Avalanche from a Flurry

Twilight Sparkle woke from Flurry Heart jumping onto the side of her bed. "Good morning! Are you done thinking?"

Twilight groaned. "I'm not done sleeping." I've barely gotten started on thinking about THAT. She stretched, first her legs out forwards and backwards, then pushing her upright, rump-first.

"Can I…"

Twilight realized that the covers were probably tempting for her to remove. She lacked the energy to formulate the best response right away. "Back off. We'll ta…" Well, that would give her the wrong impression, that I've found an objection. "Not a word until after breakfast. At least coffee."

Flurry Heart backed away. "Sorry."

"'sokay, just not awake yet."

Done stretching, Twilight sat up on the side of the bed and breathed deeply. Spike was already frying something, and making coffee. The mere wisps of the odor helped. She sat and gathered her thoughts. "Flurry, why don't you go down? I'll think about this for a bit."

Flurry nodded and ran out energetically.

Okay, I need to get organized. And that means making a list. Which means putting things in writing, or spending extra time memorizing a list. Hesitantly, she fetched a scroll and quill. After carefully dipping the quill, she dashed off: "This is a trivial cipher. Please do not try to break it - it is private. TS"

She considered for a moment, and reached back into her memory. To herself, she murmured, "Item 1. Well, wait. What is this the list of? There were something like three lists. Reasons not to show, principles guiding… no, we didn't list those. Just two lists, I think. Reasons not to, and then a procedure for doing it that avoids those reasons. Could use a reason to do it, I guess."

After a minute of wracking her brains, she gave up on remembering exactly what the lists had been, and as she softly murmured 'Reasons we hide private parts (pp)', and wrote,

-- Sfbtpot xf ijef qsjwbuf qbsut (qq) --

She filled in the list as best she could from memory, and in the process organized her thoughts better and produced lists of concerns and principles, then rules in general, and procedures in specific. Everything seemed complete. Verifiable procedures that guarantee validation of the conscionability of the results. And she'd only needed to add one condition.

Satisfied, she turned to leave again. As she stood in the doorway, she looked back, rolled the scroll up with her magic and put it in an empty flowerpot on her windowsill.

At breakfast, Spike had put Flurry on the high stool so she could pour the pancakes. Flurry finished the one and then glided down and rushed over to her. "Good morning!" Then she headed out the kitchen door, and nodded for Twilight to follow. Softly, "Came up with anything?"

Just as softly, "I don't just want to tell at least one of your parents, I'd like to ask one, too. I know, it's disappointing, but I can't just go ahead with what little Cadence gave me. They're ultimately responsible."

Flurry sighed. "Then you can ask when they come to pick me up, but I don't think they'll agree. I think Mom asked you to take care of it so she wouldn't have to."

Twilight shrugged. "I'll talk with her."

And the rest of the day was normal - more play in the snow, a quick meeting with the Mayor about a budget hiccup while Flurry read, then they packed up and got the bags loaded by the door, and then off to the train station.

When Shining Armor got off the train, Flurry jumped off Twilight's back and glided down the platform to him. Twilight followed at a more restrained pace, and hugged her brother as Flurry pranced on his back. She demanded, "Just you?"

"Mama's back home. You are coming, right? We didn't get a letter asking to stay longer, but I don't see your bags here."

"Sure! We just wanted to have you over for a bit first."

Twilight swallowed. She'd counted on having this conversation with Cadence, not Shining Armor.

Flurry looked around as if checking if anypony was within earshot, and Twilight coughed to head her off. Now it's daytime, and no active snowstorm. "So, how's the Crystal Empire?"

"Same as usual. Come on, you can't ask about that, now. How was the visit?"

"Wonderful. Very educational on a number of topics. She's been very well-behaved. I'd be happy to have her longer if she wants to stay, or again later."

Shining smiled. "That'd be lovely. Let her see a bit more of Equestria than our corner." To Flurry, "Did you make any friends?"

