Such a cold, rainy day; Shysage and I are nestled comfortably in our home, well our cave. I don't want to move, so we decided to get caught up on some Canterlot Recording. It seems like we are always behind...
Our summer vacation was amazing. I thought Shysage and I were close even before we got thrust back deep into the Past. But it was just Shysage and I... Once we had some important details worked out for our winter, and for Ariel, we just enjoyed being together and alone... and close! Every day seemed like a dream. In case you haven't picked up on this, I love my Stallion so much. Each passing day with him, next to him, here in our quiet meadow, with plenty of water and oats, and plenty of room to fly. That sounds like heaven in my book!
We always started every day in the air on Cougar patrol, that was a given. This was a pretty good workout too, and Shysage and I both were quickly back in good shape physically. We just expanded our circles, and were soon flying all morning. And yes, our tree was so easy to find, even if we were far away. At around noon, we would fly back to our tree, to our lake, eat and drink some, then collapse next to each other in the grass. Our afternoons might be us just relaxing next to each other, sometimes more. But honestly, just being next to Shysage... I think we both... Well, we spent a lot of afternoons laying next to each other, well facing each other, hugging and crying... I don't know how in Equestria...
And I think we were slowly becoming more familiar with our surroundings; basically Equestria before Equestria. We spent a few amazing afternoons, evenings and nights up in the (now empty) natural cloud bank that would become Cloudsdale. I asked Shysage once why these clouds stayed here. His explanation, well, I think he has some theories, even if I didn't understand much of what he said. Well, it didn't matter why they were here, they were just here. And a few full moon nights, we simply enjoyed the peace, the white quiet, and each other... We are both Pegasi, and that empty bank of clouds was, er would be home to me. Even in the Past, being, well, home like that... And with Shysage next to me... Well, it was amazing.
...
It was during one of our trips to Cloudsdale before Cloudsdale, that we started a family tradition, I guess, for until Ariel was born. We watched the sun set near one of the edges of a cloudbank. It had rained that morning, and the setting sun on the puffy clouds above us... It really was breathtaking. We weren't tired, so we... Well, I don't understand how Shysage can make me feel so amazing, but he says the same thing. We were both ponies of course, so we didn't fall through the clouds! Later, we were hugging, just relaxing, and I started to doze off. I didn't have a dream, but I vividly remembered something from our last trip to the Equestria Girls world.
I have already mentioned a young girl named Claire that we met our last time there. Working on bouncing back from a terrible date-rape... Well, she was pregnant from that, and starting to show (Equestria Girls Twilight Sparkle said this softly to me). Claire was sitting on the bleachers, crying. Claire was surrounded by bleacher girls and ponies from a different land, of course. But the boy responsible, well he was long gone; he had his fun then ran -- Claire yelled this as she sobbed. Her family was upset, and so many were saying... Equestria Girls Rainbow Dash was her good friend (Claire was on the soccer team too), and said softly "Claire, it's ok, it will all work out. Everyone here will do anything we can to help..." Her Twin, Equestria pony Rainbow Dash was sitting right behind Equestria Girls Rainbow, and they both said this at the same time, in the same way... Twins do that.
Claire kept crying... "But my mom wants me..." Claire said as she cried... Equestria Girls Dawn Flower, our amazing neighbor's Twin, was sitting behind me, with her arms on my shoulders. We had already cried together a while, and Dawn left Camille with her mom today since it was really cold. Otherwise I guess little Camille was almost a regular here with the bleacher girls too. Claire was crying out in anguish, and I don't think any of us knew quite what to do. Well Dawn did. Dawn dug through her backpack briefly, then pulled out a small black picture, I guess. It didn't look like any picture I had ever seen. Twilight said later it was a sonogram, a picture of a baby before it comes out, I don't know. Some of the things they can do in the Equestria Girls world...
Anyway, Dawn pulled it out, looked lovingly at the sonogram, then passed it to Claire. "Claire, that's Camille. When people said I should... Well, I would look at this..." Dawn was crying really hard, and couldn't say any more. I guess she didn't need to; Claire immediately understood, I guess, and hugged Dawn tightly, and they both cried together a while.
But Claire abruptly stopped crying. She sat back down, looked at her growing belly, and cupped both hands over it. Claire quietly said this. "What's his name is gone and wants no part of you... But you're MINE. And I won't let anyone hurt you..." We all burst into tears at that point, and cried together with Claire. And I knew for a fact, that Equestria Ponies, Equestria Girls, everypony sitting here would do anything they could to help Claire. True friendship...
