She had never been on any swings in Canterlot. There had been books, though and ponies underestimated books. One could build forts with books, one could build towers and stairs and if a pony got a big enough book, it could easily substitute a flying carpet in a young child’s imagination. Yet, the great thing about books wasn’t in any of these things. The great thing in books was that a pony could leap inside them, become part of every story ever written. It was an obvious thing, a good thing, too. Every book was a reverie on its own, a tale to sink into. Yet it is the obvious things that are the easiest to misplace.
Twilight had long since forgotten how it was to go to bed with nothing but a good story on her mind. Her mind had been full of chores, schedules and things to do. There had been plans she had laid out and stuff she had wanted to do the moment the covers were spread across her body. Yet somehow, this night she dreamt only of swings. She dreamt of the earth moving beneath her, the wind whirling through her mane and for a single moment she could touch the bright blue sky with it’s white cotton clouds.
She didn’t know how many times she swung, how often she tried to touch the sky. What she did know was that every single time she tried, she kept falling backwards. Her hooves swung with her, trying to get more momentum. Again and again she tried, never quite managing to feel the clouds. With every time, she noticed another mistake she made and fixed it. Her position was wrong, the way her legs swung faulty, her hooves gripped the swing the wrong way, her eyes looked a bit to the wrong side, her horn wasn’t the right angle for what she wanted to do. There were more mistakes and Twilight was so far away from the sky.
One last time she tried and felt herself stopping mid-air. Looking at the clouds she realized that she could never reach them. Her heart stopped for that one long moment as all hope drained from her. She let go of the swing and allowed herself to fall back to the earth. There was nowhere for her to go but the dirt.
Twilight fell and landed. For a moment everything went black and then she threw her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling of her room. The sun was glistening through the window, warming the pony even beneath her covers. She didn’t move for a moment, trying to figure out what had happened, then figured it only a dream. It wasn’t that bad, either. The last days of autumn had went by quickly and outside the first snows were falling already. She had spent the last few days in a fairly blissful manner, dividing her time between a perfectly structured day and chaotic evenings that made her cringe every time she thought about them.
Looking at the sun, she knew that she’d slept into the day again. Twilight wasn’t bothered by that as much as she’d been on the first day. Sleeping longer did pretty well for her and she had managed to adjust her schedules pretty well. She lifted herself up from the bed, still feeling somewhat groggy, the diaper crinkling with her movement. As she took the covers off her, she took a few seconds to look at it, like every morning. And like every morning, she felt a sense of . . . Well, she didn’t quite know how to call it. Uncertainty maybe.
“What am I doing?”
She asked nopony in particular, but as the words went off her tongue, she found something wrong with them.
“What,” she tried again, her brow furrowing. “What am,” she clenched her teeth. It didn’t sound right. Something was wrong with the way she intoned the words, something that was already ruining her day more than it had already been.
“What-”, she tried starting again, already knowing that it wouldn’t work and fury leaking through her voice.
She was unable to finish as a voice called from below the stairs, “Twilight, are you up,” and dragged her right out of it.
Twilight blinked for a second, glad for the interruption. She wondered why one question was so hard to pull off. “What am I-,” she started but the ‘I’ didn’t work. “What am I-,” she grumbled. Then she yelled down: “One moment, Spike.”
The pony tried to find the correct way to see what she wanted to say. She knew the words, she knew the grammar, she knew all that. She knew the rules and yet she couldn’t get it out the way she wanted. What was she doing wrong? Why did this come up so suddenly.
Suddenly, Twilight thought of falling and a chill ran through her. Still, she tried to figure out how to get this right. So she tried one more time, and then one last time.
“What am I doing?”
“Talking to yourself,” the dragon answered and she looked at the stairs again, from where Spike looked at her. How long had he been standing there, she wondered.
“I-”
She didn’t finish, instead the thought of the garment she wore crouched up from her thoughts. The dragon didn’t seem to care about that, though, instead looking straight at her face. He opened his mouth, but then thought better of it. “Anyway. I wanted to let you sleep for a while longer, hope it isn’t too bad having slept more than two or three hours for once.”
She didn’t know how to answer.
“Thank you,” she said, already too confused by her own thoughts. “Thank you,” she repeated, annoyed.
“Twi-,” he started but she shut him up with a gesture, trying to get the wording correct.
“Thank you,” she said, feeling angry that she couldn’t get such a simple thing right. Why couldn’t she get speech right now?
