As she prepares to lift the sun to its apex, to usher in the solstice and bring the Summer Sun Celebration to its climax once more, Princess Celestia embraces the vision of the Equestrian summer that it places before her.
In the vision the summer she is birthing plays out around her, and as a happy phantom she walks through the summer stories of the lives of Twilight, Spike, the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony, their families and loved ones, and even her own sister, Luna. As she does so, she thinks on this world, her role in it...and the gift she's given it.
Chapters (1)
As I sit here in the wet autumn-turn-to-winter darkness of northern Scandinavia, the sunshine and warmth of this lovely story make me remember summer, and summers before it. Thanks so much!
A story worthy of summer.
-Fin
24818
Yes, I re-read this story now that the chill has set in here as well, just to get warm!
I love the Scandinavian countries, by the way. Thanks for reading!
25009
Thank you so much for saying so!
This piece reads so warm. It comes off very heartfelt and settled my late night sleeplessness with a calm content.
Really one of my favorite pieces.
186080
I'm very glad that you feel so! That was very much what I was hoping to express. Thanks so much for reading!
I really enjoyed this story. The scene with Luna was particularly touching. I love Celestia stories that are done well. You have my thanks!
429061
You have my thanks for reading it!
I'd almost forgotten about this little gem! Goes on to show that there's almost too much good pony fic these days; you have a hard time keeping everything in mind!
It's a lovely, poignant story.
519652
Thank you, Lurk!
I agree, lots of good stuff out there!
Lovely story. It's nice to see things from Princess Celestia's point of view.
537327
I'm very glad that you enjoyed it!
This story gave such a monumental feeling of... contentment. The feeling that everything is as it should be. Thank you. In all honesty, Thank you.
645452
Heh, this one is almost a year old! I'm glad that it was able to supply you with such a welcome feeling. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
great birthday fiction for me
thanks for your blog entry, without that i'd never found this!
someone need to reminde me next year to read it again on my birthday hehe
781190
Happy Birthday!
Yay, responses!
I absolutely love this style of writing. It gets really tedious making it perfectly grammatical. I can totally see this being sent back, cleaned up, and shipped right back out and then working. Some bits here and there aren't technically correct, or don't read completely right, but on second look, they're damn close to the best they can be to say what you're trying to say without losing that "future-present" tense perspective.
Case in point:
"For Dash, she sees, the living is easy in this foreshadow of the summer, and she is happy for her."
Parts of it might have been better with a little more explanation. Like, I don't see AJ serving lemonade, normally. I don't see the work on the farm being particularly easy during the summer, even if they are taking a break. Something to the extent of "the work is hard, but the living is easy" might echo that section back a little more clearly.
I like Luna.
I like your first use of "The Living is Easy" best. I see you like repetition of phrases as a device. It works amazing. Sometimes it needs to be framed a little more sparingly / cautiously, though.
Like, grammatical things should be doublechecked in them particularly since they already stand out as sentences:
"Yet, in this summer she is now crafting the living is easy for a few perfect weeks and her happiness grows at the thought." Comma after 'crafting' makes it read so much better, which affects the whole section.
Same with within-sentence rhythm.
"For these the living is easy in this summer she is forging. This is just as it should be for all foals; all the young in her realm if she could so make it." The shorter sentence makes this stand out as being slightly different from the others, without much reason.
And in the wonderful story with Quarry and the Cakes, the long blocks of "What it means to be Quarry is that ..." were only partly effective. They didn't have lead-in, so they came across as abrupt. Foreboding even, because of that at the beginning. The problem was that it got a little tedious to read the third time, just before we knew much about Quarry.
In other words, the tonality and grammar are worth rechecking for those key sentences alone is probably worth a quick read-through. As a perfectionist, this tends not to be great advice for me, but it seems to be good general advice - maybe you'll find it useful.
782948
Thank you for taking the time to leave constructive criticism! I hope, of course, to keep growing as an author with each work, and this will certainly help me.
I found this to be a deeply touching story; I'm not ashamed to admit I teared up quite a few times while reading it. You have done a wonderful job of expressing the endless love and compassion Celestia feels for her subjects. Bravo.
1022056
Thank you so much! This is one of my "quieter" works, and I'm glad that all of the emotions got through.
This is a beautiful piece of writing, There is an indescribable something about this story, in the emotions, in the style, in the words themselves, that completely caught me off guard. As I was reading this I felt, if you know what I mean. Many stories in this fandom are good, but far fewer are capable of making me think and feel like this one did, particularly in such a calm and unassuming manner.
The story took place in a moment, but in that moment you showed an entirely different side to Celestia than I think I have ever seen before, and I really enjoyed it. Thanks for a beautiful read.
1357267
I'm very glad that you caught what I was attempting to do with this story, namely capture a snapshot of Tia in her most delicate repose. I'm very glad that shone forth for you!
Between this and The Song of Syhlex, my Celestia headcanon has been greatly altered. This interpretation of Celestia is among the best I've seen. Good show. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Sweetie_happy.png
This was yet another fantastic tale. Well done, sir. You write great stuff, and you should be proud.
This is certainly one of the stories that I've used to define who I believe Celestia is. I'm glad that you find my vision of her appealing, CS. Always great to hear from you!
Hmmmm... is this related to 'So Being What We Sow When We Sew'?
Apart from that. Awesome.