But that night, buried in the past, up in the clouds... After remembering these details, I started crying. It took a while, but I finally managed to explain it to Shysage. He started crying too. We cried together for a while, then he stopped abruptly. He moved and gently put both his front hooves carefully over my belly. "Ariel, you are ours. And we won't let anyone hurt you..." We both cried for a while after that. But starting the next morning, we did that first thing every day. Unless we were in the clouds, Shysage would change to a people, and cup his hands over my belly, just like I saw Claire do. And we said that together. We meant it. And we usually asked true friend to help us; we knew we needed it.
...
And every six or seven days, Shysage led us out to that huge redwood tree, and we spent the afternoon there. I don't know anything about which days Shysage picked, and I picked a few too. It was just a very peaceful place, well different... It just seemed like some sort of sanctuary. We had felt the same thing with that circle of trees in the future. And Shysage mentioned once that he was pretty sure we would find this in our present too, and we knew where to look now.
Except that neither of us knew when we would be back in our present. One day at that big tree, thinking about my sister, Princess Twilight, our friends... I started crying, and asked Shysage if he thought we were stuck here now. We wept softly together for a while. But he mentioned that he didn't think so. He said it was doubtful the Portal would have moved us back in time close to our first visit here (when we raised Cel and Lu), and just leave us here. But he also said he really didn't know. He agreed though, he knew of absolutely no reason why we were even here.
Well, I reminded him again "Ariel Dawn is reason enough for me..." We cried some more after that, then talked to true friend about it. Come to think of it, we talked to true friend a lot laying on our bellies in the ferns around that tree. We talked to him quite a bit anyway, just more while we were there, I don't know.
And I don't know where I get these ideas, but as we sat in the shade of that big tree one afternoon, surrounded by ferns... And I knew Shysage's wife in the Equestria Girls world was dead, and that Shysage's family was really mean to him. "Shysage, when your family in the Equestria Girls world got so bad, why didn't you, well, look for..." I didn't finish the question because I didn't know how. True friend that he was (is), he never could walk away from his obligation to his wife, even though it had gotten boiled down to just that. And even though each day was excruciating for him, Shysage made no... Well, he just wouldn't.
Shysage sighed, and I guess he understood what I wanted to know, even if my question seemed incomprehensible. Slowly and thoughtfully, he worked on putting together an answer.
"A lot of the men I knew messed around, well slept with other women. I had watched that happen since my college days. But after maybe ten years, I noticed something. After sleeping with different women for a number of years, it seemed impossible for these same men to keep a marriage together. A few even told me they were ready to 'settle down now', right before the wedding, and their marriages still only lasted a few years, and exploded violently, without exception. And these same men ran through a string of marriages that all ended soon and similarly."
Shysage thought a few minutes here, then...
"I... I don't know of any studies, but it didn't seem like rocket science to me. I think that when a man sleeps with a woman, he may enjoy a little bit of contentment. But if, well when, he leaves that woman, which usually happened the next morning or sooner, he leaves that contentment there. He leaves that little bit of contentment behind. This whole process slowly robs... At some point, he loses the ability to even be content. He will spend the rest of his life vainly seeking what he has already given away... ...in his pursuit of happiness, I guess. Maybe we mistake momentary pleasure for true contentment, I don't know. It just didn't take me long to see what was going on, although I doubt anyone in the Equestria Girls world would ever point it out... Anyway, even as my own life became a daily agony, I guess I valued true contentment... and waited for it..."
Shysage wiped tears from his eyes, then smiled, and rubbed my nose with his. "It was worth the wait..." We both cried together for a little while after that.
...
The oats were drying out towards the end of the summer, and Shysage said that was his cue; we began storing away food for our winter. Every other day we would fly over to the, well, it is the meadow to the east in our present, and the cave is in the woods further beyond that. Shysage would turn into a people, and gather as many oat plants as he could carry, then carry them to our cave, and carefully stack them in the back. He moved some of the rocks around, and formed a nice storage area, and the oats went there. Shysage carefully broke the oats from the stems, and threw the stems on the floor of the cave. After a while of doing this, the stems formed a very nice carpet, Shysage called it, then he laughed. Well, I'm from Equestria. That growing mat of stems on the ground... It wasn't the amazing rug in front of the Portal with Princess Twilight's Cutie Mark on it, but it was plenty soft for me, and for our Ariel. And Shysage spent a few days putting a good stock of Canterlot Recording stuff in there too. I was so tempted to get into the berries... So my amazing Stallion... We flew back to the berries, and Shysage picked, while I ate them. I ate a lot of berries, they were very good. Shysage said something about trace minerals that I completely didn't understand. He smiled at me, then offered me another berry. Well, he ate a bunch too.