The dragon stared at her as she repeated the words again and again.
“Twilight,” he said, his voice thick with worry but she ignored him. He didn’t know how to react to that, instead standing there, watching as Twilight lost herself in trying to fix a problem that wasn’t even there.
The pony was off into her own world, repeating the sentence with slight changes in the way she said the words, trying to figure out how to say them correctly. No answer came to her and so she kept on trying. She wasn't even aware of her surroundings. At least until Spike shoved something into her mouth.
She sucked once at the pacifier, regaining her awareness of Spike and so she looked at him.
And regretted it immediately as his eyes were wide with fear. He didn’t know what had gotten into Twilight and had done the first best thing, get her to shut up. He used to be good at it without putting something in her mouth, but she wasn’t angry at him. The rubber in her mouth felt calming.
“Twilight,” he started, but it was clear that he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think about it, instead just pulled him into a hug.
“It’s fine, I’m fine. Thank you,” she whispered from behind the pacifier. It was small enough that she could still speak fine enough with it, but the sound of the wording made her want to try to say it again. Instead, she suckled as loudly as she could, trying to overshadow the criticising voice in her head. It took a few seconds until he returned the hug, but when he did, she knew that for now his worries had ceased, though her own hadn’t. She was aware of that sudden outburst.
Was she still getting worse? Was that even possible?
Should she be scared?
“I made you coffee,” said Spike, getting some distance between the two. He clearly had had enough of hugging for the morning. “Come on down, crinklebutt,” the way he said it was enough of a confirmation for Twilight. He was quick to forget his worries. That was a gift on its own.
“Crinklebutt,” she repeated with a smile, happy that no voice in her head urged her on to say it correctly this time and then they made their way to breakfast.
“So,” he said when they had seated themselves at the table, “you’re not mad about waking up late?”
She had taken out her pacifier again to get herself some of the coffee. “Not really,” she said. She still didn’t know whether she felt better than normal, though. Apparently one afternoon isn’t enough for therapy, she mused in her thoughts. “However I’ll need to do some stuff in the city so we can’t really lounge around the house for more.” Twilight then took a sip.
“Well,” he said, “then I can spend my day with Rarity.” The way he grinned then made Twilight giggle. Sadly, she was still busy drinking and some coffee landed on her coat. Spike looked at her, “And that’s what we get from forgetting your bib.”
“Apparently,” the unicorn answered with a frown on her face. Now her day really was ruined and she didn’t really know how to feel when Spike really did jump up and got the bib, fastening it around her neck after he cleaned the coffee off her with some paper towels. Then he insisted again on helping her with her own meal. Cereals, oats and some fruits made up their breakfast, as always. Twilight couldn’t stand the taste of grass in the morning, which was one of the reasons she never liked sleepovers at Pinkie Pie’s place. Unlike what she had expected the first time she had done so, almost everything during a Pinkie Pie breakfast involved grass in some way. Everypony had a different taste, Twilight figured, and that had to be just Pinkie’s.
After breakfast, Spike still inquired, “So, we’re not going to play anymore today?”
He wants to continue with the figurines. Another smile came across her face and she shrugged. “Who said anything about that? We still have lunch and the entire evening for us,” she stated. His grin widened up and she knew that he only saw a game in it all. Either that or he purposely ignored Twilight’s problem when he was able to. Everypony had their way of doing things, she thought. “Anyway,” she said, “I’ll dip my head in cold water and then start my day.”
“Don’t forget to change out of that diaper,” he said jokingly as she started to walk out.
“As if I’d forget that,” she grumbled and moved on. For this morning she had mostly just let the padding between her legs be. It was comfortable, she still thought. A waste, Rarity had said and Twilight suddenly couldn’t help but agree. She wondered for a moment what other ponies might’ve thought of her prancing around town in a diaper? As she made her way into the bathroom, putting a plug into the basin and starting her morning ritual, she thought about that question and her friends.
Rarity would probably call her out, since she seemed to value discretion in such cases. Rainbow Dash would laugh and tease her, but if she’d think Twilight a freak? Applejack was so down to the earth she’d probably want to sit down and talk about it. Pinkie Pie? Twilight found herself at a loss, she couldn’t quite judge Pinkie Pie, but it would probably end up harmless to their relationship. Then there was Fluttershy. The pony was a kind and caring soul, Twilight knew. She would probably understand, she told herself as the basin filled up and she could finally dip her head into the icy cold water. It was her way of starting the day perfectly and as she felt her face nearly freezing off she lifted her head up again and looked at the ceiling.
