Questions And Curiosities

The old door creaked ever-so-slightly as Scootaloo opened it slowly. If she was going to get caught, this was one of the most likely times—Auntie Lofty's front door was old and weathered, and like to sound off as if it was in competition with Granny Smith's bones.

Scootaloo closed it behind her as quietly as she could. It was late. She was over an hour past curfew—no thanks to her latest misadventure with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle—but as long as she could get to her bed without her aunts noticing, there wouldn't be a chance to regret anything.

She crept along the floor quietly. The living room was dark. That was unusual—usually at this hour, Aunt Holiday would be working on a crossword puzzle on the couch. Scootaloo continued to creep toward the stairs, staying as quiet as a mouse. Soft whispers of her aunts' voices told her that she was not alone, but there was no sign of either of them downstairs.

Gliding up the stairs, making sure to avoid the step that always made a loud creak, Scootaloo turned toward her room at the end of the hall. The door to Lofty's room was open, light spilling into the hallway. Their voices were clearer now. Both seemed slightly breathless, and their talking was littered with gasps, moans, and... sounds Scootaloo couldn't identify at all.

"Yes, yes, right there..."

Scootaloo tilted her head, confusion and curiosity overriding her need to stay hidden.

"Mmm... Deeper!"

She tiptoed down the hallway up to Lofty's room, peering cautiously around the doorway. What she saw there confused her. Auntie Lofty and Aunt Holiday were curled around each other. Lofty had her face buried in Holiday's private areas, while Holiday seemed to have her hoof stuck in Lofty's private areas. Both of them were moving and squirming, little squeaks and gasps erupting from their lips.

"Ah!"

Scootaloo startled as Lofty cried out loudly and Scootaloo quickly pulled her head away from the doorway so as not to be seen. After a few seconds of making sure she hadn't been caught, Scootaloo decided that her aunts were distracted with... whatever it was they were doing? She quickly and quietly tiptoed past the room and slipped into her own bedroom.

As Scootaloo climbed into bed, however, the sounds continued. Gasps and moans, sentence fragments that made little to no sense, and frequent exchanges of the word 'love' floated down the hall. Scootaloo kept dwelling on the images she'd seen. What had they been doing? Questions plagued her until, as time slipped by, the noises quieted and Scootaloo drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Scootaloo came down for breakfast and Aunt Holiday was eating cereal at the table. As usual, Auntie Lofty was nowhere to be seen, but she was surely at work.

"Hi," Scootaloo said, walking into the kitchen to make her own breakfast.

"O-oh... Good morning," Aunt Holiday replied. "I thought you were staying over at..." she trailed off. Scootaloo saw a red flush cross Holiday's face. "Y-you didn't see anything last night, did you?"

Scootaloo couldn't stop thinking about what she'd seen. The way both of her aunts' faces had been contorted in... pain? Pleasure? Judging from the sounds, they had been having a good time. But something about Holiday's tone told Scootaloo that she saw something she wasn't supposed to see. "No," Scootaloo lied. "I'm not even sure what you're talking about. I came home from Crusading and went to bed early last night."

"O-oh... Okay..." Holiday paused for a few seconds, then nodded. "Okay... good."

Scootaloo really wanted to ask some burning questions. Questions that had been nagging at her since she'd seen... whatever it was she saw. It didn't seem like Aunt Holiday was going to entertain those questions.

With breakfast quickly devoured amongst the storm of questions in her head, Scootaloo grabbed her scooter and went outside, as she usually did. "Bye," she waved to Aunt Holiday as she left the house.

"Behave, please!" her aunt called behind her. Scootaloo usually ignored that request.

It was overcast, and probably going to rain at some point. The Apples had a lot of outdoor space, but not much to do indoors, which meant Sweetie Belle's house was her best bet for a place to play if the weather turned. Scootaloo buzzed her scooter quickly across town and came to a halt in front of Sweetie Belle's house.

Scootaloo knocked on the door. There was an unusually long wait before it finally opened, and Sweetie's dad peered down at her. "Oh, hey, how you doing there, Scootaloo?" he greeted. "I'll have you know that Sweetie Belle isn't here today. She went with her mother to Canterlot this morning and won't be back until tomorrow."