Flurry nodded and gushed about the ponies she'd met over the previous few days, and when they made it back to the castle she described the creatures she'd met at the school, and the snowfight…

"… and then I asked Twilight why we keep privates private" (at this, Twilight choked, for she said it as if it were just the next thing to ask) "and she thought about it and gave some very good answers I hadn't thought of, and those reasons didn't mean that I couldn't ask to look at hers, so I did, and after thinking for a while she said if I asked you first it was okay by her."

Twilight had stopped moving, mortified. Of course, what did I expect?

Shining Armor stared at Flurry, then turned and came a few steps back towards Twilight. His horn lit, and an opaque pink bubble surrounded the pair.

His face was not evincing happiness, to put it mildly. "What made you think you had the right?"

"Cadence's comments. She seemed to think it was…"

"Seemed? You had better be extremely clear about what parents want before you tell a child about these things!"

Twilight took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Upon reopening them, she asked, "What are you concerned about?"

"What am I concerned about? Don't you see what could go wrong?"

"I know of many things that can go wrong; I am asking which you are worried I might not have addressed properly."

"It's not your place to address them at all!"

"So, is it your position that when I find out that she has been sneaking looks at ponies without permission, I should say nothing on the subject? I steered her away from bad behav–"

He cut right in on her. "And steered her right back into it by saying you'd be okay with her seeing you!"

"If she is curious, and she is–"

Shining Armor cut her off again. "This is not okay. I do not want you to watch her again, and that is final. I cannot believe you'd do this."

Twilight gaped. "We walk around naked, Shiny. You aren't making sense. I grew up with you."

He actually didn't cut her off this time. "Yes, you did, and you never saw me."

"Okay? First off, I would be considerably more hesitant to show her if she were a colt or I were a stallion. But as it so happens, I have the same equipment she has. Secondly, I did see dad several times, and mom, too." A flash of memory struck. "I even saw dad in some detail for several seconds once. I remain unscarred."

Shining Armor stared at her for a minute, and swallowed. "All right. I suppose you don't know what I know. When I was little, around her age, dad cast the tick-check spell and it told him he had a tick in the general area of between his hind legs. Mom wasn't there, so he asked me to help check him out. I searched around, couldn't find it. I moved his penis out of the way, idly, repeatedly, looking around. He got hard. He didn't even mean anything by it, it was just a natural reaction. I did, eventually, find the tick, in a fold of skin. But by then, that really got my attention in a big way. I got a bit obsessed with wondering what mares looked like in as much detail as I'd just seen him. I wanted so much to spy… on mom, on you. But I held back. I didn't. I never did."

Twilight swallowed. "Thank you for not spying. Do you think that I would be making things worse? Your daughter is already spying."

"I didn't just want to spy on you. I wanted to… do… things."

Twilight realized that he wasn't making sense if he was just talking about this, but seemed to be more along the lines of a general confession. "Again, thank you for not disrupting my fillyhood by doing that."

"I became a pervert!"

Twilight took a step forward. "Shining, thank you so much for your restraint. It means a lot to me that I got to focus on books instead of avoiding my brother. I have a brother who loves me so much that he actually managed to thoroughly outwrestle his libido for my sake. I loved you before, but hearing that, I love you so much more. I never had a hint, and that's the best thing possible." She reached forward with a hoof and gave him a hug. After a moment, he returned it.

And after a few seconds, his penis grazed her chest. The rest of his body stiffened in mortification. Twilight laughed. "Relax. I'm not a filly anymore. I'm not going to be traumatized. Assuming you aren't going to rape me. I am right on that?"

He vigorously nodded.

"So then the way this is going to go is that you're going to have your erection and we're just going to talk and everything's going to be fine and you're going to get it into your head you don't need to be ashamed of any of this because you held it in so successfully for so long, which is all that really mattered. Does that sound like a thing that can happen?"

He nodded, and tears began flowing freely.

"Looks like some dust got in your eye."

