Okay. Deep breaths. Time to nerd out about the first appearance on WordPress of the Centaur temp workers in Runaway to the Stars.
I've been fascinated by Centaur traditional handmade artifacts since Talita first saw the cargo hold of the Runaway.
Everything is so beautifully ornate and unique, yet practical at the same time. This is a society in which sophonts still entertain themselves and enrich their lives by making beautiful bespoke objects for themselves and their friends, no matter how mundane.
And then, Tadder and Relaghuul, the two settler males pre-teen Talita meets in First Contact, absolutely slay! Settler high fashion clearly follows some of the same design theories as nomad decorative art...
So, as much pain as I felt for Talita today, I'm also eating well on the outfits of this temp clan. Let me share:
The matriarch and the elder male (the other one with two trunk piercings) both have these chatelaines, with a similar arrangement: a sheathed tool about as long as a Human pencil, and two containers. But they're wildly different in style and structure. And that turtle-like container is probably designed to be felt by the owner's trunk as much as seen visually by other centaur. What are they for? Ask Bip. 50/50 chance they know, 50/50 chance they'll tell you.
I don't think these are tails of Earth creatures. They might be feathers, or possibly the taxidermied paws of small creatures... like how people used to carry rabbit's foot good luck charms. (word of Jay is that nothing on the Centaur homeworld has a real tail, so people were speculating)
Items tucked into sashes, the way one tucks things into one's obi when wearing traditional Japanese clothing.
The magnifying glasses are all unique, as are their hooks and how they're carried. This reminds me of how phones in the Talitaverse are all unique agglomerations of personalized dongles, that say something about who the owner is, what they need, and what they find important.
I also want you to notice that each of the adults has a recurring theme in their outfits: rows of four spheres. D-shaped ornaments. Dangling C-shaped beads. Ornaments made from scaly animal skin. And, for the matriarch, short strips of ribbon everywhere. And I was right about a scapular. I gave up trying to draw a scapular on my matriarch OC because their pose made it look confusing, but that was my first idea.
I think the kids all have the same outfit because they're all the same age. The clan mass-produced them, I expect. It seems like the kind of thing one would do when one expects nothing other than sextuplets, and has planned their birth carefully as a matter of course.
Centaur vision is heavily optimized for long distance accuracy and motion detection. That's why Centaur clothing hangs and sways and dangles and ruffles and flounces and swings. It makes them more visible, it makes their brains go brrr. The adult guinepillar wings on Relaghuul's outfit must be spectacular when they walk.
On a technical side, I want to point out that the gutter between these pages is beautifully empty of detail. Print readers won't even miss the larva lumps under the matriarch's caparison!
and finally, here on Tumblr, Jay has given us a name:
