Forty degrees outside. As the sun is setting, I can see through my window each of the ponies wrap up their assignment for the day, and retreat into the extended dormitory. They'll most likely push the beds together tonight and try to huddle closer to one another for warmth; I am somewhat glad that I have not been able to separate out their rooms as of yet for this reason.

I can feel the window in front of me pull the heat away from my body as I stand near it. The tanks that rummaged about the tree lines have gone to burrow in the ground to try and wait for Spring. The fields have been fallowed for now, as we have no seeds of plants that will thrive in the cold temperatures.

It is now truly winter, and our time for preparation has run out.

Very simply... I'm scared. I don't know what to do anymore. Is there anything for me to do? The caravan never made it. The second harvest of the fields did not produce nearly as much as we had anticipated. The fish are gone for the season. No matter how many times I count the stockpiles, the food supply does not get any bigger... despite my strongest wishes, there is not nearly enough to maintain Songring through the following season.

What do I do?

Do I tell the ponies to continue to wait for the possibility of a caravan and risk starvation, or do I tell them to load the wagon with whatever they can collect, and abandon this settlement before the worst befalls them?

I have to make a decision, and it has to be made soon.

Let me recount the happenings of Autumn while I weigh my options. At the beginning of the season, Overcast finally completed construction of the dining hall upon the shore. It took very little time for some basic furniture to be thrown inside it. The tables are made of sandstone, and palm logs are what Willow used to craft the chairs, I'm told. A few shutters were installed that could be opened during the day to view the Light Waters. It has greatly increased overall satisfaction amongst the settlers here. Perhaps it is because they now have a meeting area they can enjoy, or perhaps it is just because it is the first accomplishment they have made. Either way, I am happy for them.

I was surprised when I awoke the following morning, after the completion of the dining hall, to see Blueprint and Overcast standing on one of the rocky cliff faces over the beach and laying down sandstone bricks on the ground, while Silence took a shovel and leveled the area for them.

"Okay, I'll bite: What are you three up to?" I asked them this irritably as I approached, frustrated that they had begun construction before I had decided on our next course of action in regards to building of the settlement.

"Oh! Mr. Prodder! Good morning! We're just laying a foundation for a new structure," Blueprint responded to me, seeming rather enthusiastic about the project.

"I can see that. I've not designated this area for anything. What the hell are you building then?"

"I told you he wasn't going to like us working without his okay..." Overcast muttered behind Blueprint as he stopped building the foundation. "I doubt he'd be happy with our design choices anyways. Our ambition is only going to cause us more work when he tells us to rip this foundation up to use it for something more important."

"Oh, hush Overcast! We haven't even told him what the building's supposed to be! Okay, Mr. Prodder: I noticed that you were holding all of your meetings in the covered wagon over there, and that you seemed to find it preferable to sleep in the storage room instead of in the dormitory with us. The best solution, obviously, was to build you an office/bedroom!"

"Solution to what?"

"Huh...?"

"Solution to what? You're solving... what? What are you solving by building me an office/bedroom?"

"To... you sleeping in the storeroom? And conducting your professional meetings in a covered wagon? Surely you don't mean to tell me that you like being alone in a dark storeroom at night, or using liquor kegs as your desk."

"I find it hard to care what my sleeping and business arrangements happen to be anymore, Blueprint, and all I see is valuable resources being depleted, including but not limited to: Our sandstone, daylight, and manpower."

Blueprint seemed speechless at this, slowly kicking the unfurled design she had planned for this building back into a rolled state, and lowering her head in defeat.

"Mr. Benjamen Prodder?"

"Oh, dammit. What, Overcast? What do you have to say this time? What is going to dribble out of your endless font of despair for us now?"

"I think you're worth it."

Well, it got me to shut up, that's for certain. I stared at him with a dumbfounded gaze, unable to understand what he had just told me. "What?"

"I know why you don't want us to build this for you; you probably think that you don't deserve it. I think that about myself a lot of the time too... but you let me be your assistant anyways. Well... I think you're worth it to not have to sleep in the storeroom anymore too. That's why I asked Blueprint and Silence to help me today..."

Blueprint nodded to confirm this, and Silence nodded as well.

"So if you really don't want it, Mr. Benjamen Prodder, I'll take it down for you. I think you're worth it though because... you think we're worth it enough to stay."

"Not to mention, Mr. Prodder, it sounds like you were not always this tightly wound and prone to argumentative spurts. Perhaps if you brought your stress levels down, you would be more amiable?" Blueprint added quickly on the backside of Overcast's statement.

After looking between the three of them, I finally shrugged defeatedly.

