diaper school Academy A (Complete)

[Mia Moore]

Thank you for all the kind words!  And I had a pretty great Thanksgiving I think.  Quiet, with a friend.

New chapter soon, I promise!  Finishing up finals this week.

[Kahlez]

Cant wait what awaits her and if she will spend the rest of the night in her bed or maybe a little trip to the daycare is in order 

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Twelve

It was dark inside, too dark to see anything. Wendy had to let her eyes adjust, but she couldn't help call out:

"Hello?" she said, almost a whisper. Wendy felt chills. Maybe it was the broken window a ways down the hall. Maybe she was psyching herself out. Or maybe it was the Ghost.

Wendy took a few steps into the room. Her heart was beating fast in her chest. It was so quiet, but she swore she could hear something. Breathing? Maybe a moaning voice. Or maybe...

"Wendy!" Wendy actually screamed this time. She spun around and covered her mouth, looking up at a man. A stranger? No, a nurse. The same nurse from earlier that day. August.

"Wendy, what do you think you're doing here? It's after Lights Out, and the east wing is off limits." He didn't sound angry - he sounded incredulous - but the raised voice and the harsh tones brought tears to Wendy's eyes. Oh no. She had done something bad.

"I... I'm sorry. I thought I saw... and I wasn't thinking! I'm so sorry..."

"It's... it's fine," Nurse August sighed, stepping into the dark music room and pulling Wendy by the wrist into the warm light of the hallway lantern. "Why are all these lights out?"

"The Ghost did it," Wendy sniffled, but Nurse August didn't pay her any mind. He grabbed the lantern off the hook by the door.

"I'm sorry Wendy, but I have to take you to the daycare. You really shouldn't be out right now. But I'm not upset with you, okay?"

Wendy probably would have started crying if it wasn't for that last sentence. She felt sick to her stomach. How could she have done this? She wasn't a bad girl, she really wasn't! But Nurse August was being so nice to her; she didn't want to get him in trouble too.

"Okay," Wendy muttered.

Nurse August took Wendy by the wrist and led her down the hall, toward the daycare. It was supposed to be a nice place where people took care of you, but Wendy always felt nervous. That was probably because she always went as a punishment for doing something wrong, and that was a very different experience to someone who went willingly.

Nurse August knocked twice on the daycare door. A minute later, it opened and a familiar woman was standing in the entryway. It was kind of uncanny how the attendant that would answer the door was always the one paired with the student. In Wendy's case, the daycare attendant was Mistress Miff. She couldn't have been any older than Wendy herself, but the unwavering gravitas of her glares made Wendy shrink behind Nurse August.

"What is it this time?" Mistress Miff asked, taking one look at Wendy.

"Wandering the halls at night," Nurse August sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Try to go easy on her, okay? I think she's just restless."

"I'll be as strict as is necessary," Mistress Miff replied, which was her way of not taking Nurse August's advice in the slightest. As the two staff members talked about Wendy, she noticed a girl on the other side of the room wearing a fluffy dress. Her diaper was so wet that it sagged below the hem. When the two met eyes, Wendy shrugged bashfully. Of course she got caught. Across the room, Aya rolled her eyes.

"Come," Mistress Miff said flatly, snapping her fingers like she might a puppy. She walked to the other side of the large star-shaped room, past a couple mats of sleeping adults in baby clothes, and into one of the pointed alcoves. Wendy quickly followed behind; there was an indescribable potency to a finger snap and one-word instructions.

While Wendy knew she could make a good plea for her case, Mistress Miff had an unsettling air about her. She was confident, impressive, and inarguably attractive. Sometimes, when Wendy was around her, she didn't know how to speak.

"Um, I—" Wendy began, but she didn't make it further than that.

"Hush," Mistress Miff said. "You will speak when spoken to, and no other time unless granted permission. You've been a very bad girl. You've let everybody down. You've let yourself down. Do not make it worse by talking."

The words bad girl echoed in Wendy's head like the ringing of a bell and she felt tears form in her eyes. It was like she had been punched in the stomach, like she couldn't get any air into her lungs. Maybe they had collapsed. Maybe she needed to go to a hospital. Wendy almost uttered an apology, but instinct kicked in. Her mouth moved to the words, but no sound came out. Wendy wiped her eyes before she started crying.

"Good. I'm glad you can follow the most basic of instructions. Maybe there's hope for you yet, Wendy; but you have a long long way to go and I'm not even sure you're capable of it."

The panic that gripped Wendy in her chest felt like a vice inside of her, underneath her skin and bones, grasping down on every internal organ. The need to apologize filled her stomach with bile, and she swallowed her words the way someone stops themself from throwing up.  It would have been so much easier with her Silence pacifier, but she had left it in her room.  At the thought of how desperately she wanted her pacifier, tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Stop crying," Mistress Miff ordered.

Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying. How could Wendy even begin to do that? But to fail would make her a bad girl, which only made her cry more.

"You really are a lost cause..." Mistress Miff sighed, crossing her arms over her shoulders. "Isn't that true?"

Wendy nodded. Never disagree with the staff; that was rule number one. Who was Wendy to think she knew better than them? But with a sharp snap of Mistress Miff's fingers, Wendy nearly jumped out of her skin. The diaper between her legs grew a little damp in response to her surprise.

"Answer the question," she said sharply. Permission to speak.

"Y-yes," Wendy blubbered, still trying to catch her breath.

"Yes, who?" Mistress Miff prompted with irritation. The disappointment in her voice was as clear as the words themselves. Wendy's knees felt weak.

"Yes... Mistress..." Wendy hated calling her that; it implied so much power, so much control. Even if it was true, it was so embarrassing. Wendy wiped her tears again and tried to hide the blush on her cheeks.

"That's right, I'm your Mistress. Good girls get Matrons and Mommies, they get praise and encouragement for being good. But not you, my dear little disappointment. You don't deserve a single drop of praise as you are. You don't deserve the stickers you've earned, and you don't deserve to be here. Maybe we should expel you? Send you out into the hills, alone?"

There was a part of Wendy that, in the right headspace, might have seized the opportunity to be sent away. But like an addict without her drug, Wendy would do anything just to get her fix. Her eyes said what her words wouldn't: wide-eyed and longing, wanting. Whatever Mistress Miff asked of her, she'd do it.

"Do you want to be better? Do you want to be worth something?" Mistress Miff's question wasn't rhetorical, and Wendy was always on edge to decipher which direct questions needed an answer. Sometimes they were lazy and hung in the air, hovering over her with all the weight of the Sword of Damocles, and other times they were lead dancers asking for a partner to follow. She didn't always get it right, but this time she was pretty sure.

"Y-yes, Mistress," Wendy admitted, wiping tears off her face with the backs of her hands. Pulling air into her lungs felt like drawing acid through a straw.

"A good girl obeys," Mistress Miff said coldly. "A good girl asks for a punishment — no, she begs for one. For her mouth to be washed clean of all her filthy words, and her body to be cleansed of her filthy thoughts. A good girl would beg to revel in her punishment, so that she could learn from it."

An implication wasn't outright permission, but Wendy gambled it was close enough.

"Please, Mistress Miff," Wendy said through sobs. "Please punish me, pretty please, pretty pretty please with… three cherries on top, and sprinkles, and everything. Please wash my mouth out, please make me clean, please teach me… h-how to be a good girl. I need it. I'll do anything. Please teach me…"

Wendy's begging had devolved into hopeless blubbering by the end of it, so much so that even Mistress Miff couldn't understand her. But the sentiment was clearly there. Any other staff member would have praised Wendy for her pleading, but Mistress Miff did not.

