The day after Lex's party at her house, and after a pretty normal day in Kindergarten, Twilight walked back home, where her father was waiting for at the lunch table.
As Twilight sat on a padded red chair and Sedula brought the first course on the table, Night Light asked.
"So, Twilight, my dear, how did the party go? And your day?"
Twilight lend the dish towards Sedula, whom filled it with cream and peas maltagliati.
"Really well, I have to say that," Twilight said "I actually had a lot of fun in staying around those foals."
Night Light winced.
"Really? Aehm..."
"Yes, I know, I should not appreciate the same things they like, nor I should let my mind be shaped by their behavior, and
I am aware that it may make look my efforts in the last days to resist Velvet pointless" Night Light's daughter said, as she slowly ate her food "however, for some reasons... I feel it's different, if they are involved. Maybe it's because, since they don't know better, you have to like that if you want them to be your friends, or maybe it's because they adore me and I want to make them happy by begin near them." Then Twilight added with a giggle "Also, their cheerfulness and view of the world warm my heart with cuteness."
Night Light stared in shock.
Twilight, with a bit of worry in her heart, started to shake her hoof in her father's face.
"Father?
There was no answer for few seconds. Then he reacted, by strongly shaking his head, and saying, disbelief in his voice.
"You are telling me that you are starting to like to be in-between foals? And act like them?"
Twilight shrugged her shoulders, as she finished her food.
"Well, yes... while adult companionship is surely better, I am starting to don't mind the idea of going down the latter and enjoy theirs."
Night Light looked around him, a look of utter disbelief and worry on his old face.
"Excuse me," he said, as he hurried out of the room "I think I've heard one of my secretaries call me from the garden."
Sedula Serva, without even batting an eye, looked at her master's confused daughter.
"Shall I bring the salad for you, miss Twilight?" Sedula asked, while on the kitchen's door.
"Yes, thank you very much." Twilight said dryly, as her mind chastised itself for what happened.
"Should have see that coming, since he kicked out his wife for this. Then, again, I am not forcing anything on anypony... but still..."
Ten minutes later, when Twilight's father calmed down he returned in the dining room an empty look on his face.
"I am calm now, yes, I am," he said, as he breathed heavily and went back to his seat. "Sedula, proceed with the salad."
"Right away sir!" Sedula said from the kitchen, as she add more vegetables to the mixture.
As soon as Twilight got out of her thoughtd for concentrate on he father, she remembered a peculiar event that happened during the party.
"Also..."
The purple pony quickly realized the mistake she was going to do, by mentioning Orvosti Ostoba's masturbation dare at the party, and quickly siad.
"Actually, nevermind."
Her father said nothing, and just eat the salad silently, just like her tense daughter. The tension dissipated only when Night Light rose from the seat, and walked away outside towards his notarial studio.
Left alone in the house with Sedula, Twilight idly walked towards the family library, and started to look for a book to read.
"So, what what do we have here," she said, while she looked at the finely-engraved pinewood shelve containing the newer paperback books, near the door of the library.
"Joe Landsdeal Apple antology..." She murmured to herself, while looking at the picture on the otherwise-red cover, representing a pack of cigarettes with arrow bolts contained in it
"Not now." Twilight said, putting it back into place, and taking out a small green book with a grey gear in low relief on the cover.
"Why Ming's 'Theory of the Democracy'... not in mood for politics right now." She said, quickly putting it back, before extracting a yellow book with a street light covered in blood as cover.
"Camomilleri's 'The Web of the Whore Spider'... do I have really to think about it?" She said, hastily putting it back.
Then Twilight looked at the rest of the shelve, only to see the latest medical and geographical atlas. Since she was not interested in them for now, she moved on to the next shelve, divided from the first by a small stone column. Also, those shelves had even finer carvings of blooming trees and flowers, and a bronze bust of Twilight's maternal grandfather stood proudly in a niche between the books.
Twilight, after giving a quick look to the bust, went back to book-browsing. She took a book with a gray cover ruined to the point that it barely kept the book in and had its author's name scraped off, thus forcing Twilight to open the book delicatley and read a bit of thr yellowed pages, before judging whether read it or not.
"Hemi Wingway's 'Farewell to Flight Shows.'" Twilight read in the preface.
"Not very interesting," Twilight said to herself "but I should show this to Rainbow Dash someday, since it contains the history of the Wonderbolts. Who knows if that would be useful for her one day..."
Then the purple pony put the book back.
