No restful sleep, being toted around like an accessory, and catfights all week long: I am simply running off of coffee, sugar, and fear of female aggression right now. If any of the three let up, I might honestly not be able to perform my duties at all. The toll it has taken on my nerves, however, is enough that I need a deep breath between each sentence to keep my hand from shaking too much as I write. This was the last week of Dawnstar's time as Development Coordinator, so perhaps I will get some rest and not have to record her progress anymore, which means a month or two without needing to write.

The dreams are continuing and have refused me any sleep that is worthwhile. I can at least be comforted that the topics are shifting within them, but they still leave me fatigued in the mornings, and chemically dependent on caffeine and simple sugars to sustain myself during the day. I sought Tye Dye again to request that she be more specific as to how long this "trip" would last, but she had no real answer for me. I want to be angry with her, to tell her to stop playing with me and just be straight forward, but it’s honestly not her fault. It helped to know she understands what I'm going through, as she offered to mix me up some tea or something else that was supposed to help me sleep a bit better. I asked her to tell me why it lasted so long, but there was not much to tell.

"Some herbs are tricky that way. I think you got into some vexglove root. Most folks feel better after it’s all said and done, but it’s a tough ride and usually not a starter's choice for cleaning out your system. Think of it like prune juice for your mind, and maybe then you'll understand what's going on. It brings up all of those worries that everypony likes to stuff away so you can deal with them, but the more uptight you get about it, the worse it’s going to be. You're a really high-strung fella, huh? Must be awful for you, kid..."

It certainly is. Get over them? Get over what? It just keeps showing me my dad! It keeps showing me images of Markus Prodder drinking himself into a coma, fighting with the Mongrel's Stand surrounded by carnage, or lying in a bloody field with his leg torn off. There's nothing to get over! I keep having dreams about Sugarlump sitting alone at the post office as the sun rises, and I keep seeing Hyacinth cuddle her Gi doll silently in a nearly empty playroom! I keep revisiting the image of Songring burning to the ground and myself standing over nothing but corpses! I've relived the hurricane of 1221 four times, been sent to the moon twice, and have even found myself hoisted off the ground impaled on a spear through my gut! How is this helping? What I am supposed to get over?

What does it want from me?

I left to go get another cup of coffee to take a moment to recuperate and return to the true focus of this entry, which is this previous week, not my self-pity and agonizing ordeal with some form of herbal brain-bleach. I have had a rather notable lack of focus lately, but I have noticed some efforts by the ponies to try to assist me. Silence has been a blessing: Visiting me so often to bring me more coffee and trying to give me someone to focus on while attempting to wind down each evening (knowing I'm going to be tormented by unpleasant dreams). I think she might have seen some of them... I can't doubt it. I don't know exactly how her magic works or how much she can read off of me, but it's no doubt that at least some of my dreams have been at the front of my thoughts when she steps in without my noticing. She has yet to mention it, but I can tell she's worried about me. Just one of the many things to pile onto the list of problems I can't really resolve, because there's nothing I can do to settle her mind except lie to her and tell her that I'm alright.

Maple has been very helpful quite often as well, as she actively plays the role of barrier between me and Dawnstar's endless amounts of prattling questions. I would much rather listen to Maple go on about how she's currently in a scuffle with Daggersides, or to hear her give what I can perceive to be brutally honest opinions and viewpoints on others as we pass by just for the sake of speaking her mind, but I am supposed to pay attention to Dawnstar's questions and expected to respond to them with a valid answer for her. I have been asked if I believe color coordinated outfits and decorations might improve morale and productivity, or if I think it truly necessary to have the entirety of the apartment halls engraved, or what my opinion is on the matter of forced lunch and break schedules. All of these are things that I truly want to tell Dawnstar that I just don't care about, but my not caring is what has denied her learning for this long in the first place. Maple had at one point told her to just let some things be and stop being a micromanaging bitch about everything, but that just started a fight that I had to end with my squirt bottle.

Maple broke my bottle when I did that. She owes me a new one, and I told her that just having her spit in Dawnstar's face instead was not a valid replacement. In the meantime, until she's able to replace it, she is not allowed to call Daggersides fat. I truly don't know how she's going to make it through the day without that, but justice must remain established.

