//------------------------------//
// Excerpt VII 
// Story: Seashell 
// by Winston 
//------------------------------//


Seashell
VII








From the journal of Sunburst, August 7, 1329 YS:






Despite my tendencies for preferring to be alone, sometimes I think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a daughter some day.

Not that I think it'll ever happen, of course, if I look at it realistically. There's two ways to get a foal: get a suitable partner with the appropriate parts that compliment your own to help make one, or adopt one.

I don't see myself going through the process of making one. I hear the first step is pretty fun but then it tends to be unpleasant for a while after that. I've never heard particularly good things about pregnancy and childbirth as life experiences to go through. Besides, stallions don't really catch my eye, if I'm honest with myself about it (although neither do mares, most of the time), so I'm not sure if even that first part is much incentive.

As far as adopting, would they ever give approval to a single mare already in the army who'll probably be moving from posting to posting every couple years or so and maybe going out on special duty assignments in-between those? Yeah, good luck.

So it's not a serious thought. It's just an idle fantasy, one of the many that I'm sure goes through the head of everypony at some point.

I guess what brings this one up is the youngest resident of the palace.

Princess Twilight's student is smart as a whip and cute as a button, and it's so adorable sometimes to see such a tiny filly levitating an old book as big as herself out of the library. Most unicorns her age aren't in the habit of using magic very much yet and a lot of them barely even know how to make their horns glow, but she's doing stuff that could put many adults to shame. I suppose that kind of rare talent is why you get to become the personal student of a princess.

She got her cutie mark a little while back, I suppose I should mention. It's a purple crystal with several stars representing magic surrounding it. Apparently she was able to not only find and magically produce the right harmonic frequency to make a sample of amethyst shatter explosively, but then she was also able to gather all the shards and put it back together again into one solid piece, as good as new.

Impressive as that is, though, she's still just a little kid. Her innocence makes her all the more adorable.

And don't you know, kids say the darndest things.

Early in the midnight shift a night ago I found her wandering in one of the hallways in the dark. She seemed nervous and scared, looking around and moving from shadow to shadow, ducking and cowering behind the suits of armor lining that particular hall. I was a bit concerned to see her that way, and especially to see her out alone at night.

"Azure?" I called out to her. She started at my voice, though I was trying to talk softly. "Are you alright? What are you doing out of your room at this kind of hour?"

She froze and stared at me with wide eyes while I walked up to her.

"I... I... Just..." She mumbled and looked down at the floor worriedly. "... Sorry."

"No, it's alright. You're not in trouble," I said. "I just need to know if anything is the matter."

"I wanted to see Princess Twilight," she said shyly. "I was scared. I had a nightmare."

"Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure the princess is asleep right now," I said. "I think you'll have to wait until the morning to talk to her."

"I know. I just wanted to sleep in her room," Azure said. "It's always safe in there, with her."

"Hey, the whole palace is safe," I smiled and tried to reassure her. "Me and the other guards are here to make sure of that. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. C'mon, I'll give you a ride back to your room." I knelt down in front of her.

"Okay," she climbed up onto my back. She was laying flat on her belly, with her forelegs hooked around the bases of my wings. I was a little surprised, she's even lighter than she looks. I stood back up and started walking back toward her room.

As I was walking, I felt one of her forehooves stroke one of my wings hesitantly. Pegasi don't usually like having their wings messed with, but I didn't say anything. I kind of understood. It's easy to be curious about the things other ponies have that you don't. I've always wondered myself just how a unicorn's horn works and what it's like to have one.

She must have ruffled one of the feathers a little. It didn't feel exactly right. I'd have to preen it later, but for now I just stretched my wing a bit and gave it a quick shake to see if it would move back into place. I kinda had a feeling it wouldn't, though. It fell, instead, slowly drifting its way down through the air and onto the ground. Even in the dim moonlight the yellow feather contrasted with the deep red tone of the carpet lining the hallway floor.

Azure gasped a little. "I'm sorry, ohmygosh I didn't mean to..." She worried.

"It's fine, you didn't do anything," I said. "If it was that loose, it was ready to drop on its own anyway. That happens, don't worry about it. They grow back in no time."

"Oh," she sounded relieved.

"Could you do me a favor, though?" I asked.

"Sure," she said.

"Could you pick that up for me? I can't just go around leaving moltings lying all over the palace, you know," I said. "If all the pegasi did that, pretty soon the place would look like we'd had the mother of all pillowfights in here."

She laughed. A faint aura of sky-blue magic surrounded the feather and it floated up into the air. Azure carried it with us while we walked.

A minute later, we were back at her room. I carried her inside and let her down off my back. The room was pretty clean and organized, except maybe for the stacks of books. They randomly rose in haphazardly constructed little towers, mostly clustered around the bed against the middle of the far wall of the room.

"So... I guess you read a lot," I commented.

"Yep!" She nodded vigorously. "It's my favorite thing."

"I like reading too," I agreed. "It's a lot of fun. Good for your brain."

"Yeah," she said. "Only... Well, Princess Twilight says I should never stop reading to learn more but she also said I have to remember that books can't teach me everything. I think she's right. Sometimes there's things I can't find in books."

"No. I guess not," I said. "Like flying. I read about flying before I could fly, but I didn't actually know what it was like until I learned how and I did it myself."

"And magic!" she said. "There's lots of books that tell you how to do magic, but you don't know how it really feels until you can do it with your own horn. Then you know what the books are talking about when they say you'll feel a certain thing when you do a certain spell."

"Exactly," I nodded. "Experience is very important."