"It seems inevitable that you'll disappoint me," she sighed, "but we will see."

Mistress Miff walked away from the sobbing adult and went over to one of the cabinets by the changing table. Wendy was literally shaking, struggling to keep herself on two feet. She felt like every nerve in her body was firing in the wrong direction, and her insides were alight with lightning. She was going to throw up. But good girls didn't throw up.

"I'm going to wash your mouth out, Wendy," Mistress Miff said. "I'm going to make sure you can't even taste those words of disobedience and disappointment anymore. Do you want that, Wendy?"

Wendy nodded her head so quickly that she almost gave herself whiplash.

"As I thought," Mistress Miff said, avoiding the two words Wendy needed more than anything. "Come over here."

Wendy stepped forward and opened her mouth. The bar of soap the daycare used was small, just big enough to fit between her lips, and foamed up easily on contact with saliva. It tasted like you'd expect soap to taste: absolutely terrible. It also numbed her tongue and any liquid that slid down her throat made her feel sick. Wendy had been humiliated many times over since arriving at the Academy, but there was else nothing quite so viscerally unpleasant. Maybe filling her diapers, at first, but even that had become ordinary.

Having her mouth soaped wasn't ordinary. Wendy struggled not to gag or do anything else that could disappoint Mistress Miff. When the soapy bubbles began to leak out the edges of Wendy's mouth, she didn't even try to wipe them away.

"You're much more bearable when you can't talk," Mistress Miff said, and the dissonance of that backhanded compliment hit Wendy like a slap across the face. Fresh tears and fresh conflict filled her eyes and she started to suck on the soap for comfort. Her pacifier training had become second nature and the sickly soap foamed in her stomach.

All the while, Mistress Miff was rummaging through a nearby cabinet. She started to pile things on top of the changing table: a rubber bag, a plastic tube, a set of nozzles, and a large bottle of clear liquid with bubbles inside. Then she pulled a fresh nighttime diaper - covered with stars - from under the changing table and a pair of translucent plastic pants. Wendy felt her heart sink deeper with every item added to the stack. It was like watching a firing squad assemble before her eyes.

"I think you've been naughty enough to need two quarts, don't you agree?" Mistress Miff asked. Wendy nodded with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "Although you might need three, with how wicked you've been." Again, Wendy nodded; her eyes wide and desperate. "Three quarts it is."

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Thirteen

"Come," Mistress Miff said again, snapping her fingers. Wendy quickly stepped up to the changing table and looked pleadingly up into her Mistress's eyes. "Bend over," was her next command, and Wendy did just that. She put her hands on the edge of the changing table and laid herself over the side, so that her feet were still touching the ground and her butt was sticking out. She felt the shimmy of her pajama pants down her legs and heard the ripping sound of diaper tapes. Cold air rushed between her legs as the diaper was removed.

Wendy turned her head toward the center of the room, looking out at two other adults lying on the floor with pacifiers in their mouths. One was watching. Wendy was filled with a mix of emotions: shame, as someone witnessed her naughtiness, and pride, as someone witnessed her commitment to making it right. Wendy sucked harder on the soap for comfort.

Mistress Miff slowly slicked up the end of a long nozzle with a shiny jelly, and then, with one hand, she pulled Wendy's ass cheeks apart and began to press the protrusion up and inside her behind. There was no ceremony to it. No work-up.

Wendy winced and exhaled sharply, spilling bubbles all over the top of the changing table. Her eyes glossed over with tears and she closed them as tight as she could. The nozzle slid deep into her, deeper than she remembered from last time, until it settled somewhere that was uncomfortable in the most obvious way. She couldn't think of anything else, just that tube deep in her bottom.

Wendy heard the pop of a cap, like a soda bottle without the hiss. Then she heard the glugging of a liquid as it poured. She wasn't watching Mistress Miff, but Wendy knew that if she turned her head she would see her pouring that whole jug of liquid into that rubber bag hanging from a hook above the changing table. And all that liquid would soon be inside of her.

All the while, the boy on the floor watched. Wendy so badly wanted him to pluck the pacifier from his mouth and to call her a good girl. It wouldn't have meant as much as a staff member saying it, but she was so desperate.

Mistress Miff, satisfied with the amount of liquid in the large bag, opened the valve. Shortly thereafter, Wendy felt the blooming of wetness inside her… deep inside her. Cold. Wet. Tingly. She felt her toes curl up on the floor as she did her best not to shift or squirm, not to give her Mistress any reason whatsoever to doubt her commitment. She could do this, even if she sucked away the entire bar of soap in her efforts.

The liquid was a colder than the inside of Wendy's body, and the enema felt a little prickly. Then, just as she started to get used to the discomfort, she started to feel queasy, like she had eaten too many dumplings at dinner time. She exhaled again, drooling bubbles down her cheek and onto the table.

The helplessness of the situation washed over Wendy in waves. The hose in her bottom. The soap in her mouth. The grown man in a diaper watching her from the mat. The woman who stood over her, capable of doing anything she wanted to Wendy in that moment, and Wendy would welcome it. Her eyes glossed over in surrender.

Then the first bout of cramps brought her out of the delirium. She whimpered and squirmed on the table before she could think and she felt a sharp pinch on her bare asscheek.

"Stay still," Mistress told her. Wendy nodded and tried to settle back into place, but her stomach was protruding awkwardly against the edge of the changing table. So much water...

Wendy felt like a balloon; like someone had filled her with ten breaths and every additional breath felt like it would make the rubber pop. Could people pop? Like balloons? She tried not to imagine the insides of her body; she tried not to think about the water rearranging her insides, pushing everything aside. Changing her. Was that how this worked? Wendy wished she took a nursing class in college.

More and more water gushed into her, inflating her tummy, swirling around inside her as her thoughts struggled to land. She hurt so much. But if it meant being praised, she would welcome the pain every minute of every day for the rest of her life.

Finally, the flow of water stopped. Wendy was exhausted, sweat dripping down her forehead and into her eyebrows. Most of the soap had melted into bubbles, but what little remained was still between her lips. Then she felt the slow tug of the hose. Wendy squeezed every muscle in her body to keep from spilling the water onto the daycare floor. The hose was removed without incident, but Wendy didn't feel like she could move. Every bit of her tingled in the worst possible way. But when Mistress Miff gave an instruction, Wendy obeyed all the same.

"Stand."

Wendy got to shaky feet, naked from the waist down, and looked up at the woman in charge of her. The Mistress plucked the soap from Wendy's mouth and wiped the suds from the top of the changing table. Drool continued to spill down Wendy's chin, littered with bubbles, and soaking the collar of her pajama top. She couldn't help it; everything felt numb and sick.

"Up," the Mistress commanded, pointing to the changing table. Wendy nodded without thinking. She climbed onto the changing table with utmost care, slower than she had ever moved in her entire life. Every movement swirled the water around inside her, and every moment felt like she would pop. But after an unbearably long time, Wendy had obeyed her Mistress. She looked dizzily up at the star-filled ceiling of the daycare, listening to the rustling of diapers as they were unfolded.

Diapers. Soon she'd be in diapers, where she belonged. Soon she'd be in diapers, and Mistress would tell her to let the enema out, and she'd do it and she'd be a good girl. And Mistress would tell her she was a good girl. All this would be over. All the pain and cramping and discomfort in the world seemed like a small price to pay.

