Author's Note

CONTENT NOTE: considering the title and tags, the kids here remain remarkably unviolated. Still, two incidents of historic sexual contact with foals will be referred to in non-explicit terms. Aside from that, no one younger than the CMC (as of a few years after the end of the show, even) has any sexual contact. Many, many hypotheticals of such situations are raised.

CANON NOTE: for purposes of this story, EQG didn't happen, and the only comic books that happened are: the 4 movie prequels, The Return of Tempest Shadow, and Legends of Magic. No episode after She's All Yak (S9E7) was taken into account when writing. ALSO, Marks and Recreation (S7E21) didn't happen because I wanted Rumble to be the same age as the CMC, and he's younger in that episode, and Episode 100 didn't happen (though Cranky and Matilda did marry, there is no SMILE and Octavia is not Vinyl's roommate and Derpy doesn't hang out with the Doctor quite like that).The Pink Celestia toy and the Princess Skyla toy are IN, though as ancient history.

Twilight's Question

"Thanks so much, Twilight. I…" Cadence glanced at her husband "… can't say how much it means that you're willing to do this. She's just had such questions, and I think you're just the mare to help her. She doesn't take any deflections, and Shining and I can't answer some of them."

"I'm glad to help! After all, I could use some family time, not just work with the school, during my turn off from running Equestria! The rotation keeps it manageable, but… well. You know. Or maybe you don't, as you're on full time for the Empire." Twilight looked over to where Flurry Heart was crawling around Shining Armor's body like an overgrown insect, sometimes pulling herself up by his scarf, sometimes diving off of him to chase after the occasional snowflake.

Very serious, almost grave, Cadence quietly warned her, "If you can't help her, I'm not sure what can be done."

Incredulous, Twilight asked, "What kinds of questions ARE these?"

"If she doesn't ask you, I don't want to put you through the stress." Twilight frowned, now even more confused. Cadence continued, "But it might not come up." A sigh. "She can come back in a week, but if she wants to stay longer… well, that's up to you, but for our part, she has our permission to stay for your other week off too, if she needs it."

After a round of good-byes, Twilight accepted custody of Flurry Heart and they left the train station.

Twilight looked "Sooo… any questions?"

Flurry perked up, "Can we go to Suckerboob Corner?"

Twilight facehoofed. "Not now, and don't call it that where anypony else can hear. It was fine when you were a toddler, but you're half way from there to cutie mark age."

"Oh, so we won't be going to Arousal Booty either?"

"Not by that na…" Rainbow Dash cut her off by swooping down and greeting Flurry energetically. As they were engaged in high-speed pat-a-cake, Twilight got a chance to think. What could these questions that have been throwing Cadence off be? She's a pretty knowledgeable pony.

And for the next five days, Twilight and her friends, and sometimes her students, answered hundreds of questions about astronomy, botany, chemistry, dentistry, etymology, farming, gerontology, hippogriff history, iron-working, justice, yaks, and zebras. Twilight almost began to doubt that there was a specific question that Cadence had been concerned with at all.

That sixth day dawned to a deep blanket of snow, with more falling. Twilight declared a snow day. She and the students and Flurry Heart and Spike played in the drifts. Flurry knew all the best snow games, and how to make an igloo, so she was a center of attention. When they began to get cold, Twilight called everyone in and they took hot showers and gathered wrapped in blankets around the fire to talk a bit about what they'd learned.

Afterwards, as they walked back to the castle, after Spike had gone ahead, Flurry came up alongside Twilight and quietly asked, "Why are privates private?"

"Excuse me?"

"I really like private parts. I saw some today. That was nice, but I'm not supposed to stare, and I want to. Why not?"

Oh. That kind of question. But Cadence is princess of love, and Flurry's mother as well. Why isn't she handling this? "Hmm. That's a very interesting question."

Flurry watched Twilight's intent face as she tried to formulate an answer, and, detecting a serious attempt, remained attentive.

"I think it's… well. How much do you know about where foals come from?"

"Meiosis produces sperm and egg. Sperm meets egg, they turn into zygote. Implants, becomes embryo. Differentiates, becomes fetus. Fetus exits the mother through the vagina, becomes foal."

"Yesss, that's all correct. Sounds like you've been asking about it already and been paying very close attention indeed to the answers. I couldn't have answered in that much detail when I was your age. So. The answer to your question this time lies in all the trouble that that second step causes." Twilight paused. "How are you doing on temperature?"

