Camp Friendship was a truly wonderful place for young ones to spend their summers. Located near Ponyville, it had all the best activities that colts and fillies of all species could enjoy both day and night. The camp staff were quite friendly too for the most part, taking every opportunity to make every camper feel welcome regardless of where they came from.
One such camper was Coloratura, better known by her nickname of Rara since she found Coloratura to be too stuffy. And she was quite nervous at the idea of attending camp. Yet her parents had signed her up and now here she was. She really felt like a small fish in a big pond.
Fortunately, it didn’t take very long for Rara to make a friend, a fellow earth pony with freckles who came trotting up to her during the first day of camp. Her blonde locks and green eyes matched her orange coat so splendidly, and her cutie mark of three apples stood out so prominently compared to some of the other campers’ cutie marks. “Howdy,” The filly greeted as she offered a hoof. “You new ‘round here?”
“Y-yes,” Rara confessed. “My name’s Rara.”
“Well I’m Applejack,” The filly replied as she identified herself. “I’ve been comin’ to this here camp since I was just a blank flank. You can just stick with me, Rara. I know this camp like the back of my hoof, so I know how to have a fun time.”
Rara blinked. “You… do?”
Applejack firmly nodded. “Yup. And who knows, if we’re lucky we might even be cabin mates for the summer. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
But Rara just sheepishly shuffled and didn’t answer, in her mind she was thinking. “It would be, if not for one small problem I have.” She thought to herself. She was really worried about what would happen if her secret problem was found out. Yet she didn’t want to mention it to Applejack for fear that her fellow filly would surely tease her about it. It wasn’t something most colts and fillies Rara’s age had.
Applejack either didn’t notice Rara’s lack of an answer or didn’t care. She instead took Rara by the hoof and eagerly led her away. “Come on, let’s get to the lake! It’s almost time for kayakin’! You ain’t gonna wanna miss that, I know I wouldn’t! It’s the most fun I can ever have!”
Rara slowly came out of her shell as the day went by and forgot all about her secret problem, particularly because it only became a problem at night. She didn’t mention it to anypony, so focused was she on having a good time and actually getting to know somepony her age. She was especially surprised to learn that Applejack (who she began calling AJ for short) actually lived on a farm on the outskirts of Ponyville, and that Applejack’s grandmother’s family had been among the first ponies to settle in Ponyville.
Applejack in turn got to see just how beautiful Rara’s singing voice was when all the campers gathered around for campfire songs, marshmallow roasting and ghost story telling that night. And she was even more overjoyed when her wish came true and she and Rara got to share a cabin.
Yet when it came to actually go to bed, Rara was unusually nervous and seemed to take a long time in getting ready. Applejack even found it odd that her new friend was wearing pajamas, pajamas that her green eyes saw what looked like a bulge of some kind sticking out in the back. But in the dim light of the cabin it was impossible to tell for sure.
Late that night, however, the secret Rara went to great lengths to try to keep hidden would be exposed. And it all began when Applejack was woken up in the middle of the night by the sounds of rustling sheets and a muffled crinkling noise coming from beneath her.
“Rara,” Applejack called into the darkness as she could just make out the outline of her friend on the floor of the cabin. “What are ya doin’ out of bed?”
Rara eeped and spun around! “N-nothing, AJ! You’re just imagining things! Now please go back to bed!” But as she moved around the crinkling sounds could be heard anew. And now a faint scent of urine began to waft through the air. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was probably going on.
The farm filly jumped down from her bed and approached her new friend. “Ya wet the bed, Rara?”
Reluctantly, Rara confessed as tears began to form in her eyes. “I… didn’t mean to. I just don’t know what’s wrong with me, I keep having accidents like this even when I try my hardest not to. Sometimes it’s even worse. I had to start wearing diapers so I wouldn’t stain the sheets every night.”
Fortunately for the filly, Applejack consoled her. “Now now, ain’t no reason to go gettin’ yourself into a tizzy over it, Rara. These things happen sometimes. I still sometimes have accidents at night, and I don’t even need to use a bathroom.”
“Your family doesn’t have indoor plumbing?” Rara blinked in confusion.
“Not yet, really. Just an outhouse in the orchard and some old fashioned chamber pots for night,” Applejack explained. “Reckon it’ll be a few years still before we even get a proper flush lavatory for inside since those things are so darn expensive.”
“Yeah, my family can’t really afford that either.” Rara replied.
Then Applejack declared. “Well, I know the camp has a few since the old trench system wouldn’t work with so many campers. I reckon with just a little bit of proper trainin’ for the night, you won’t be havin’ those accidents anymore. We can try tomorrow night before bed time.”
And so it was that the very next night, when most of the other campers were again gathering around the campfire for all their favorite night time activities, Applejack and Rara were in one of only two stalls that contained all the bathrooms at the camp (one for colts and one for fillies). They were minimally maintained and if not for the water flowing beneath them they would’ve been little more than glorified outhouses.
“So, how do these things work, exactly?” Rara questioned Applejack as she eyed one of the so called flush lavatories.
The farm filly shrugged her hooves. “I don’t really know, Rara. I reckon they work kind of the same way outhouses do. Ya just stand over them and do your business. Better make sure your tail doesn’t get in the way or ends up in that water, somethin’ tells me it wouldn’t be a good thing.”
“O-okay,” Rara blushed as she clumsily waddled about and tried to line herself up with the device just right, a task made difficult by the cold and slippery floor tiles beneath her hooves. She then blushed. “Applejack, could you look the other way or something? You know, so I can…”
“O-oh! Right! Right! Of course!” Applejack blushed back and sheepishly giggled as she turned her head to give her friend some privacy. “You’ll let me know when you’re done though, right?”
“Yes.” Rara agreed as she tried to relax. It was difficult at first, but eventually she was able to get her body to loosen up enough to hear a faint tinkling sound echo down into the watery pit beneath her.
When the noise had faded the farm filly began to turn back around. “Ya done, Rara?” She asked, only for one of her hooves to slip on the tiled floor and press down a white colored tile nearby.
There was a click and then a loud roar reached both fillies’ ears! Rara happened to look down in time to see a raging whirlpool appear, pulling everything down a small hole at the bottom and then return as if nothing had happened, the water sparkling clear once again.
Rara looked across to Applejack. “Is that the ‘flush’ that makes ponies call this a flush lavatory?”
Applejack shrugged her hooves again. “Maybe. At least we know how it cleans itself now and what that hole is for. Reckon it could probably pull us down by our tails if we’re not careful.”
“If it did, you’d save me right?” Rara asked Applejack.
Applejack firmly nodded. “Of course I would, Rara. That’s what friends are for,” Then she declared. “Now, if you can just do that every night before we go to bed, I reckon your bed wettin’ problems will be a thing of the past.”
“Maybe, but I think I’ll wear diapers to bed until I know for sure, just in case.” Rara insisted, terrified of the prospect of staining the sheets at Camp Friendship.