Wendy winced as her legs were lifted - like any baby - and a diaper was placed underneath her bottom. When she was lowered back to the table, the water inside raged. She felt like paper against a monsoon. But even as the powder was sprinkled between her legs and the diaper was taped in place, Wendy held it. Then she felt her ankles in the Mistress's hands again and she braced herself. Legs up. Another diaper under her bottom. Down. The sound of tapes. There were stars in Wendy's eyes and tears of pain poured out the sides like a steady tap. Wendy felt the plastic of the waterproof pants on her feet as they were threaded over her body. One more time, her ankles were pulled tight into one of Mistress Miff's hands and her bottom was lifted for her. Wendy tried to steady her breathing as the woman tucked the plastic pants in place to keep her from leaking. And Wendy would need those plastic pants too, she just knew it.

"Up," the woman instructed again. Wendy managed to slide off the table with a lack of grace. She felt drunk, the kind of drunk where you feel like you can't walk right and everything makes you want to throw up. But it was over. She had done everything that was asked of her. She looked up expectantly her Mistress with bubbles, drool, and tears covering her face. She must have really looked like a true infant, with one exception. Her pajama top.

"Arms up," Mistress Miff said, and Wendy felt her heart sink again. She couldn't keep doing this. She needed the praise. So many tasks, so many demands, and not a single word of encouragement. But Wendy had no choice: she wasn't a person. She was a student at the Academy, and her wants and needs didn't matter. Her purpose was to obey the staff. So she raised her arms up for Mistress Miff and continued to silently weep.

A short t-shirt was pulled over Wendy's head in place of the pajamas. It had something written on it, or something drawn, but Wendy was too dizzy and exhausted to make sense of it. She just wanted everything to be over as fast as possible, even if that meant she was wearing nothing but a humiliating shirt and two thick diapers and plastic pants on full display.

"Come," Mistress Miff said again, snapping her fingers. This time she led Wendy out of the alcove and toward the back of the playroom. The eyes of the boy on the mat continued to follow her, but Wendy was focusing instead of keeping her diaper dry. If she could just hold out until she was given the instruction, her Mistress would have no choice but to call her a good girl.

The two women - one dressed in tight clad spandex clothes and one in thick diapers - finally stopped in front of a large toy. A seat was suspended by four cords, connected to a contraption on the ceiling. Although Wendy had never used it before, she knew exactly what it was just by the look of it: a baby bouncer.

"Mistress..." Wendy's voice sounded so small, so pathetic, staring at the bouncer with wide, terrified eyes. She couldn't... she just couldn't! But Mistress Miff was quick to shut her down.

"I told you not to speak, Wendy! You really are a disappointment." That final line assured Wendy's silence as the woman unclipped the seat of the bouncer, which looked a lot more like a pair of big padded underwear, decorated with little stars and moons just like Wendy's diapers. She lowered it to Wendy's feet and had her step inside. Once the seat of the bouncer was pulled tight between Wendy's legs, the woman clipped it once more to the cords connected the contraption above her. Then the woman went over to a button on the wall and held it down, retracting the cords and pulling Wendy away from the ground. She let out a loud whine, enough to rouse the other sleeping adult in the center of the room. Finally, her Mistress let go of the button and Wendy was barely able to stand on her tippy toes.

The woman circled back around to Wendy and clicked her tongue in disapproval. Tears fell like torrents down Wendy's cheeks and her stomach twisted into knots. The thought of filling her diaper now, strapped into the bouncer, was so humiliating, so disgusting, but she didn't care. She'd do it. She'd stay in that stinky diaper the rest of the night. She'd do anything for a few kind words.

"Wendy St. James," Mistress Miff said, eye level with her charge. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Silence pacifier, pushing it between Wendy's lips. There would be no more argument from the girl under any circumstance.

"If you're a good girl," the woman started, tapping the button on Wendy's pacifier, "your diaper will be clean when I come back."

[FloridaKid]

@Mia Moore I’ve binged your Academy series, and although they are a tad darker than my usual fare, you’ve quite captured my imagination! I love your psychological mind game approach and how you’ve built an interconnected world of plots and characters. I am particularly gratified that you took the advice of @BabySofia and added another point of view. It adds so much depth to your characters and your Academy-verse. It’s a device she and @LittleFallenPrincess use quite effectively.

For me, one of the things that stood out in A:I, and honestly one of the reasons I was so captivated, was the name of your Asian character, Ai. I don’t know if you realized it, but “ai” is the Chinese word for love and the written character for it has the radical for heart at its center.

I am super curious about the appearance of Lyra and Mr. Silver at roughly the same time. Any chance that’s a nod to author @Lyra Silver? (also one of my favorites).

That said, I am thoroughly enjoying your writing and can’t wait to see how you tie everything together!

[FloridaKid]

BTW…I hope your finals went well. I know it can be stressful. ??

[Mia Moore]

Oh my gosh, thank you!!   I'm so happy you're liking it!!  I did take the bit of advice about switching up perspectives a bit.  I'm considering doing that again in a future story too. ?

As for Ai's name: yep, it was an intentional thing!  All the protagonists so far are non-white and their names were carefully chosen.   Since Ai was my first, I have a big attachment to her.  That's probably one of the reasons I named her that, but there's another reason too.

Funny that you mention the names!  I'm pretty sure Lyra is named after that Lyra, tho I didn't know she wrote a story??  I needed a lot of random side character names and I got sort of Lost In The Sauce trying to come up with them.  ?  (I take name choices way too seriously.) So my editor got a ton of names from her Patreon and I use them when I need a new character name.  Mr. Silver is someone else tho I think.  I didn't know that was Lyra's last name. ?

As for my finals, they went well.  I always get way too stressed out about tests. ? Hope your holidays go well.  I wanna get another chapter up soon... it's just a matter of getting in the mood. 

~Mia Moore~

[FloridaKid]

Now that you mention the intentionality, I’ll have to dig into your other protagonists’ names. I did appreciate the multicultural approach. I have family connections to China, so that one caught me right from the start. As far as the name Ai, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it’s possible there’s an Artificial Intelligence at work here. Which leads me back to Lyra Silver. Her story is called Luna, and it’s about an artificial intelligence-based app. It’s a fairly quick read and very good. Check it out if you have time. She mentions at the outset an editor named Sophie…maybe your Sophie?

I hope your holidays are wonderful and you get some rest between semesters…but don’t leave Wendy hanging there too long! ?
 

<Follow up: Did look up the names. Nice touch!>

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Fourteen

Wendy's eyes went wide and panic filled her chest. That couldn't be right. Her Mistress had misspoken, hadn't she? Wendy pleaded with her eyes, unable to say a single thing, unable to ask a clarifying question, but Mistress Miff walked away without another word. She went over to the wall and pressed a different button. Then the contraption above Wendy whirred into action, tugging the elastic cords. Rhythmically, the cords were given slack and tightened again, bouncing Wendy up and down like a baby in a bouncer.

The first tug upwards was disconcerting; like a rollercoaster click-click-clicking up a wooden incline. Up. And down.

The second was discomforting, and the way the cords pulled and jostled her meant that the rhythm wasn't even predictable; she couldn't anticipate it.

In another context, with oodles of praise marinating in her brain, the bouncer might have been the most wonderful place in the entire world. Today, it was Wendy's own private hell.

