Summer ended. Fall came and went, and it got cold. Winter came, and it got very cold.
I was glad I had found Applejack's coat. These weren't my colors, but Rarity had done a good job; the coat was very warm. I wore it every day. I had to.
No visitors. No menacing monsters. No Canterlot Recording.
No Summer, either...
Just frigid, monotonous lonliness. It slowly ate away at my heart.
Well, there were a lot of Crows around here. They were easy to spot on the leafless, wildly overgrown apple trees. Well, there were a lot of them, they were everywhere. And they were always noisy.
Still, when I saw a shadow fly over me, I always had to look. I was scared to death it would be that monster. I was hoping like mad it would be my Mare. It was just a Crow.
I had plenty of time to think about Summer's Dream, and a lot of pieces came back during that Winter.
This wasn't a dream, but I still spent most of my time, usually shivering, on that slight hill on the gentle slope where Rainbow Dash taught Equestria Girls Shyna how to fly. I usually laid on my belly. I usually cried a lot. I talked to true friend a lot too. I knew better than question, it was just increasingly harder.
Buried in Summer's Dream I had waited 37 years. I didn't think I had to wait that long. I didn't think I could, either. But I really didn't know.
When I slept, I didn't dream much, but my life slowly became a nightmare.
Every day, I would start the day saying "maybe today". I would end by saying "maybe tomorrow." It was just getting harder and harder to say anything any more.
One cold, quiet night after a substantial snowstorm, I walked out and sat in the snow, right outside the barn. It was freezing, of course, but I slowly looked around at the landscape, covered with a hushed layer of White beauty; everything was glowing softly in the moonlight of a full Moon. And the music still playing quietly and persistently in the background, it so fit this...
The last time I had done this was with Summer, over 1,300 years in the Past. We had finally concluded that the two girls we rescued two years earlier, Cel and Lu, were really Equestria's Princesses, and that they belonged to King Thars, and that meant we had to give them away. She and I, we just sat together in the snow and cried out some of our pain. It turned out later we had a lot left...
But I did the same thing that night. Alone. And I had no idea where Cel and Lu were now... or Summer... Everything hurt.
As I helped Summer get her dream written down, maybe four years ago, I remembered the short segment we wrote that included her coming back to me here at the farm. Her recollection of that portion of her dream was incredibly, painfully detailed...
This wasn't a dream, but I realized that I honestly would never move from this spot; this is the first place she would look for me, when... if... she came.
And I remembered, when I actually helped Summer write that short segment, it was very painful for me. I wanted Summer, but doubted that would ever happen. Still, at the time I was glad it was just a dream.
And I wondered if I would wait for anypony that long. But now I knew beyond doubt that I would wait for her... I couldn't not wait. I desperately needed my Mare back. I would wait as long as I had to.
And now, actually living this nightmare out on a daily basis... I was always a wreck. I always cried a lot.
"Summer, please come back..." I said this a lot, and mostly everywhere.
I didn't know what else to do.