Shysage knew they would need some source of light in their house. This would be helpful at night, but probably essential, all day and all night, during the winter, especially on days when it was too cold or too stormy to go outside.
As previously mentioned, somepony from the city had provided them with a bunch of candles. How quickly they would burn, or how long they would last, Shysage didn't know. They had also given him a rough, approximately 1 foot square metal plate, presumably to put a candle on.
Shysage needed to find a safe way to light a candle. Fire was dangerous in their home, but he needed fire to be able to do that.
Late in the fall, when the river was fairly slow, he called everypony down to the edge. They all stayed in visual range, while Shysage walked along the middle of the river both East and West from their house.
He did find a few large flinty rocks in the river bed as he did this. The ones he found, he kicked up and out of the river. They were soon inside the house. They needed to dry out before they could be used.
The rest of the equation would be some sort of easily flammable material, preferably in small quantities. Shysage had already collected a bunch of fallen Oak tree leaves for this. They were big, and so hopefully could collect a lot of glowing sparks, and maybe one would catch fire.
At any rate, late in the fall, before the weather got stormy, Shysage had built up a substantial pile of dried Oak leaves in the house.
Shysage also decided that the roughly 2 foot square area of hard clay next to a wall in their house would be the place to actually light candles. Besides, the bucket of water was near too.
The first, very cold day they had that Winter, Shysage actually lit his first candle. He had Summer change him into a 'people' for this task, so he could use his hands.
The first flinty rock he tried was a dud, but the second one worked well, and most of the Oak leaf was soon on fire over the clay. Placing the wick of the candle into the fire quickly lit the candle.
For now, Shysage just set the candle in the middle of the clay, and that was that. He actually liked that location for the candle, and so moved the metal plate under it. They didn't use it as a 'blackboard' any more. Shysage used the five flinty rocks he had gathered and built a sort of semi-circle around where the candle was, on the side away from the wall. It was just a little added containment.
They had light, and it was far enough away from the wall that it wouldn't start the tree on fire. It wasn't near the door either, so hopefully it wouldn't blow out with a gust of wind. And it actually lit up the inside of the house nicely, after everyponies' eyes adjusted.
Shysage and Summer sat as 'people' on the bench and hugged their girls for a while, then kissed each other a few minutes. Then Summer changed them both back to ponies.
Shysage then pulled some hair from his tail, called all three of his girls over, then showed them all how easily hair caught on fire, and that it smelled terrible. That was an important lesson. Everypony needed to stay away from the candle.
Shysage realized that half an Oak leaf would be plenty. He also found that one candle would last more than a day, and so he had enough for the whole winter.
This Winter was not extremely cold. There were days that were so cold, they could not go outside. But there were also days where they could stay outside long enough to forage some dead grass, and drink some water. Of course, the coats stayed on all Winter.
Sue decided she would just eat whenever and wherever daddy ate, and so the Oats were left for Lee alone, and she appreciated that. Lee thanked her sister more than once. The food supply that Shysage and his family had gathered during the fall served Lee well as a result.
With the exception of Lee, the rest of the family just went on a diet of sorts. There was not a lot of dry grass close, and they soon had to walk some distance to find it, and so they simply did not eat much. That's just what ponies do during the Winter.
Summer and Shysage wisely backed off some on their schooling during the winter. They found that their girls just had a hard time focusing on 'lessons' when it wasn't warm inside, and this happened quite a bit.
Still, overall their girls were both very smart, and seemed to pick up division and multiplication quickly. It took a lot of pine cones to show everything, but that was just part of the process. Besides, Shysage had a big collection of pine cones.
Reading and Writing mostly had to wait though. The girls knew and practiced their letters, and that was a good start. But they could no longer use their 'blackboard' since the candle was on it.
About those pine cones... Shysage quickly realized that a specific variety of pine cone that he had collected were the only ones suitable for making a hair brush.
As a result, the rest of the pile, a significant amount, were available for however anypony else decided to use them. They were used mostly for math, but would find other uses at various times.
By the beginning of the Winter, the pine cones had dried out, opened up and dropped their seeds.
With this specific pine cone however, Shysage found that he could carefully remove every other row of 'flutes' in a circle around the diameter, and then remove every other flute in the perpendicular direction. (He didn't think 'flute' was the correct term.)
But this left one flute in four, and that particular spacing worked well. Shysage used a small stick to clean everything else from the deeper parts of the pine cone, and then rinsed them in the river, and let them dry out.
Later, Shysage asked Summer to change him into a 'people', and then asked for a test subject. His amazing Mare quickly turned back into a pony and said softly "Me please."
Shysage was not touching her when she changed back into a Pony, and he strangely stayed a 'people'. He didn't think about this part very long, but immediatey began brushing his Mare's mane. She loved it. And if Summer loved it, Shysage did too. He brushed her mane and tail a while. She sighed a lot.
Shysage even tried touching her while she was a pony, and he didn't change forms. This was a new experience, but would probably come in handy. Besides, being able to brush his Mare's mane and tail was amazing, for both of them.
But the main point was that the new brushes were a LOT faster than fingers at untangling the hair of the mane and tail.
On that first day, after Shysage brushed his Mare's hair a while, Summer was quickly back into 'people' form herself, and spent the better part of the afternoon brushing Sue and Lee's hair. They loved it too.
Somepony had to be a 'people' to use them, but these homemade brushes worked very well, and substantially reduced the time it took to brush the girls and each other's hair. This was probably offset by the fact that everypony in the house now thoroughly enjoyed getting their mane and tail brushed, and so it 'took' longer, but nopony minded.