Each jostle up was firm and each drop down was sharp. Wendy's stomach twisted and spasmed and she whimpered behind her pacifier. She shook her head in denial.

When the bouncer pulled up, it pulled roughly against her diapers, along the seat of her padded bottom and against the thickness between her thighs. When the bouncer dropped down, it shocked all her muscles, reverberating through her bones like the vibrations of a xylophone. Wendy never stood a chance.

Within only a minute or two, the bouncing tore through her, mind and body alike. She failed to hold her enema in, and she failed to make her Mistress proud. She failed to keep her diapers clean, and she failed at the most basic of instructions. Like a broken dam, the water rushed from inside her tummy, just as it poured from her eyes. It wasn't a gentle, familiar push that filled her diaper, but a torrent, a flood, and endless deluge that soaked through one diaper, and then the next. It showed so clearly inside of her clear plastic panties that the only modicum of modesty she had left was provided by the baby bouncer itself.

The bouncer continued to pull her up and drop her down, smooshing her over and over into her full, soggy, stinky diapers.  Each upward moment was unbearable dread, and each drop was an agonizing reminder: she had failed. She never deserved to get praise again. She was an ungrateful, useless, helpless, dumb little baby girl. Her head was more of a mess than her diaper.

The bouncer never stopped. It dropped her down onto her toes and pulled her up again. It became automatic for Wendy to move along with it, pushing ever so slightly with her legs and catching herself ever so slightly on her feet. The squish of the messy diaper added to the rhythm. Tug. Squish. Fall. Squish.

The air around Wendy was stinky and thick and she couldn't catch her breath. Tears spilled down her cheeks in endless rivulets, dripping onto the guard of her pacifier. She could taste salt on the bulb. She sucked it for comfort, but it gave her none. Panic rose inside her with every tug of the cords, every squish of her diaper. Panic spread with every ounce of slack, every plop into her soggy padding.

She grabbed onto the cords with her hands as tight as she could, trying to make it stop. Not the shame or the humiliation; she had earned those. Not the bouncer's rhythmic motion, because it may have been the only calming part about the whole experience. But she wanted to stop being herself. She wanted to stop being disobedient. She wanted to stop being the worst little girl in the world.

Wendy had no concept of time in that bouncer. The two adults on the mats had gone back to sleep, and it felt like the sun could come up at any minute. There were no windows in the daycare - the sun could have already been up!

A woman in a blue smock changed the diapers of both students on the floor without even waking them up, and Wendy stared on longingly. She would have given anything for a diaper change. It could have been one hour or five when Mistress Miff returned. She took one look at the dangling girl in the bouncer, unable to even hold her own weight up anymore, and sighed.

"You truly are a disappointment, Wendy." Wendy didn't feel any worse from her statement. There was no hope of feeling worse. Wendy wanted to die. She wanted to wrap the cord of the bouncer around her neck and leave the world a better place. But she couldn't do that either. She was so incapable. Then, unexpectedly, Wendy was offered a glimmer of hope.

"Though I suppose," the woman sighed, "you aren't a lost cause. You just need to work harder."

Wendy didn't even know how to respond, because Wendy didn't even feel like she could be Wendy anymore. If she was her, she could be disobedient, she could do the wrong thing. The dolls on the floor, the toys the others played with? They could do no wrong. Wendy, too, wanted to do no more. She'd be a doll, she'd be a toy, she'd be anything Mistress tasked her to be - it was no longer her choice. She was broken, compliant, helpless, and empty. One faraway part of herself begged for Mistress to fill her with purpose. So she nodded her head exhaustedly.

Mistress Miff turned off the bouncer with a button on the wall, but she didn't let Wendy down. She went back to the girl, plucked the pacifier from between her lips, and tilted her head by the chin. She leaned in, softly, gently, and kissed Wendy once on the lips.

It felt so foreign to Wendy. Not just kissing another girl, but kissing in general. She could barely remember the last person she kissed: maybe her boyfriend? How long ago was that? Months, at least. The strange, simple act seemed to breathe new life into Wendy. Purpose?

"You'll make me proud," the Mistress said, "because you don't have a choice."

Wendy nodded. That was the closest thing to praise she would get from that woman, and she was willing to hold onto it tighter than anything else in the whole world.

Hours later, after getting cleaned up, after dressing in a fresh diaper, after more lashes on her thighs than she could count, Wendy was dressed to leave. She never said another word after her pacifier was removed, because she was never given explicit permission, not even when she was caned. She was a new girl now, a better girl. A good girl. Wendy would never do anything wrong ever again.

When Wendy stepped out of the daycare, the sun was just starting to assert itself against the night sky. Everything was a hue of unsaturated blue, preparing for the coming day. Classes would start in only a few hours, and Wendy was so tired. On her way back from the daycare, she stopped at the music room. It was on the way. But a moment later, she shook her head and walked onward. No, she was a new girl. A better girl. A good girl.

On her way back to the dorm rooms, Wendy glanced at the wall of stickers. She wasn't in the lead; she was nowhere near it. But she needed to work harder if she wanted to come close.

Then Wendy remembered the sticker in her pocket, the one she was going to give to the Ghost. She hurried over to the sticker board and reached into the pocket of her pajamas. She pulled out the sticker, but it didn't look right. There was no red color.

Wendy stepped back into the courtyard, under the light of the dimming moon, and looked at the scrap of paper. It was one of the sticker wax papers, the kind that aren't sticky so you can peel the sticker off. Actually, it was the same wax paper from her red sticker, but the red sticker was nowhere to be seen. Wendy flipped the paper over, to the side that wasn't wax, and found two words written in black ink.

'Thank you'

[Kahlez]

So who is this mysterious ghost i guess Wendy still has a mission. Hopefully this time with more results than a punishment and a sticker xD

[FloridaKid]

Curiouser and curiouser. 
 

And your earlier comment about names got me to thinking about yours, also deliberately chosen, I’m sure. Mia Moore possibly a variation of m’amour? Just a crazy guess.

[Mia Moore]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:48 PM, FloridaKid said:

Curiouser and curiouser. 
 

And your earlier comment about names got me to thinking about yours, also deliberately chosen, I’m sure. Mia Moore possibly a variation of m’amour? Just a crazy guess.

Uh huh!!  

On 1/2/2023 at 2:37 PM, Kahlez said:

So who is this mysterious ghost i guess Wendy still has a mission. Hopefully this time with more results than a punishment and a sticker xD

I think I only have two chapters left in this story, so hopefully you'll get some answers soon!   Sorry for the delay..

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Fifteen

Ayoka Kanoska played with her hair ribbon nervously, trying to imagine what the knot looked like on the back of her head. She wanted it to be perfect. She needed it to be perfect. But her hands were trembling, and Summer had to take them in her own before Aya would calm down.

"It's going to be okay," Summer said with a smile.

"Easy for you to say," Aya muttered under her breath. "You don't have a chance at winning."

"Hey!"

"I didn't mean it like that," Aya sulked, looking down at her feet. The sticker board was full from left to right, decorated with thousands of stickers. She had tried counting her own dozens of times, but always lost track somewhere in the fifties. Sometimes it looked like Emily had more, and sometimes it looked like Emily had less. Aya bit her lip.

"If a teacher sees you doing that, you'll have your Silence paci in the rest of the day," Summer warned. Aya stopped biting her lip.

It was the final day of the semester. There weren't any classes and the auditorium was open. The auditorium was only open one other time in Aya's memory: the end of last semester. On rainy days, she always wondered why they didn't do gym class in the auditorium, but Aya never asked.