It was then that she realized fully that she didn’t want to take the diaper off.
Plans were plans and so she decided to do it anyway. Her schedule could only suffer so much. As she took it off she saw that it was still as unspoiled as when she had put it on, yesterday. If using it would bring anypony any harm?
Twilight did a swift job of blaming Rarity for such thoughts, before she rolled the thing into a ball and put it in the bin, all prim and proper. Still, she decided to take a towel, to get the powder off, if any remained on her coat. She must’ve spent some time doing that, as when she came out of the bathroom Spike had already left and the sun had moved once more.
Twilight spent the first bit of the day going about her business. There wasn’t much the town librarian did when there weren’t any friendship adventures to be had. However, she delivered a book that Carrot Top had requested and gave it to the orange maned one recommending four more books. She also had a meeting with the mayor concerning the plans for Winter Wrap-Up, since the town’s leader was of the opinion that for once, everything that could be done in advance should be done so with vast amounts of advance. That took some time, considering how Twilight had to explain the back-up plan for the back-up plan that came in when the original back-up plan failed, and handed the mayor a document titled ‘Worst Case Scenarios 1-36’ and said that a second document with 37 till 72 was in works.
And the mayor seemed to leave the meeting in a better mood than Twilight, who couldn’t help but feel that the number of plans was excessive, even for her standards.
On the plus side, she managed to leave the town hall in a perfect trot only after the fifth try.
On her way out she met Rarity, who graced her with a smile and a curt: “Greetings, darling.”
Twilight nodded in her direction, “Hey, Rarity. How’s your day going?”
“Fairly well. It’s good that I’m seeing you, too.” Her smile fainted a bit. “I wanted to ask you if it’s alright if Spike stayed over for the night?”
For a moment Twilight looked at her, trying to process what her friend had just revealed to her. “What? What for?”
“Well, we found some gemstones back when we first discovered the diamond dog city. We thought nothing of them, aside from the fact that they were pretty of course. Thing is, they’re lightly radiant and probably magic. Spike seemed eager to help, too.”
Spike also seems to not tell me something as important as that, Twilight thought to herself. “Could I help? I’m sure to find a place on my schedule within the next few weeks. Spike leaving now is also much a break from how I want things to be done, done . . . To. Be. Done. Tobedone. To-”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing... To. Be done.” Twilight gave a nod to herself, that sounded more proper.
All the while, doubt spread across Rarity’s face. “I wouldn’t call suddenly repeating a sentence ‘nothing’.”
Twilight looked at her, as she did. “I-”, she wanted to explain, but facing the worrying of her friend she couldn’t help but say instead: “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. My schedule won’t be completely ruined if Spike is absent for a day, although I would prefer to be told such a thing more than just a few hours beforehand.”
“It’s something that came up rather shortly,” Rarity answered as Twilight started moving again, if her schedule was going to change all she needed to do was adapt quickly. “Also, Twilight, you don’t mind me getting your help with those stones once I’m done with them?”
“No. You can always count on me, even though . . . Now that I think about it, I never thought you were into research.”
Rarity giggled, “We all have quirks we try to keep hidden. You have yours and I have mine.”
Twilight took a moment before she nodded. It was a truth she had come to accept. “Still, maybe a night alone might actually bring me forward. I’m still feeling kinda directionless.”
Rarity blinked at that. “Well, at least I can assure you that you look better nowadays.”
Twilight nodded. “And I feel better, too. I mean, the first night Spike tucked me in felt kinda weird actually, waking up with the sunlight actually touching my face . . . I panicked, yes, but I actually felt much more relaxed than I had in a long while. It’s just, while playing around is certainly unwinding, right now that’s all there is to it. It’s not really what I wanted.”
“What did you want with it, then? You are able to get through your day with more ease now, aren’t you,” Rarity asked, her eyes fixed on her friend.
“I am, I do, but every morning I ask myself what I’m doing with all this and I just can’t find the answer,” and there’s a voice in my head screaming at me of how wrong I pronounce every word.
Rarity looked at her, Rarity smiled at her. It was the way she was. The unicorn with the mane of indigo had become her confidant, the one pony she could tell everything. Still, Twilight felt that she couldn’t, or rather shouldn’t talk about every single problem. Ulitmately she was the one who had to fix her own mess. Spike helped her, Rarity helped her, but she was the one who had to do the actual work, the only one with an access to her own mind.