"Oh, okay," Scootaloo said, feeling a bit let down. A brief flash of what she'd glimpsed the night before raided her mind. She really wanted to talk to someone she could trust about what she'd seen, and Sweetie's dad was a bit... 'open' to discussing nearly any topic imaginable. Still, something about discussing it with him felt... off. "Uh... t-thanks!" she replied with faux cheer.

As the door closed behind her, Scootaloo looked out across the town. Not many ponies were going about their business today—it was a bit chilly, and the dark clouds meant that unless a pegasus took care of it, it was going to rain pretty hard. Scootaloo never looked at the weather team's schedule, and she couldn't fly up and do something about it herself.

Her wings buzzed with irritation at the thought. A stray raindrop hit her snout and she looked up again. More raindrops. Her pegasus instincts were still as sharp as any other pegasi, even if she couldn't fly. She stared at the clouds, scrutinizing them in more detail. This wasn't just going to be a rainy day, there was a good chance this was going to be a fairly huge storm.

Scootaloo buzzed her way over to Sweet Apple Acres. It was almost certain that Apple Bloom wouldn't be able to come out to play in this kind of weather, but they could surely do stuff inside the house.

The day went by largely uneventfully, with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom playing board games throughout the day. Still, several times when Apple Bloom was turned away, Scootaloo would catch a glimpse of her friend's nether regions and memories of the night before would flood back into her mind.

"I'd rather not talk about it," was the only response Apple Bloom had given when Scootaloo brought it up, and Apple Bloom had refused to elaborate, so Scootaloo kept pushing the thoughts out of her mind every time.

After several hours, Applejack returned home from whatever she'd been doing, and informed Scootaloo that she needed to head home. Scootaloo briefly considered asking Applejack about her thoughts, because—apart from her aunts, who clearly wanted to not discuss what happened—Applejack and Rarity were the two adults that Scootaloo knew best, if only through proximity to their sisters. But Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom's experiences told her that both were far too... unwilling to talk about 'private part' stuff like that.

The gears in Scootaloo's head kept turning, though, grinding away at the visions she had seen the night before. Who could she talk to about it? It dealt with a pony's private parts, which meant she couldn't talk to just anyone.

She left Sweet Apple Acres behind, her confusion and curiosity still unsated. The rain had left the ground too muddy to ride decently, so began walking her scooter across town, back toward her aunts' house. There was nothing to do there, but at least it would be dry.

Applejack and Rarity were the two adults she knew best, but as she walked, her mind wandered to others who might be able to help.

Pinkie Pie? Scootaloo wasn't sure she could trust Pinkie Pie to tell the truth—or at the very least, the truth would be mixed with so much un-truth that it would be almost impossible to differentiate the two.

Fluttershy was generally open to discussing almost anything involving biology and bodies, and Scootaloo was sure it wouldn't faze her, but while Scootaloo was confident Fluttershy wouldn't be bothered by the questions themselves, she was also prone to distractions, embarrassment and non-answers.

And for as much as Scootaloo idolized her, she also knew Rainbow Dash would probably just laugh at her.

Which left Princess Twilight. If there was one pony in town who loved to teach, was open to nearly any topic imaginable, and wouldn't judge her, it was Twilight. Scootaloo nodded to herself, her pace quickening as she adjusted her route.

There was a possibility—even a probability—that Twilight would be busy with something, but getting the strange visions of her aunts out of her head would be worth the attempt.

The storm was intensifying, and it was absolutely pouring down rain. Twilight's castle was open to the public, ostensibly because the town's massive library had been destroyed and Twilight's castle was the only feasible replacement in town. Scootaloo slipped inside without fanfare, buzzing her wings and shaking the water from her coat. She set her scooter against the wall near the door and waited.

Spike, Starlight, or Twilight would surely greet her shortly—the castle's doorway was enchanted to notify them when a visitor arrived. Scootaloo briefly wondered if she should ask Spike or Starlight about her conundrum, too, but before she could ponder much, Twilight appeared in the foyer.

"Good evening, Scootaloo," Twilight chirped cheerfully. She glanced around, looking for the other two Crusaders. "It's pretty unusual for you to show up here, and without your friends, too. Can I help you with anything?"

Scootaloo smiled, memories of their old Twilight Time flooding back. "Heya, Twilight. I... saw something, and I don't understand it. I was hoping you could help."

