# Summer Goes Terribly Wrong

The day dawned bright and early one fine summer morning in the third year of Apple Bloom’s schooling. She awoke with the cock’s crow, hearing the rest of her family in the greater part of the farm house also awakening and beginning to move in the cool dawn air. It was time to prepare breakfast and then go on to morning chores, and then school as usual.

Apple Bloom dallied in bed, looking sleepily through her ketchup red curls at her own lemon yellow hooves. She curled them tighter on the cool summer blankets she had herself snuggled under. Her bed was plain but comfortable, with a hay bedframe and a firm cotton stuffed mattress. The dust floated lazily in the sunbeams coming in through her window. It really did feel like she could stay here forever. It felt like she already had.

Such was not to be however, and with a light sigh she rolled over, tilting her legs right out of bed and touching down on the floor, the tips of her toes spreading firmly as they held up her own weight. She walked with a clip clop over to her window, left open to the breeze on the warm summer nights. Rearing up and pulling aside the curtain, she leaned on the windowsill, looking out into the light of dawn. It filtered past her from the east, warming the left side of her head and glowing dimly in the golden color of her spacy, sleepy eyes.

Days had been getting pretty long this year. The summer solstice was a ways away, but it still left the Apple family with plenty of time to do what they needed to get done. Perhaps it was the return of the moon princess, freed from the evil clutches of Nightmare Moon. The sister of the sun herself, reunited after being lost for so long. It was right out of one of her friend’s sister’s romance novels, but it really happened. Apple Bloom had been there! Well, Apple Bloom had been there long enough to see the queen of nightmares, not much more than that.

But it wasn’t just her involved. Apple Bloom’s sister had vanished that one endless night, along with 5 other ponies. And when it finally ended, and the sun rose in the sky, Applejack came back a hero. The whole town looked up to her now. She would always be Apple Bloom’s hero though, because Applejack was just the best sister you could ever ask for.

“Apple Bloom! It’s time to git... oh you’re up good,” Applejack called out behind her. Apple Bloom shoved off the ledge and landed on fours, turning to face her sister with an admiring smile. The orange mare with the blond locks tied up in a secure doubletail to withstand the rigors of apple bucking, that was the mare Apple Bloom was privileged to call her very own sister.

“Come on, we’re gettin ready to fix up some grub!” Applejack said with a kind smile in return, then turned and trotted down the hall. Apple Bloom didn’t follow right away, pausing to stick her hoof into a mane comb on her desk, bringing it to bear against her bouncy tresses. It wasn’t hard to keep her hair neat, as her mane and tail liked to curl up into little round bobs at the end and didn’t leave any loose ends to fray, catch or tangle on anything. She wasn’t entirely happy about her hair though, because as nice as it was it still made her family sad sometimes.

The stairs creaked as she trotted down them. Granny Smith was already in the kitchen and there was the hearty smell of oatmeal already wafting from it. Apple Bloom hastened her steps seeing as preparations already underway. She charged into the kitchen hollering, “Can we have hay bacon today??”

It was a good day it turns out, because they could have hay bacon. There wasn’t a pony who didn’t love that stuff with its crackly texture and burnt parts that still tasted oh so good, sizzled to perfection in sunflower oil. It wasn’t until halfway through her chores that her mood diminished at all, when Apple Bloom paused in dragging a wagon of apples at a dizzy feeling in her head that turned into a throbbing ache as she squinted into the bright sunlight.

“Hope ah’m not comin’ down with somethin,” she said to herself. It wouldn’t do to miss school this late in the year. They were just two weeks away from the glorious freedom of summer, in which she Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle would surely get their cutie marks this time. These last two weeks were important because of the testing week. They’d spent most of the past week in review, and the whole next week was devoted to test preparation. The headache went away as Apple Bloom went about her chores though, leaving her with nothing but a slight sensitivity in her skin. Must’ve just been staring into the sun too long. She itched her hide with a hoof and just carried on with a shrug.

