Seashell (print rewrite)

SEASHELL

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

Despite preferring to be alone right now, sometimes I think maybe I’d like to have a daughter someday.

Not that I think it’ll ever happen, of course, if I look at it realistically. There’s two ways to get a foal: 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 gets less pleasant for a while. I don’t think I’m interested in pregnancy and childbirth as life experiences; I’ve never heard particularly good things about them.

As far as adopting, would I get the stamp of approval while I’m a single mare in the guard who might 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, 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 for me now 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 barely even know how to make their horns glow, but she’s doing stuff that could put many adults to shame. Of course, that should be expected; her kind of rare talent is why she gets to become the personal student of a princess.

I should mention she got her cutie mark a little while back, just like Princess Twilight predicted she would. It’s a purple crystal surrounded by stars representing magic. 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 all that is, though, she’s still just a little kid. Her innocence makes everything she can do all the more adorable.

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

Early in the midnight shift last night I found her wandering in the dark. She seemed scared, looking around and moving from shadow to shadow, ducking and cowering behind the suits of armor lining the hall. I was a bit concerned to see her out alone at night, and I’m sure she wasn’t having a good time either. The palace can be an eerie place in the dark.

“Azure?” I called out to her. She startled at my voice, though I was trying to talk softly. “Are you alright? What are you doing out of your room at this 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. “…Sorry.”

“It’s alright. You’re not in trouble,” I said. “I just need to know if anything is wrong.”

She looked up at me shyly. “I wanted to see Princess Twilight,” she said. “I was scared. I had a nightmare.”

“Oh. 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 just wanted to see her,” Azure said. “It’s always safe with her.”

“Hey, the whole palace is safe.” I smiled and tried to look reassuring. “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 my wings. I was a little surprised to find she’s even lighter than she looks. I stood back up and started walking to her room.

As I was walking, I felt her forehoof stroke one of my wings hesitantly. I don’t usually like having my 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, or how it feels to have the subtle but powerful magic of the world run up through an earth pony’s hooves. My mom would try to tell me about it sometimes, but I think some things can’t be understood by just words.

Azure must have ruffled one of my feathers a little, leaving it not feeling 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 had a feeling it wouldn’t, though, and sure enough, it fell out, slowly drifting its way down through the air and onto the ground. Even in the dim moonlight the bright yellow feather contrasted with the deep scarlet of the hallway carpeting.

Azure gasped. “I’m sorry, ohmygosh I didn't mean to—”

“It’s fine, you didn't do anything,” I said. “If it was that loose, it was ready to be shed anyway. It happens. A new one’ll grow back in no time.”

“Oh.” She sounded relieved.

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

“Sure,” she said.

“Could you pick it 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 clean and organized, except 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.

I looked around. “So I guess you read a lot.”

“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 didn't actually know what it was like until I learned how to do 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. “Fine, I guess so. Shoot.”

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

“What's a lesbian?” she asked.

Ooooooh boy. There it was.

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

“Er… well, uh… ermmm…” I fumbled around for a second or two without really saying anything.

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

But a sort of realization came over me after a moment. I knew, now that the question was out there, I was answering it one way or another no matter what I said or didn’t say. Sure, I could get all awkward and give her the wait ‘til you're older excuse, but that would tell her that lesbians are an awkward and difficult subject that ponies don’t want to talk about—that they’re abnormal, a thing we sweep under the rug. Was that really the answer I wanted to give her?

No.

For a lot of reasons, no.

So I guess I thought it wasn’t much of a choice, really.

“Alright,” I started. “You know how sometimes ponies 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.

“Right. So, a lesbian is a mare who’s attracted that way to other mares, instead of to stallions.”

“Oh!” Her eyes lit up in comprehension. “That’s it? That’s not a big deal. I already know ponies like that. One of the other fillies in school has two moms instead of a mom and a dad.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Then I guess you already know. It’s just the way some ponies are, that’s all.”

“And…” She hesitated. “And that’s okay, isn't it?”

“Yep.” I nodded. “Don’t know why it wouldn’t be.”

“Do you like other mares?” she asked me.

I stared at her, not expecting that question. But at this point, the ice was broken on the topic and I’d already started being honest, so…

“I guess, sometimes,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘sometimes?’” she wondered. “Do you… like stallions?”

“Also sometimes.”

“How does that work?” She looked at me curiously. “So, you’re only a lesbian part of the time?”

“I don’t really know,” I admitted. “I never thought about it like that. A pony can like whoever she likes.”

“So then why can’t a princess be a lesbian?” she asked.

“Uh…” I was a bit stumped about where that was coming from. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Captain Dash said so,” she told me. “She was talking to Princess Twilight. I heard her when 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 lesbian princess? It’ll always just be too much of a controversy and 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, though? If it’s okay to be one?”

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

“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 really don't have any answers for that one.”

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

“I don’t get it,” she finally concluded.

“Can’t say I do, either.” I shrugged. “Right now, though, what I get is that it’s way past your bedtime. You’re gonna need your rest to keep up with school and with Princess Twilight’s lessons, right?”

“Not really.” She smirked. “It’s the weekend! I don’t have classes tomorrow.”

Right. Of course it was. Made me look really smart, didn’t it? “Regardless.” I shook my head. “You should be getting some sleep, and I need to get back out there and keep guarding. How about it?”

“Alright.” She finally cooperated and climbed into bed, but not before hugging me without warning. I froze, not being sure if it was appropriate to return the hug, so I didn’t. I doubt it would have mattered much if I had, anyway; hugs aren’t very comforting through the cold, hard steel rings of a guard’s chain shirt. It didn’t last more than a second or so before Azure released me and pulled back.

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

“Goodnight Ms. 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.

Thinking back on all this, I feel like I may have let Azure down by not being able to answer her question about Princess Twilight, and it gives me some regret. It’s not lost on me how the uncomforting cold and hardness of hugging my chainmail shirt has its mirror in the unsatisfying lack of an explanation to offer, either, and I feel like I failed her twice. But at the same time, I’m also still reeling from the question 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 for today.