The catfights Maple has incited with Daggersides and Dawnstar do not compare with two others that have caused me great stress. The first of them being between Silence and (you guessed it) Maple. The most notable outburst between the two of them happened when Silence visited me one evening with a few candles, which she had made with Honeysides' help, and a bit of dark wine from Absinthe's stock. She said that perhaps a bit of soft lighting and a gentle inebriated buzz would offset my nightmares. I was willing to try just about anything at the time. The candles had just been lit in my office, and I was going to ask her why she was spending so much time helping me when we were interrupted.

"Heyo! Little bossman? Little bossman, where are ya!" Her voice resounded loudly through the wall as she made her way through the hallway. Both Silence and I were watching, waiting for the inevitable moment when the pegasus would come crashing through the door. Like clockwork, just as I would have predicted it, the door slammed open with a crash on the opposite wall, revealing Maple. She was grasping the doorknob with one of her front legs to try to keep herself standing, and had something tucked under her other leg while holding a glass bottle in her mouth half-full of a dark, amber liquid. Looking at her face, I could see by her smile and large pupils that the reason the bottle was not full is that she had already been sampling it. The aroma that invaded the room suggested that she must have spilled some of the fluid on herself, as the scent of strong spirits reeked off of her. Upon seeing me, she spat the bottle out and let it clatter on the floor (luckily it did not shatter), and began to speak with a slight slur. "There you are, Benjy. I've been lookin' for ya. Got this idea, yeah? You've not been sleeping, and well, we're gonna fix that. I brought you some chocolate to drink and some whiskey to eat, that'll make you feel good!" Afterwards, I watched her puzzle over what she had just said. The thought was soon abandoned upon seeing the unicorn sitting across my desk from me and watching her, only faintly illuminated by the candlelight. "What the nightmare is she doing here?"

I was not sure if Silence would respond, so I took the initiative to answer for her with a shake of my head. I knew things were already going to be difficult with Maple drunk. "She's here because she was concerned about my situation, same as you. At least I think."

"Yeah, well, she can just piss off. I got here first," Maple slurred back irritably, starting to nudge the bottle at her hooves towards me and struggling to remain standing straight. This was perhaps a (futile) attempt to appear dominant or confident.

"She was here before you walked in," I reminded Maple as I pinched the bridge of my nose. I could already feel myself wanting to pull my hair out at how irrational she was being, and we had only just started talking. Logic is apparently not as commonplace for everyone, as she proves.

"I meant to Songring!" Maple replied defensively.

"You were both here at the beginning of the expedition, so that doesn't work either," I informed her, putting my face in my hand to rub my temples. I was shocked out my stupor by the sound of a gasp exploding in my head and a bottle being slammed on my desk in front of me. The gasp had erupted from Silence, as she moved out of the way of a violent shove from Maple.

"Ben!" Silence projected to me soundlessly, "Make her stop! She might hurt somepony if she keeps this up."

"I can't just make her stop," I said, admitting to the harsh truth that I could only ask her to leave, not force.

"Hey! No brain-speech stuff!" Maple erupted at Silence, growling as she snapped closer and stamped a hoof against the stone floor adamantly. "If you're going to talk, do it so all of us can hear. Going to call me names? Do it where I can hear you and show you why that's a real bad idea, Mouse."

"Okay, I’ve had enough," I protested, standing up from my desk. "Maple, go lie down in your room until you sober up and maybe then you can bring up your concerns in a civil manner." The cardinal pegasus shouted back that such statements were not fair, and that I was just trying to get her to leave so I could keep talking with Silence. "No, Maple, I'm going to ask her to leave too. Her presence is causing a disturbance, and I'm not about to show favoritism."

"I haven't done anything wrong! She's the drunken moron that came in and started causing a scene!" Silence looked at me with a hurt expression as she expressed those thought to me, mouth open in disbelief that I would suggest making her leave. "You can't punish me because she's being irrational!"

"It doesn't matter. Your presence is causing a problem, and I'm going to have to ask you to leave for the night. Thank you for your concern, but I will manage." As they both quietly looked at me, and occasionally shot hateful glances at each other, I made a quick motion for them to go on their way. "It's my office, and I have the right to say who can and can't be in here. Leave. Both of you."

"How do I know you don't have some sort of brain talk code with her and she's not just going to sneak back in here after I'm gone? I don't trust her," Maple added, hesitantly backing away from my desk with her head low and ears pinned back in a spurned manner.

"Then you also don't trust me," I stated coldly.