She probably should have been worried though, because the sensitivity didn’t go away even after their entire first period of school. If anything it was starting to get annoying like she wanted to go rub on a fence or something. Her friends were acting real weird too. When Apple Bloom slipped and kicked the ball into the bushes, Sweetie actually got irritated at her, when she asked the unicorn to go fetch it. It was sort of rude of Apple Bloom though, so it was normal that Sweetie’d be glaring at her and telling her to get her own dumb ball.

Apple Bloom was happy to go fetch it once she figured out she was being rude, because even though it was Sweetie’s turn with the ball, Apple Bloom was the one who kicked it out of bounds, and a filly should always own up to her own mistakes. But Sweetie had still snapped at her, and that itself was odd. Sweetie Belle usually just jumped over herself to help out Apple Bloom, something Bloom constantly tried not to take advantage of, and usually succeeded. What was up with today?

Scootaloo was kind of spacy too, hard to keep her attention. But that was normal, right? It was Scootaloo after all! What she was spacy about would however begin to take a turn for the weird, when they met together to eat for lunch.

Sweetie Belle approached the two of them with her lunchbox in mouth, hopping up to the picnic table Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were sitting at, enjoying the pleasant warmth of a sunny summer day. Scootaloo had a strange lunch of a couple questionable looking hay pastries, but that was normal for her. She’d apparantly been snacking already because there were a few bites out of them when she pulled them out. What wasn’t normal was she kept staring off into space looking at the foals at the other table.

“Got something on your mind, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom prompted hopefully. That snapped Scootaloo out of it at least, and she shook her head to clear it, saying,

“Who, me? No, no I was just ...thinking about stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Sweetie asked curiously.

“Well just how weird it is that colts are different from us,” Scootaloo said, chewing on her dried out pastry with gusto. “I mean, why aren’t we just all the same?” she said after ripping a piece off and swallowing it, “Or why aren’t all pegasi colts? Why both fillies and colts in all three kinds?”

Now that topic made Apple Bloom blush, but what surprised her was the intensity of that blush. “Ah sure don’t mind the differences...” she said as a joke. It came out with a lot more genuine emotion than she intended though. Because Apple Bloom didn’t mind the differences. She actually kind of liked the differences. Big long differences.

“Apple Bloom actually saw a colt’s boy thing,” Sweetie Belle said conspiratorially.

“I know,” Scootaloo agreed, “That must have been awesome! What was it like?”

Apple Bloom actually backed up a step as they both loomed forward expectantly. Her friends had never been all that curious about what she saw. It had only been for a few seconds anyway. A few very nice seconds, but... well it didn’t have the greatest of consequences in the end.

“I hear their thing is like a fifth hoof,” Sweetie whispered. Apple Bloom shook her head and leaned closer, saying,

“Naw it ain’t big enough for that. It was more like a... like a handle.”

“For wrapping your hoof around?” Scootaloo asked skeptically.

“I hear that they can only move it up and down,” Sweetie offered.

“Maybe it’s like a lever?” Apple Bloom asked. “I couldn’t exactly ask Rumble to y’know... it was private!”

Scootaloo looked down and to the side.

“Ahm sorry about that, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said touching the pegasus’s shoulders.

“No, no it’s good,” Scootaloo said brushing Apple Bloom’s hoof away. “Better that I learned he was gay before asking him...”

“I hear that it’s spongeoform vascular integuement,” Sweetie Belle said excitedly.

“Wasn’t that what they said in that one class last year?” Scootaloo asked. Sweetie Belle nodded. “What does that even mean anyway?”

“I have no idea!” Sweetie cheered. Which was a really weird thing to cheer. “I think... some kind of metaphor about boats? Maybe it soaks stuff up like a sponge?” she said in a less enthusiastic tone.

“How do they even masturbate?” Scootaloo exclaimed in a consternation, then blushed and clammed up right tightly.

“They don’t got labia,” Apple Bloom asserted, “That much ah’m absolutely clear on. It’d have been nice if Twilight explained the male side of that diagram, but at least everything was labeled.”

“Sure you didn’t see labia?” Sweetie Belle said hesitantly. Apple Bloom shook her head.