"You don't have to say anything, Mr. Benjamen Prodder... I think I know what you're gonna say. We'll keep building, and you can tell us it when we're done. Is that okay?" Overcast requested.

That is how I now have my own office and bedroom: Through the thoughtfulness of one pony, and the cooperative nature of quite a few others. The building itself is about 225 square feet in area, and is twenty feet tall (segmented into 3 somewhat stout floors). My office is at the base, the second level is a 'living quarters' for me to reside in, and at the top is my bedroom. The building is very small overall, but as I am the only one using it, the accommodations are more than I would have considered giving myself.

It is located on the shoreline to allow me to watch the ocean waves as they roll towards the land and beat against the steep cliff face at the base of the building. Teardrop also found a way to paint the interior walls blue by wringing some dye out of some kind of local mushroom. She said that maybe the two factors would help me to calm down some, and to be honest, they have.

The building of my quarters took far less time than I imagined it would; it took maybe half a week for each story to be completed, excluding when stupidity got in the way during the construction of the second story. Silence came to me with a worried look one day, and was attempting to tell me something, but you can imagine why this was a problem. As I failed terribly at a game of charades (the answer was evidently not "Mongoose"), she finally pressed her horn to my forehead, without my permission, and I could hear a clear, young woman's voice ring out in my thoughts.

"Tick Tock's gone missing!"

"What do you mean he's missing?"

"Nopony has seen him in over twenty-four hours. Last anypony heard, he was helping Overcast work on your office. I thought you should know so you could send out a search party."

"Twenty-four hours isn't necessarily a cause for alarm. It usually takes forty-eight hours before law enforcement will even do anything," I assured her.

"A lot more can go wrong in twenty-four hours here than can go wrong in forty-eight hours in a large city, Mr. Prodder. I urge you to consider organizing a search party."

I heeded her request, gathered all the pegasus ponies in the settlement that were not already too overworked (so... just Maple and Salmon), and asked them to take a survey of at least a two mile radius inland around the settlement to see if they could get sight of him.

"Ehm... m'boy, I don't think my eyes are as good as they once were, but I could swear that the excitable lad you're thinking of is right there." With that, Salmon pointed to the construction site of the new office.

Taking a closer glance, I could see a bit of peach-colored fur and something moving about in an impatient circle. As Maple and Salmon left to go have a celebratory drink for a “job well done”, I approached the side of the building, only to look up and see Tick Tock pacing around in a circle on the incomplete second floor. "You know you've got the rest of the settlers worried that you've been eaten or carried off, or some other nonsense, right?"

"Mr. Prodder! Thank goodness you're here! I've been stuck up here for what seems like forever!"

"It's been twenty-four hours. It hasn't been forever. Why are you still up there?"

"I set the wall sheet down on the wrong side of me, dangit, and now I can't get around it to go back to the stairs. Overcast was supposed to go get help, but... yeah, you can guess."

"Remove the portion of the wall then."

"But I got it just right! I don't want to mess it up by taking it down! I don't think I could make it look this good again!"

"Then jump down."

"... That's a really tall jump though..."

"It's not even seven feet!"

"That's, like, twice as tall as I am, Mr. Prodder!"

"You're over five feet tall without standing on your hind legs! Not only is it not even close to twice your height, it's barely able to even be called tall! Just jump down!"

"I might get hurt though!"

"Then fly down."

"... Uh."

"Fly. Down."

"About that..."

"You can't fly, can you?"

"Yeah... never learned how. Can't swim either."

"That's completely irrelevant- Rrrgh! Fine then, I'll fix this." Tick Tock was rather surprised when I picked up the shovel that Silence had left on the premises, in case she was called back, reached up with it to press the flat end into his side, and began pushing. There was quite a bit of protest as I continued to lay as much weight as I could against it.

"What're you- no! C-cut it out, Prodder! No! Stop it! You're gonna make me -- Fwaaal!" That was about all the protest he got out before I heard the thud of Tick Tock landing on the other side of the wall, then a low and quiet muttering of a swear, which I could ascertain to be him calling me something I'd best not repeat here. "... I'm okay."

"Figured you would be."

With that done, I did go check with Overcast to see why he did not let anyone know what had happened to Tick Tock. I'll just go ahead and write his explanation here:

"I tried, Mr. Benjamen Prodder. He asked me to go get somepony to help him, and when I asked around, nopony would listen to me. You were busy interviewing the newest settlers, so I knew you would be too busy to listen to me and my problems. When I went back to tell him that I couldn't get anypony to hear me out, he called me useless and told me to leave. I agreed with him, and went ahead and did as he asked." So that's how Tick Tock got stuck for over twenty-four hours on the incomplete second story of my new office.

