I have interesting happenings to report this season. It is actually not my usual time to write my end-of-season thoughts, as it has only been a couple of weeks since my last entry. I decided to write this record for a significant reason: I am still not working as Songring's direct leadership. I have instead taken the role of advisor, with good cause as to why. I have also decided that we will not be trading with the zebra caravans in the future, but that is a slightly unrelated point that I will discuss at a later time.

We now happen to have quite a few useless trinkets around Songring thanks to Dawnstar's ambition. I will applaud her for attempting to better organize the importance of jobs, and allocate responsibilities and rewards accordingly instead of the communal setup that we are currently working under, but she forgot some very important factors in her hasty attempt to do something she felt I could not. I do, however, wonder how much we could sell these baubles for, but I am still disappointed in Dawnstar's lack of knowledge regarding metal compositions.

There are 5000 Songring 1225 silver coins laying around that are particularly worthless aside from the silver spent minting them. I first saw one of these coins when Springfield was pointlessly flipping one into an empty stone mug in the dining hall while sitting across from Absinthe and discussing distilling methods that perhaps she could try for stronger and purer spirits. "Hey, Springfield. What have you got there?"

"Paycheck," Springfield grunted unhappily, once again slapping his hoof to the bar to try to make the coin flip into the empty mug. He continued to do it repeatedly with the same coin, which led me to believe it was the only one in his possession. "Smart little cookie you got running the show has a weird sense of value. I bust my rump out here with this expedition for four years, have to start over once, make sure everypony's got something to eat, and work as the make-do doctor... and all I get is one lousy bit 'cause I'm supposedly part of the blue bridle economic class."

The coin finally landed in the mug with a satisfying jingle, prompting Absinthe to fill it for him and give him a peck on the cheek. "Deal's a deal, handsome. You got it in, so you get one on the house." Springfield smiled weakly as he accepted and finally looked back over at me, his amusement quickly fading when he returned to his thought.

"I do hope you understand why I'm not real happy right now, Prodder. I am not one to put a monetary value to a pony, but I think I'm worth more than a bit."

"I agree: You're at least a two bit farmer, Springfield." My vague attempt at humor was not well received, as I could tell he did not know I was joking with him. "What I meant is that I had nothing to do with this decision. Please disregard whatever you've been told by Dawnstar, I will have a word with her as soon as I am back from my vacation."

"You do that, Ben," he encouraged me, maintaining his irritation with the insult that he had endured.

I went to check with a few of the other settlers to see how they were faring just to make sure this was not some kind of chastising, or singling out. Teardrop had received ten bits for her jewelcrafting talents. Willow had gotten five for woodworking. Overcast had received three for detailing and masonry, as did Silence for mining in dangerous conditions. Lastly, Maple and Salmon both received a single bit for having simple "gathering" professions.

Needless to say, I confronted Dawnstar about this issue, as I had spoken to more than just the closest seven of Songring's residents to me, and gotten confirmation. Many others felt cheated and belittled by their salary and expressed it to me in the form of shouts and complaints. Barging into my own office, I saw Dawnstar counting out more coins from the pile and writing in a ledger, deep in thought. "Dawnstar, what are you doing?"

"Creating a reliable economy," she responded confidently, shooting me a smile that I was certain was meant to be a challenge. "While you've been off having fun and wasting away the summer months, I have been trying to get Songring into a proper resemblance of civilized life. What do you think of that, Mr. Prodder? Despite my trouble keeping things in line, I do have to give myself a hoof that I can at least make adequate progress even without a certain somepony's help." She set her quill down to quirk a brow at me questioningly, still keeping a charmingly smug smile. "What would you do without me? It might have taken you another four years before you even considered getting the ball rolling on something as complex as creating a valid economy."

"I think you're making a huge mistake, Dawnstar. I can list a lot of problems with your idea, right now, without even really pondering on it. As for what I'd do without you, probably a lot less cleaning up." I tapped my foot irritably as I looked over the pile of coins on my desk and shook my head at the thought.

"Fine, Mr. Prodder. I bet I can defend my thoughts on this well enough. Take your best shot: What could possibly be wrong with what I'm doing?"