“Might have missed it in the diagram, but when I crashed in on them, hoo boy,” Apple Bloom wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. Was it getting hot out, or was it just her? “Definitely no labia, just that handle thing, which must’ve been the um...”

She looked both ways leaning forward and whispering, “The penis. And also this hangy sack thing. Might have just been underwear though, ‘cause I don’t recall that in the diagram.”

“I’ve seen the sack thing,” Sweetie said with an oddly worried look in her eyes. “I think it’s just part of them not clothing.”

“I bet their clit’s on their penis,” Scootaloo said eager to jump in on this new forbidden word. “That’s why it comes out, just like how it comes out for um... heh I mean,”

Sweetie fidgeted her hooves together nervously.

“Y-yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed reluctantly, “But there’s a big difference between this,” and she placed her hooves close together wiggling them but not quite touching, “An’ this!” and she spread her hooves to the approximate length of that boy handle.

“So lucky they can get it out that far,” Scootaloo said grumpily, mutilating more of her pastries, “I bet they can touch it all they want and it won’t even go hiding.”

“Can we please,” Sweetie Belle interrupted them, “Just... not? We shouldn’t be thinking about stallions.”

“Why not, Sweetie?” Apple Bloom asked in tactless surprise.

“Because we’re just fillies and we don’t have estrus,” the white unicorn asserted, “We only need to think about them if we’re in estrus.”

Apple Bloom’s expression darkened a touch as she took note in what time of year it is. “Right, this is around when our sisters go into estrus isn’t it.”

“Not Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo asserted, “She’s way too cool for estrus!”

“I hope you never have to go through that with me,” Sweetie Belle mumbled, nibbling at her sandwich.

“Aw, c’mon Sweetie,” Scootaloo said nuzzling her casually, “How bad could it possibly be? We’ll be O.K.” When Sweetie didn’t respond Scootaloo added, “Grownups handle it all the time. If they can do it then for us it should be a piece of cake!”

Sweetie just kept nibbling her sandwich silently. Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom knew not to push it when she got like this. She visibly relaxed when Apple Bloom changed the subject saying, “So I got another idea for how we might get our cutie marks!”

The long period after lunch had Apple Bloom starting to reach her wit’s end. Now her head was throbbing again, and she was finding it hard to even put two sentences together. Her thoughts just weren’t making any sense. The skin sensitivity just kept getting worse, and she was still feeling hot and maybe feverish, and for some reason the muscles in her hind legs kept twitching restlessly. She was almost to second break though, and no foal is going to call themselves home sick before recess. Cutie Mark Crusader Gymnastics Team didn’t go so well, but at least it got Apple Bloom a chance to rub up on her friends and allieviate some of this itching. They were all looking haggard by the end of break, and Apple Bloom was rolling on her back trying to scratch herself.

“What’s wrong Apple Bloom?” Sweetie asked as the two watched her squirming around trying to get that spot she couldn’t quite find.

“Ah don’t have a tummy ache,” Apple Bloom clarified, “It’s just this darn itchin’! Ah just caint get comfortable.”

“Want me to try scratching it?” Sweetie offered in an odd tone. Apple Bloom stood beside her, but the unicorn wasn’t quite finding it.

“Lower,” Apple Bloom said, “Little lower. No not there, like... lower!”

“I’m already at your tail, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie said.

Scootaloo started rolling then. “Oh no, not you too!” cried Apple Bloom.

“It does kinda help rolling like this,” Scootaloo said.

“You too, Sweetie?” Apple Bloom asked the unicorn worriedly. Sweetie nodded in confirmation, with an uneasy simper.

Apple Bloom’s pupils narrowed, and she backed up from them exclaiming, “Ah’m contagious!”

“No you’re not,” Scootaloo said from down on the ground. “I felt like this when I woke up today.”

“Maybe I... was... carryin’ it yesterday then!” Apple Bloom fussed, “And it only now just decided to hit us.”

“That could be anyone in the school though, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie said assuringly. “We just all caught it at the same time.

“We gotta warn Miss Cheerilee!” Apple Bloom said, “The whole class could get sick!”