"Let's get some breakfast before the ceremony, okay?" Summer would do anything to get her friend out of her own head. Reluctantly, Aya nodded and the two made their way toward the cafeteria.

"Do you think it's going to be a big ceremony?" Aya wondered out loud, although the question didn't serve much of a purpose except to make her speak; the auditorium was the perfect size for the student body, and it wasn't like anyone had their Mom or Dad come to visit. Ergo, the ceremony would be the same size as any other school event.

"Maybe they'll have streamers. Or confetti. Or cake," Summer offered, indulging the topic further.

"I don't remember much from last year…" Aya pouted.

There was never any pink pudding at breakfast, so the students were focused in class. Aya got a bowl of cereal and sat down at one of the tables, thinking to herself. If there was cake, she shouldn't fill up on breakfast.

"Nobody really does," Summer shrugged. "The Calm happened after."

The Calm. Aya remembered that. It felt like everything was slow and automatic, like she was walking along the floor of the ocean. But it wasn't scary. No, it was nice. Aya didn't win that year, and she was so sure she would fall apart, but The Calm made it all seem so insignificant.

"I hope it happens again, if I lose," Aya sighed, taking a bite of her cereal. She was even closer to winning this year. If Emily won, Aya would cry for the rest of her life.

"Why does it matter so much to you?" Summer asked. "It's just a dumb contest."

But Aya shook her head. "If I win," Aya said solemnly, with unusual gravitas, "everyone will be proud of me." Even Emily, Aya thought. If Emily won, Aya would be proud of her too.

"Yeah..." Summer paused and thought about that for a moment. Everyone at the Academy wanted to impress the staff, to garner praise, to make them proud. Before this place, Summer didn't care about that kind of stuff. What was the point of trying to make other people happy all the time? Who would want to tie up their own happiness with the happiness of others? But wasn't that what Summer was doing with Aya? Wasn't that what friendship was?

"Even if you lose," Summer said after a bite of toast, "I'm proud of you."

"Thanks," Aya smiled. Sometimes, when Summer said stuff like that, it felt as good as when a teacher would say it. Sometimes it even felt better. Weird.

After breakfast, the courtyard was ablaze with chatter. Every single student was there, waiting in the late morning sunlight for the ceremony to start. The doors of the auditorium were already open, but no one had the gall to go inside. Well, almost no one.

"Get outta there!" Lyra said sharply, pulling Wendy back by the arm.

"Why open the doors if they don't want us to go in?" Wendy huffed.

"It's tradition," Lyra argued.

"Can something really be a tradition if it's only happened one other time?" Admittedly, Wendy didn't really know anything about the last ceremony. She arrived the next day with a few other new students, at the start of the semester. Back then, there was still snow on the ground.

"It's tradition if people say so," Lyra continued, although if she were pressed even a little bit further on that line of logic she would definitely have found herself up against a wall. Regardless, Lyra held Wendy by the hand just incase she tried to sneak inside again.

"Oh, there's Ayoka," Wendy whispered, although it was one of those childish whispers that a lot of people could hear. Also, she was pointing right at the girl in question so Lyra had no trouble seeing who she was talking about.

"It's gonna be her or Emily that wins," Lyra said. "Nobody else is even close."

"How did she get so many?" Wendy wondered aloud, looking at the board across the courtyard.  Even from far away, it was clear which rows belonged to Aya and Emily.

"Probably because she paid attention in class and didn't stay up all night chasing ghosts and rumors?" Lyra offered.

The toll of a bell from one of the high towers echoed through the courtyard and the students started shuffling into the auditorium. Wendy turned to Lyra with a mocking query: "Nowwwww can I go in?"

"No," Lyra teased, then she followed the crowd into the auditorium. Wendy rolled her eyes and hurried behind her friend.

The auditorium had a huge stage set up on the far end with red velvet curtains hanging around the frame. There was a solid oak podium in the front center of the platform and some of the teachers were already seated on white wooden chairs along the back wall. The chatter never ceased. Seats were assigned only to the degree that classes had to stick together. Six students per class, ten classes total.

Wendy sat between Lyra and Aqua. Despite Wendy's efforts to make friends with Daisy, Wendy was just a bit too much for the sheepish girl. Aqua, on the other hand, could handle Wendy quite well. Or rather, put her in her place.

Through happenstance, Aya wound up one seat down from Emily with only Summer between them. Aya thought about breakfast, about her talk with Summer, and how she was going to be proud of Emily if she won. Aya stared at Emily out of the corner of her eye, watching her talk to Alex, before building up the courage to lean in front of Summer and tap her on the thigh. Summer almost smacked Aya's hand, but she was too slow.

Emily smiled with practiced sweetness and a whole lot of understated confidence as she looked over at Aya. There was something about Emily, a kind of inconsistency. She could play a sweet little angel, an unsure spectator, or a ruthless and cunning competitor all at the drop of a hat. More often than not, it was never the latter option that the teachers saw. Today, Aya would be seeing the former.

"I hope you do really super well!" Emily said brightly, with mock sincerity that was hard to see through

"You too," Aya smiled nervously. She certainly didn't have Emily's confidence, and she wasn't the most studious girl at the Academy either. Had this competition been for anything else other than the validation of her teachers and her peers, she may not even have participated in the sticker thing at all.

"I just wanted to say," Aya said, before Emily turned away again, "that you worked really hard this semester, and I'm proud of you."

Emily looked a little taken aback. The praise of other students didn't feel quite as important as the praise from a staff member, and Emily wasn't sure what advantage Aya could gain by saying something like that. In the end, she concluded there wasn't an advantage to be had; Aya was speaking genuinely.

"Thanks..." Emily said. "And you too. You're a really good rival."

"You think so?" Aya laughed nervously, playing with her fingers in her lap.

"You made me try harder," Emily said with her trademark confidence. "I'm better because of you."

Aya and Emily exchanged smiles - real, authentic smiles. Then the sharp tapping of heels on the wooden stage echoed through the room and the chatter ceased immediately. The woman at the podium had long blonde hair, cascading down her shoulders, and eyes like steel. They were piercing, even from Aya's seat in the fourth row. But her cheeks were round and warm and she wore a smile of fairness. She was the same woman who gave the speech last semester, but Aya hadn't thought once about her since that day. Now, she seemed impossible to forget. If the phrase could have been stripped of its romantic connotations, for Aya, this woman was love at first sight. Or, perhaps second.

"Hello everyone. You may remember me from the last time I took this stage, but I know some of you are new to the Academy. My name is Justice Byers. I know you have many questions as to the purpose of this school and when you are able to return home, and I promise that both of these questions will be answered much sooner than you might expect. We apologize again for the secrecy and I am very pleased by your patience and understanding. Thank you so much."

A heat filled Aya's chest, like the glow of a lantern, and her smile showed just how brightly she felt inside. But Aya wasn't alone in this: the entire audience smiled up at Justice Byers and kicked their feet excitedly. Some shifted in their chairs, their diapers rustling, until they were sitting at full attention. That was the best way to describe the students of the Academy in that moment: attentive.

Schools all over the world had assemblies like this in one way or another - students seated on bleachers or in chairs, some kind of stage or podium, and with the faculty present. It was always a very "us and them" situation. Students and Teachers. Children and Adults. Candies and People.

To Aya, it was a moment of opportunity, what she had been waiting for all semester. It was a chance to be the best girl anyone could be.