Twilight's eyes grew wide and a smile crossed her lips. "Ooo, you came here to learn something? Well, then!" Twilight's horned flashed, and the world distorted. Scootaloo felt herself ripped through space as the world around her suddenly changed. It wasn't the first time she'd been teleported, but it was still disorienting. She shook her head and looked around the room. "And what better place to find information than in the library!" Twilight announced. "So, what did you want to know about?"

Sometimes it was easy to forget how easily Twilight could make things awkward. Embarrassment wasn't something Scootaloo usually struggled with. "M-my aunts..."

"Your aunts...?" Twilight leaned closer still, wondering what the two mares might possibly have done to leave Scootaloo with such questions.

Like ripping off a bandaid, Scootaloo committed to the question, figuring it would be the least awkward way to do this. "They were touching each other's private bits. A lot. And I don't understand why."

"Well... that's... huh..." Twilight fidgeted, shocked that Scootaloo was being so blunt. The thought of Scootaloo's aunts being an item made sense, but she'd never really considered it before—or the impact it might have on Scootaloo. Twilight began to pace. "Has Cheerilee not..." she muttered to herself, wondering about the state of sex education in Ponyville's classrooms. Ponyville was a lot more conservative than Canterlot, after all. "And how old was I... well... hmm..."

Canterlot's schools had given very comprehensive sex ed courses, but when Twilight had questions, she, too, had approached Princess Celestia, just as Scootaloo was now. Celestia, however, had been quite evasive on the subject. It was one of the few times that Twilight had felt genuinely hurt and ignored by her mentor. She didn't want to leave Scootaloo feeling the same way.

In contrast, Cadance had been quite receptive. Twilight genuinely credited Cadance for giving her a healthy dose of transparency when asked directly about subjects Twilight didn't fully understand—even if later questions led to some 'hooves-on' experiences. Her thoughts drifted back to her private moments with Cadance, and a mild warmth began filling her.

She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. Cadance's methods might have been a bit much all at once, but Twilight didn't have to go that far. She just needed to resolve Scootaloo's immediate concerns.

With each of Twilight's paces, Scootaloo began to feel less confident. Just as she was about to tell Twilight to forget it, Twilight perked up. "Alright, then, Scootaloo. Let me just grab something..." Twilight walked over to a shelf, perusing the books for a moment before pulling one out. "I think it's best if we start by talking about intimacy."

"Intimacy?" Scootaloo wondered. She'd heard the word, but didn't really have any idea what exactly it entailed.

"Yes. Physical intimacy... One of the adult... things," Twilight said, nodding. For a moment, Scootaloo thought Twilight might not explain further—adult implied she 'wasn't old enough'—but Twilight continued. "When two ponies decide they want to become physically intimate, there are a lot of things that happen. Usually, intimacy occurs between two ponies who love each other. Married ponies, especially."

For some reason, Rumble flashed through Scootaloo's thoughts. She couldn't deny she had a bit of a crush on him and had briefly entertained thoughts of what married life would be like with him. Yet, the older she got, the less 'marriage' seemed like something Scootaloo wanted, and the more she found herself thinking about spending her life with other fillies, instead. Like Rainbow Dash. Or Sweetie Belle. She tried to shoo those thoughts away, focusing on Twilight's words again.

"...But sometimes it's also shared between ponies who are close friends." Twilight continued, oblivious to Scootaloo's internal thoughts. "And, on occasion, two ponies might just want to share physical intimacy, even if they're not really connected emotionally at all." Twilight opened the book and flipped to a specific page—one that she knew all too well from how much she'd studied it as a filly. "This," Twilight said matter-of-factly, "is a vulva." Her hoof tapped the page.

Scootaloo looked down at where Twilight's hoof was pointing. There was a very detailed hoof-drawn picture of a mare's private parts in the book, with the lips spread open partially. "Uh... I thought that was a vagina," Scootaloo replied.

Twilight laughed. "That's a common misunderstanding, because we usually don't teach fillies and colts all about the various parts until they're older." Memories of her first awkward encounter with a stallion surfaced, and Twilight's voice dropped. "... and then some ponies just never learn the right parts at all," she muttered under her breath.