“I don’t feel sick, just,” Scootaloo lay on her side, wiggling her legs irritably, “Wiggly.”

“Let’s just get to the nurse’s,” Sweetie Belle said evenly, “And not touch any other ponies until we do.”

“What? No!” Scootaloo exclaimed. Darnit Scoots.

“You two can go to the nurse’s,” Scootaloo said, picking herself up and striking a calm pose, “But I feel fine. It’s probably nothing.”

“You could infect other ponies, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom admonished her, “This is no time for bravado.”

“I’ll be fine, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo said with a confident smile. “I’m real good at avoiding ponies. I’ll just go home and get some rest, while you two warn the school.”

“Ah guess so,”

“Great! Then, I’ll get going. Seeya!” Scootaloo hopped spryly over to her scooter and buzzed away before anypony could complain.

“That Scootaloo really has a problem with authority,” Apple Bloom snorted a breath looking where Scootaloo went. Sweetie just nodded sadly.

The Ponyville hospital was separate from the small clinic in which fillies and colts who got injured at school were supposed to report. It was a squat square building in the cottage style, but with tile floor inside instead of wood. It was strategically placed down the hill from the school, with doors facing the Ponyville playground like silent sentinels.

The nurse’s clinic was especially crowded when Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle got there. They were going at a pretty fast pace through the lineup, but there were a lot of fillies there. As two of the few blank flanks, Apple Bloom and Sweetie were standing together but apart from the group, waiting their turn to see the nurse, so they could get a pass to go home. It looked like whatever this was, it was way too late to try to contain it by sending foals home though.

Apple Bloom was feeling weirder as she waited, if that were even possible. She felt like this goosebumps feeling in her tummy, but like inside her tummy not on the surface of it. Squirming her legs she elbowed Sweetie saying, “Mah tummy is feelin weird,”

“Like how weird?” she murmured back.

“Like I got goosebumps except on the inside,” Apple Bloom said as best as she could describe.

Sweetie looked up thoughtfully, saying, “That’s... hm... woah!” she exclaimed, a shiver going through her entire body where she stood, got a wide eyed look, and went up on the very tips of her hooves. “I just felt it, too!” she urgently whispered to Apple Bloom.

“Just because you thought about it?” Apple Bloom asked disbelievingly. But Sweetie Belle nodded, with no hint of any deception, only her honest innocence.

“This is weird,” Apple Bloom whined, lowering her head. They stood there for a few more seconds, before Apple Bloom’s fur stood on end, because she could feel something trickling down her leg. She reached her hoof down there and stopped short as she felt some kind of sticky fluid running from her groin. “Ew...” she said disgustedly, pulling her hoof out of there when it clung to her hoof in sticky strands. She wiped it off as best as she could, then turned to Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie have you–” Apple Bloom caught herself. Her unicorn friend was looking at her very worriedly. “Never mind,” Apple Bloom clarified, just trying to hold her legs together, “I don’t want it to happen because I made you thought about it.”

“Okay...” Sweetie said without sounding convinced.

Less than half a minute later, the unicorn beside Apple Bloom startled in place, pushing away from the earth pony in order to lift up her hind leg, trying to see herself down there.

“Dangit, it didn’t work,” Apple Bloom said with a stomp on the tile floor.

“I didn’t mean to!” Sweetie Belle said miserably, shifting from hoof to hoof. Now that Apple Bloom minded it, a lot of fillies in here were doing the same thing. They all had problems with their hindquarters?

“It’ll be okay Sweetie, we just gotta get some bed rest,” Apple Bloom assured her. Sweetie shook her head,

“No way am I getting in a bed if I can’t stop peeing!” Sweetie whispered fearfully. Apple Bloom blinked, then raised an eyebrow.

“Now hold on Sweetie,” Apple Bloom stopped her, “Let me see your bu–uh–your leg.”

“Please no...” she said looking miserably guilty.