"But there's some things..." she said hesitantly. "Some things are just confusing. You're a grown-up and grown-ups know a lot of things sometimes because they have more experience, right? Maybe you can help. Can I ask you about one?"

"Uh..." I was hesitant, but I couldn't see much harm. "I guess so. Shoot."

She looked up at me expectantly with her big pale purple eyes and a little smile. Her face was so innocent.

"What's a fillyfooler?" she asked.

Ooooooh boy. There it was.

I just about choked. A little feeling of panic hit me inside. I thought she'd just ask me to take her on a flight so she could know what it was like to be a pegasus, or something like that. Not this. I was sorely tempted to pawn off the standard cop-out answer of 'you'll understand when you're older'.

"Er... Well, it, uh... Ermmm..." I fumbled around for a second or two without really saying anything.

I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. On one side, I was a kid once and I also asked questions like these. I usually asked my father because he was always straight with me about the things I asked and I always appreciated that. I respected the honesty a lot more than being told to just wait until some undefinable 'when you're older', and it's not like having my curiosity answered ever hurt me. But on the other side, Azure wasn't my filly. How much should I say? Did I really have any right? Would saying anything be unwanted interference?

There was sort of a realization, though, in a moment of clarity that came over me. I knew that now that the question was out there, I was answering it one way or another no matter what I said or didn't say. The only choice I had was in how.

Sure, I could get all awkward and give her the wait 'til you're older excuse, but that would tell her that fillyfoolers were an awkward and embarrassing thing that ponies don't want to talk about - that they're abnormal, they're that thing we sweep under the rug. Did I want to set her up with carrying that stigma about them? Not really. That would be a disservice to her and to a lot of other ponies, seeing how she'd probably be in a position of leadership and government some day. And what if she grew up to find out that she had those feelings herself? Her sense of self-worth might not do so well in the face of that.

I guess my dad had the right idea and I appreciate his understanding even more now. I was just going to have to hope this didn't blow up in my face, because there was only one thing to do.

"Well... A fillyfooler is another word for a lesbian," I explained. "Have you ever heard of that?"

"I... Think so? Maybe?" she still seemed lost. "But I don't know what that means either."

"Alright," I sighed. "You know how ponies sometimes fall in love with each other in a 'special somepony' kind of way, right? Like when a mother and a father pony decide to... You know, have a foal?"

"Sure!" she said. "I learned about that. They use sex to fertilize an egg cell inside the mother pony. The stallion uses his--"

"Aahhemm!" I cleared my throat, loudly, interrupting her. "Right. I think you've got that idea down. So, a lesbian... A fillyfooler... Is a mare who's attracted that way to other mares, instead of to stallions."

"Oh!" I could practically see her eyes light up in comprehension. "So that's it? That's not such a big deal. I guess I already kinda know ponies like that. One of the other fillies I know has two moms instead of a mom and a dad."

"Right," I nodded. "It's just the way some ponies are, that's all."

"And..." she hesitated. "And that's okay, isn't it?"

"Sure," I nodded. "Of course it is. There's some ponies who get uncomfortable talking about it sometimes, so it can be difficult. But there's nothing wrong with it."

"So then why can't a princess be one?" she asked.

"Uh..." I was a bit stumped. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Captain Dash said so," she told me. "She was talking to Princess Twilight. I heard her. They were alone together. Captain Dash said, " - at this point she did a cute and childlike but respectable imitation of Captain Dash's scratchy voice - "'I think we both know there's some things we can't have. A fillyfooler princess would never be accepted. It'll always just be too much of a controversy and just get in the way of everything'." She returned to her normal voice. "And after the captain said that, the princess sounded kind of sad but she said she thought so too." She looked up at me. "But why would it be like that, though? If it's okay to be one?" 

My jaw almost dropped to the floor. I was stunned, I couldn't say anything for a few seconds.

"Hey... Uh... Look..." I finally managed. "This really, really sounds like it's turning into personal business. I think it's something you and the princess are going to have to talk about some time, later, maybe, when she's ready. Sorry, Azure. I just... Really don't have any answers for that one."

"Oh. Alright," she shrugged.

I stood there in uncomfortable silence for a moment while she furrowed her eyebrows in thought.

"Hey, I just thought of something," she finally said. "So if sex needs a stallion and a mare to work, then how can two mares work together? I mean, how could they have sex together and where would they get the sperm cells anyway?"

I realized we were at the point where I really needed to draw a line. Explaining the ways lesbians make love, and how they might go about obtaining sperm to get pregnant, were things way out there on the wrong side of that line for her age and for my position as a guard.

"Well, there's answers to those questions, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to be telling you those particular things yet," I explained to her. "You'll be taught that when you get older, at the right time. Okay?"

"Okay," she sounded disappointed, but she nodded.

"Right now, though, it's way past your bedtime, I'm pretty sure," I said. "You should get some sleep. You're gonna need it to keep up with school and with Princess Twilight's lessons, right?"

"Not really," she giggled a bit. "Tomorrow's Saturday. There's no classes."

Right. Of course it had to be. I bet I looked really smart.

"Regardless," I shook my head. "You need your rest, and I need to get back out there and keep guarding. How about it?"

"Alright," she finally cooperated and climbed into bed.

I pulled up the blankets and tucked her in after she laid down. "Goodnight, Azure," I said.

"Goodnight Sunburst," she yawned.

I exited and closed the door to her room and went back to my watch, until I was relieved by the morning shift.

I'm still reeling from the information the kid just dropped on me. I'm nervous about even writing it down. Maybe this is another one of those things I should just... Forget.



But I don't think I'm going to be able to, not today.