And, as I said, I felt Ariel's sweet presence that next morning. But as the summer wore on, I increasingly felt Ariel growing in my belly. Flying was not an issue yet, Pegasi don't use their legs while they are flying, except to take off and land. But walking became increasingly uncomfortable. Late that summer, I spent one afternoon crying in Shysage's arms. We both knew we would probably have to stop flying soon. For this Pegasus mare, that was just a hard realization. But after crying for a while, I stopped, then smiled at Shysage, and said quietly "Ariel will be worth it." We both knew this was true. Ariel was increasingly changing a lot in both Shysage and my lives. Well, it just didn't matter. Ariel was worth all that and more.
Later in the summer, Shysage said he thought it was an indian summer. This meant nothing to me, but Shysage explained that he felt the warm summer days were lasting longer than usual. Shysage watches the sky at night, and could somehow tell. He said we probably arrived here early summer, but admitted he really wasn't sure. Then he smiled at me, pulled me close and said "with you around, it doesn't really matter!" I think he loves me a lot too. But we didn't mind the warm days, not at all.
But the weather, well it started cooling off. It wasn't abrupt, and it was still warm when the Sun was up. Still, we spent more time up at our tree behind our wind break. And I started sleeping up against Shysage's chest and neck. Even with a cool breeze, that is so warm! Shysage says I sigh a lot in my sleep like that. Well, that is home to me, next to my Stallion. It rained softly once a week or so, throughout the summer. But the first storm Shysage saw with the weather cooling... We moved our stuff to the cave. This included the thick stack of leaf-paper that was the record for Volume 10 that we had done already, along with my shoes (I had to laugh some more!). These important items would be kept dry in the cave "even if it snowed" Shysage said.
As the days not so slowly got cooler and cooler, we did what we could to enjoy our vacation. It was soon too cold for trips to Cloudsdale. But we had a few amazing nights huddled behind our wind break! And the weather, the warm... With Shysage next to me...
We moved into our cave home on the first day of the fall, as best as we could tell. Well, it was the first day that was pretty cold, after a long, warm summer. And I guess it was rainy that day too. And I have mentioned, that after carrying Ariel for a month maybe, I stayed a pony from that point on, until after she was born. Well, this particular day was the only exception.
Ok, so we are buried deep in the Past, and there were absolutely no other ponies anywhere near us. Shysage and I just assumed that we would always stay together. If we got separated, that would probably be the end. I think we both just assumed we would never be apart. Each other, that was all we had. We did everything together. I don't think we ever minded that.
Well, it was a cool day. Still, we did our basic routine. After we both woke up, well we told Ariel we would take care of her, and then we usually cried some. Then we flew together down to, and around the lake, checking for any animals on the way. It was only after we knew the coast was clear that we landed at the lake, and ate and got a nice drink. Then we often rinsed off in the lake, and sometimes... That day, I knew it was probably because of Ariel, but I was just tired. It wasn't that I wanted to sleep, I just felt physically drained. We walked slowly back to our tree, and it was all I could do to avoid flopping down in the ground behind our wind break, and Shysage was quickly at my side. For a while, Shysage looked off into the distance. He was looking at the sky, at the clouds. He was getting pretty good at guessing at the day's weather. "I think we can expect some rain today" he said after a little while.
Our usual routine was to do some Canterlot Recording on days like that, days when we couldn't really go anywhere and do anything. I knew this was on his mind, so I sighed, and said "Well, we are out of paper, so I can't do any new stuff." This was important since it had been a while since... Of course, we weren't caught up.
Shysage said hesitantly "Well, I could go get some more leaves quick..." He said it like that because he had already realized he would need to go alone. He already knew I simply didn't want to get up at the moment. Neither of us liked this prospect, but it was not far; fly to the leaves, turn into a people, carry some back. And we had already done our Cougar patrol.
"Don't make me come get you, Stallion..." I said this, then I smiled. We rubbed noses briefly, then Shysage was in the air, flying to the broad leaf plants. It was late in the summer, and there were a lot of those broad leaves that had dried and fallen off. We had already worked at stock-piling some for Canterlot Recording during the winter. They were in the cave though.