To Wendy, it was a moment of suspense, a door that had been closed and was now open. Like a cat sprinting for a seldom-opened room, she could hardly contain her excitement.

To the other students, it was a moment of culmination, a nexus of various amounts of work and love and effort. It was an opportunity to be praised together for the things they all did together. For being good girls and boys and nonbinary toys. For studying well. For wearing diapers, for using them. For choosing the Academy over themselves.

To the woman on the stage, Justice Byers, this was more important than it was to anybody else in the entire room and only she knew the reason why. Sixty students had their eyes fixed upon her, but if she felt a modicum of nervousness it surely didn't show.

"You've all worked so hard this past year," Justice Byers said, "and you all deserve to be praised. You should all feel proud of yourselves and of one another. I am proud of you, each and every one of you."

The audience beamed.  In that moment, there were no happier people in the world than those sixty students.

The ceremony itself wasn't as long as anyone expected. It felt so monumental, so grand and spectacular, something that had been building for months or years, but in the end it couldn't have gone on for more than fifteen minutes.

"Finally," Justice Byers said to the group, "I would like to welcome someone very special to the stage. Someone who has worked tirelessly to be the best they can be. Someone who has pleased all of us at the Academy beyond the measure of any other student. Someone exceptional."

The room was silent. The whole school was silent. Perhaps the entire world - for just that one moment, until Justice Byers spoke again - was silent. And if you can remember a recent moment when everything was silent - a moment when sound felt like blasphemy - then maybe that moment and this moment are one and the same.

"Ayoka Kanoska, please come to the stage."

[FloridaKid]

Alright, m’amour…you’ve teased with ghosts, clandestine operations, forbidden relationships and academy-verse crossover characters! With only a couple of chapters left, I’m dying to know who (or what) is behind the academies and what the littles are candidates for. 

[Personalias]

Whelp, this didn't go the way I predicted at the beginning, but I am completely okay with that. As usual, it's a well told story with excellent worldbuilding and pacing.

If the "ghost" is a recurring character, I have a prediction, but my predictions have been very wrong already, lol.  

[Mia Moore]

On 1/31/2023 at 10:59 PM, FloridaKid said:

Alright, m’amour…you’ve teased with ghosts, clandestine operations, forbidden relationships and academy-verse crossover characters! With only a couple of chapters left, I’m dying to know who (or what) is behind the academies and what the littles are candidates for. 

I think Academy Part 6 is gonna have a lot more about motives and stuff!  But I promise the last chapter of this one is going to give some good content. This book is a SUPER important one!!

On 2/1/2023 at 8:39 AM, Personalias said:

Whelp, this didn't go the way I predicted at the beginning, but I am completely okay with that. As usual, it's a well told story with excellent worldbuilding and pacing.

If the "ghost" is a recurring character, I have a prediction, but my predictions have been very wrong already, lol.  

? I'm so flattered!!! To have /the/ Personalias tell me my world building is excellent... I can die happy!! (Tho not before finishing this series of course.  ) And it's a bit of a spoiler, but.... more on the Ghost next chapter.

[Kahlez]

I did not see that ending coming, still nice one but I have at least one wild theory about the ghost. Sadly we have to wait on the next one and I hate to wait xD

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Sixteen

Wendy didn't remember a lot about the ceremony after that. She had been sitting vacantly for a long time, staring up at the empty stage, until she realized that Lyra wasn't beside her anymore. She slowly got to her feet and felt a cold rush up her inner thighs, sending a shiver through her body. She looked down at her chair, glistening with moisture. She turned her hips until she could see the seat of her skirt, dark pink and soaked through. Had she leaked?

Without thinking, Wendy pulled her skirt up in the center of the auditorium, looking at the front of her math-printed diaper with numbers and symbols all over it. The padding was thick and swollen, and the insides of her thighs glistened, but Wendy didn't even remember wetting herself.

Then Wendy remembered where she was and quickly put down her skirt. But all around her, the auditorium was empty. Three or four other students sat in their chairs, staring vacantly at the stage. Wendy wondered what was going on for all of one second before another shiver made her legs twitch. Her diaper grew warm again and she smiled.

Wendy took one squishy step after another, warm rivulets dribbling down her inner thighs and soaking into the tops of her socks. Soon, she was out of the auditorium and she saw the school grounds covered in early-evening shadows. She must have been sitting in that chair for an entire day, but that thought didn't even cross her mind.

Wendy was halfway through the courtyard before she felt tired. She sat down on a bench by the trees, squishing more liquid out of her diaper and into her skirt. She smiled dumbly. The sun and the clouds moved around her. It felt like watching a time lapse video, like a transition in a movie. Then something blocked her view. A girl.

"Hey," Wendy said, raising a hand. Her voice made the smallest sound, like if you tried ringing a bell while holding it from the bottom. It didn't even seem real, but the girl turned to her.

"Hey," she said back. A classmate. Not from Wendy's class, someone else. Wendy had seen her around. "I'm Bethany."

Bethany. Okay. Wendy opened her mouth to return the favor, but something went wrong halfway through.

"I'm..." A pause. Unexpected. Then, the two of them both forgot what they were talking about and Wendy never got to share her name with Bethany.

"I'm going to be a ballerina," Bethany said slowly, almost slurring her words. She sounded like a tired toddler after a long day of running around the park. She looked the part too, wearing nothing but a diaper with jump ropes printed on it and a half-unbuttoned school blouse. Her skirt was balled up around her waist like a poorly fashioned tutu and she wasn't wearing any shoes. Her thighs glistened in the evening light.

"Okay," Wendy said with a smile. Then Bethany turned around very slowly with her hands above her head. It was perhaps the most inelegant display of ballet anyone had ever seen. Nonetheless, Wendy was impressed.

Then, before either of them knew it, Bethany was on her way and Wendy was getting to her feet. Her diaper was so full that she almost fell back over, but she managed to steady herself by spreading her knees even more. Bethany wanted to be a ballerina. What did Wendy want to be?

Maybe Wendy could be a book-writer, or a picture-drawer, or a place-finder. Maybe she could be a fire-stopper, or a science-maker, or a people-learner. As she pondered this, she walked. One foot in front of the other. Walking both felt like something Wendy had never done before, and also at the same time, like it was an important and precise task that deserved her utmost attention. In much the same way one breathes when they think too much about breathing, so too did Wendy find herself taking each step in both a very deliberate and unnatural way.

Then there were cracks in the tiles - when had she gotten inside? - and she found herself wanting to avoid them while childish rhymes and songs and superstitions danced in the back of her mind. Thoughtfully and thoughtlessly, she turned around and looked behind the way she'd come. There were shiny drips of liquid on the ground, like bread crumbs left to show her where she'd been, although she didn't remember where she was going.

"Do you wanna come play hide and seek?"

Wendy turned entirely around one and a half times before her eyes allowed her to focus on the owner of the vaguely-familiar voice. Cece? Sally? Sunny? Summer. Summer was her name. Wendy smiled, because she didn't know much about anything, but hide and seek sounded fun.

"Suuuuure! Who else… is playing?"

"Everyone, I think," Summer answered, uncertainly. "I can't find anyone."

"Summer," Wendy tilted her head, drooling a little bit as she heard the pitter-patter of rain between her knees on the tile, "what do you wanna be?"