1468684
Only in the most exoteric sense, in that the writing is the same style. Thanks for reading!
1471230
The entire Rarity-Fluttershy scene reminded me of the story
Heh, with all of the music analogies that I have been associating with your works, I found this quite humorious even though it was unintended as such.
Hm... You know, I am not that surprised that Celestia has visions of the future. Kind of makes sense when you look at Episodes 1 and 2 (season 1) with that in mind.
That is a really nice mental picture.
Now that is quite interesting. Not only does she see these visions, but can somewhat affect them? Yup, interesting.
I laughed as well.
Way to go Luna! Way to ruin the surprise! Gosh!
A thought occurred to me as I was reading this, did Celestia ever name her sun? Like how our sun is named "Sol".
Well done on this one TD! I really enjoyed this sweet story about their summer to come.
As expected, amazing work from you once more. I really enjoy the Slice of Life stories and this one had more than enough description to not only help me envision exactly what the scene would look like in picture/animated form but guide me as to exactly how I would feel upon seeing it for the first time. While I may never be able to write something similar in nature, this would certainly be an inspirational piece should I ever decide to write a story like this.
Again, well written story by one of my favorite authors in the fandom.
1605406
I just realized, Redz, that I never responded to this comment! Gah! Sorry.
2216315
I'm very glad that you enjoyed this story too! I'm especially glad that you enjoyed my descriptions, as that's always been one of my few strengths. Thank you once again for the wonderful compliment. It's an honor to be one of someone's favorite authors!
2219362 It is completely fine TD. Just knowing that you care enough to remember about it after so long ago is enough for me.
Good story.
2369681
Thanks!
Wow, no downvotes.
Now, just because I said that, some asshole will downvote it.
At the time of posting this comment, though, there are no downvotes.
Still, that's amazing. It shows your true skill as a writer. People say that upvotes and downvotes don't judge the quality of a story, and I usually agree... but when you have no downvotes, whatsoever? And then there's the whole thing about this story being almost two fucking years old.
Yeah, ridiculous. It shows that you impressed people so much with this piece that they were FORCED to click the upvote button. It's almost like you have writing super powers.
3221542
Heh, I'm quite sure that, if I had writing superpowers, then Every Little Bit wouldn't have fifty downvotes at this point.
I'm glad that this quiet little work, an atmosphere piece, has received as much attention as it has. I can only say that I feel that the lack of downvotes is because the work is inoffensive... something that also accounts for its relative anonymity among my pieces. Nobody has deep feeling about Celestia taking a walk, and most good folks like yourself simply take it for what it is, a beautiful summer's morning made corporeal. Thanks!
3222957 Shipping is incredibly difficult to keep pure up-votes on because people will down-vote simply because they don't like the pairing. If you search the genera, you will find that almost all of the fictions have down-votes on them.
Don't sweat it. There will always be that person who down-votes for some frivolous reason
3530313
I can see the truth in that. Thanks for the word of encouragement.
3533217 Glad I could help.
Once again, you begin with a Twike snuggling scene, which I do agree is incredibly worthy of all my D’awwwwwws. Based on your discussion following ‘The Crystal Empire’ episode, I was interested to note that even so long ago you used quotations when saying “The royalty calling Celestia ‘Auntie’ and her calling them ‘nieces’ and ‘Nephews’.” It is cool to see you maintain, at the very least the facet, of your universe even a year later.
The only other thing I have to say is that this was a very interesting development of Celestia as a character, something I have only seen done in the fic “Eternal”. She truly loves all of her subjects and lives for them. On a side note that requires the context of an earlier comment, I would say that this makes her godly, even if she is not a god.
3679780
I see Celestia more as a "mother figure" for all of the Equestrians, more akin to Queen Elizabeth than Athena, but these are all open to interpretation, of course.
Wow that story went screaming by. I cant believe i read it so seemingly fast. Thanks for the time warp.
I assume there was no fluttershy spying because she was tending a gut shot civil war soldier in her garden. That story still gives me the shivers. Way too real in a good way. Wierd thing to say about a pastel colored pony from a childrens show caring for a dying civil war soldier from a different dimension.
Got off topic. Good story as usual. Need another raven on my page! Soon i will have enough to make a spendid hat.
3747909
Fluttershy is with Rarity on their picnic. It is only a brief scene, so it's not surprising that you missed it.
This is a very, very old story, and it has some glaring weaknesses. I'm glad that you enjoyed it for what it was, though, and I'm thankful for your continued support!
This is perfect.
4024052
I'm very glad that you think so.
It takes a special kind of person who can handle such things with the ease and grace shown here. VERY special
4579385
Aw, shucks.
This was quite the touching read.
Anyway, would you mind if I checked to see if the title was damaged? You did drop it a few times, after all...
(Just in case that pun isn't clear - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TitleDrop )
4671744
I'm glad that you found it touching. Heh, the title survived unscathed.
4805150
Well that's a relief. I'd hate to see any imperfections in a title as beautiful as this.
3221542
46 weeks after your comment, there are still zero downvotes!
...Great, now that I said that, I'll be the one who jinxes it!
Interesting Alicorn power and the presentation has a poetic feel.
Of course I could be wrong seeing as I know nothing about poetry structure.
Like, fav and added to my recommendation group.
4877246
Thank you once again. I'm glad even these "art" pieces appeal to you.