Without saying anything else to me, Maple looked around and finally gave a nod of understanding and submission before turning around and heading towards the door. She stopped only once to glower at Silence and tell her, "It's all your fault, ya little mute. Crawl back in your hole in the ground next time so big mares and stallions can have a real talk and not have to worry about you." She was gone before I could rebuke her, which left Silence watching me with her own ears pinned back sadly as she watched me.

"What are you waiting for, Silence? I've asked you to leave."

"... But... she's the one who's the problem, not me. You aren't really mad at me, are you? I just want to help you."

"I'm only mad that I'm going to have to ask again. Whether you take it personally or not, I can't control that, but for the sake of keeping the peace around here you need to go back to your own room."

There were many moments that passed as she looked like she might be ready to head to the open door, but each time I thought she was about to stand, she would look at me again with pain in her expression. Finally as she rose, she looked at me one more time and I heard her question, "So you agree with her and do think it's my fault then?"

"Silence!" I heard myself shout, hands placed heavily on my desk as I leaned over towards her with a stern set to my brow. "I've had just about enough of this! You want to help me? Then do as I ask and just go. Just leave. I'm done with this foolishness for the evening, and you're certainly not helping me relax anymore."

My raised voice must have made my point clear, as Silence finally heeded my request and exited my office. I shut the door and locked it behind her. I found myself even more stressed than before they had shown up, surveying the bottle of wine, bottle of whiskey, lit candles, and the box of chocolate now littering my desk and floor that I had to clean up. I ended up throwing the chocolate away because half of it was already eaten, some of it fell out of the box when Maple dropped it while shoving Silence around, and I'm allergic to it anyways. I poured out the whiskey because I was certain Maple had been drinking straight from the bottle and I didn't want anyone else sampling her backwash. The bottle of wine was returned to Absinthe the next day as it had remained unopened. I still have yet to be able to scrape all the wax off of my desk as the candles fell over when I tried to blow them out.

I am not ignorant enough to be blind to what is going on between the two of them, but I am hopeful, or perhaps just naïve enough to believe that maybe it will resolve itself without my intervention. It’s just foolishness. I can only hope that I won't have to get involved. I really don't want to be involved at all. It’s uncomfortable for me for a lot of reasons, and there's no way it can reflect positively on me for the rest of the settlers if they were to see this bit of shenanigans.

The other catfight is one that I write about with a much more literal meaning than I have used before in this entry, and I believe a good marker to write down as the final entry in Dawnstar's progress report of her time as Development Coordinator in my place.

The Honoring Mire is truly a savage and dangerous place, and while the tanks that wander the valley are usually enough to frighten away predators due to their immense size and loud movements, this does not and will not always deter them all. I, myself, had forgotten that we are in savage lands, and this week provided a harsh and shocking reminder that we must remain vigilant and keep watch. I happened to have been the one to discover it myself, and it’s a sight that I will never forget, both for the beauty and the fear of that moment.

I was in the stockpiles room with my clipboard taking count of our supplies, which is commonly a job of Dawnstar's on Mondays. (We traded places, as she wished to see what it was like to oversee smelting once before her term was up.) As I was making my way through the ingots, I thought that I heard something moving around near the food stockpiles. Taking a moment to adjust to the limited light in the room from the single window on one wall and the torch I had lit on the way in, I silently watched over in that direction to make sure that we did not perhaps have another piper or that someone was not about to try to play a trick on me. The quiet in the room grew very tense for a few moments, and I grasped the pen in my hand like a weapon. The shifting rustle had dissipated, and without a single glimpse of what might have caused it, I began to question if I had simply imagined it; lack of sleep has been known to cause hallucinations.

I swear that my feet left the ground when I jumped at the sound of a hiss. The small sound and accompanying high-pitched growl startled me. After catching my breath, I rebuked myself for my fear. It was just Garnet in the storeroom, probably trying to catch a rat, or a mouse, or something else that wanted a free meal from our supplies. The growl, however, did not remain unchallenged for long before a sound much deeper and chilling reverberated alongside it, rumbling like distant, rolling thunder in the acoustics of the storeroom and seemingly coming from everywhere at once. It was unlike anything I had ever heard, except for maybe from great beasts whose vocals have been animated into films and productions for special effect.

And what a beast it was.