"Be?" Summer tilted her head for a moment, and then made a buzzing sound with her mouth. It made Wendy laugh. "I can be a flower girl?" Summer said, more like a question. "I like flowers, and bees like flowers, like that girl in um, the game, um, with the cart. I can be her. Or walking down the aisle at a wedding and then—"

Summer's story broke mid-sentence as she puffed out her cheeks. At first, Wendy thought she was bothered by something, like someone had spoiled her plans, but that wasn't it at all. With a huff and a groan, Summer bent forward and started filling her diaper. The whole time, Wendy stood there and watched the grown woman mess herself in the middle of the hall. Then, when she was done, Wendy picked up the conversation like it hadn't happened at all.

"Then what?"

"What what?" Summer asked.

"Um..." Wendy paused to think about it, but she couldn't remember what Summer's story had been about. The air smelled of Summer's messy diaper, and the memory of flowers was so far from Wendy's mind.

"I think we are playin' a game," Wendy finally said. "With you and your friend."

"Friend?" Summer asked. She shuffled from foot to foot in her full diaper, but she wasn't leaking all over the floor like Wendy. Her skirt was totally dry, though her hair ribbon was tied around her neck like a collar.

"The, um... girl. You are friends with? Your girl?" Everyone had a girl or a boy or a someone. Wendy had Lyra. Summer had a girl! But Summer shrugged absentmindedly.

"I'mma find a flower," Summer said cheerfully, then wandered down the hall making buzzing sounds for reasons she couldn't remember.

"Okay," Wendy said happily, then caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She took a step closer and her reflection disappeared. She looked out at the courtyard, at a boy rolling side to side in the grass. Wendy felt another shiver up her spine and tried to wet her diaper again, this time to no avail.

"I must be thirsty," she said to herself, and walked down the hall toward the drinking fountains.

The chrome fountain perplexed Wendy when she found it, not because she couldn't remember how to use it, but because there were two fountains. Why were there two? Were they different? Was one better than the other? Was one the right answer?

Wendy closed her eyes and felt around in front of her, grasping one of the fountains in her hand and pushing the button, and that was the one she drank from. And goodness did she drink from it. She could hear voices far in the distance, but they sounded like they were spoken through tin-can-telephones: muted and muffled and unimportant.

Wendy's tummy ached, and she wondered how long she'd been drinking. She let go of the button, rubbed her belly, and burped impolitely as she did. What was she doing? Where was she going? She didn't know, so she sat down on the tile beside the drinking fountains.

The sun went down. The sky grew dark. The air changed color and everything got colder. Wendy didn't fall asleep, but it felt like she had been asleep for a thousand years. She put her legs out as far as they could go, spreading them wide, and wet her diaper for warmth.

"You are, um. A good fish." The girl had come out of nowhere. Wendy didn't see her walk up, but she was there all the same. She was wearing a set of pajamas that bulged out around her hips like she had taped herself into a whole pack of diapers. Wendy wasn't sure what she was seeing at first, but the girl never put her arms at her sides. She just stood there, knees far apart, and arms reaching outward. Then it clicked.

"You are a good starfish," Wendy said back to her with all the confidence of a five year old who knew her shapes.

"Bubbles," the girl said plainly.

"Your name?" Wendy asked.

"Uhhuh. Or, it is now. Megan is a bad name for a starfish."

Wendy nodded in agreement. Megan was a bad name for a starfish. But then Wendy remembered what Bubbles had said to her when she arrived.

"Oh, I am not a fish. Just so you know."

"You're not?" the starfish formally known as Megan asked. "But you're in the puddle." Wendy looked down at her skirt. It was soaked through, and a puddle had formed under her butt. Oh.

"I'm not a fish," Wendy said again, a little confused. "I suppose I should get up."

So Wendy did just that. She got to her feet and looked at the starfish. Didn't starfishes need water? Which explained her coming to the drinking fountains. Of course.

"The water is very good," Wendy said happily, "but I should find where I belong."

"Okay," Bubbles said with a smile, and waddled forward to drink from the fountain. It was awkward, because she refused to bend her arms to press the button, but Wendy had other places to be.

Wendy meandered downstairs. A girl was asleep at the bottom of the flight, clutching a rock to her chest like it would keep her from drowning. A boy was laying face down in the grass, kicking his feet. But as Wendy made her way back toward the dorm rooms, she noticed something above her in the east wing. A light. A lantern.

"I think I want... to be..." Wendy was speaking to herself. Though others were around, they didn't hear her. "A piano-player."

"Ting… tingaling….babong… duh-duh-de-de-taaaa…" Wendy sung aloud to what she imagined her piano-playing would be like as she made her way toward the stairs. Even though her noises were nothing akin to the ivory keys of a finely tuned instrument, she continued to proclaim her broken notes loudly and proudly. The idea grew deeper and thicker roots into Wendy's very core with each measured and deliberate step she took up the staircase. Stairs looked a lot like pianos, if you tipped them over.

Wendy herself tipped over, having learned that going up the stairs was much harder than going down. She fell to her hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way. The diaper around her hips was so swollen that it seemed to weigh her down more than her exhaustion, so when she got to the top, she just kept crawling instead of getting to her feet.

Hand, knee, hand, knee. She moved forward in short bursts, wiggling her butt as she went, until she got to the door of the music room. It was dark out, and she could feel the weight of the night creeping up through her bones. She could fall asleep right there, in front of that door. Maybe she did, because the next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes and everything felt nauseous.

A ringing in her ears seemed to... no, suddenly it was gone.

A ringing... Wendy got to her feet, tired and dizzy, and held the door to the music room for support. The diaper sagged between her thighs and she felt it get warm again without even trying.

Wendy reached for the handle and let herself into the music room, but it was dark. She looked around the empty space, rubbing her eyes until they would adjust, but they seemed to ignore her will. How could she play the piano in the dark? So Wendy reached up and grabbed the lantern off the hook by the door. She wasn't supposed to do that, but she wasn't thinking clearly. Actually, she wasn't really thinking at all.

Wendy brought the lantern into the room and closed the door behind her. The flame cascaded into every corner, through every crack, and lit the music room like a summer sunbeam. It made Wendy warm and excited. She waddled her way over to the piano and sat down on the bench. Her diaper squished against the polished surface and leaked all over the floor, making a puddle under Wendy's shoes. She put the lantern on top of the piano and looked at the sheet music. Wendy couldn't read sheet music, but she didn't need to. The paper had nothing on it but one arrow, pointing down at a particular key.

Wendy pushed down on that key and a note rang through the quiet room. A single note, and then clarity. Wendy blinked, like she had woken up from the longest nap in the entire world, and turned to the girl sitting next to her. She was wearing a school uniform, just like Wendy, but a red sticker was stuck to her shirt like a badge. That was Wendy's sticker.

"Welcome back," she said with a smile. She had a beautiful confidence about her, but Wendy was feeling so unsure. She needed that smile, she needed those words.

"You're the Ghost," Wendy whispered, like someone was listening. But the girl spoke at a normal volume, despite the empty quiet of the room.

"I am, yep. And you're..."

"Wendy," Wendy finished. But the girl shook her head.

"Not quite," she said.

Wendy started to feel nauseous again and the girl reached up to play the same note on the piano. The vibration of the string played through the room and Wendy's clarity returned.

"If you start feeling unwell, just hit this key. Okay?" The girl waited for Wendy to nod in understanding. The note was still ringing.

"I don't know what's going on," Wendy admitted. "I was at the auditorium and..."