"No, Twilight. I'm crying. At relief, at how you've been so much more amazing and forgiving about this than I'd ever imagined. Better than I dared to seriously hope, anyway."

Twilight grinned. "When I think about this, I don't think how I should forgive you, I think you're my hero. I would hope to aspire to that level of self-control."

After a minute, Shining pulled away and Twilight let him. His erection had subsided (which Twilight observed to some relief). He wiped the tears from his eyes.

She went on, "By the way, while we're confessing things like this. I, uh, had my first erotic dream in years last night, and, well, you were the star. We didn't do anything, even there, and I'm not generally speaking…" attracted to you. Well. Now that I mention that, it's totally false. "… thinking along those lines. Like, I just remembered that now. I didn't have it in mind at all while we were hugging."

Shining Armor was struck silent, flabbergasted.

Twilight took a deep breath. Why the hay did I mention that just now? "Annnnyway! So, Flurry's request. What do we say?"

"No." A slight pause for emphasis. "I wouldn't want to put her through that."

"I see a few differences between what she and I were planning to do and what you did, so I think the bad outcome you want to avoid becomes less likely if we do this, rather than more likely. She would only look as long as she's interested, instead of having to keep going past that point, like you were held there to help Dad. I won't have a visible physiological reaction. And she's already fairly obsessed with them. Well, interested. But interested to the point that she brought it up with me out of nowhere, which seems to me to suggest it's beyond simple interest. Also, we had a big talk about the ethics of these things, so if she does have funny ideas, she'll know what's expected of her, and she might take these rules more seriously if they get her some things she wants, not just things she can't do. Assuming she doesn't have your monumental self control." Which I am now finding really sexy. Starlight really was right - I need to get laid. My brother is not an ideal partner, what with his being my brother and also married. To a pony who is not me. Also, I like his wife.

Shining Armor took a deep breath. "I… I may not be the right person to judge this, then. If you think it's okay, I'll believe you."

Twilight took a moment to remember what he was talking about, then nodded. "Now, before we open this bubble, how about I exchange the air in here with somewhere above the castle? It's a bit musky in here, and we don't want to give ponies the wrong idea."

Shining Armor nodded.

"Well, it might be the right idea, but we'd still not like them to get it." Twilight waited a moment, then coughed a little. "To that end, can you make the shield permeable to teleportation?"

After blushing from embarrassment at not realizing that would be necessary, he complied, and Twilight set about exchanging the air with the frigid air from outside. And then to balance out the heat a little bit, she exchanged in some air from right next to the fireplace. She gave a nod, and the bubble lifted.

Flurry was curled up in a blanket on the floor. Her somber visage shifted to a wide smile once she parsed their faces as assent.

Twilight blushed. "So, I guess we should… hmm. Actually, no. You're in charge, Flurry."

Flurry's heart pounded. It was going to happen. She softly - not quite a whisper - said the thing she'd been imagining the night before: "Library. Face the door. Put a book on the table. Read it. Put your weight on the table. Spread. I'll look from there. Okay?"

Shining Armor gulped. "That was awfully… specific."

Twilight bobbed her eyebrows. "Girl knows what she wants."

"Oh, and daddy can sit with me and show me and explain what everything is."

Twilight coughed. "Umm. Just a moment, sweetheart?" Twilight made a soundproof opaque bubble in imitation of Shining Armor's earlier shield. She laughed upon getting a good look at her brother's face. He was hyperventilating. "I'm not a kid anymore, Shiny. I declare your mission to avoid causing me trauma complete. 100% success. And it's over. You may choose to be proper and refuse her request, which is respectable, or you may choose to educate your daughter, which is also respectable. And if you satisfy your own curiosity, that too is fine."

His hyperventilation continued. "But…"

She gave him a decent amount of time to think, but he did not finish - or even start - his thought, so she said, "All right. In my bedroom, on the windowsill, is a flower pot. In it is, in the B cyclic cipher, my notes on ethics of all this. Why don't you go and read them, and maybe you can add to them, and settle your thoughts on all of this? We'll get started without you, and if you decide not to join us, then simply don't."