Flurry darkly replied, "I'm very, very warm."

"Good! Then we can stay outside in this nice sound-muffling snow and take a long walk while we talk this over, instead of being in the sound-carrying crystal castle with two other inquisitive residents."

This was not the line of reasoning that Flurry had been expecting, and she perked up.

"So. Conception. I'm going to have to admit here that I have no direct personal experience with this process."

Flurry nodded. "You don't have a foal."

"First thing is, it doesn't always make a foal. In fact, it usually doesn't. So you can't tell I haven't any experience with this just from my not having a foal."

Flurry nodded.

"Second, when you're little, it's a really bad idea to do it, even if you're not going to have a foal. And your body isn't telling you to do it, so for now, that works out."

Flurry nodded.

"Third thing is, even before it's a good idea to do it, it feels good to do it and things like it, and your body may tell you to do it. And that's the main problem, I think. I don't want a foal now. None of my friends do. We have plenty of time. But it would feel nice. So we usually keep kids in the dark so they don't do it earlier than they should. But that doesn't work well."

"What would feel nice? I've seen mommies about to have foals and they didn't seem to feel great."

"Ah. Right." Twilight swallowed. "Too many pronouns, not enough antecedents. The name for what I was talking about is sex."

"Like, I'm female?"

"That's your sex. Sex as a thing to do is… Well. Sex encompasses several things, but the main one is that act which causes conception. Do you know what that is?"

"The stallion moves the sperm from the testes out the urethra, and they make their way up past the cervix."

"Yeees, but do you know how he does that?"

Flurry shook her head.

Twilight couldn't quite say it. "Would you care to guess?"

"Get close and spray?"

"How close?"

"Hugging close?"

"I mean, how close to the cervix?"

Flurry blinked. "If you're asking like that, I guess really close. Like… up insi… oh. That explains a joke I couldn't get before."

"Normally right up next to but definitely not through the cervix. So, to do that, there's a process in your brain… well, maybe not yet for you, but in an older child or an adult's brain… that latches on to any evidence that you might be about to be able to have sex and gets your body ready and bumps you in the direction of feeling more like doing that."

Flurry suggested, "Like drooling over a meal?"

"Yes! A lot like that. A whole lot like that. Anyway, reason number one we keep our privates private is so we aren't always sending out signals to other ponies that we could be about to have sex, so they don't start 'drooling'."

Flurry laughed. "That sounds like a good reason. Like not eating in front of ponies who aren't eating."

Twilight nodded. "The funny thing is, different cultures have different kinds of these signals. For some creatures like yetis, walking around with no clothing is a strong signal. Like, you saw some privates today; among them, you wouldn't have even come close to seeing a single one outside the showers. Among us, the signal is if we stop making a reasonable effort to keep it at least somewhat private."

She took a deep breath and continued, "Second reason… I will guess that sex presently seems like a thing you don't want to do?"

Flurry thought for a moment. "I don't specifically want to do it outside of curiosity, and I definitely don't want a foal. I guess he'd wash before, right?"

"One can reasonably require that, yes…"

She watched a little whirlwind pick up some snow a few feet away. "Doesn't seem horrible, I guess. I'd like to try it, to see what it's like. No rush. If you say it's bad for me, I'll wait."

Odd. I found it repulsive at her age. It still… well, I haven't thought about it in a while, and it doesn't seem so bad at this moment, but last time I thought about it, it was still unappealing. "So. Reason two that we keep privates private is because when kids get old enough that their bodies begin to say that it wants to have sex, the body is not right, and it's actually still a bad idea to have sex. So, these kids will be kept a little further from doing it, by keeping them from knowing what's there, so they aren't so tuned in to the signals. I don't think this is a very good reason, because not knowing is a poor defense. Instincts can push you in the right direction anyway, so it doesn't help that much. And someone who does know - an older child or even a bad adult - can take advantage of their ignorance to get a younger child to do something they shouldn't."

Flurry Heart said, "Something they shouldn't, like… having a baby too early to be safe?"

"Well. It doesn't need to be that extreme to be bad. Like, teaching them to do sexual things too much, tricking them into thinking it's something they should do, or using their power to get what they want instead of letting it happen on its own. That's the main worry, I think. Ponies who want more sex can do some bad things to get it, and so we try to make it not so easy for them to get it in bad ways. And that's the third reason: just make an extra barrier for them to have to cross. That's also why we expect ponies not to ask, normally. If you do ask, it should be among equals, not from somepony more powerful to somepony less powerful."