I felt like I was witnessing something from ancient days come back to life. A creature I might have only seen in the form of bones in a museum, harmlessly poised in a display case for onlookers to know the terror history contained, now was covered in flesh and rumbling a deep growl at me. Like liquid darkness, the colorless moving patch of black morphed and slid between the barrels. I could see no real hint of its form, and could only make out piercing yellow eyes set in the middle of a segmented section of living abyss. Slit pupils locked on me as the monster growled once more, shifting slightly so that I could see the outline of a paw from its midst and a long inky tail slowly twitch at the far end of it. The only thing that kept me still and not fleeing to the door was discipline: My mind telling me that the worst thing to do would be to move and give this creature a sight of my back. Instead I watched the eyes as they unblinkingly scoped me, watching my every subtle move and noting my every hastened breath. Neither of us moved, knowing the other would take advantage of our hasty decision.

The only thing that moved was time.

That was until I heard Garnet once again hiss and grumble his own high-pitched growl, receiving no attention from the creature watching me until the tabby threw himself over a barrel and sent a clawed paw across the beast's face. As its eyes shut and a snarl erupted, I took my chance and ran for the door in a sprint, swinging the door shut as quickly as I could. Standing outside in the fresh air, I pulled the key from my pocket and struggled against my quivering hands to fit it into the keyhole. Once the door was locked, I immediately set off to find Dawnstar.

"A what?!" she first screamed when I told her, watching me hold my chest while I caught my breath from both the fright and the sprint to find her.

"A monster. I think it's one of those big cat things Salmon mentioned, I don't know. I didn't get too good of a look at it. It's in the storeroom right now." I felt like I might collapse at that time, struggling to stay on my feet as the fatigue of my sleeplessness was almost enough to knock me out without the added exhaustion from running for my life.

"A jungle cat?" the unicorn responded as she looked between me and the smelters, her ears tucked uncertainly. "What are we going to do about it, Mr. Prodder? It's in the storeroom? Has it hurt anypony?"

"Not that I saw," I began, letting myself slide down to sit against the wall, "and I locked the door behind me to make sure no one would accidentally open the door and let it out. I don't know what we're going to do, that's up to you."

"Me?" She seemed unable to come to grips with that, shaking her head as she wanted to protest that this was beyond her skill. "There's a wild jungle cat in our storeroom! You need to do something about it!"

"You're the development coordinator. Handle it."

"I know you're trying to teach me, but I'm not comfortable with this... Something needs to be done, and you're wasting time Mr. Prodder."

"You're the one wasting time. I've told you to handle it, and that's final. If you don't want to do anything about it, expect to see the consequences of your lack of action. The clock is ticking."

Dawnstar spent most of our conversation biting her bottom lip nervously, accompanied by a few more pleads for me to take command back or to at least tell her what to do. I refused her each time, continuing to hug my knees and rest my head on them as I felt dizzy and overextended from my recent ordeals. Even if I had wanted to take the reins from her, I don't think I was in a position to do so.

Dawnstar rushed out of the smelting room to go look for help. Silence had come out of the mines after hearing our argument to see to taking care of me. Giving me her flask of water, she let me use her to pull myself back to a standing position again. Her magic was enough to keep me on my feet as she escorted me from the mines to follow Dawnstar.

I had to at least be there to witness my protege's progress. This was her time to shine brightly or fizzle out. It was up to her.

The dining hall was buzzing with commotion now as Julienne had begun expressing her worries that lunch would go unprepared because she could not get into the storeroom. Word travels quickly, and soon everyone was mumbling about the beast in the storeroom. Dawnstar was not there with them. Instead, I found her pacing about frantically at the door of the storeroom as she seemed to await someone.

"What are you all doing? Lunch isn't going to make itself! Unlock the damn door already." The voice rang out rather abruptly as Silence guided me to stand beside Dawnstar so I could try to calm her. "I thought you two were supposed to make sure stuff like this was taken care of? Some bosses you are." Our problematic carpenter, Willow, had tailed me on the way to the storage room to express his displeasure with us.

"It's too dangerous. Please return to your duties and we'll have the issue resolved as soon as possible." Dawnstar appeared to recite this as though she were a machine, never even looking at Willow as her eyes were locked on the ground during her pacing.

"Dangerous? Pfft, dangerous... you're all just trying to put us on a diet, aren't you? That's why the two of you are out here? Give me the key, I'm getting something to eat."

"Please go and wait until we let you know that it is safe to enter the storeroom," Dawnstar repeated, refusing to look at him.

"Fine, whatever, I'll just unlock it the old fashioned way then. Screw both of you beurocratic jackoffs."