"Okay, first off, let's explore your knowledge of minting. You're creating coins with the image of a sun on one side and crossed harps on the other."

"The Sun of Chance's symbol on one side and The Voices of Subsisting's on the other, yes."

"We don't have approval to mint legal currency, Dawnstar. These coins are pretty much collector's items at best: Songring Commemoratives if you will. The only worth they have is the silver you used to mint them, which was a poor choice in the first place."

"Silver is a precious metal, Mr. Prodder. I figured it was a very sound choice to mint money with."

At that time, I stepped over to the desk and swiped a coin off of it, asking her to wait a moment. I used my knee to prop up the desk and slide the coin beneath its leg, before letting it rest back down. Finally, I grabbed the sides of the desk and began lifting and repeatedly slamming it on the ground against the coin on the stone floor. With her staring at me like I had lost my mind, I retrieved the coin and tossed it on the desk to show nothing but a pulverized, shapeless lump of silver. "Too soft to maintain its shape through any kind of wear. You didn't alloy it, Dawnstar, and I know you didn't because we don't have any nickel or copper."

"Like anypony is going to be slamming these coins under a desk though, Mr. Prodder! They'll withstand normal wear and tear just fine!"

Giving her a stale stare, I grabbed the edges of the desk once again and tried to mimic a higher voice she might recognize. "Oh, well, damn. I have no more tanks to roll down the mountain! I wonder what else there is for me to do? Oh, yeah, mindless destruction!" At that, I began slamming the desk against the ground again a few more times to make my point, and then gestured at her to let her know it was her move.

"Fine. So I made a poor choice in minting them out of silver... I did not want to use the lead because you said it was poisonous though. What else was I supposed to mint it out of?"

"Nothing, Dawnstar, that's the point. You weren't supposed to mint these at all."

"Such a close-minded answer," she responded angrily, folding her legs and looking down with a slight pout. "I still say we can use them to give proper value to the work done here though. They may be worthless elsewhere, but we can determine their value here. At least agree that my idea was of good intention."

"That's not going to work either, since you've determined salaries based on some cryptic logic I have yet to scratch the surface on." I snatched up her ledger, despite her protests, and began reading over the totals she had been figuring for each pony when I arrived. "About half of Songring is on a salary of one bit a day."

"Only the less educated and less practiced professions are given low salaries," she informed me, still reaching across the desk to take the ledger back as I turned around to keep her away. "The more talent a profession requires, the more it is worth in daily salary!"

"So Springfield's growing of our food, which we need to survive by the way, requires no talent and is only paid a bit a day? I don't know about you, but I have never had a green thumb. If this place relied on me to grow our food, we'd starve before the season was out. How is he going to purchase his meals in a day with a single bit anyways? You expect him to get three square meals only twice a week?"

"We just lower the value of food so he can buy three meals with a single bit! There's a fix for this, see?"

"... Dawnstar, that means he would have to pay for meals with that single bit three times in a day. Since all the bits are silver, we can't very well make smaller change, now can we?"

Dawnstar's head hit the desk with an exhausted groan then, complaining against its surface about how she was this close to finally doing something right. Her self-pity was drowned out quickly as Abeo came bumbling down the stairwell and started trying to climb back atop my desk where Dawnstar rested her head. The tank calf swiped at the surface with her claws, too sluggish to actually get any grip and hoist herself onto my desk, and flung silver coins around the room with repeated jingling,.

For fear of my assistant's head being damaged if the tank somehow managed to climb up the side of the desk and plop down on top of her, I stepped forward and shoved Abeo in the side. Like a falling tree, she gave a loud croak as her body slowly turned over and slammed to the stone floor on her plated back with a loud thump. While the calf continued to move her legs hopelessly in a running motion in the air, I stepped to Dawnstar's side and tugged at her upper body beneath her front legs to get her to sit straight up again. "So close, yet so far. It was a good idea, just not the right time for it Dawnstar. Now come on, we need to revoke this decision and get those coins melted back down." When I let her go, however, she just slumped back down with a quiet thud on my desk.