Scanning between the encyclopedias, Twilight passed in front of the bronze bust, and looked at thr reading possibilities kept around it. As she looked around, she saw that there was something looking like a file or a Bignami-like, hidden under the base of the bust.
Noticing that, Twilight stopped her browsing for books.
"Uhu?" Twilight murmured, while reclining her head "why there is a folder here? That is curious, very curious."
"A folder for notary deeds?" Twilight told to herself "no, that can't be right. It's something else... but what? And am I really authorized to look inside? I think I should..."
The other part of Twilight said annoyed.
"For Celestia's sake, you are fully grown up now, you can look in it if you want to!"
The purple pony liked those encouraging words from her other part.
"I guess that see what is there by myself won't hurt me." Twilight said, as she slowly levitated in the air the bust, before carefully setting it on the floor, and taking the mysterious folder in her magical grip.
The folder had been light green once, but now it was full of wet spots all over and a rectangular dirt stain on the place where the bust's base was. The red string that once kept the folder closed had rot on the extremities, leaving it hanging loose, and the stamp of House Velvet was fading into a red ink smear.
"This folder... it looks really ancient," she said, opening the folder slowly like a chest full of relics, revealing the contenent inside...
Crude drawings on yellowed paper and slightly faded photos.
Twilight looked at the contents in disbelief. She would have dropped it, but she kept the grip in fear of destroying it accidentally.
"W-what?" Twilight stuttered "o-old drawings? A-and photos?"
After putting the folder on the poplar desk carefully, Twilight took one of the drawings and brought it to eye level.
It represented a stick unicorn purple pony, clearly recognizable as a filly thanks to the size, frowning while four black and dark green ponies armed with syringes and knives surrounded her.
The sight of made Twilight frown, and wince at the small flashbacks of fear and pain.
The sight of made Twilight frown, and wince at the small flashbacks of fear and pain felt during that operation she had, at three years of age, for remove three big moles on her back, moles that menaced to turn into cancers very soon.
Not that she knew anything about it, at the time: all she knew, was that she was forced to skip breakfast, dragged into hospital, brought in the Operating Room, received an injection, got her three moles cut off very painfully, and left for two days on a bed of hte hospital, still not knowing why all of that happened.
She had been a traumatized by that incident, and the family legend said that she had stopped worrying about going back to hospital to repeat the experience only when she got her hooves on a medicine atlas five years later.
Twilight hastily put it back in the folder for stop looking at it, and extracted a photo instead.
It was a faded photo that also had a coffee stain in the corner, but it was in good enough condition for tell what the subject was.
Namely, it was a photo of Twilight sitting on the back of a bronze statue of a horse pharaoh at the entrance of a museum in Brilein. Twilight smiled at the picture of her younger self riding the statue.
However, when the purple pony tried to recall more precise memories of that time and when that happened, her mind went blank.
"Brilein... when I did went there as a little filly? I remember the time I went there alone for my Middle School Graduation..." Twilight concentrated, but she still did not remember anything about that time.
"Come on... Why I can't remember anything about the trip? My father always tells me that it was the first time I've started to read consistently and show my passion for books, I should remember some of it somehow."
Twilight, dismissing it as just a lapse of memory, put an hoof under her chin, as she browsed with magic the drawings and photos contained in the worn-down folder.
After a photo of a tiny gravestone, there was a crayon creation on old rice paper depicting a colorful classroom, with the words "First day of School!" dominating the higher part of the piece of paper. Behind this, there was a decent-looking pencil drawing of bat-winged, bull-horned or plainly beastly-looking ponies beating up a purple unicorn pony. Finally, behind this drawing, there was a photography of a metal shutter covered in graffitis, with the loosely-hanging cartel above the shutter stating "Orologiaio Lucchese&Sons" and a big piece of paper taped on the shutter stating "Closed for Investigations" and the gendarmerie's seal underneath.
Twilight could remember very well the events attached to the gravestone and the demonic ponies, the death of her pet dog Helios and some bullies attacking her shortly after entering in Celestia's School respectively. However, the other photo and artistic creation had vague memoirs around them.
"I can recall Helios, its death by poisoning, and the grief that strickened me shortly after as if it happened yesterday. I also remember perfectly those bullies, their names and families and the vexations suffed by their hoof," Twilight murmured to herself softly, as if she was reading an ancient book deep in the Royal Archives "but... this two events depicted here? The drawing has an obvious meaning and backstory, but it somehow it does not bring anything back to memory, despite begin mine. The photo... is cryptic, I recall this was owned by the father of one of my aggressors, but, aside from that, I remember nothing of it, nor why I took a picture of this."