"No!" I shouted, reaching out to try to yank him by the mane, but I was not nearly fast enough to catch him. His front legs planted into the ground underneath him as his body twisted to hoist his hind legs up, striking a mighty kick backwards into the door. Splinters shot off of the wood as the handle and lock were warped partially and the give let the door swing wide and crash against the wall beside it.

I still have trouble comprehending exactly how this happened. My brain cannot conceive as to how one can rationalize doing such without any regard as to why the door might have been locked.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get something to eat and not let you hardasses take complete control of my life!" Willow stated with a sense of pride at his own ingenuity, prancing into the dim storeroom. We simply watched him perturbedly, left trying to understand why he would just kick our door nearly in half like that. His haughty whistling over his victory was cut short as it was drowned out by a loud, bestial snarl, and then was swiftly replaced by a high-pitched squeal of terror. Impressively fast (faster than me), the tall carpenter pony darted out of the door and used both of his front legs to slam and hold shut the door in his grasp since it would no longer close on its own. "Holy shit! There's a jaguar in there!"

I'm not sure if it was my fatigue or Silence that held me back at that time, as I felt my fists involuntarily tighten and had the irresistible urge to slug him in the face for destroying our main line of defense against the creature. "Locked doors are locked for a reason," I heard myself utter through clenched teeth.

"You could have told me there was a friggin jaguar in there though, Prodder!"

"I told you it was dangerous!” Dawnstar defended, pressing her face furiously against Willow's. I recognized the scenario as something I had seen happen to the carpenter before.

"Blades are dangerous. Slides are dangerous. Trees are dangerous. That's a jaguar! That's not just dangerous!" Willow refuted as his ears started to fold back and he looked around uneasily. "You're the one who didn't make it urgent enough!"

"You wanted to test it? You wanted to see if I was lying? How about you go back in and take another real hard look and tell me if perhaps I was wrong in asking you to stay out of the storeroom!" Dawnstar shouted again, still boring her gaze into him and pressing his face further down as he got closer to the ground. "Maybe it'd be best if this did end up being your last stupid mistake! Now if you want to live, you're going to have to hold that door closed yourself, otherwise you're the first thing that jaguar's going to eat! This way even if you die, you'll at least be of some use either way!" By the end of her rant, Willow was lying on his belly beneath her, his front legs still grasping the door handle to try to keep it closed as he silently looked up to her with wide eyes.

"Yes ma'am," is all he was able to eek out of his throat as he slowly rose to hold the door, keeping his head down to avoid being yelled at further.

Harsh, but I could see myself doing the same. Am I rubbing off on her now?

As the tension settled (as much as it could in this situation), I asked Dawnstar what her planned course of action was. That is when she looked to me worriedly with a shake of her head.

"I... I don't have one. I don't know what to do." I could see the uncertainty and the cloudy thoughts in her eyes as she struggled to keep her sights on me hopefully.

"Then make one."

"How?"

"Think!" I shouted, all eyes turned to me as I bared my teeth in fury. I had been pushed beyond civility by my health, Willow's ineptitude, and my intern's helplessness. "There's a dangerous animal in there and lives may very well depend on what you say! Willow can't hold that door forever, and as soon as he lets go, someone will undoubtedly get hurt! What are you going to do about it, Dawnstar?"

I watched as she lowered her head and tried to back away from me. Silence watched carefully from beside me and moved closer to nudge my hand with her snout to try to remind me of her presence and calm me. I needed to do this though. She had to learn. She had to succeed, and this was her greatest chance. As the dark-purple pony in front of me shrunk under my gaze and refused to answer, my voice erupted once again, loud enough that I knew eyes from the dining hall must have turned to see us.

"Are you just going to let what will happen go unchecked? Are you just going to let more ponies like Lilly and Glacier Cut die now too?"

"... No," is all she said to me at first, biting back a few bitter tears at the mention of those names. I had managed to tap into her sense of responsibility and gotten the point across to her. Even though I could see her eyes welling with water as the wave of guilt washed over her, the stark reminder fueled enough fire that her weakness and uncertainty melted away. "... We have to fix the problem. How can we get rid of that jaguar?"

"Kill it or scare it off?" Willow suggested as he held the door tightly closed. This was followed by another frantic shriek as the door thumped from a heavy strike delivered against it followed by a furious snarl from the other side. "Just do something quick! I don't want to die! I still haven't made it with Maple yet!"