Shining nodded. He managed to croak, "Where's your bedroom?"

"Up the stairs to the left, second door on the left. And from my room, just turn right and go down the hall to get to the library."

He took a deep breath, and Twilight collapsed the privacy bubble. As Shining headed off in no particular rush to Twilight's room, Twilight and Flurry went to the library, Twilight giggling slightly in nervousness, Flurry bouncing slightly in excitement.

When they got there, Flurry zoomed around checking that it was vacant; Twilight looked for a book. When Flurry came back from her sweep, she found Twilight up on the tall browsing ladder, considering a few volumes. And Flurry looked up. Twilight glanced down, a faint grin and a wink. Flurry looked more carefully. The angle was good, but the legs were together. Twilight momentarily grabbed a book and flew down. "All right, off we go. Was the view any good?"

Flurry shook her head.

One fantasy down the drain. I knew it wasn't all that clear a view from glancing at others, but they weren't trying to show off. Apparently you need to use the ladder unsafely to be able to show off properly, since I was spreading my legs about as much as the ladder would allow.

Before getting into position, Twilight said, "Flurry, find a book of your own."

The filly thought for a moment, realized it would give her a cover story if somepony wandered in, and flew off. She considered the children's section, but then… "Daddy isn't coming, right? Do you have a book that can tell me what the parts are?"

Twilight considered. "He might, but I expect him to be a while if he does. I have a volume that covers the internals, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't go into details of the pudenda. That is to say, the external parts."

"I thought that was a vulva."

"That's specific to mares. Pudendum technically means anyone's privates, though it is more commonly used with females, largely because there isn't often a need to refer to the general area around the male equivalent." She eyed the door nervously, realizing that she was talking a bit louder than perhaps was prudent. Where are Spike and Starlight? I think they're out, so it should be okay.

Flurry left to find someting, and Twilight stopped watching her and looked forward at her book. She heard Flurry return and settle down; Twilight recalled that she wasn't merely supposed to stand there, but spread her legs. And then nothing much happened. Flurry was silent. So Twilight got to reading.

The three tribes' outlooks on proper behavior differed dramatically, and each contributed to the modern approaches. The Earth pony tribe focused on the good of the group and the family, and choices were made collectively; Pegasus society had a peculiar split between absolute obedience to fixed rules and hierarchy in certain limited domains, and extreme individualistic freedom in all others; and Unicorns based their moral choices on approaching perfection. After unification, these modes of thought separated from the societies that created them. These approaches exchanged ideas and evolved, resulting in the three modern approaches to fundamental moral theory: Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics; and, independently, the three systems of moral axioms most commonly in practical use: compliance with tradition, subservience to the crown, and trust in preferences and instinctive judgements.

As Twilight tried to predict which of the tribes contributed what to each of the systems, she noticed a breeze at her rear. It went away, and returned. "Flurry, could you back up a little? It feels like you're breathing on me."

"Sorry."

"Don't touch me, even by accident."

"I wasn't going to."

"Not even a chance of by accident."

"Yup."

Satisfied, Twilight continued reading.

On both of these lists, the last is common at the bottom end - common ponies' folk-ethics appears to be based around trying to do the best you can (virtue ethics), based on instinct and unexamined social pressures. And in the common situations most ponies find themselves in, this combination - or any of them - does well. However, for a philosopher, this system has substantial defects. All of these defects can be summed up in the objection that it simply says that ponies ought to do what they feel like they ought to do. Any pony who is making choices outside of common domains - and this includes any role in directing society, and also a number of other things - is outside the scope of the things this system does well. Therefore, any pony in a position of power should use a better ethical system. This of course first requires answering the question of what criteria one should use when selecting an ethical system. Therefore, this work starts…

After a good bit more time, Twilight paused, listening. There was a scritching sound, now audible as the wind outside subsided. She looked back, but couldn't see anything. "Flurry, are you drawing?"

