Thalestris the Sauromantian

If you're reading this, you're probably interacting with Thalestris ICly or considering doing so. This is an OOC note to let you know what's going on.

Thalestris is canonically a prisoner of Bronze Age Minoan civilization. Specifically, she's a bull-dancer in Knossos in about 1250 BCE. That means she is dressed roughly like the people in the Knossos palace frescoes seen here:

http://www.dilos.com/dilosimages/image/crete/knossos_bull_leapers_frescoe.jpg

According to her canon, both the male and the female bull-dancers dress like that all the time. Whether they're in the ring or merely training or practicing, or going to dinner somewhere, that's their basic get-up: boots, the little loin-guard, hand-wraps, and some jewelry. In her canon, a bull-dancer who's been around for a while and attracted attention will very rapidly wind up with more necklaces and other jewels than they're capable of wearing at one time. They generally won't wear them all into the ring, but in their off hours they've got jewelry coverage to rival Mr. T. Otherwise, though, they basically wear the loin guard and the boots. The canon indicates that while most of the dancers have their clothing from home, they never actually wear it in the Labyrinth.

They're not the only ones in their canon who wear very little. Her canon repeatedly points out that the men of Crete tend to wear breeches or loin-guards or a small fringed kilt and not much else. The unmarried women wear flowing skirts and open bodices on top, and when I say 'open' I mean 'not safe for work in any way': http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/ThomasBakerPaintings/images.html/minoan_costumes/Minoan_palace_scene_enlarged.jpg has a painting of these outfits. Like I said, NSFW. It's pointed out in the book that 'only the old and the infirm cover their bodies' in Crete. At one point King Minos appears in a long belted robe, but it's later revealed to the reader that he had a medical reason for that. Otherwise, it's generally accepted in her canon that if you have any kind of status, or if you're a bull dancer, very little clothing is the standard.

So what does this mean from a practical point of view? Essentially, that unless her post specifically says otherwise, Thalestris is going to need either a blanket or an emergency shirt or something the instant she walks into Milliways. Once she's performed in the bull-dance a time or two, I plan to have a hopeless admirer send her a broad Egyptian necklace that'll be big enough to strategically cover problem areas a la the strategically placed necklaces the Na'vi women were wearing in Avatar. I'll mention that when it comes into play, I promise.