//------------------------------//
// The First Day of Summer 
// Story: Forever Summer 
// by Cold in Gardez 
//------------------------------//

The morning dawned like any other late-spring day in Ponyville. Birds singing, gorgeous sun lighting the eastern sky, et cetera, et cetera. The usual, in other words: Ponyville being Ponyville. Celestia's favorite little town, where everything was perfect.

Except for all the terrified ponies. That was a bit unusual, but we'll get to them in a moment.

The day looked to be a scorcher. The sun wasn't even over the horizon, and already the humid air stuck to ponies' coats and smothered their tongues with each breath. High above, the early-risers of the Ponyville Weather Team had already cleared away the night's thin overcast, leaving only a deep azure that slowly bled to grey and pink in the east. A weak breeze rustled the highest leaves on the great oak in the town square, but at street level the air barely stirred, as if it too were still trying to wake.

The farm ponies were already up and getting to work. They rose with the sun, or maybe a bit earlier, depending on how lazy the sun was being that day. Celestia was known to sleep in sometimes, despite the attempts of her entire staff to break down her chamber door and rouse her so that she might raise the sun. On those days, the darkness lasted a little longer than normal, until in a sudden moment the sun raced into the sky, settling into a mid-morning position like a sheepish foal who hoped her tardiness had not been noticed.

It was always noticed, of course. But ponies, even farmers who needed the sun, tended to love their princess even more, and so they never let her know that it bothered them. They just worked in the dark some mornings.

Today was not one of those days. Celestia had not slept through her alarm, and the sun rose precisely when the almanac said it would. The farm ponies noticed this, nodded approvingly, and then cast wary, frightened glances over their shoulders.

In the heart of town, the shopkeepers and business ponies were slightly slower getting to work. Business hours were not farm hours, after all, and town ponies tended to rise later in the day, not until the first rays of the sun broke through the windows to brighten their bedrooms.

Today, those ponies lay in bed, still but not asleep. They clutched the covers to their chests and stared at the ceilings or the doors. They tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

Finally, there were the town's pegasi, most of whom were still asleep and had no intention of waking until the sun was closer to noon. The few exceptions – the aforementioned weather team members, who woke under protest, and the town's animal caretaker, living out on the edge of the Everfree – were among the only pegasi the rest of the town would see for half the day.

Thus it was that the sun dawned on Ponyville, on a normal, beautiful, mundanely perfect late-spring day. Normal, except that it was also the first day of summer break.

The foals were loose. Cheerilee's free babysitting-slash-educational services were done for three months, and the schoolteacher herself was already halfway to Las Pegasus, where the first of many heavily salted margaritas waited for her on the pool deck.

The foals were loose. They blinked their gummy eyes and tottered out of bed, wondering for a few confused moments where their parents were, and why they were not being hustled into the bathrooms and off to breakfast and out the door with book-stuffed saddlebags and lunch pails. And then the last fog of sleep drifted away, and they remembered running out the schoolhouse doors, and they shrieked with joy. Summer – the magical promised land of summer – had finally arrived.

The foals were loose. And that was terrifying.