There were a few snow storms that first Winter. Going outside and seeing the ground covered by this beautiful White coating was amazing for the girls. If they had seen Snow before, neither remembered.
It was fun to play in, but the cold soon forced everypony back inside. Still, their tree provided good insulation, and it usually stayed tolorably warm inside, even if it was very cold outside.
Shysage decided against even mentioning a 'Snowman'. It would just be a mistake.
That first Winter saw the beginnings of what Shysage called 'sibling rivalry' between Sue and Lee.
Summer suspected that they had not seen it sooner because Sue and Lee were still adjusting to their new family. However, now that both were very comfortable in their mommy and daddy's love, they began to pick at each other in very subtle ways, always verbally.
Another factor may have been that, during the Winter, the girls spent a lot of time 'cooped up' inside, with little else to do. There was just nothing anypony could do about that though.
Summer and Shysage just dealt with each occurrance with a careful discussion about the damage that hurtful words can cause.
Neither parents thought it would simply go away, the girls just needed to realize for themselves that the pain they were causing each other was just wrong.
Still, Shysage and Summer realized part way through that Winter that they needed to come up with some good 'in-door' activities for the girls. These were mainly kept for very cold days when going outside was not an option.
Shysage called his activity "Queen for a day". The goal was for each of the girls to think through very carefully what they would do if they were the ruler of the realm -- for just one day. The girls had to create any type of realm they wanted, as well.
Shysage explained that this could be answered very simply, but that he wanted the girls to put some real thought into their answers, so there was no time limit.
He also required that, each time they played this together, they had to come up with a completely different response. He didn't want the girls to just say the same thing each time, but that was never a problem. In fact, sometimes the girls came up with very elaborate 'kingdoms', and they were allowed to use them more than once.
Shysage's main goal was to challenge their imagination. He doubted either of their girls would actually be able to do this.
It turned out that both girls were very creative, and came up with a lot of interesting, and sometimes crazy answers. It really was a lot of fun, and required that they think a lot too. Still, they actually looked forward to this.
The girls talked Summer into doing this, just once. She thought for a few minutes, then simply described the life they were living now. Her point was that she was so completely enjoying the ponies around her, right now, that she would change nothing.
Well, Summer did point out that in her version, Sue and Lee never teased each other. And mommy did look at daddy funny once, like there just might have been something else she would change.
Summer came up with an amazing activity too. She called her activity simply 'Monsters', and all the family would play.
They would pick one pony, usually one of the girls, and that pony would carefully create a mental description of some sort of bad monster. The monster could have any powers or abilities, but needed to have one weakness. Only the one pony knew this information.
The rest of the family would then, together, formulate attacks against that monster, and the pony that made the monster would describe how the monster responded to the attack.
This careful attack-results cycle would continue until the monster's weakness was discovered, and the monster was conquered.
This game moved very slowly, but was always a lot of fun. The discussion together about the attack strategy was always very fun, and often funny. The pony who created the monster could hear all this, and had to avoid laughing or frowning, to avoid giving away their monster's weakness.
Both girls loved this game too.
At any rate, through some very dull days inside, during that Winter, Summer and Shysage did work hard to keep the girls busy. It was often a lot of fun for everypony.
[This is the first of a number of isolated sections that handle some of the physical aspects of Summer and Shysage's relationship. They are living together as Stallion and Mare, far in the past. It is easier to write about 'idealized' and perfect ponies, but Summer and Shysage are not that. Together, they faced very real struggles, and some of these have been included. I have tried to avoid graphic details. Still, I apologize if this offends anyone. Feel free to skip sections like this if you prefer. -- Shysage]
Summer and Shysage probably changed back and forth between being ponies and being 'people' far more than anypony else on either side of the Portal.
The reason for this is that it seemed like Summer alone possessed the ability to chose either form at will. This was probably because she needed this ability to function as a Phantom Alicorn.
Shysage rapidly realized that, when transitioning into the 'people' form, Summer and Shysage would both be wearing the last clothing items they were wearing the previous time they were in their 'people' form.
Summer and Shysage were 'people' a lot, both to care for and nurture their two girls, and also to care for and love each other. As a result, their 'people' clothing were seeing a considerable amount of use, and began to show it.
Shysage's long pants, t-shirt, white zippered and hooded sweatshirt, and tennis shoes were fairly sturdy. Well, the sweatshirt wasn't bright White any more, but still... However, Summer's stylish Equestria Girls clothing was not showing itself to be nearly as durable.
Nopony could have known they would be in the past for a while...
(opt:btm3a)
As usual, Shysage just hugged his Mare close to him...
After a few minutes of silence, Summer sighed, than began softly.
"Shysage, you aren't the first stallion I wanted. The other ones happened before I learned about, and understood true friendship, and so I was only thinking about myself, just what I wanted from the stallion. There were only a few, and I was never close to any of them, and that was probably my fault.
Summer started weeping softly at this point.
"Soon after I fully understood the 'putting others first' part of true friendship, I met you. And it seems like the closer we became, the more I simply worked on putting you first...
"Just by focusing on what I could do for you, I have received so much more in return... Far more than I even thought possible, when I was just thinking about myself...
"In general, it seems like no matter how much I try to give to the ponies around me, I just seem to receive so much more back...
"And you, precious Stallion... The more I give... to you and for you... So much more do I receive in return from you...
Summer just stopped here in thought, then said very quietly "I don't ever want to lose true friendship... And I don't ever want to lose you..."
Shysage felt the same way, and just cried softly with her for a while.
They soon cried themselves to sleep.