//------------------------------// // The Dog Days of Summer Everlasting: Chapter 1 // Story: Scrips, scraps, and other unfinished miscellania // by Pacific Penguin //------------------------------// An incessant buzzing resounded. It didn’t want to stop, did it? The pillow could not be more useless against the horrible sound of it… it just… kept… going… “No… no Mom, I’ll be up in time…” It kept on. “I’ll get up in five more minutes… it’ll be fine. I won’t sleep in… not that it matters if I do… I’ll be there so fast…” The sound didn’t seem to care. It continued. “…Okay, okay, okay… geezzzz…” Slowly flicking away a bit of my not particularly more unkempt than usual hair, I opened my eyes just a crack. Then with practiced ease, I slammed my hoof down on the nightstand I knew was next to me. The goddesses annoying sound finally stopped, but I smashed my hoof down a couple more times just to make sure. Then I lazily shifted over. The ceiling seemed especially interesting for some reason. Sigh. But I don’t get paid to stare at ceilings. So I splayed my legs out, and did an epic leg wiggle. Okay. I was ready for the day. Yet the ceiling still seemed incredibly interesting. There were circles and winding lines on there, I swear… just going round and round in circles… I kept tracing them for some time, then finally groaned and glanced at the alarm clock. Yeah, I guess it was late enough to get up. All right Rainbow, you think you can get the raincloud rounded up and sent their way in record time? Aw yeah. I was ready to get it done. But first, bathroom. I threw off the covers, and flew in there, quick as lightning. As I left, I made sure to mat down my hair a bit with my hooves, to work out the kinks. There. It looked good enough. I did the same with my tail. It occurred to me that Rarity might be doing the same thing about this time of day… except like four hours earlier, probably. I wondered how much hair gel she used… and how long it must take her... eesh, I didn’t even want to think about it. All that time. Who would even care about how your hair looked anyway? If you were doing something awesome, no one was really going to look at your hair… they’re just looking for the performance! The thoughts made me shudder. Anyway, I left the bathroom, dashed away into the kitchen, tossed some ponytarts into the toaster. I pulled out a cereal box, a bowl, and a carton of orange juice and milk. I poured out some orange juice into a cup, and filled the bowl with cereal. Then I carefully balanced the green ceramic bowl on a fork, and a spoon on the end of that. Ding-ding-ding. The toaster pastries finished. Now was the time to act! Smashing the toaster’s lever, I sent the tasty pastries flying high into the air, simultaneously taking to the air myself. Then I flung some milk into the air, and slammed my hoof down on the fork. In perfect slow motion, I kicked the cereal bowl towards the still rising milk. Reaching my outstretched forelegs the opposite direction, I squeezed some orange juice into the air, and flew further upwards to meet the toaster pastries, swallowing them in one bite. The bowl and cereal hit their mark perfectly, meeting the milk, which perfectly fit between the bowl and cereal. I met the flowing orange juice mass as it reached the highest point of its arc, and drank my fill. And to finish it off, I caught the bowl in my hooves, hooves lightly touching the ground, and the cereal and milk fell into place. Remembering the silverware, I reached out with one hoof and caught the spoon by the scoop of it. I turned it just slightly, so that the narrower part of the handle faced the ceiling. The fork fell perfectly on it, its tines trapping it on the spoon. I removed the fork, and began eating my cereal. All and all, I think it was a pretty easy breakfast routine. Executed perfectly. Yup, not a flaw. Okay, maybe not perfectly. All right fine, I might have missed one ponytart. And the cereal and milk and bowl might have landed on my head. But that’s not as awesome. No, don’t bring up the orange juice. Anyway, after an impeccable breakfast, I opened up my front door, and looked out. My house gets awful lonely sometimes. It’s a pretty darn big cloudsdalian style house for just me. And it’s the only one for quite some distance… sometimes I wish I had a roommate or something. But then I remember that only pegasi can walk on clouds without enchantment. And heck if I’m going to have Fluttershy as a roommate… she was over for a sleepover this one time, and I started telling the most radical story, and then, well, that’s another story. And a boring one at that. Anyway, the clouds here are perfect. Making cloud angels is great. I walked on some, admired some of my spectacular liquid rainbow flows (I put them in myself), and overall cool architecture. Then I took off. I had some cloud wranglin’ to do. The weather team wanted about a dozen clouds brought in, six to be sent over to Sweet Apple Acres, four over to the Everfree forest, and two over to Ponyville (I think Carrot Top wanted help with her garden or something), but they never were too strict about how to get that task done. Today, the clouds they needed were close to the mountains, about two miles from my house. I was feeling a bit spectacular today, so once I arrived there, I thought I’d try something new. After, though, flying through one of the more water laden clouds. To, eh, wash off the orange juice. But after that, I flew over to a nice big and fluffy pure white cloud, soft to the touch. So soft you could just nuzzle down, put up your legs, and daydream a bit… start drifting off to unwakefullness… and then, you could just be anywhere… Right. What was I doing? Yeah. So I slowly worked off a bit of the cloud. It’s not really hard, they just come apart like cotton candy fluff. But with less of the melting into a horrible mess on your hooves. Mess on your hooves. Ergh. This bit of cloud I stretched out as far as I could without making it disassociate, then spindled it around so it became narrow and taut as well as long and durable. Perfect. Doing this with a few more cloud bits only took about five minutes or so. Then I lashed them together with some basic flight school knots. Like the overhoof knot. That’s a good one. I had a good length of cloud rope. Fashioning a lasso, I was set. It was time to wrangle down some clouds! Get ‘im flygirl! I whipped out the rope, and tightened the lasso hold around the middle of the cloud, clinching it firmly but gently, preventing splitting. Yeah! That’s how we do it! Tightening my tooth-hold on the cloud, I hauled it behind me, and flew upwards. Then, taking the rope into my hands, I began to give the cloud bundle a little spin, twirling it around and around, until it began to drift forward of its own momentum, and unleashed it. It continued forward. I retracted the rope, and flipped it around. Doing my best Daring Do impression, I snapped the rope forward, slicing off another section of nearby cloud, and quickly wrangling it in with a battle cry, and giving it the same rotational treatment, sending it away. A few more whips, cracks, and lassoes later, and a whole flock of clouds were moving off towards Ponyville. That, and more than a few Daring Do oneliners, I’ll admit. Without them, it just wouldn’t have been quite as brilliant. In any case, once they reached Ponyville, I could fine tune their bearings, and get them where they needed to go. Yup, hard work done. It was time for a well-deserved nap. Adventuring is tiring! So, rushing forward, craning my neck straight ahead for superior speed, I pulled up, then let myself fall, the half loop trajectory allowing my outstretched limbs to find the heavenly embrace of a cloud. Today was going to be a spectacular day. But the rest of that hard work could wait until a tiny bit later.