Well, I felt nervous soon after he started flying away, I don't know. I watched carefully as he flew slowly, down the slight hill, and was soon at the lake. He went out of sight when he landed at those plants next to the lake, so I sat up, even though I didn't want to. I still couldn't see him. All I could do was wait now. He would be a people, and need to walk around the lake some, then back. I don't like waiting. With each passing moment, I was even more ready to get in the air and check on him. I kept telling myself that he would soon be here anyway.
I heard him before I actually saw him. He was coming back as a pony, heading for me, fast. He was galloping...
The next thing I heard...
"Summer, save yourself, and Ariel... Just get away..."
Shysage yelled this as he ran past me, past our tree, running as fast as I have ever seen Shysage run. I stood up immediately.
I immediately saw why, as four bounding Cougars followed him through the grass, and ran past me. I guess they were intent on Shysage; they ignored me. I could even see their ribs. They were probably starved since there were no other animals here, basically no food. And I guessed they probably smelled us from miles away.
I was crying right away. Seriously? Like I would entertain raising Ariel without Shysage? What was he thinking? And alone, Shysage didn't have a prayer. He would be dinner.
In the blink of an eye, I was very angry, and threw myself back, changed to a people, stood up, and spun up my Cutie Mark. "Ariel hang on, I need to rescue your father" I said this out loud...
As the Cougars ran past our tree, I watched as Shysage curved his path around in a circle, behind this clump of trees. I think he was trying to come up with something... But this just brought them all back past me...
I realized right away they were too close to Shysage for me to use the shield to separate them. And without doing that, I really couldn't use any of my Phantom Alicorn magic... I... I might hurt Shysage... And I had already done that... I was beside myself... I didn't know what to do. Crying hard, I stretched my right hand out and basically pointed at the Cougar closest to Shysage, closed my crying eyes, lifted my right foot, and shouted "No..." as I brought my right foot down quickly on the grass. I heard a loud 'bang' immediately, and quickly opened my eyes to watch the second Cougar fly into the air over the Cougar closest to Shysage, who was now writhing on the ground. Well, this left two more Cougars chasing my Stallion, but I knew what to do. Electricity was the element... Point my right hand, shout "No..." and stomp my right foot. I was still crying buckets. And I missed the last Cougar the first time, and had to try again. Just then, Shysage collapsed to the ground, exhausted. The second Cougar, who had tried to fly and failed, he was up now, walking slowly towards my collapsed Stallion, growling. That Cougar only took two more steps. He never got near my Shysage. This Phantom Alicorn then quickly finished killing all four Cougars with a big rock to the skull.
I ran back to Shysage, unwound my Cutie Mark, but stayed a people. I fell on the ground next to my precious Stallion, wrapped my arms tightly around his pony neck, and just cried... We spent most of the afternoon right there like that. It was cool, and drizzled on and off but we didn't care. It would be a while before Shysage could even get up anyway. Honestly, I was just glad he was alive; it could have been a lot worse. I cried pretty hard for a while, just because of that. It would have been terrible, after such an amazing summer vacation to lose...
Late in the afternoon, I changed back into a pony, Shysage got slowly up, and we took our time walking down to the lake, eating dinner along the way. Shysage said quietly that these four were probably scouts of some sort too, and that they were probably starving already. Then he said quietly "they must have been in really bad shape if they couldn't quickly catch me..." Well, I burst into tears. That would have been terrible. He and I, we hugged right there for a while.
We decided that, from that point on, we simply would just stay together no matter what, and Ariel too, after she was born. There was just too much at stake. Shysage also mentioned that he was pretty sure we wouldn't see any more Cougars until next spring. The four we just killed, well they had found no food, and it was getting colder now too. I quickly mentioned that I was going everywhere with him anyway. He smiled and said he expected nothing less. Shysage also felt we should move into our cave home soon. We did, that very night. It was pretty dark in that cave at night. It was in the woods, and even with a nice high moon, not much light made it into our cave. It didn't matter, I could easily find my Stallion, and I spent that night as close to him as I could. After the Cougars, I needed him close. I think he needed that too. The woods looked amazing though; we could look out and see the hushed, bluish white glow from the moon on the forest floor. But I cried a lot that night. And stomping my foot like that; well it just seemed vaguely familiar, I don't know...