Dawnstar and I silently watched him for a moment after his statement, before we both shook our heads and continued our discussion. Contemplating his suggestions, Dawnstar looked at the approaching group of ponies who had come to investigate our dispute. "Kill it or make it leave then, huh?" She thought aloud, seeming to take note of who was in the crowd. "Benjamen, do you think the militia could take care of it?"

"At a risk."

"What about Springfield? Didn't he say we should let him know if we ever encountered one of these things?"

"He did, but it's also a risky move."

"I don't have much of a choice here then, do I?"

"Now you're getting it."

When the ponies arrived, Dawnstar shook her head to them and shrugged. It took courage, but I heard her admit to all of them that she did not know what she was going to do. This caused concern amongst some of the settlers, but she assured them that this did not mean nothing would be done. Afterwards, I watched her swallow her pride as she humbly asked them, "There are only two choices now. We kill it, or we have Springfield remove it. I just don't know which to order, so I need to consult some of you. Springfield, Songring Militia, would all of you step forward? The rest of you can go back to your duties, and I promise that we will handle this."

The crowd dispersed easily, except for Teardrop. She sat silently as the crowd cleared out, color fading from the skin beneath her fur and on the tip of her nose. The members of the militia and Springfield stepped forward, leaving her alone to watch the door paralyzed in fear.

I had not thought about Garnet's fate until then.

I would lie if I said that I was paying attention to the conversation at that point. Asking Silence to give me a moment, I stepped to Teardrop and put my hand on her cheek to try to get her attention. When I asked her if there was anything I could do for her, she merely put her head against me and hid her face. She was not crying, but I could tell she was worried and her body quaked at the thought of what might become of her beloved pet. There really was nothing to say as I simply let her bury her face in my shirt and try to calm herself down, running my hand down her neck to pet her comfortingly while I listened to a few of the arguments.

"It's just an animal, it doesn't know any better. We can't just kill it because it was doing what everything has a right to do: Just be!" Tye Dye announced.

"Too bad. It's in our territory, and it certainly isn't going to cooperate with us to try to move it. Suck it up, Sunshine, and get your crossbow. We're better off putting this thing down before it even gets in reach of us," Daggersides responded.

"I can get it out of there... it ain't gonna be easy, but it can be done," Springfield commented, simply offering his services but maintaining no stance on the issue.

"I just want to live!" Willow cried out again, receiving a resounding, "Shut up!" from the whole crowd.

"Sending one pony in there alone is madness. No offense, Springfield, but it is simply foolish no matter the stallion you send," Heartstrike commented.

"Fine," Dawnstar finally replied to them, nodding to each as she called out a formation for them. "We take a risk, but not too much. Springfield, you're going in first: See if you can get the creature to leave. I'm sending Daggersides and Heartstrike with you, armed: If the creature gets close, you both need to be ready to put it down. Is that clear?"

Tye Dye stated that it still was not fair, but when the rest of the group did not band with her, she simply sighed and agreed that it would be for the best. At least it gave the creature a chance. "I will not participate though. I can't agree with killing the poor thing just for existing."

"You will at least watch the door with Flick. You two will stay here until the other three safely exit. Understood?"

It was. Everyone got into position after leaving to collect their supplies and armaments. Springfield brought back a length of rope, while the others gathered weapons and scraps of armor (helmets mostly). Brushing Willow aside, the three assigned ponies filed in one-by-one, closing the door the best they could behind them to avoid the creature fleeing.

It was fifteen tense minutes later before they finally emerged again. They exited the room with Springfield nursing a bleeding laceration across his face, and the others carrying a bloodied and dead jaguar and the decimated remains of a half-eaten tabby cat.

I think I need to go check on Teardrop again to make sure she's doing alright, so let me wrap this up to do so.

I end by saying that Dawnstar finally was able to see what it is like to make a difficult decision, and to make it under pressure. There was very little time for her to come to a firm conclusion and develop a course of action, and though she did not make the decision exclusively by herself, she was in charge enough to at least confirm it, and see it acted out. There were prices to be paid for these actions... but they were far less than what could have been expected if she had panicked and failed to act. Simply put, I am proud of her. She does have what it takes, as long as she can remember these lessons and apply that knowledge alongside studying the text in her schoolbooks.

Now I am off to go console Teardrop about her loss. I barely feel like I have the energy to walk there, much less to offer comfort to anyone. I must though... both out of duty and common decency. I owe it to Garnet too... It's the least I can do for one who saved my life.