8th of August, Monday

I'm not even sure that I'm allowed to write in this. Well, I've already written something down. A little late now, isn't it?

Huh. (I can't believe I actually wrote that)

How should I even start this? Well, I guess I should start with my name, shouldn't I? My name is Faithful Merry, but my friends (the few that I have) call me Merry. I am twenty-three years old and I live in Hut #804, Crystal Berry Lane with my mother and my sister. I had a father, but he died in an accident while working in the crystal mines. That's where all the bad ponies go (the ones who break the law). Mom always says that he was sent down there for staying out after curfew, and it was a misunderstanding. I never really knew him, though; I was just a filly, but mom has a few pictures of him pinned to our wall.

Our hometown is the Crystal Empire, Middle of Nowhere. Sounds beautiful, doesn't it? Powerful? Not really! Well, aside from the powerful part, the streets and buildings are all a dark ashen color, like the fog of darkness clouding the perimeter, and the skies a hellish red. Nopony here is ever happy, not even the guards. But then again, there's nothing to really smile about with shackles on your hooves and a collar latched around your neck. The last stallion that did that was forced to eat pork meat in front of everypony on Hearth's Warming Eve, and then he died a couple days later.

Speaking of pork, the air smells horrible, like salt but raunchier. Maybe it's the ponies? We don't have proper baths like the ponies living in the Crystal Palace. We all share this one bath house, mares and stallions, no privacy, and the water is always freezing cold. Somehow, you always end up smelling worse coming out than you were going in. Some say there's a frozen lake nearby where we get our water, but I don't know. As long as the smell doesn't get in the way of our jobs, the guards couldn't care less. And if it wasn't the smell, then it would likely be my klutziness; it has always gotten in the way of others.

I was never strong enough to work in the mines, cruel enough to be a guard, or brave enough to be a caravan pony, though I've always wanted to see the world beyond the Black Fog. So what, you're wondering, did the Council do with a weak little nice-pony that trips over her own hooves? Why, make her a flyer pony, of course! Yep, for the past eighteen years I've migrated from pulling carrots out of the ground to sticking flyers on bulletin boards and street corners! Wouldn't Dad just be ecstatic? (Oh, Solianna forgive me! I shouldn't talk like that!)

It's just that, when I was a filly, Mom would tell me the same story every night before going to sleep: when he first held me in his hooves, Daddy kissed me on the forehead and said that no matter what I did in life, whether it'd be Queen of the Crystal Empire or scrubbing outhouses with a toothbrush, it's our destiny, and destiny is what makes us, ponies, special.

Now of course, putting up flyers isn't exactly taking me from dusk 'till dawn. This led to downtime, and downtime led to boredom. Boredom led to two things: heading on over to the kitchens and listen to the elders blab on and on about how their "mother's grandmother" knew what life was like before King Sombra came to power, or I could read. Seeing as how the idea of far-fetched pipe dreams the weight of iron burdening my heart didn't appeal to me, I leaned more towards reading. There's benefits to reading, for sure. For one, it's a time-killer, and that's always a plus! Also, it made me (I guess) one of the better writers in the Crystal Empire, considering many have never even held a book in their life.

Many books are deemed "forbidden" to slaves, and are locked away in the Crystal Archives. It's ran by this kindly librarian named Agatha. From what I've heard, she's a member of the Council, though you couldn't tell by looking at her; one of the dead giveaways being that she's nice. Never a smirk on that old withered face of her's, but she's more than happy to occasionally slip me one of the more "not-so-restricted" books. Despite this, she always tells me to hide the cover when a guard passes by. I don't get why they're restricted, though. They're usually on things like "Advanced Barge Tactics," and the chronicles of a "Starswirl the Bearded," whoever that is. Agatha also gave me this blank book, saying that a crate the caravan had brought in this morning had a dud in it and I should keep it, use it as a personal log of some kind.

I guess that's it. My whole, unspectacular life summed up in just a few paragraphs. Good thing, too. I hear Dinner Bell!

-Faithful Merry