As Overcast made mention of, we received a new group of settlers as well during the Autumn season. As I learned, some of the settlers in this group of migrants are relatives to other settlers already here in Songring. A good example is Bustier, who is married to one of the five ponies who arrived during the summer, Girdle. She was busy handling the close-of-shop sale when Girdle left to get started here. I am afraid that the MIRRD I have been using for these interviews is already damaged, and I don’t wish to allocate any more of my limited memory space on what I have left to bother with the latest interviews. I suppose settlers from here on just got lucky and don’t have to meet with me personally.

As lengthy as this entry has become, I must also record one final happening that occurred very recently within Songring. I'm not sure if this has any real relevance to Songring as a whole, but it is something that I wish to put down for myself and possibly give some light to a shifting of my ideas about this settlement.

One day, I had returned to my office after an exhausting argument with Willow (I was trying to get him to consult with Tick Tock about what he might need for a new project that Tick wanted to do). I was about ready to walk upstairs, let my face hit the pillow on my bed, and try to take a nap before addressing the ponies that evening in the dining hall; I needed to request some thoughts from them as to what the next construction project of Songring should be. As I began dragging myself up the stairs though, I heard something that caught me by surprise.

Crying.

I may be the only one, but I was more inclined to be afraid and look for an instrument to defend myself with instead of being worried about the creature that might be making the sounds. All I could find was my writing pen, however, and I held it gripped in my fist as I slowly and quietly crept up the stairs to my bedroom in search of whatever creature might be there. On my bed, lying on her side, was a cardinal red pegasus weeping quietly with her eyes hidden beneath her hooves. Maple.

To be completely honest, this sight shook me a bit. The tough, surly, often-drunk pegasus that I was accustomed to holding a grudge against for causing me unneeded frustration was now in front of me, crying softly to herself. I've never been good around those who are crying, especially when it was someone that I had expected to be stronger. "Maple?"

At the call of her name, she jumped in shock, and quickly tried to dry her eyes, drawing in a deep breath to silence her sobs. "Son of a... I... I didn't think you'd be back this soon, Ben."

"You've got my attention, Maple," I stated as I folded my arms to wait and hear this one, "I'm listening. Why are you in my quarters?"

"Not like there's anywhere else to be alone here, Ben."

"What? No pseudo-soliciting comment this time? Not going to ask if I want to join you on my bed? Wait a moment, are you sober?"

"Okay, forget it! I'm gone. I just wanted some time to be alone is all, but dammit, I don't need this from you right now." She lifted herself from my bed to stand with a stiffness about her. "Move; I'm gonna... I don't know. I'm going to go do something useful I guess."

As she stood in front of me, I held fast in front of the stairwell for the moment, my curiosity getting the better of me. "What's with the sudden need for alone time? What are you crying about?"

"Just get out of the way! It's not part of my job description to have to explain my every breath to the likes of you."

"It's not part of mine to give a damn when I find someone crying in my bedroom either; however, I somehow find myself doing it anyways."

"Probably just because you think I messed up your sheets." She grew very quiet at that moment, when I set my hand on her neck and pressed on it to guide her back over towards the bed. Surprisingly, it took very little effort from me for her to move alongside me, and when I sat on the bed, she rested herself on the floor so we could remain nearly eye-to-eye.

"Actually, it's because I think something might be wrong, and I want to know what."

It appeared to be difficult for her to answer me: Looking to the floor a few times to consider if she should just go back down the stairs as she had originally planned. "You've been paying attention to the stockpiles, so I guess you know that we're out of alcohol."

Somehow I was able to remain composed in that moment, despite the indignance welling in me from the thought that she was crying over the fact that her booze had dried up. "You're crying because you have to be sober?"

"It's not like that. There's just a lot that's tough to handle without a little help. I'm a long way from home, and now I don't even have something to take my mind off it."

"Then just go home." She seemed upset when I told her that. "Like you told me when I first got here, we didn't ask for you to be here: If you want to go home, then go home. We'll be okay. Don't worry that you might be letting anyone down."

After a long and, what I assume to be, hurt silence, she shook her head with moist eyes. "Some of us don't get to make those kinds of choices."

"What do you mean? Just tell me you want to go home, and I can dismiss you, Maple. Then you can go home and be happy."

"You just don't get it! There's a lot more at stake for me here than just… me." Sighing, she looked at me with a strong glare that demanded my silence for a while. "Unlike you, I've got a lot riding on this. I have ponies that depend on me. Maybe not here in Songring, but there are ponies counting on me to make it out here. I can't just give up and leave them hanging because things aren't going my way."

"Do you mind explaining what you mean?"