"It's called The Calm," the Ghost explained. "We've talked about this before. Do you remember that?"

"No..." Wendy bit her lip.

"But you came here," the Ghost said. "Like you promised."

"I promised?" Wendy remembered last week, that note in her pocket. Thank you. For what? For making a promise. For promising to come to the music room when The Calm happened. The Ghost saw the recollection in Wendy's eyes.

"Who am I?"

"I don't know," Wendy admitted. She started to feel sick and pushed down again on the piano key. It subsided.

"Trust yourself," the Ghost repeated. "Who am I?"

Wendy had no reason to trust herself. She had no reason to trust anything that wasn't told to her by the staff. But she had a name in her mind, a name that felt right.

"Kione?" Wendy guessed.

"Kione," the Ghost nodded, her smile warm with a pride that didn't seem to reach Wendy the way she needed it to. "And," she continued, "who are you?"

Wendy was the name that came to the front of her mind. What color is the sky? Blue. What color is the grass? Green. What sound does a cat make? Meow. What's your name? Wendy. Instinct. Trained. Rote. Drilled down into her by a thousand "good girl"s.

Wendy St. James. Wendy St. James.

Pling went the key on the piano. Wendy tried to focus. Pling.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" the Ghost asked. "You've been to a school or a town or a playground. You've been in room after room, diaper after diaper. But you always find your way out, don't you? You always find a door, or a window, or a music room. Don't you?"

"I think so..." Wendy tapped the piano key one more time.

"Who did those things?" Kione asked. "Who is still doing those things?"

"Me," Wendy said. But that was the wrong pronoun. "I... Ai Sinclair."

The Ghost let out a sigh of relief. It looked like every muscle in her body relaxed at once, and Wendy wondered passively if she had wet herself.

"You're a really hard girl to find, Ai," Kione smiled. "But now that I have, we've got a lot to discuss."

"I don't understand..." Wendy tried again, but she felt like she was starting to. She had a different name to keep her hidden. She was in a new Academy to keep her moving. But she was here too long, or maybe they thought she was too safe. Or maybe they didn't care anymore if Ai was found.

"It's okay," Kione said, putting her hand on Wendy's shoulder. On Ai's shoulder. "They think they can't fail. They think they have it all under control. They don't. I found you."

"They?" The Academy. Wendy knew without even needing an answer. "You're 254..."

"I am!" Kione sounded so pleased.

"They don't want you to find me," Wendy continued. "Why not?"

"Because I know what I'm doing," Kione grinned. "Because I can teach you."

"You can teach me?" Wendy wondered aloud. Was that what all this was about?

"They keep resetting you," Kione said, "so you can't learn or change or overcome anything. Because you're scary."

"Why am I scary? I can't even keep my diapers dry..." That was when Wendy remembered how wet she was, that her skirt was soaked through, and Kione's own butt was probably sitting in a puddle on the bench. A warm blush filled Wendy's cheeks.

"Honestly, I don't know..." Kione smiled uncertainly. "All the Candies are special, but some that are more special than others, like you and me. They call us Arcana."

"Candies…" Wendy whispered. That word sounded so familiar.  Were all the students at this school Candies as well?

"They need some of the Arcana for… whatever they're doing," Kione continued. "And others need to be mitigated so they don't interfere. For whatever reason, there's something about you… a connection, or an ability. Something about you scares them."

Wendy was quiet for a moment and Kione paused to rethink her approach.  She was running out of time. Ultimately, everything was in Wendy's - Ai's - hands. Kione was just a facilitator. She always had been, like destiny had prepared her for the role.

"You get to choose," Kione said, taking Ai's hand off the piano key. The ringing of the note wouldn't help much longer anyway. "I can help you remember everything. I can teach you how to disappear, how to get out of any room, how to take control. And the only thing it will cost you is... the freedom to give up. The quiet, pleasant mindlessness of surrender. You won't ever be able to find peace, maybe for the rest of your life."

Kione had the forbidden fruit, and all Ai had to do was bite into it. She could know everything: all the knowledge she could hope for and all the secrets kept from her. But that act, that critical choice, would be to turn away from God. Ai would never be a good girl again.

Wendy looked into Kione's eyes. Ai looked into Kione's eyes. This school had taught her so much about praise and approval and how wonderful everything could feel. So then why did Wendy keep getting in trouble?

Because Ai just couldn't help it. There was no peace in obedience or praise or doing the right thing. Happiness came from being wrong, from making mistakes, from learning and growing. How could she be happy if she couldn't even be herself? How could she be at peace if she couldn't get better?

Ai's curiosity didn't stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the world, but a fundamental understanding of her place within it. As with any diaper, nothing could be true and good without the promise of change on the horizon.

Ai looked at Kione with characteristic determination and said: "Teach me."

[End]

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Thank you so much for reading!!  Sorry this one took so long.  I wish I could say Part 6 is almost ready to come out, but I've still got a lot to go. ? I might wait until I'm completely done before I post it, so I'm not leaving everyone with only one chapter to go for an entire month... ?

Again, thank you all so much!!

~Mia Moore~

Edit:
Here's a link for Part 6: Academy M!!
 

 

[FloridaKid]

Boy did I sign on at the right time today!! Well played. I never suspected that Wendy was an Academy A incarnation of Ai. I thought I clearly remembered the end of the previous chapter but actually scrolled up to check it because I wasn’t sure once Wendy found herself alone in the auditorium. You had me thinking I’d missed a chapter or something. Very sneaky. Now that Kione has finally found Ai, I can hardly wait to see where you take them next. 
 

Happy Spring Break! I hope the rest of your school year goes well!

[Mia Moore]

34 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

Boy did I sign on at the right time today!! Well played. I never suspected that Wendy was an Academy A incarnation of Ai. I thought I clearly remembered the end of the previous chapter but actually scrolled up to check it because I wasn’t sure once Wendy found herself alone in the auditorium. You had me thinking I’d missed a chapter or something. Very sneaky. Now that Kione has finally found Ai, I can hardly wait to see where you take them next. 
 

Happy Spring Break! I hope the rest of your school year goes well!

THANK YOU!!!   Yeah, I think my favorite part is all the tiny little Ai callouts throughout the story.  Like Wendy climbing out the window like Ai did in A:B.  And rebranding Ai's "curiosity" as Wendy's "adventure".  It was a ton of fun revisiting her from another lens.

[FloridaKid]

Where you really had me was at the outset when Aya was presented as the main character for this academy. I thought Wendy was simply another perspective from which to view the situation. Crafty one, you are. ?

”Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I’ll be looking at your characters a little more carefully in future stories. I really do enjoy how you’ve built this world!

[BabyLexie]

The worldbuilding in this series is absolutely riveting. I was so excited to realize the ghost was Kione, I didn't see that coming at all.

I need to go back and read the older stories now. Thanks for sharing your work!

[Personalias]

And now the threads start to come together to form a larger tapestry.  Brava

[FloridaKid]

@Mia Moore…Spring Break is done and you’re in the home stretch for this school year! Any chance you’ll be getting back to the academyverse in the near future? Would love to read more of Ai and Kione…

[Mia Moore]

On 3/27/2023 at 9:19 PM, FloridaKid said:

@Mia Moore…Spring Break is done and you’re in the home stretch for this school year! Any chance you’ll be getting back to the academyverse in the near future? Would love to read more of Ai and Kione…

Thanks for the interest!  I'm working on Academy Pt. 6 at the moment, and I promise it will answer a lot more questions people have.