"Yes."

"Me?"

"Yes. Well, not anymore."

Twilight stopped and thought. "Can you destroy it after you're done?"

"Uh. I… well, take a look."

Twilight lowered her leg and turned around. Flurry was drawing ponies among green houses and orange trees on a purple landscape. "I thought you were drawing me."

Flurry giggled. "I did. Then I drew a bunch of houses and trees on you."

Twilight took the page, squinted, turned it sideways, and laughed. The landscape itself was the right half of her rear end - The waterfall and lake turned into part of her tail and the right half of her anus. The hills and more lake became her right-side labia and the right half of her vagina. The rock at the end of the lake was again the right half of her prepuce. The gentle falling hill was the bottom of her barrel, and the gentle rising hill was her right leg. If you only saw the purple, and knew what you were looking at, it was fairly clear, though still a child's drawing. But all the houses and trees and ponies broke it up, and by cutting it off at the line of symmetry and flipping it on its side, the features became far less recognizable.

Twilight laughed again. "All right, you can keep it. As long as you keep adding details to the houses and trees and ponies so they're as detailed as the landscape. All good?"

Flurry nodded. "Thanks a lot, auntie Twilight!"

So they headed over to Twilight's room. Shining Armor was lying on his back on her bed, with the scroll unfurled above him. He broke his concentration to look over to them. "All done?"

Flurry Heart gave a single wingbeat to help her jump push her onto the bed, and one more pace of gallop, and she landed on top of his chest. "Thanks, daddy. Ready to go now."

She clambered off again and ran out of the room to fetch her things. Freed, Shining got off of the bed and returned the scroll to where Twilight had kept it - she could see he'd filled in some of the large blanks she'd left for future list entries and reasons and arguments - and he also kept a sheet of his own notes. While they followed Flurry down to the train station, Shining murmured to Twilight, "Having read what you wrote, I see more of why it's important. She must not go spreading her 'unusual interests' - which, yes, she already had - around to the other foals." Twilight nodded. "And yes, it's good for you to take care of her curiosity rather than her mother." Twilight nodded again.

Twilight added, "And how are you feeling about feeling about me?"

"Peace. It hasn't been much since Cadence, anyway, so it's just history. Important history."

"Good." Is that disappointment I feel? Eeeurgh. I really do need to get laid, if I'm even a little bit upset that my brother isn't actively lusting for me. "Umm, weird question. How does a princess get a boyfriend? I figure you'd know since you've been through the other side of that process."

He chuckled. "I'm not sure those circumstances can be recreated. Cadence got to me when we were students. Also, she may be so good at it that she wouldn't know what to say to someone who lacks her sense for things. So if I were you, I'd ask princess Celestia or Luna for advice."

"I can imagine it - Dear princess Celestia, any tips on getting a stallion? Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." She'd edited it down to 'a stallion' from 'laid' at the last moment.

Shining Armor laughed. "You could do that. Orrr… maybe Cadence will have useful advice after all. Shall I ask her?"

"Sure. I think I'll need all the help I can get."

"Twi… you're beautiful, and smart, and powerful, and good. The only help you really need is finding stallions who are close enough to being your peers."

Twilight thought. "Princes. Hmm… Rutherford?" Her eyes widened in 'nope'. "Blueblood… I guess he might be all right to somepony who's more his station, but… I'd need to be with somepony less burnt into the upper crust."

Shining Armor sighed. "No need for an actual prince. Someone you knew before would work. Big Macintosh would have been fine, but he married Sugar Belle. And there's…"

Twilight shook her head. "He's a good pony, but I don't think we'd have worked out." Then she saw his evil grin and realized the other brother he had been about to name. "And no, Zephyr Breeze is not an option."

Then they were too close to others to continue, and there was a very ordinary set of farewells at the train, and Twilight was left standing on the platform blowing snowflakes off her nose.