The page turned in Twilight's magic, and there was three diagrams of a stallion's thingy—one tucked away, a second one extended like Scootaloo had witnessed when they pee (something she didn't want to think about), and a third one with it sticking up, which she had only rarely seen (and been told not to look at). It was this third image Twilight was pointing to. "When a mare and a stallion want to engage in intimacy, the stallion's penis becomes engorged with blood and stiffens. This allows the penis to penetrate the vagina—"

"I thought you said it was a vulva?" Scootaloo blurted out, confused.

Twilight let out a small sigh. "Right, let's go back." She turned the page back to the first picture. "This is the anus," Twilight tapped the offending body part. Scootaloo knew that much, and would rather have not had her attention drawn to it, but then Twilight gestured at the rest of the drawing, outlining the image with her hoof. "Everything below it is the vulva—the entire physical structure here—at least, the parts we can see. The vulva has several parts to it."

Twilight's hoof drifted across the page as she labeled each part. "These are the labia, which are the 'lips' that protect the rest of the parts. This is the urethra, where urine comes out. This is the clitoris—the part that 'winks' when a mare is aroused."

This process of teaching this material was arousing Twilight more than she expected. Was this what excited Cadance when she had been a filly? Almost as if in response to her own internal thoughts and what she had just explained, Twilight felt her own clitoris spasm in the tell-tale sign that she herself was winking.

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by aroused," Scootaloo replied. She couldn't see Twilight's physical arousal, but she had seen mares 'winking' before. It was drilled into all young foals: you don't talk about it if you notice it, you don't draw attention to it, and you pretend you didn't see anything. All she really knew about it was that fillies started dealing with it at a certain age.

Twilight blushed, trying to figure out how exactly to explain it. "Well... arousal is..." She had never considered how you might explain the concept to a foal who hadn't experienced it. "It's the desire to engage in physical intimacy," she concluded. "It means a mare wants a stallion to put his penis in her vagina." Her hoof tapped the large, central orifice, but continued before Scootaloo could ask about the feasibility of penetration. "This is the vaginal opening. It leads to the vagina, which is actually a canal inside of you that leads to the womb."

Scootaloo stared at the picture, processing Twilight's words. "Inside?" Her thoughts drifted briefly to Rumble's penis. She'd seen it before, and... the thought of him putting it inside of her was... alarming. But an undeniably weird curiosity bubbled up in her thoughts. "Why would he do that? Doesn't it hurt?"

"Well, even though it might not look like it at first glance, vaginas are actually designed to accept a penis without getting hurt," Twilight replied in her 'matter-of-fact' tone that Scootaloo recognized as a slow descent into her full lecture mode. "It's called having sex."

Scootaloo had heard of 'sex' before. Something older fillies and colts bragged about quite often. A rite of passage that she never learned the details of, but everypony seemed to think was amazing. "I've heard other foals talk about it. Almost all of the colts think it's amazing, but not all of the fillies seemed to agree."

Twilight simply nodded, knowing what those fillies were probably dealing with. "Unfortunately, sometimes ponies are... disrespectful with sex. It can lead to bad experiences, and sometimes it will take a while to move past a bad first impression." Twilight remembered how impressionable she was at that age and decided it was unnecessary, and maybe even harmful, to let Scootaloo know about the worst outcomes.

"But, no matter what anypony says, sex isn't everything. In fact, rushing into it can make the experience less enjoyable. But I promise you, if you do it with a pony who is willing to take things slowly, be gentle, and show some restraint..." She thought again back to those first tender experiences with Cadance and her tail began to rise involuntarily. "Well, it feels really good, and it is actually quite fun."

... Fun. Twilight immediately stopped, realizing that she was quite lacking in the realm of intimacy in recent times. When exactly was the last time she'd even been with another pony—mare or stallion? She wasn't even sure. Maybe that was the reason this conversation was arousing her?

Scootaloo still struggled to understand. Twilight was insisting that it could be a fun experience, but she was stuck on the mechanism. How could being stabbed by something feel good? In response to Twilight's claims, the only word that came to mind was "Why?"

The claim had been self-evident to Twilight because she knew from experience... but it wasn't quite so straightforward to teach. Why did it feel really good? She thought about that for a moment. Her body was beginning to feel warmer as she thought about sex more and more, but the answer didn't come to her until her clit winked again and she nearly gasped. Suddenly, the answer was clear and obvious.