“Well, then it really might be a blessing. Just you, all alone for one night. Maybe you can sort everything out.”
“I hope,” Twilight answered, though she did not know whether she felt actually good with that thought in mind.
They parted their way soon after, by one of the bridges, with Rarity turning left towards her home and Twilight turning right towards hers. The day would end soon enough, they had a habit of doing that during winter. It had been a short day for her, too, which only added to her feeling not all that well when she entered through the front door.
The library was empty.
Spike had decided to stay over at Rarity’s place for the night and Twilight found herself on her own in the library. She remembered a time where she would not have bothered, simply grabbed a book and started reading. Right now she didn’t feel in the mood for reading though. She still tried to walk by the shelves, hoping to maybe find a good piece of literature. She didn’t find anything that piqued her interest right now and so she decided to go into the kitchen, only to turn around the moment she entered. She walked up the stairs, to her bed, piqued a quill and her Nightbook, not really thinking.
Over the past few days the first few pages had filled themselves, one page each day, depicting her very own emotional whirlpool. As every day, she ignored what she had written before and put the quill on the paper to describe how she felt right now, she let the words pour for ten minutes or so before she retracted, looked at the book until she was sure the ink was dry and then closed it again. The sun was still moving.
She decided to pick up a few of Spike’s toys, playing around with them for a bit, but they could only hold her attention for so long.
What am I doing?
For some reason she felt like crying, letting her down. All she felt like doing at this moment was staring at the ground and asking herself the same question over and over again.
Snow was falling outside and she was going to spend this whole night like this, she thought. A bitter smile twisted her mouth. The last days of autumn she had always tried to make room for Spike, for their games, hoping that she would get better. Sometimes she woke up and couldn’t properly lift the covers, because no matter how she grabbed them it felt wrong, the problem with speech was getting worse, too. She didn’t feel sleepy, stressed out, but those things hadn’t really been problems of priority, anyway. There was a line between simple perfectionism and trying to do everything correct. Twilight had to wonder when she had crossed that line and if she’d ever get back to it. Above all else, she wondered how. Was she doing the right thing? Was she doing it properly? Was there a way to do it properly?
Do what properly, exactly?
She didn’t know and no matter how much she thought about it, she still felt like she was falling, like the sky was so far away. She looked at the figurines and then just shook her head. Chances were she wouldn’t find her answer today. She resigned herself to that and decided to just crawl into her bed and let the day be done with. Nothing could go wrong then.
A knock came from the door at that moment. Twilight’s head lifted itself up and her body followed. Her train of thought broken she simply moved down the stairs. Was it Spike? Had he decided to not stay at Rarity’s? Rarity herself? She doubted it, they were doing stuff that had sounded important. Chances were they weren’t even thinking about her. Her thoughts turned to Applejack, but she was busy with family business, as every winter. Her thoughts turned to Fluttershy. Opening the door and seeing that kind hearted smile would’ve lifted her spirits immensely. If she had found the strength to come over, then that would’ve made this whole mess of an evening actually good. It couldn’t be, Twilight mused, figuring that the other pony was occupied, too. Everypony was.
She was up by the door as the knocking came again and opened the door. A sure smile greeted Twilight and she saw snow melting in the other pony’s mane, while a pair of saddlebags rested on her back. She seemed utterly done from a day of hard work, but still managed to stand tall, as always. Twilight blinked as Rainbow Dash greeted her with an ever-informal: “Yo, Twilight.”
“RD? What do you want here?”
“Just checking up on my friend, mind if I come in?”
Twilight blinked once more and then showed the rainbow-maned pegasus in. She just looked at her. It had been quite a while since she had seen Rainbow Dash, now that she thought about it. Any question regarding that, however was answered with Rainbow Dash’s next few sentences.
“Nice, cozy place you got here. You really start noticing cozyness once you’ve had to sleep on a couch for one-and-a half week. It was an old couch, too. The next time the weather department wants all team leaders meeting in Fillydelphia I’ll call in sick. They have no hotels over there.”
Every winter the department started out with a meeting of all regional weather team leaders, conferring regional weather patterns and discussing how the weather should go over all of Equestria. Rainbow Dash had went as a substitute for the pony who was actually the leader for the Ponyville group of the department. Was it Flitter? Twilight couldn’t remember.
“Yeah,” was what Twilight answered. “Why did you come check up on me particularly?” The question just came out of her mouth and she regretted asking.