One of the projects we had started during the summer, we actually pursued in earnest that fall, especially after we moved into the cave. I think I already mentioned that soon after we found the cave, Shysage rearranged some rocks in the back, to make a nice flat but slightly elevated area. Shysage said that was for storage, mostly for food. We could see the small pond from our cave, so water would not be much of an issue. But we would need food, well I would need food especially, as Ariel grew inside me over the winter. Shysage and I had made a bunch of trips here with oat plants that Shysage pulled up, stalk and all (Shysage removed the roots and left them in the meadow). The next morning after we moved in, Shysage went through all those plants that were stacked up there. He pulled the oat pods (?) off, then threw the stalks down on the floor. As the big stack of oat plants slowly dwindled into a dense pile of just oats, the stalks laying on the floor, well it made the floor of the cave a lot softer. And Shysage said we had a lot more oats to bring in.
We stopped Cougar patrol for the most part, and spent many of our days just collecting oats. As a people, Shysage would collect as big a bunch of them as he could carry, and we would walk together (always) back to the cave. The oats would go up on the storage shelf, and the stalks got added to our nice carpet (Shysage always laughed as he said that). And we had specifically avoided doing any snacking in the, well east meadow, here in the Past. It was closest to the cave, and Shysage knew we would use that meadow for food. By the time we saw our first snow, that meadow looked mostly stripped "mowed" Shyage said. Our cave had a nice, thick carpet, and we had what Shysage felt was a huge supply of oats for the winter. Well, we collected a bunch of berries too. They were mostly dried out, but adding a drop of water would allow us to make ink again. And we had a good supply of both berries and blank leaf-pages. And my two Equestria Girls shoes and our (still behind) pages for Canterlot Recording were up there too.
...
That fall surfaced another problem that happened to solve itself. Shysage said the cave faced south, and so would not be affected too much by nasty weather, which he surmised would come from the north and west. Still, the first really cool night, we found that the entrance to our cave was pretty big, and, well, we were pretty cold that night. Shysage kept me and Ariel warm, of course, but he was pretty cold the next morning, and our first task was to find a patch of warm sunlight to warm my Stallion up some. A few days later, a nasty storm blew through. Shysage said it was a warm storm. well, the air was warmer, even as the rain came down in sheets for hours. Evidently it was pretty windy, and it was very dark that night, as the storm blew our trees around a lot. There was a LOT of lightning too. The Weatherworks in Cloudsdale attenuates a lot of the weather extremes in Equestria. I guess it had been a while, since I heard a lot of thunder. And the bright flashes... I don't think Shysage or I slept much that night.
But we did hear one of the larger trees snap and break, and we heard what sounded like a large tree fall right next to our cave. Well, we were not about to go out and look, and the lightning died away soon after that happened, so Shysage and I fell asleep. We slept in, of course, and noticed that it was still darker than usual in our cave. We thought it was early! A huge limb had broken off of one of the nearby trees, and fallen down basically over the entrance to our cave. I was about to console my Stallion about having to clear such a huge thing away. Shysage surprised me, and I guess he had already figured this out. "Summer, I don't have to come up with a door now!" Shyage broke just enough branches off so we could easily get in and out of the cave. We had to turn left, walk under branches still filled with leaves, then out. But it was very easy. And, I don't know, the leaves died, but they mostly stayed on that huge branch until spring. I couldn't see the lake from the cave though. I just had to get up, and move so I was just past the branches and leaves. Then I could watch Shysage get us (usually me) some water in my fancy Equestria Girls shoes! This was fine, except that late in the winter, it was hard for me to even get up. Still, it stayed a lot warmer in our cave because of that fallen limb. Carrying Ariel, that was important.
The winter was cold, about what I remember from our present. The main thing, we didn't have any of Rarity's amazing coats to keep us warm. Shysage was a people quite a bit, and his sweatshirt helped somewhat. We did go outside often, but we never stayed out long. We couldn't, it was usually stinking cold Shysage said. Well, a few days when there was no wind, and it wasn't real cold, Shysage and I would wander out to the east meadow, about to where we thought our little hill would be, and we basked in the warmth of the sunlight. When we could even do this, we usually had an hour or two, then we had to return to our cave. And by the middle of the winter maybe, it was hard for me to walk very far anyway.