"What's the point?" she asked me, pulling her front legs over her face to shield it from view as her voice dropped low. "I just can't seem to do anything right. When I try to do what you tell me, when I try to do what I think is right, when I try to follow your example... nothing ever seems to turn out right. Nopony will listen to me, and even my best ideas end up being useless." With that she kicked a few of the coins from my desk with her front hoof, uncovering her eyes as she did so. I said nothing as she waited for a response, or perhaps was just being retrospective . "What am I even doing here?"

I was not sure how to answer her, trying to wait out her emotional free-fall by watching Abeo let the top of her head rest on the ground while lying on her back, playing dead as she was too lethargic to roll herself over again. As the moments passed and it seemed that things were not going to resolve themselves, I gave a sigh and told her to stand up. My next words were interrupted, however, as heavy beats sounded against the door of my office and a murmur of voices burbled behind it.

I could swear that I saw sparks when the handle struck, as the door swung open to bash against the wall carelessly, making way for a myriad of pelt colors marching in to gather across the desk from Dawnstar and I. At the front of the pack were Maple and Springfield, both of whom had a mild stumble in their gait that hinted that they had been spending the morning visiting Absinthe for some liquid courage to get up the gall to barge into my office. Behind them were many others, including Daggersides, Willow, Honeysides, Silversight, and more than I care to name. The voices rumbled together in their frustration and complaints as they bore their disapproving stares down upon Dawnstar, who shrunk into my chair and desperately sought somewhere to hide her face. Another shrill cry erupted from Abeo as the noise escalated, and she continued to give animalistic hollers as she flailed about on her back uselessly. The jingling of the coins started to sound again as Willow abandoned his protests and began scooping them up off of the floor and trying to hoard them all in a corner. I could even hear bees disengage from Honeyside's mane start buzzing and whizzing about unchecked in my office as I struggled to gather my thoughts long enough to address any of them.

"Hey! Hold on!" I started to shout, trying to get their attention as they drew closer to my desk to harass Dawnstar, who was still trying her best to ease away from the the furious glowers and harsh words being thrown at her. "This isn't helping!" I tried again as loudly as I could voice, but still no one ceased their advance on her. It was then that I looked at Abeo, who gave a shrill cry on the ground once more as she lazily rocked back and forth, and decided I had nothing to lose.

It would not be the first time since my arrival here that others have viewed me as having completely lost my sanity, but this might have been the first time that I was wishing to receive this response. Dropping onto my back against the ground next to Abeo, I followed her motions with my arms and legs to mimic frantic running and gave panicked calls for attention. This was followed with me screaming and hollering nonsense and gibberish while I rolled back and forth in a tantrum, coins chiming and flying everywhere when I began kicking my desk with all of my might and throwing aimless punches at the air with my hands. I believe I snorted and snarled a few times somewhere in there, as I spoke in languages I never took the time to learn. I finally realized that the whole room, aside from Abeo and I, had gone silent.

"Ben? What. The. Fuck?” Maple bemusedly asked, staring at me with her jaw still slack in disbelief of what her eyes told her was happening.

A few others murmured concerns while I hushed and stood up to begin dusting myself off, taking a moment to use my foot and roll Abeo back onto her stomach, quietly thanking her for the idea. Daggersides informed everyone to stand back in case I had really lost it, and Springfield expressed his own concern in a few slurred words, a belch, and a stumble that led to him toppling to the ground and frantically scrambling back to his hooves like a newborn foal. It had only been roughly an hour since we last saw one another, so I was bewildered at the thought of just how much he had consumed in such a short amount of time.

"I'm simply joining the crowd," I told them as I folded my arms and gave them a stern, unamused glance-over. "I just happen to throw a fit more effectively than the rest of you. Is that not what you were doing? Throwing a tantrum to try to get some attention?" I took that moment to step over to Dawnstar's side, as I could see in her eyes that she was scared. "If you don't like me using the same tactic to get you to focus on me in return, maybe you should all get a grip on yourselves and express your concerns in a way that can be responded to."