Flurry frowned. "Kids know I'm a princess. Does that mean I can't ask them?"

Twilight considered. "If they ask you, you can say yes - though you should be careful with that, make sure you really trust them. But you shouldn't ask them, or maneuver them into asking. That's the last rule, I think: don't mold ponies into wanting to ask for that before they should."

She hesitated. "I… I did ask some of the kids back in the crystal empire. And one of them was uncomfortable, but I reassured her, but now I don't know if she was really feeling better or if she was just doing what I was saying because I am a princess."

"She might have really felt better, because you are a princess."

"But is that okay?"

"Kind of not okay. What did you do, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Well, we did nothing. Mom swooped in before we started and grabbed me and next morning we came here. But I suggested that we all look close at each other. That was all. That's all I really want. Was that bad?"

Hmm. Cadence said she wouldn't take deflection lying down. "Did you ask your mother questions about what was going on?"

Flurry Heart nodded. "She didn't explain, she wouldn't even say that what I did was wrong, she just wouldn't say anything."

"I wonder why she couldn't give you the answer I just gave."

"So, did I do bad?"

Twilight thought for a moment. "I'd like to believe you didn't cause harm, and from your questions it seems like you didn't intend wrong. So no, you didn't do bad, but don't do it again. For the future, if you want to break a rule, find out in full why the rule is there, first. Not just the most obvious reason, but all the reasons."

"So… now I can see when it's okay to look at privates because I know the reasons we normally don't?"

"I think so. I'd want to quiz you a bit before agreeing."

Flurry thought for a minute, and Twilight went over what she'd said in her head and thought up some questions.

And then Flurry asked, "Can I look at your privates?"

Twilight's train of thought crashed. After getting it back on the rails, she began to figure out whether that was compliant with the rules she'd just explained. But then she had a better idea. "Before I answer, please explain how you decided that was okay to ask me."

"You don't need to do what I say, because you're a princess like me, and older. I could also ask Princess Celestia or Luna. I don't think I could ask mommy because she's my mommy, so she's raising me, she kind of aimed me wherever I go, so if I ask her, I'm not breaking a rule, but then she'd breaking the rule about molding. Same for daddy. But you haven't been aiming me at it - you've only given me reasons not to."

"Excellent answer. Now, one last question. Would you be satisfied by looking at a book?"

"I looked in a medical book. It was… not… really…" She trailed off, but it was clear that had not satisfied her curiosity.

"Got it. Well. I don't see any good reason not to, so I tentatively agree under a few conditions. First, you take the lead, I don't push you. Second, we stop or back off if either of us wants to. Third, this is private from everyone except your parents. I encourage you to say what we've done to at least one of them. That will make sure it's clear I'm not letting things go further than I should. Fourth, I don't want to examine yours. Please don't even offer. Fifth, I will think about it over night and if I come up with any other reasons not to, we'll go over my reasons. If I don't think of anything or we resolve my new concerns, then we can go ahead."

Flurry nodded. "Okay. Can we go inside? I'm cold now."

Twilight gasped. "Oh yeah! We got so wrapped up I didn't notice either."

There was a flash of light as she teleported them to the castle entrance hall. Spike and Starlight were standing nearby, sipping hot chocolate.

Spike took off towards them as they took off their boots, scarves, and hats. "Where were you? We were debating sending out search parties."

"Oh, just talking and walking." Twilight watched Flurry accept a cup of hot chocolate levitated over by Starlight. "Thanks for this, but I think what we really need is a hot bath."

"Hahaha! One hot bath coming up!" He paused. "Or two?"

Flurry said, "One, please?"

Spike eagerly declared, "A bath party it is."

Twilight looked at her with raised eyebrow, but Flurry Heart shook her head in agreement that yes, she'd said to do nothing tonight. And indeed she performed no shenanigans and took no peeks while they washed. Afterwards, Twilight took her to her room, read a bit of Daring Doo. After, as she was walking out the door, Flurry said, "Auntie Twilight?"

Twilight turned and waited.

Flurry said, "Thanks for taking all the effort to think it through, instead of just being a grownup about it."

Twilight smiled. "You're welcome, and I'm sorry you've gotten such a low opinion of grownups."