human footprint in the dirt, and Bon Bon dismissed it as a ‘blob.’ “Mittens… gloves… mittens… gloves… I suppose I got too excited about making them to do more research.” She sighed, utterly disappointed in herself.
“Oh, don’t be so down.” Bon Bon patted her on the back. “I think your gloves are lovely.”
“Really?” Her eyes brightened.
“Yes. Maybe they’ll be a new fashion! The tentacles are kind of cute…”
“OH BON BON, THANK YOU!” Lyra squealed, her enthusiasm resurrected. “Then you can have these once I make myself some real mittens!”
“Oh, that’s really not—“
Lyra lowered her head, glaring forebodingly. Her silvery horn aligned pointedly between Bon Bon’s eyes. “You don’t like them?”
“I—“ Bon Bon gulped. “L—love them!”
“Great!” Lyra sat back. “How about you wear one, and I wear the other? Just until I’ve finished the new pair.” Lyra tossed a glove in Bon Bon’s lap, and used her horn to levitate a knitting bag from the side of the bench. “Look, I’ll start right now!” Bon Bon hesitated. “Well, put it on, already!”
After slipping on the single human glove, Bon Bon never wore a normal pair of socks again.
Author's Note
Art by me. Thanks to Hacim for his input and assistance :3