"I ain't squallin' and screamin' like a calf," Springfield interjected as he swayed in his spot, gently bumping up against Maple who shoved him away with the side of her body and caused him to slip to the floor again. "We've gotta problem and you're just making fun of us, huh?" He continued when he was standing back up, looking as though he wished to step up to me and challenge me for insulting him. I found myself rather fortunate that he could not find the coordination to do so.

"That problem is your little pet there, Ben," Maple added in, pointing to Dawnstar as she whimpered and lowered her ears at the sight of the rabble of angry ponies across the desk. "One bit a day? Who does she think she is that she can dictate how much everypony is worth?"

"Yeah!" Willow shouted from the corner, his hooves wrapped around the pile of bits he had hoarded. "I deserve a lot more than five lousy bits in a day! I need, like, a hundred. Or a thousand. Hourly."

"How come she can decide which ponies are more important?" Honeysides interjected as well, her waxy-yellow pelt poking out of the crowd.

"Some of us throw our lives on the line, and we get chump change for it! We don't even get nearly as much as a friggin' jeweler," Daggersides added, flinging a few silver bits from her holster at my desk in a disowning gesture. "Sure, let me go play with pretty rocks and shiny metals all day to get ahead. Never mind that everything everypony holds dear will be burned to the damn ground if we don't have anypony defending it! Who cares as long as I can get my proper rewards as a jeweler?"

"How 'bout we show her just how much she's worth to us too!" Springfield called out, grumbling afterwards to himself and shaking his head to try to make the world stand still around him.

"I think you might have a problem with me personally. Well, lap-dog? Mad that you're not Master's favorite? Is that why you stiffed me and ended up hoofing me a single bit? If you want things to be personal, Dawnstar, then let's take this outside and I'll give you a personal thanks upside your pretty little head." Maple raised her hoof above my desk at Dawnstar then, the indigo pony cringing before the gesture and quietly squeaking in uncertainty as she could not respond coherently to the anger in the room.

I felt her grab for me. Dawnstar's leg creeped to my hand and the joints near the hoof curled to grasp it. She had reached to hold my hand, her muscles quaking during the gesture.

I had to step in.

"You mean you want me to step outside with you and sort it out then, Maple?" I asked her, curling my fingers around Dawnstar's leg behind my desk as well.

"What? N-no,” Maple stammered at first, confusedly shifting her sight between the two of us. "She's the one I've got a problem with, Ben. She's the one who needs a lesson here."

As true as that was, I shook my head to the woodspony. "It was my decision, so if you're mad, you're mad with me." All of the ponies quickly lost their fire and rage and were instead befuddled by my answer. "If everyone would give me a moment to explain: Dawnstar was just taking some initiative while I was on vacation. This idea was mine, but it just was not ready to be implemented as it was. Our impromptu leader here found the plans in my desk and mistakenly thought they were done, so she was trying to help me out by setting it into effect while I was resting. I'm sorry that you all feel cheated and insulted, I really am, but it was truly a mistake. Nothing more. There is currently no Songring economy, and there will not be until further notice."

"... These are still mine anyways,” Willow voiced as he was counting out the silver bits hugged to his chest.

That was only until Maple stepped close and put one of her hooves in his face while using another to scatter the coins about despite his protests. "Yeah? Well sorry, but the Being-A-Little-Shit tax just hit and you were overdue."

"I thought you said you didn't have nothing to do with this here, Ben," Springfield mentioned with mumbling confusion.

"You're exactly right. I did not have nothing to do with it. I had plenty to do with it."

"What?" is all he was able to ask in response, unable to conjure the cognitive thought needed to understand the importance of his own double-negative.

"Now, if you will all please vacate my office, I have quite a bit of work to take care of in fixing this. If you would be so kind as to bring your coins back and leave them on my desk, I will look into recouping the losses. Feel free to keep one or two as souvenirs if you wish, as an apology for this misunderstanding." With that, I motioned for everyone to leave, doing my best to clench my teeth and not give away the fact that I was playing them all for fools just to save face for my intern huddled fearfully in my chair. There were a few apologies given to me as everyone started to leave, and I had to stop Willow and make him spit out the twenty-or-so bits he had hidden in his mouth before he left.