"Look, it's not going to make a difference. What do you care anyways, Ben?" That question seemed very familiar to me. In fact, I could shuffle back through these pages and see where I asked the same question as well. Peculiar. "I don't want your pity, and if you're worried that this'll affect my work, it won't."

"Maybe I just want to share a little happiness with you." (Thanks, Twilight.) That made her pin her ears back against her head, looking away from me. Was I telling the truth, or just saying what would make her feel better? Did I really care at all why she was so upset about the lack of liquor? Regrettably, I must inform that I did. I must have at least sounded sincere enough for her to believe me too.

"The reason I'm here at all is because it's the only way I can earn enough money to take care of my family back home in Lopeyette. Before you ask: No, I'm not hitched. The family I'm talking about is my two little brothers. Y'see... ma and pa have been... out of the picture for a long time. Granddad was providing for us for the longest while I took care of my brothers, until a few winters ago when he broke a hind leg. Needless to say, he doesn't move around too good anymore, and finally... well, what little money we had dried up when he wasn't able to work anymore. For the past coupla years, I've been lucky enough to find ways for us to scrape by, but my luck ran out for a while before I came across the fella who offered me a position here in Songring. He told me that if I'd do the work, that these big-wig investor types would send a salary back to my folks in Lopeyette."

"That's very noble of you," I mentioned as she grew quiet, "It must be a lot of responsibility to have those you care about rely on you so much. I'm sure anyone you told this to would think highly of you for it."

"Just because we might think it's the right thing doesn't make it any easier." With that, she reached up behind her ear and knocked free a rolled piece of paper, which she unfurled slowly. "This is what got me. I thought I was going to make it through the day okay without any liquid help, but then I found this tucked away in my personal effects. It's something the colts must have hidden in my belongings for me before I left:

"Mehmeh (That's what they've called me since they were little and couldn't say my name right),

Grandpa said not to bother you anymore, but we wanted to say that we're going to miss you and to please don't go away. We know you're going to go live far away in Songring, but we want you to stay here with us. We promise to sell all of our toys if you'll just come live with us again, and we'll eat grass and get jobs too.

We love you Mehmeh, please come home.

Love,
Tag and Rag.""

I watched as she stared at the short note after reading it aloud to me, her voice having cracked near the end, and water built up in her eyes as she bit her lower lip to hush herself. It took many moments before she drew in a deep, shaky breath to overcome the tears and keep her composure before me. "Stupid, right? That I let something like this tear me down,” she shook her head before I could tell she was on the verge of tears once more, "The worst part is that I want to be there for them, but I can't because I have to be at this stupid settlement project to provide for them. I'm doing this for them because I love them, but I can't even show them that."

Something compelled me to reach for her head and pull it close to my chest as she finally began sobbing again, stroking the green and yellow mane while I waited for her to let it out. I can only assume it was natural human decency; I was surprised at myself, but I can also think that it was the only thing I could do. I had no words to help her, and there was nothing I could do to fix her situation. I could feel immense tension in her neck. I'm afraid the only thing worse to her than her situation, was that someone else had to be witness to her crying over it; she even whispered apologies as she eventually calmed herself. "I know what I'm doing is right. It just doesn't make it any easier to know that, and I just don't know how to tell them, Prodder. I don't know how to tell them why I can't come home to them." When she had relaxed, I reached for my notebook and pen and began scrawling a quick note. I tore out the page of the notebook I had written on and folded it so I could tuck it behind her ear.

"What's that?"

"Give it to Snifter, and let him know to get with Springfield and start construction on a still. That's proof that I sent the order." The confused silence I received back prompted me to explain, “We're stuck here together, for better or for worse. If there's any way I can add a little comfort for you or the other settlers, who am I to deny it? I still think maybe you need help... but I think that if you want help, you'll come back looking for it."

As she picked herself up and gathered her paper to head toward the stairwell slowly, I called out after her with one final thought, “I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help you."

I saw a feeble smile, perhaps bittersweet, as she began down the stairwell to leave me to get the rest I needed. "You've already done more than I would have asked you to. I think I won't give this to Snifter until tomorrow. Thank you, Benjamen."

I have finally come to my decision then. After reliving the past few weeks in this entry, I have come to the conclusion that we must stay. There is much more at stake here than our comfort or the monetary return the investors are expecting from this settlement: These ponies need it. I think each of them must have a story like Maple's; each one must have a good reason to fight on each day and endure the challenges that come with striking the earth here. If I tell them to pack up, I have not only let them down... but I will have forced them to give up whatever those reasons are. I don't know if what I'm going to do is right, but I do know it's what I've decided, and I must see it through.

There is more at stake here than just me. Songring will stand. I must make sure of it.