“Because reasons. Is Spike here.” Twilight noted the shift in topic but didn’t object. Somepony to talk to was somepony to talk to and anything that would get her mind off everything was something she could accept easily.
“He’s with Rarity for the night.”
Rainbow Dash lifted an eyebrow. “Huh, so you’re all alone for the moment. Sounds neat.”
“It really isn’t,” Twilight said, cursing herself for being so comfortable around her friends that she felt the need to actually be honest with them.
“It’s not,” Rainbow Dash asked but gave Twilight not a second to answer, “Want me to stay over?”
When dinner came around she was somewhat grateful for that decision, what with RD deciding to handle food. She wasn’t good with working in a kitchen but she could do the essentials. Food ended up being something warm. Spaghetti, and Rainbow Dash the stuff away without so much as a hint of table manners. It was quite the thing to look at, too. Twilight sat there and worked them with a knife, not wanting to mess up anything.
They didn’t talk much. There were short bursts of conversations about topics only ever one of them found an interest in and long silences in between. The only thing Twilight noted was how Rainbow Dash was looking at her whenever she ate or drank. Spike always looked worried when she tried to everything perfectly, Rarity didn’t appear to care, being occupied with looking good while eating and Fluttershy always seemed like she was close to running out of patience when they were in a restaurant together. Rainbow Dash’s look she couldn’t really say. It was a blank stare, as if she was simply noting that Twilight did what she did, before she went on with her own meal.
It was unusually quiet, but Twilight still enjoyed it more than the silence before. She prepared the guest bed upstairs really quick after that and also packed the toys away. As night fell and they both seated themselves on their respective beds, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but sigh, leaning back on hers.
“You’re overdoing it,” Twilight simply said.
“Am I? Before I got a house on my own I started working the rainbow factory. A simple enough job, I was one of the ponies responsible for the colors being in the right order. Really simple but also real hard. There’s a difference between the rainbow that comes out and a rainbow in the works. These things are hard to stir, thick with a magic that binds the colors in their physical form. You’ve got that and the fact that you need to let the rainbows in the sunlight for the whole procedure. Which means I had practically one of the worst jobs when summer reached its high point.
“I hadn’t had much of a problem with it, though. Everyday I could just fly home, short before it got dark. My arms were sore, my legs stiff. I was really happy to have wings back in those days. Anyway, I’d get home and often just fall into bed. It always felt like the most comfortable thing in my entire life. I mean, sure, my dad didn’t like me snoring from 9PM to 6AM, but to me, those were the days.”
Twilight looked at her friend. “Well, it must’ve been hell for your father,” she joked.
Rainbow Dash giggled, “Heh, he was really glad when I left home for good.” Then came a pause, before the pegasus asked: “What did your family think about you leaving?”
“Me? Everypony in my family seems to be ultra-responsible actually, so there wasn’t much worrying there, only pride. My parents were only proud of our achievements and I don’t really remember that many bad things about them,” Because I spent more times with my books back then.
There was another short pause, before Twilight continued. “They never really bothered when I was sent to Ponyville. Maybe there was a sense of duty there, that I was sent by Princess Celestia herself, but they didn’t seem like they were particularly, well, invested in it. They were proud, but not really glad or sad that I left.”
“Well,” Rainbow Dash said, “you’re a good one, so they were probably just not showing you their sadness. What’s better than parents being proud of a pony?”
“I don’t know, sometimes I wonder how is it to have your parents not always be proud of you.”
Rainbow Dash made an effort to sit up and look Twilight in the eyes, “Why?”
“Again, I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of stuff to deal with and . . . Don’t get me wrong, they were always supportive of me, but also distant. Like their pride was the only thing I could ever achieve. They loved me, sure, but Canterlot is one big dance, with everypony wearing a mask and trying to look as good as possible to everypony else. There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t wanted to be seen and one of those things is ponies lacking restraint. When I was first trying to figure myself out I thought that maybe that’s why I got into reading in the first place. There was a place without the rules, where I could be as free as I wanted. Somehow that ended up as the thing that got me the most attention and so I tried keeping it that way. I tried that and I tried being the best at everything.
“I always thought that if I did everything neatly, my life was good. I wasn’t going to be lazy, tardy or anything like that. I was going to be the prim and proper pony. A shining example of what a mare could be. Chances are I didn’t even start with books, my parents always said that when I was a foal mealtime was much more relaxed than with my brother and I outgrew diapers much earlier than him. They said I embraced every bit of growing up.”