Maple stopped and gave me a hard glance-over, before putting the bit in my hand and watching my features carefully. Afterwards, she closed her eyes and brushed her head across my chest to ask me if I really thought she was only worth a single bit.

"It wasn't ready, Maple. It meant nothing at all, I promise."

The pegasus took a few more moments to comfort herself against me before standing back up and putting on her confident smile with a nod. "Good. Then I won't have to beat you like a rug out back. Let's keep it that way my little bossman." With a distasteful glance at Dawnstar, she also let me know to keep my dog on a tighter leash and perhaps put a muzzle on her. I just thanked Maple for her input and motioned for her to leave.

Finally the door shut gently closed behind them, and Dawnstar and I were left in the room together. I had gone to take off my floral pattern shirt and replace it with the green and silver dress attire that I was more accustomed to wearing: My own subtle way of accepting that my vacation was now at its end.

The intern at my desk stayed seated, watching me with wide eyes as she waited. I can only assume she wanted me to regard her in some way, but I was much too busy with my thoughts, and left her there to stew in her own while I kept myself occupied with what immediately had to be done in getting ready to take my position back. After an extended and hopeless silence, she tucked her ears back and began moving towards the door without a word.

"Where are you going?" I asked her, coming back down the stairwell as I was buttoning down my coat and tying my hair back, as best as I could, behind my head in a loose ponytail to keep it out of my face.

"Home." I had to rush to stop her as she said only that, and her hooves seemed hesitant to desist when I put my hand on her back and tried to bring her back into my office, asking her to explain. "Nopony likes me here, Mr. Prodder. I'm not cut out for this position; I'm not even helpful to you as an assistant. Now everypony is upset with you because you had to take the fall for me. I'm just going to go back to Canterlot... perhaps study journalism instead. Something that I can't possibly mess up as badly."

"I'm sorry."

My intern turned back to me uncertainly, the outer edges of her brows turned down, giving her expression a sharp, concerned look. Silently she was asking me what I meant, and as I motioned for her to come with me, her body fluidly turned to come closer as she came close to me to view my eyes. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Mr. Prodder. I'm sorry that I do nothing but cause you more work and grief with my ineptitude."

"You're sorry for what is my fault then?" The unicorn did not understand still, lowering her head a bit before me and looking down with her mouth open slightly. "You understand taking accountability for your own actions, and that's something that I need to do now too. I'm sorry that I have let you down, Dawnstar." Before she could protest, as I saw she wished to, I put my hand on her snout and gently held her chin above my finger and her nose under my thumb with a gentle rubbing. "You must still have that pardon message I gave you back when we first made it here to the Honoring Mire. Dawnstar... if you really feel like you should go home, I won't stop you. I can't stop you. I can, however, ask you to forgive me and perhaps let me make up for it by doing what I should have been doing all along. Will you let me do that?"

"I don't think this is what I'm meant to do though. It's nothing like what I've read, and it's nothing like I believed it would be. I'm just... silver."

"What does your cutie mark stand for?"

Dawnstar turned to view her mark, quiet settling around us as she observed the peculiar symbol on her flank. The image of an archway, with the keystone at the top lit up like a beacon. Shaking her head, the unicorn finally admitted to me that she was not sure what it meant anymore. "I used to think it meant I was going to be a leader, but I am not so sure anymore. It appeared many years back, when I was little. In our chemistry class, our instructor got hurt due to a bout of carelessness. Everypony didn't know what to do and were soon going to panic because the teacher would not respond to our questions. I was reading the section, so I knew what had happened and remembered our safety instructions from the beginning of the year. I sent one of the older colts to go get somepony to help us, and then instructed the rest of the students to put on their goggles and help me clean up the mess that had been made. By the time the instructor from next door arrived, we had already removed the glass and compounds from the floor, and I was reading aloud to everypony from the instructor's book so that we could finish the section. Unit Cell was alright: He had just knocked himself silly with the unstable chemical reaction, and I was commended for my ability to keep things moving even when something so unexpected had taken place... That's when I got my cutie mark."

