“Make sure that no one disturbs me,” I ordered, giving the servant a glare, “If anypony asks just tell them that I will be with them shortly.”

“Of course sir,” The drab grey butler replied, maintaining a careful monotone, even as he struggled to look at me through his thick white eyebrows, “I will remain here for as long as you wish for me to stay.”

Not even bothering to reply to him, I quickly strode into my office, shutting and bolting the door telekinetically behind me.

Even through the thick stone walls, I could still hear the faint sounds of the party going on in the adjacent room. With well practised motions, I undid the buttons of my suit jacket and stepped out of it, levitating it to hang on the back of my chair.

I couldn’t help myself as I let out a rather scandalous sigh; whilst the thing served its purpose to highlight the strength of my frame, it was quite tight. Whenever I wore it, I never seemed to be able to take a full breath. I was willing to bear the uncomfortableness in the name of image, however.

As was to be expected, a fire was crackling in the fireplace, warding me against the chill that had already begun to invade the air.

With careful a motion, I seated myself in my desk chair and searched immediately for a scrap of parchment to record the thoughts that I was struggling to keep inside of me. Hurriedly, my eyes darted over the mahogany expanse. My task was not made easier by the chaos that engulfed it. Everywhere were stacks of paper and maps, each of them relevant to some matter or another that my various duties required of me.

At least, I assumed. Honestly, it was such a mess that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still documents belonging to my father somewhere hidden amongst it all.

Finally, I managed to find a blank sheet hidden in one of the drawers. Taking up a quill and dipping it in a nearby golden inkwell, I began to write.

I, Prince Blueblood LVI, am writing this as my confession of guilt in accordance to my part in the Equestrian food shortage.

It all began after the defeat and reimprisonment of Discord. Perhaps at the beginning, everypony partied without restraint, but after that glorious night of celebrations, things soon grew worse.

Soon enough, ponies were growing ill, I myself being bedridden for several days, stricken with symptoms that I would rather not reveal. Though at first everypony panicked, it was the kind of panic that did not prevent somepony from getting up and going to work in the morning. Rather, it was a nagging at the back of your mind that continually reminded you that something was off, that at any moment things could return to normal or grow infinitely worse. Many ponies, myself included, expected that it was some sort of residual effect from Discord himself, and that everything would be back to normal in no time at all.

Alas, these eventually proved to be false hopes. A couple of days stretched into a week and an ever growing number of ponies were still getting sick. The ones that were stricken first only grew worse with each day and some were even beginning to die.

Without delay, a full inquest was ordered by my divine aunts and after only a short time the source was discovered. It was the food, tainted by chaos magic, making it toxic to everypony.

Of course, a bill was soon put forward before the council and of course it passed without complaint. All foodstuffs in the kingdom were to be scanned and everything that was found to be tainted taken away for incineration.

It was a good plan, but it had one fatal flaw: nearly everything edible was tainted. We could only watch in horror as the affected food percentage grew, and our stores dwindled.

Myself and my house were hit particularly hard by this. Over fifty percent of our assets are tied up in food production in some form; from simple land leasing, to distribution.

“Food is a non-removable commodity,” my grandfather, who directed my family down this avenue of ownership, always said. “A pony can always stop building, relaxing, or Tartarus, even bathing, but they always need to eat.”

At the time, it must have seemed like a magnificent idea, an invariable perpetual motion machine that would generate money without fail. Of course, at the time, Equestria hadn’t had any hint of any type of strife for centuries. I used to think he was a genius, now all I can do is curse his name.

I could only look on agast, as my family wealth began to dwindle. Each day, I was forced to sign off on documents that acknowledged that my wares were being taken away. Each day, I could see our profit margins spiraling further into the negative, eating away at my family’s wealth. In only a couple of weeks, it had grown so bad that our position as a great house was beginning to be threatened. I even got so desperate that it became necessary to make up for our level of hay production by introducing common grass into it. So what if a few ponies became sick? It was easy enough to write this off as tainted chaos magic that hadn’t yet been removed.

Luckily, our salvation came in the form of something that I had never paid much attention to until then: the noble stipend that was paid through taxation, something that we ourselves were exempt from. With the money gained from it, as well as cutting a lot of house expenditure, I managed to make it appear that our house was just as invincible as others believed, that we were weathering the crisis with little trouble.

All I needed to do was lay low for a year or two, and then food production would have returned to normal and my house’s income would have done the same.

However, my plans were shattered when the next council bill was given to me. At the beginning, I barely read it, though thank Celestia that I did. It was a plan to solve the crisis by taking away our noble privilege and returning it to the unwashed masses.

I couldn’t allow for that to happen, as the consequences would be unthinkable: my family cast out into the streets, disgraced from high society, and our noble lineage reduced to nothing.

So I did what any family head would do, I prevented the bill from passing. It was actually shocking, how easy it was to convince my fellow council members to vote against it. Most that put up any resistance quickly folded, after they learned of the support that I had already garnered. In fact, I even caught word that one or two houses supported my effort because they, and I quote, “wanted a white Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

The bill was denied, just as I planned, and we all celebrated for preserving our ancient privilege.

This happened little over a week ago, and most of my fellow aristocrats are still ecstatic over what we have accomplished. Even as I write this, the party that I am throwing is entirely for that purpose. Though, of course, certain measures have been implemented to ensure that money has been saved. After all, who would notice that the wine is growing steadily cheaper, as the night moves on and they grow more intoxicated, or that cheaper caviar has been mixed in with the more expensive?

Of course now, the reconstruction efforts will be slowed, and it will take longer for our businesses to return to profitability. But what good is profitability, if you don’t even own the business? As things stand, all I need to do is maintain enough influence in the council—a relatively easy feat—by maintaining the original purported reason behind our original vetoing, that it is what we wished and so it will be.

Hurriedly, I scanned the paper over several times for any errors, correcting those that I found with the use of an erasing spell. After all, this was important, this was the type of thing that was put into history books for foals to learn about. I knew that it did not cast the best light onto me, but it was the truth.

After a few read-throughs, I allowed myself a satisfied nod and smile.

To complete the image, I carefully signed my name at the bottom of the page, the practised loops and curls coming as naturally to me as breathing after spending nearly my entire life signing documents.

Next, I carefully ran the bowl of a specially made spoon, which several hard granules of wax had been deposited into, over a nearby candle, making sure to keep my magic only wrapped around the handle, and away from the flame. After the wax was thoroughly melted, I applied it to the bottom half of the confession and quickly pushed my seal into it, leaving behind the personal crest of my house, a single drop of blood imprinted onto a shield, which itself had two swords crossed behind it. This, coupled with the specially made blue wax that was exclusive to my family, would leave no doubt as to the authenticity of the document.

After a few moments, the wax had hardened, and my masterpiece was finished. Therefore, it was a great regret to me that I then scrunched it into a ball and deposited it into the fireplace. As I watched the flames begin to eat into the truth, I felt relieved and saddened.

As I said, I would do anything for my family, even if it meant that the entire world had to suffer to ensure its survival. Perhaps history and Celestia would judge me harshly, but as long as I continued on my current course, the blame will fall onto me and not my house. Soon enough, I would be left as an outsider in high society, as the pride of victory shrivelled and the cold realization of what we had done set in. A personal damnation from divine aunts could hardly be weathered forever.

Shrugging my jacket back on, I simultaneously returned to the festive mindset that was required of me.

And so, as I opened the door and fixed the servant with a glare, I accepted my fate.