Then came the long pause. What am I doing.?
“I might regret that now,” she finally said and looked at Rainbow Dash. She didn’t know how the other pony might react to that last sentence.
“You are?” The question was formulated seemingly with only curiosity in mind.
“Everything I do, I need to do perfect. Waking up, brushing my teeth, opening the door, walking, speaking, sitting down, eating. Everything. I find new things I can do better everyday, because once I thought that’s what grown-ups do. Maybe, I mean. I actually tried to fight it, go back to the easier days, playing with toys, even getting fed. I try to immerse myself but it’s hard to me, because . . . I never had those days. I always was the sort of pony who read books, who tried to be bigger than herself, better even. If I take that away, what remains of me?”
Rainbow Dash looked at her. Rarity had looked at her queerly, Twilight remembered, when she had first mentioned what she wanted to do, Spike had told her that they were tired, that she needn’t go through with it. Rainbow Dash will think it a joke, she will laugh.
“Don’t you have the wrong approach?”
“What now?”
“You’re trying to be something you never were, but you’re doing it because you think it’s ‘childish’ or something like that?”
Twilight looked at the ceiling and answered after a few seconds: “I guess.”
“You spend your entire childhood with books?”
“Yes,” Twilight answered immediately.
“And before you could read?”
“I don’t remember that. I was really young, then,” Twilight answered.
“There’s your answer then. If you let go of the books, of the perfectionism, of the trying to get better-thingy.”
The lavender unicorn stared at her friend then, not quite knowing what to say, what to answer. “What are you getting at,” she asked.
“A long time ago a friend had a business they wanted to quit, because they got some, let’s say interesting orders. I told her to not worry about it, as far as weirdness goes, everypony’s got their own. I mean, I was friends with a griffons and they aren’t really known for liking ponies.”
“Weirdness,” was all Twilight could say.
“You’re trying to fix perfectionism with regression, from what I can gather, I mean, getting fed sounds much like regression. That sounds really specific to me.”
There came the pause.
“Kinda like an adult foal.”
Twilight had never heard that one before and thought of letting go. “I guess,” she answered, “but, still. I don’t know how that helps me. I mean, I’ve been trying.”
“Maybe you’ve been trying wrong. For example: If you want a loss of control, you need somepony to take care of you.”
“Well,” she said, “me and Spike kinda changed roles for a day.”
“And that didn’t work, right?” Rainbow Dash seemed to crack a smile as Twilight nodded in agreement. Right now, they could be honest with each other.
“A month before my trip to fly camp, where I met Fluttershy, I fell sick for a week. Like, I was bed bound for the whole time. Around that time I already was friends with Gilda, though and I tried to play up my toughness around everypony, even my dad. So, for this whole week I was suddenly completely dependant on him. I forgot what it was I had, but I could only eat soup because I was so weak and even going to the bathroom had become a pretty much impossible task. I wet the bed once when I slept and once while I was awake and my father immediately decided to get me some, let’s call them utensils, to help me through the week.
“Him being a busy pony, me being a rebellious daughter we weren’t really close at that time. He’d always do things on his own and I’d only see him before work, when he was getting ready to do his thing, and after, when he was too exhausted to even think about me. So, suddenly things got really intimate and the first two days were horrible for either of us. Changing diapers wasn’t really what he had expected to do again and I didn’t feel too wonderful about the thought of being a ‘baby’ again. However, by the third day I found myself happy when he’d come back from work and immediately looked after me, made sure I was alright, asked me how my day was. At that time I tried to be a full-grown pony, all independent and strong but when it came down to it, it was the affection my father gave me for a week that might’ve helped me more to become the pony I am today.”
Twilight took the story in, looked around her room while it was spoken. It was a plain room, yet comfortable, familiar. A good room. She thought about when she was sick and how her mother would gently hover over her and tell her that everything would be fine. She remembered Cadance coming over despite her parents that ‘Twilight was already asleep in her bed’, not even asking to be payed, just so she could watch over the filly.
She remembered how Celestia would tell bedtime stories to her and Spike, all from her own head, telling them the ‘real histories’ of Equestria. Then she looked at Rainbow Dash again. “So you mean...”
“I mean that you should probably find a party that’d be willing to take care of you when you try your regression thingy.”
The unicorn let that sink in for a moment, before she asked: “Why are you telling me all this?”
“As far as weirdness goes, everypony’s got their own. And me? I’m just a loyal friend who can’t stand the ponies she likes falling to some psychosis.”