The Deep Cold

"So, what prompted the new style, hmm?" Aloe's voice sounded like a mutter right behind my ear, even when she was across the room. I heard the disconcerting scrape of her scissors as she retrieved them from the counter behind me, and then I chose to take the time to not remember anything in particular.

"I've just grown quite fond of the lighter style, and figured I should get my mane trimmed so that it's easier to take care of in the morning."

"Not what I was asking, deary," Aloe muttered musically, turning my head towards the mirror, hooves passing through my soaked hair and straightening it. "I meant the manestyle, not the manecut."

I reflected. Mostly, I had wanted an excuse to go to the spa. Of course, I could have gone to the spa for any number of other reasons. Words crept to my tongue, but I pushed them back down. I settled with the plain truth.

"...I really don't know, darling."

Scissors ran through my dampened hair gently, and briefly paused.

"Mm. Are you sure, then?" Her voice was a bit muffled as she talked around her scissors.

"Yes. Yes, I quite think I am."

The scissors shut with a satisfying 'snip.' My head felt lighter, and I resisted the urge to shake my hair to understand its new weight. Aloe began to trim in earnest, each clip sounding jovially past my ear. I checked myself in the mirror—my eye was askew, again. I didn't want to startle Aloe, by adjusting it with my horn, so instead, I rolled my eyes back and forth. I watched in my peripheral vision as one of the eyes, the left one, lagged behind the other. The gentle movement did nothing to bring them back in line, so I tried something more extreme, crossing my eyes like a child staring at their nose. Upon refocusing, something in the eye caught, and it failed to move as the socket moved around it.

I swore under my breath, and Aloe stopped cutting, looking at me in the mirror. I gave my best guilty smile to her reflection, and coughed.

"I'm sorry. If it wouldn't trouble you, may I...?"

She smiled at me. "Of course, deary."

I poured my energy into that instinctive telekinesis that I was so helpfully born with, and the troublesome eye was covered in a shimmering blue as I twisted it about, aligning it with my other eye as best as I could. The eye felt alien and artificial as it slid back into alignment. I tested it, glancing to and fro, the eye following with a bit more promptness.

I shuddered a little. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that," I muttered back to her. "Lucky it's temporary, no?"

"It really isn't so bad," she tittered. "You look like the mailmare, Ditzy. She pulls off the look fairly well."

"I suppose." The scissors clicked again as my last large lock fell off. "Still. It feels... quite strange. I'd much prefer getting it fixed."

"Mmm." She fumbled around her scissors as she began the more precise work. I waited for her to make a cut, and have her scissors out of my mane before my next comment.

"The upside of all this, I suppose, is that I shall never want for a good Nightmare Night costume again."

"Was that ever a concern, Rarity?"

"Well, no." I smirked at her reflection. "But I could never do this, before." I lit my horn, rotating my ill-fitted glass eye all the way around, so that only the white it showed. Aloe startled a bit, then started giggling, trotting around my side so she could look directly at my eye rather than it's reflection.

"Oh, my." Aloe grinned. "That really would do wonders for a costume! Were you planning anything?"

"Of course I am, darling. I haven't written anything down, yet, but..." I briefly covered my right eye, darkening the world. "Were I to get an eye patch I could see through, I could make quite the zombie pirate." I rotated the glass eye back into place, ignoring the odd sliding feeling as it moved about my orbit.

"Oh, yes, I could see that." Aloe's grin morphed into a thoughtful smirk. "Oh, I have the most wonderful idea. For the specifics of your new style... how do you feel about 'dashing pirate captain?'"

I thought it was a brilliant idea.