“It ain’t pee ah don’t think,” Apple Bloom said to her, “Now let me see your leg.” Lifting Sweetie’s leg and cautiously smelling the stuff revealed no traces of urine, just an extra strong and somewhat tangier scent of Sweetie Belle.

“It ain’t pee,” Apple Bloom repeated. She noticed then that the trickle had stopped for her own hindquarters as mysteriously as it started, and was already starting to evaporate leaving her fur a sticky mess. “It’s... you know when you uh, ah mean, when you... touch yourself?”

“Ohhh,” Sweetie realized, looking under her hind leg with a little less trepidation. “But... I wasn’t touching myself!”

“Neither was ah,” Apple Bloom said, “I don’t know what that was!”

“I hope we’ll be okay,” Sweetie Belle whimpered.

Apple Bloom hugged Sweetie, and boy did it feel good to rub against her. They might have hugged a little longer than necessary. “Ah just hope Scootaloo is okay,” Apple Bloom said when they at last parted, but her voice held a note of fatalism because, if this was how they were feeling, then Scootaloo probably wasn’t okay at all.

Finally it was their turn, and the white and pink nurse mare ...stopped them from walking into the back by blocking the way with a hoof. She just approached them, and immediately wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh,” the mare said with a resigned sneer on her face, but then she relaxed her features and leaned down to them, saying “You fillies are just fine, don’t worry,” in a friendly but somewhat harried voice. “You just go home to your families and they can tell you what’s happening to you.”

“W-we’re not sick?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed in surprise, making the nurse wince, and subsequently feeling guilty about it.

“You’re fine,” she repeated, “It’s perfectly natural.”

“But what about the–”

“Look filly,” the nurse said with aplomb, “If I told you, you’d be embarassed in front of your friend here, and everypony in the waiting room, and you’d be ashamed for not having figured it out yourself, even though you shouldn’t be. It always happens. Every time. Just go to your family, tell them what happened, and they’ll tell you what to do. Now we have many other patients to see, so you fillies get on your way, and don’t worry your parents can tell you just what to do.”

As she said that, she just kind of head-butted Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, sliding them across the floor and out of the clinic. Then the nurse turned around and gallopped inside again, shouting “Next!”

Feeling completely confused, but with no better answers, and not even a pass, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle just had to part ways, heading home early. Now even walking was unpleasant. After that bizarre experience in the waiting room, Apple Bloom’s nethers were just throbbing achily. Oddly, it didn’t feel as unpleasant to run as it did to walk, so Apple Bloom ended up gallopping the whole way down the path, over the hill and to her farm house.

Apple Bloom actually felt better when she got there. The exercise had left her rosy cheeked and winded, like she felt after a warmup when she was ready to start the game. Pulling open the swinging door she let herself in calling out, “Applejack! Granny! Big Mac! Anypony here?” And as luck would have it, instead of everypony out working the orchard, Apple Bloom heard Applejack inside giving a weary groan. Apple Bloom ran into the dining room, where she found Applejack at the table looking like death warmed over. Applejack had a bag of ice clutched in her hooves, looking at it disgustedly.

“Applejack!” Apple Bloom called out for help, running up to stand uncertainly before the blonde maned orange apple mare who, seated at the table, was only a little bit above Apple Bloom’s eye level.

“Apple Bloom? What are y–” Applejack said, turning and then wincing. “What’re you doin’ out of school?” she asked after that pained interruption.

“There’s a bug goin’ around and they called off school early,” Apple Bloom answered readily. She was going to say more but Applejack snapped at her,

“Well that’s just great! First you–”

Then her angry grimace softened and Applejack looked at Apple Bloom apologetically saying, “Ah’m sorry sis, it’s just, well,”

Applejack looked up straight again, putting the bag of ice right into her lap under the table. “It’s that time of year again,” she explained, “Estrus season just hit me hard today. Looks like it’s gonna be a doozy this year.”

“Oh no!” Apple Bloom said looking at her sister with worry and concern.

Then, Apple Bloom stiffened. The room seemed to tilt around her, as her eyes widened, while her pupils shrank to pinpricks, and she repeated, albeit with an entirely different meaning to it, “Oh, no”

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