Scootaloo couldn't see what made Twilight fall silent the way she did, and her silence on the issue was increasingly uncomfortable. Was this conversation a mistake? Just as she was about to apologize, Twilight finally responded—and respond she did, dropping fully into what Scootaloo recognized as her 'lecture mode'.

"It feels good for both stallions and mares to have an intimate partner touch your private parts. Though it's most commonly done with hooves, something soft and gentle, like a magical caress from a unicorn, or the light touch of feathers from a pegasus also work wonders. We call touching another pony's parts manual stimulation and it feels really good. It can even feel good to do it to yourself."

Scootaloo thought of the moments where she had touched herself down there. She hadn't really ever focused on it much, but sometimes her body felt funny and nice when it happened, so that made sense. She was always afraid she was doing something she wasn't supposed to, though, and stopped before one of her aunts caught her. Maybe she needed to explore that concept more. "I see..."

Twilight, though, was on a roll. "Oral stimulation—using your mouth on another pony's parts—also feels really nice, especially when done mutually."

Scootaloo immediately thought about what private parts were normally used for and recoiled. "You put your mouth on it?" The thought was somewhat revolting, but then Scootaloo thought about what she'd seen the night before. Auntie Lofty had her face buried into Aunt Holiday's crotch, and... both of them seemed to have really enjoyed it. Twilight's claims still were tracking with the things she had seen.

Twilight paused at Scootaloo's outburst, smiling to herself as she could practically see the wheels turning in the little filly's mind. Watching Scootaloo still brought back those pleasant memories of her time with Cadance when she was young... and a deep longing to feel those things again.

"So that's what she was doing!" Scootaloo shouted, putting the pieces together. But Holiday had clearly not been engaging in oral stimulation. "Okay, okay, so why would my aunt have put her hoof inside of my other aunt's... um... vulva?" Scootaloo tried to use the correct term.

"Actually, in that case, it almost certainly was the vagina," Twilight corrected. "Something going inside the vagina is called penetration. Usually it is done with a penis or some other phallic object, but when done with a hoof, it's also called hoofing."

There was a silence briefly as Scootaloo stared at her own hoof, then at Twilight's hoof. Even her smaller hoof seemed like it would be incredibly painful. "Hooves are way bigger than penises," she stated flatly. "Wouldn't that hurt a lot?"

Twilight giggled again. "Most mares really enjoy the sensation of being penetrated, especially if they're very aroused." She took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to quell her own arousal. "When aroused, a mare's vagina changes to prepare her body to accept... an insertion. That's why rushing into sex is usually a bad idea—arousal takes time to affect your body. As for the size, some mares really like that feeling of being stretched, and it generally shouldn't hurt if you do it right. A vagina can stretch to accommodate much larger things. Foals have to come out through the vagina, after all."

"They... they do?" Scootaloo realized she had no idea how babies got into or out of a mother before, but if the vagina was a 'pipe' that led into her belly, it made sense... in a weird and disturbing way. She knew that mares only got pregnant when a stallion was involved, but she wasn't fully aware of the methodology. "How does the baby get in there?"

A dull thud echoed through the library as Twilight bruised her forehead with her own hoof. She really needed to speak with Cheerilee about the sex ed curriculum. "That starts with sex, too. After a stallion puts his penis inside a mare's vagina, they rock back and forth until he has orgasm, which releases sperm into the mare, and that's how mares become pregnant." She felt herself winking again. She looked at Scootaloo, and her body yearned to feel her innocent touch. A shudder went down Twilight's spine. It wasn't any different than had transpired between herself and Cadance when she was young, but it felt... taboo.

"I thought mares only get pregnant when they go into heat?" Scootaloo replied. Then she stopped to process everything she'd just been told—sex was how you get pregnant. Sex was fun. Some ponies even did it casually. "...Wait, ponies become pregnant for fun?!" Scootaloo shouted, horrified.

"Shh, shh, not so loud," Twilight hushed her. "And yes, generally mares only get pregnant if they have sex while they're in heat. That's why most mares only get pregnant when they want to. Thankfully, even during heat season there are a lot of ways to prevent getting pregnant, which is how ponies can enjoy it casually."