At this point, Twilight exclaimed to herself, realizing something.
"I can recall only negative things from my past... from my Dark Ages... and yet I have the evidence of the contrary, but it's seemingly not backed by my mind. Maybe that's why I have called them Dark Ages, not too many years ago?"
Twilight looked at the ceiling, thoughtful.
"But what if that time of my life was not complete pain and suffering, and was actually pleasurable or, Tartarus, even joyful? Should I start to reconsider, to look for all the fragments of the times gone by, forgotten by me but not the ones that were at my side? And, if those won't be sufficent for me to have a clear and truthful picture of my past, or if he end results shows it was truly as bleak as I remember now, should I..."
Twilight gasped at the idea she had just formulated in her mind.
"Live it again with Lex and all your classmates?"
Twilight shook her head violently, as if she was attacked by a rabid, nose-biting squirrel.
"No, no, no! Don't fall back!"
But the idea, the suggestion, still remained in her mind. Twilight lightly hit her head on one of the columns of the library a couple of times. But the crazy idea was still there.
The purple pony painfully bit her lip, until a bit of blood was drawn.
It worked: the idea withered away, as the pain on the tongue distracted her.
With a sigh and a small spit of blood on one of the couches, Twilight collapsed on the floor, and whispered to herself.
"That was very close."
That begin said, Twilight got up, and put the bronze bust back into place. As she did that, she reconsidered her previosu reaction.
"That idea por se may not be completely wrong, thought. I should start a little research about what happened in-between my birth and my first period, and see if I should look to my personal past as. I look it now or not."
Twilight took a book with a simple white cover, the title written in black characters in a very baroque typeface. The book's name was "The Gothic War, by Porcus: Story of a Glaring Defeat."
"But now let's relax with a nice reading." Twilight said, as she went in the living room with the book in her mouth, sat down on the one of the sofas, and read until sunset.
And the Sun was slipped from beyond the mountains.
Twilight was, once again, in the Kindergarten's class with all her little friends. Now, after the "Learning Time" about years and how to form dates, they were sitting in a circle, deciding what to play now. Since Twilight had no definite idea, she let her companions decide for her, and listened in the meanwhile to the various proposals.
"Shaww we pway doctah?" Bright Light suggested, while bringing on a doctor playset. Pearly Handle looked away wincing, and said, while bringing on a kitchen playset, complete of plastic reproductions of foods and silverware.
"No, no and no! Kitchen is!"
Lex Populi brought on a book, five pieces of paper, and five crayons, and said.
"Wat I am wistening to? Shoow iz beetah!"
Then Orvosti Ostoba exclaimed.
"How 'bout... man-stuwbation?"
A chill passed down Twilight's spine.
"Did he... no, there must be a misunderstanding here." She thought, worried.
Twilight, wearing a large grin that tired to pass up as smile, looked at Orvosti, and asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
"Masturbation? What is that about?"
"Yeah, wat is tat?" Bright Light and Pearly Handle asked at the same time.
With a voice that expressed excitement, lack of concern and non-understanding of the possibily horrible implications of what he was saying, the red colt with blue mane said.
"Wike tis: it is game pwayed by toucing and twying pushing in vajina while having wet diapee. Goaw is push until you feew funny. Can be pwayed awone ow in two."
When those words were spoken by Orvosti Ostoba, suddenly Twilight felt the class, the time and all matter stop still in that second. Her mind was warping unto itself, in the attempt to give an explanation to what Orvosti said. She flet htat her soul got tainted by simply hearing such a thing.
"Yes, he mentioned this as euphemism during the party but... he didn't know what was that. He got fooled easily. However, now he knows, he knows..." Twilight thought, unable to think to a response to that "yes, basic sexual instincts are natural in foals, but this... this notion has been obviously been taught to him."
A little poke on her flank brought Twilight to reality. Looking at the source of the poke, she saw Lex wearing a frown on her face.
"You awwrigh, Tiligh?"
Twilight took two deep breaths, before answering.
"Yes, I'm fine... but Orvosti upset me a little."
Lex looked sideways at her "big friend" and honorary sister.
"Why?"
Twilight lowered her ears, sighed, and said.
"Because the game described by him is..." Twilight tired to find the words for explain to Lex without either begin too obscure, or causing her to become curious of the whole thing before the time.
After few seconds of thoughtful and tense silence, Twilight kept going "a very, very 'grown up game' that fillies should not play."