"What happened after that? What did you do that changed you?"

Shaking her head, Dawnstar looked at my feet now as she was unable to come up with anything concrete. "I started studying what I thought was going to be my future role. I guess my assumption was a bit misguided though..."

"That, or you just sabotaged yourself with your studies." Bringing her back to my desk, I sat down in my chair and motioned for her to take a seat across from me, but feeling as insecure as she did, she insisted on staying closer and kept a hoof against my leg as she looked to me for comfort. "I originally said that you knew more about leading than I did because you had studied it, but I'm starting to wonder if perhaps that's what is setting you up to fail. Things out here aren’t always black and white: There’s not always a right and a wrong answer. What looks good on paper isn't always what will work... That's something that I've come to understand myself." At that time, I felt myself sigh and give in at the sight of her eyes wide with wonderment as she was captivated with my encouragement.

"What caused your change of heart, Mr. Prodder?" That question stabbed at me, confirming that my feelings of letting her down were not just my own. "Why are you doing this?"

"I've always been on your side, even when I was too caught up and reclusive to show you any support. Your cutie mark means something that makes you special, and I don't want to see you do something other than your calling just because I can't be bothered to get over myself and actually help you. That's a keystone, isn't it? Do you know what a keystone is?"

"The final piece placed in an archway. It connects two ribs together and allows them to bear weight. It's the most important piece."

"Is that true? Is no other piece important, Dawnstar? The structure cannot stand without a keystone, but what if it lacked the ribs or supports? There would be no archway. There would be no support. Can you really say that one piece is more important than the others?" I watched her silently mull over my words, and at that, she began to smile and sniffled under her breath. "Archways have a lot of weight to bear. Enormous amounts of weight, and though it cannot hold up any of the weight without the keystone, the keystone cannot hold up any weight without its supports either. We are the keystones, Dawnstar, but that does not make us any more important than any other piece. You are a keystone, and though you must hold everything together, know that your supports are there to help you bear the weight."

"... I never really thought of it that way," she confided, running her free leg over her eyes to dry them as her other continued to rub my leg, seeking comfort. "Do you really think I have what it takes, Mr. Prodder? Do you not think I'm a failure?"

"We'll find out," I told her, standing up from my chair and motioning for her to once again take a seat, to her surprise. "I'm off of vacation, but I think I'm going to let you keep my position for a little longer. I'm instead going to be your advisor. I have faith that you can do it... I think you just really need someone to help work through the inaccurate ideas that your studies have led you to develop. I know my assumptions and misconceptions got in the way a lot at first too."

Hesitantly, the skinny unicorn lifted herself up onto my chair and rested her back into it, pulling herself with her hooves towards the desk to sit behind it normally once again. "I had begun to think that nopony believed in me." Smiling warmly, she followed my gesture as I pointed behind her and towards the wall, presenting the engraving of Celestia at full wingspan and holding up the sun with her horn.

"Even she believes in you, if she sent you here."

That must have been enough to bolster Dawnstar's spirits as she settled into the seat and telekinetically pulled the ledger back to herself. Striking her quill over it to mark out her previous thoughts, she prepared to file it away for later as a reminder of her mistake. Before I could head back up the stairs to finish getting myself ready for an appearance at the dining hall (to speak with the settlers that were not present during my perjurious testimony to the mob that I was the mind behind the economic disaster), I heard her smooth voice call my name and catch my attention. When our eyes met, I could see her trying to say something, but it wouldn't seem to come out. Retreating, she lowered her nose and happily thanked me. For everything. That is when we went our separate ways for the time being.

I have assigned myself to the position of adviser for Dawnstar, and for her next season as Development Coordinator, I will be accompanying her on her rounds, offering my own insights to assist her in making decisions. I will also act as her safety net: Should things go terribly wrong, I will step in for her. For the first time, I will take an active role in teaching her. Though I find myself already dreading the burden of it and wishing I was not so altruistic, I cannot continue to punish her for what is not her fault.

I will not punish her simply because Celestia is a poor judge of character.