"Oh..." That was better... probably. "Like what?"

"Well..." Twilight blushed again. "There's several different ways, but most of them involve preventing the stallion's sperm from reaching the mare in the first place. And, of course, it's only a problem if both a stallion and a mare are involved."

This was strangely interesting, and Scootaloo wanted to pry more, but it didn't really answer her original question at all. "Well... what about my aunts, then? Neither of them has a penis."

Twilight flushed a deeper shade of red, her lewder thoughts running wild with the application of female-on-female technique—but the filly's inquiry was not baseless. Everything so far had primarily applied to heterosexual relations. "W-well, intimacy between two mares or between two stallions is possible. Stallions often engage in anal sex—"

"In their butt?" Scootaloo interjected, hoping that it wasn't what she thought it was.

"The act of putting a stallion's penis inside another pony's anus," Twilight confirmed. "You would be surprised how good it can feel, for both partners. In fact, almost every aspect of sex is enjoyable for both parties. Most stallions and mares enjoy both manual and oral stimulation, even without penetration."

Scootaloo stared intently at the book Twilight still had on display, trying to imagine using her hoof or her tongue on Rainbow Dash. Would Rainbow Dash enjoy that? Would she enjoy it herself? The book closed, breaking her concentration. Scootaloo blinked as Twilight levitated the book away, and bent down to reshelve it.

There was another book that Twilight wanted to pull out—one that was less focused on the biology of sex, and more on the psychology of sex. Her hoof started tracing along the spines of other books nearby as she scanned the titles. "There should be another book around here that I think would be useful for you..." she muttered.

With the book removed from her vision, Scootaloo was presented with an alternative visual. As Twilight rummaged around on the lowest shelf, her tail was raised, and her own puffy vulva, slightly slickened and engorged, was right in front of Scootaloo's eyes. There was something about the real thing that Scootaloo found far more intriguing than just the drawing on the page—it was more real, and it was... alive. Twilight's... clitoris? Scootaloo was pretty sure that was what it was called—It was winking. That meant Twilight was aroused, right? That she wanted a pony to touch her? Without considering what she was doing, Scootaloo stuck a hoof out, curious to study it further.

Twilight suddenly felt something violating her personal space in a very intimate way. Something came into contact with her clit. "Hey!" she yelped in surprise and spun around as a fierce blush warmed her cheeks. For a fleeting moment, a rage bubbled up inside that somepony would do such a thing.

Scootaloo's expression gave her pause. Twilight was surprised that her ad-hoc pupil seemed unfazed by her quick, somewhat harsh response. Still, this revealed something else needed to be addressed. "Okay, okay. Clearly, there's one thing that I should have covered." It seemed this filly really just wanted to know. To experience. Twilight really couldn't argue with that. Had she really been any different when she approached Cadance?

"What do you mean?" Scootaloo wondered.

Twilight took a moment to gather her thoughts while Scootaloo steeled herself for another lecture—one which began almost immediately. "The most important element of sex is that every pony involved consents to what is happening," Twilight explained. "In fact, making sexual contact with a pony that doesn't consent to it is illegal, and can have severe consequences."

"Does that mean I'm in trouble...?" Scootaloo wondered, her head tilting to the side.

Twilight smiled softly, shaking her head. "No, you silly filly. I didn't say that." That curious inquisitiveness was really... really starting to get under her skin... specifically, the skin of her erogenous parts.

Scootaloo perked up. If this 'intimacy' truly was as good as Twilight said, then... would it be okay? "Miss Twilight, can I please touch your vulva?"

Twilight's mind ground to a halt—though her fantasies had certainly been entertaining the thought, she hadn't expected anything to actually happen. And certainly not that Scootaloo would ask quite so bluntly. But as she processed everything she'd been feeling over the last ten minutes, Twilight slowly came to realize what she really wanted: to re-experience the awkward, innocent encounters she'd had at Scootaloo's age.

There was no way she could experience them again as a clueless filly, but perhaps from the older perspective...? Her body and mind were both in agreement on this issue, even if her heart told her this might be a little bit too far.

"I... I don't mind letting you touch me if it helps you understand a little bit better..." Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she looked around nervously. Was there anypony else here? This was her library, but it was technically open to the public. "But if you want to do that, we should probably move somewhere more private."