As the winter wore on, we spent more and more time relaxing in our comfortable cave. With the tree limb covering the opening, it stayed nice inside, even when there was snow on the ground. Shysage said the rocks deeper under the ground were always warm, and there was maybe two feet of rocks above our cave, and a lot more below. Well, I didn't understand all that, but we were both thankful for the warmth. Managing a fire in here would be difficult, and I would need to spin up my Cutie Mark to even make some fire to begin with. And collecting wood... Well, our nice warm cave was one major detail we thanked true friend for a lot. Especially with Ariel, well warm was just very important.
...
That winter, Shysage coaxed me out into the woods outside our cave just once at night. It had been snowing most of the day. Shysage called it a warm snow, and said it would be mostly gone tomorrow, I don't know. Snow is still cold, but... Well, I couldn't resist after looking in his eyes. It took a little while, and walking was hard, but we were soon sitting together on an exposed, snowless flat rock not far from our cave. There was no wind, and so we didn't freeze right away. Still, the hushed, quiet beauty of a blanket of white covered the floor of the woods... A full moon illuminated the forest. But the spot where we were sitting... The large branch that had fallen across the cave entrance... The full moon was shining directly down on us through the large gap above. In the soft glow of a full moon, Shysage looked amazing, and he said I did too. It was just... like we were on a stage or something. Where we were sitting was by far the brightest area around. Shysage said I really deserved the spotlight. We both knew the right answer to that!
We weren't sitting out there very long when we both began to weep softly. I am not sure why, but we both connected back to our first trip here to the Past, and a similar moonlit night sitting in the snow. That night had been much more... filled with anguish... When we rescued Cel and Lu, we didn't even know who they were or would become. But that one night, both our girls received their Cutie Marks in their sleep, and were transformed in a moment into Princesses Celestia and Luna (well they would be made Princesses months later). But that night... Cutie Marks confirmed our growing suspicions... Our two girls were Equestria's princesses... We had to give them away... That night, sitting in the snow, we cried out a small part of the anguish we felt... Being here in the Past again, I guess that still haunted us both, and we cried...
We had not cried more than a few minutes when the moon shifted, and it wasn't bright any more. Shysage helped me slowly back into our cave, and we cried some more. Maybe an hour later, we managed to calm down. "Well, princess or no, we won't be giving our Ariel away" I said gently. Shysage and I cried tears of joy over that for a while too. We finally fell asleep.
...
Overall though, we spent a lot of time together and alone in our cave for most of the winter. Most every day, while I could, I walked carefully down to the pond for a drink, and Shysage would break the ice if necessary. He had this thick part of an old tree; short stump with a smaller branch coming out the side. I laughed every time he used it (until even laughing became uncomfortable); it really looked like a big hammer! Towards the end of winter though, my Equestria Girls fancy shoes got pressed into service. It was just difficult for me to move some days, and Shysage would take the shoes down to the pond, and bring me back some water. And I seldom slept any more; I just napped until Ariel woke me up. Well, I always told her that was ok when she did. Shysage tried to keep a normal sleep schedule and sleep at night. He soon changed, and slept when I did. Well, the reason... I needed him near me. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I needed to know Shysage was there. I felt so... I think clingy was the word I heard. Never in my life had I been so dependent on Shysage, on his presence, on him being right next to me. He said constantly that he didn't mind. He hugged me a lot. We would spend what seemed like hours looking deep into each other's eyes. Well, I needed that. And when I fell asleep, he would too.
Shysage feels it is the end of winter, maybe early spring, I don't know -- we are both pretty sure Ariel could come soon. Well, I hope so! I mean, it was hard to even move, and even eating is uncomfortable. Shysage says Ariel is jumbling everything up inside me, and I just laugh, briefly.
Shysage came back from the pond all excited yesterday morning; he said it was spring. I smiled, still with glazed over eyes because I had just woke up from a nap. It has been a while since I could get enough sleep...
From behind his back, he pulled out the most amazing flower... The petals were the brightest white, and the center was a beautiful golden yellow... "Summer, they are your colors!" Shysage said this as he gently placed the flower in my mane above one of my ears. He told me I was beautiful. I think I needed that, because I don't feel very beautiful right now. I wept softly in Shysage's arms for a while, and even that wasn't real comfortable, but it didn't matter.
And I apologize if this chapter seems a little long, and covering such a long period of time; I'm sorry if it seems a little fragmented. And I can't cut and paste on leaf paper!
Like I said, I don't want to even move. Ariel is so big, and very active. Even getting up is hard for me now. I hope she is born soon; I think even she wants that! Shysage and I, we both love her so much. But, more than anything else... I just want to hold her...