Lex, like the curious little monkey filly she was, asked, once again "Why?"
"Because it is something you should play alone. Also, it is something that you and him were not supposed to know in the first place." Twilight said, her explanation for why Lex was not supposed to know clearly incomplete.
For an adult, at least, because Lex instantaneity lowered her ears and looked at the ground.
"I am in twoubwe?" She asked with an adorably contrite voice.
Twilight smiled, happy that she did not have Lex's "sped-up forbidden knowledge" on her conscience, but still worried about Orvosti's status.
"As long you don't do it, you are not in trouble, my dear Lexy."
When Twilight looked at the circle again, she saw Pearly Handle wearing a face that was between the disgusted and the shocked, and the two colts arguing.
"I touc Pewly!" Shouted Orvosti.
"No, she not want!" Said Bright Light, pressing his green muzzle against Orvosti's red one.
"No, I touc!"
"No! No touc!"
At this point, Orvosti had a magic surge that briefly levitated Bright light in the air, before slamming on the floor in a relatively violent way.
Bright Light, begin a little colt, started to tear up, before erupting in a little cry of both pain and frustration, while Orvosti walked towards a frozen Pearly Handle, and Lex flailed around in the attempt to call either Lux or Nutriz.
Twilight, at this point decided that it was time to intervene. Looking behind her, the purple pony saw Lux Foal coming in her direction, a stern look already on her face. Twilight quickly decided to keep Orvosti in the spot he was currently in with her magic, hopefully avoiding more unwanted chaos.
The little colt, seeing his hooves blocked, tried to free himself by moving around his hooves, until the teacher arrived, at which point he froze in fear, and Twilight dropped the grip on his legs.
"What happened here?" Lux asked.
Bright Light, seeing that help had arrived, rose his head, turned to the teacher and, while sobbing, he said.
"Tere was Owosti trying to man-stuwbate Peawly, but she no wanted."
Lux winced a bit, then glared at Orvosti.
"What do have to say about that, Orvosti?"
The red colt flailed around furiously, as he spurted.
"Wies! She wanted, she asked wat was man-stuwbation, and I was showing."
Lux raised an eyebrow, before turning to Pearly.
"Pearly, is that true?"
"No!" She shouted.
Lux quickly returned her eyes on Orvosti and, after glaring at him, she picked him up with her magic, and said, slight fury in her voice.
"That was, really, really rude and naughty, Orvosti. Off to the Time-out corner and a spanking!"
Then she brougth the squealing and struggling colt outside the class into the smaller and darker room that Twilight dubbed "The Pain Room."
Once Lux and Orvosti were out of sight, Twilight sighed of relief.
"Hopefully that will teach him a lesson for now and the future," she siad to herself, as hse watched a blushing and red-eyed Bright Light getting hugged by Pearly Handle "but now let's move on."
"Yeah," Lex said, as she brought some blocks to play with "wet us go on."
Few minutes after, everybody involved had already forgot about the incident.
Everybody, except Twilight.
As she played school with her classmates, the mare could not help, but wander on about what happened before.
"How he does know that? Again, he could have figured that out all one. Somebody has to have taught him how to, or..." Twilight shuddered at the very thought of the assumption, before realizing something "but he said that mansturbation required a wet diaper to be done. Either his mother needs to wear them for medical reasons, or he isn't a tainted lily and I am just making unfair assumptions about his family."
As she said that, she glanced on her right. There, she saw Orvosti, now wearing a black diaper under his standard-issue smock, talking with a dark purple filly, her name Mazamara. From what Twilight could tell, the filly was listening interested to the colt.
Curious about what was going on, Twilight slowly moved herself towards the two (and thus begin followed by her "students) so to eversordrop the conversation.
"Ah, I see, big fiwwies do tis" Mazamara said, while keeping a hoof under her chin "show me, pwetty pwease?"
Orvosti nodded eagerly.
"Suwe! Fiwst, did you wet youw diapee?"
The filly touched the front of her diaper, which produced a telltale squishing sound. At this point, Twilight was alarmed, and wanted to look away, but could not.
"Yep, wat now?" Said the purple filly.
"Now, want me to man-stuwbate you, or want awone?"
"Man-stuwbate me."
Then Orvosti approached Mazamara, and started to touch the front part of her diaper.
Like Julienne Caesar when he was murdered by his son Violent, Twilight put the smock over her eyes, and looked away.
"Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, what is happening? What happened? O Tempora, O Mores!"