Looking out of my bedroom window, I can see something new in the jungle valley below that makes me smile at what it could possibly mean for Songring's future. Houses. Two major improvements have been made this season as I have adjusted our focus to things that we need to accomplish, instead of just letting the days pass as though things are running smoothly. Cross Thread, Blueprint, and Willow have all been assigned to a group appropriated to coordinate a new residential housing project on the other side of the Charmedsmile. Dawnstar has taken personal responsibility for the project, and is acting as its direct supervisor in my place. Each day I look out of my window and find myself astounded at the progress they are able to make in such short time. Four cozy little houses have already been crafted, and are being furnished now that they have been assigned to a settler. To be most fair when assigning the houses to individuals, we have begun a lottery that is pulled each time one is completed. Everyone has an equal chance to win their own little home instead of living in the apartment halls carved into the mountainside. So far, Flick, Bunsen, and Onyx Culet have won their own homes... and the last one belongs to Willow, because he refused to help give someone else a nice living space if he did not get one first.

I have been overseeing my own project, and it is one that is equally important in most regards. I am extremely proud to announce that it has been completed with quite a bit of help from Machina and all of Songring's miners. Linked to the apartment halls, we now have plumbing! Okay, so right now it is only for use as a latrine system, but still! No more finding bushes or sticking to the outhouses! We have functioning restrooms now! I seem to be the only one overjoyed about this little fact, but come on! A working toilet? I deserve a medal. Specifically, it is a pump system that draws water from the Charmedsmile into a circular tunnel system, which is connected to a separate pump that forces water back out into the river. One might question if we're contaminating the water supply, but that's why the pump system includes a chemically-treated filter on the exit path. (I love having Bunsen around for these kinds of things.) It has to be cleaned daily to ensure it works properly, but that is a small price to pay for such convenience and comfort.

As a reward for myself, I have finally gotten around to having a stock and barrel fastened to the firing mechanism that Machina brought me a while back. The blunderbuss (as the barrel is smoothbore and flared at the end) is a beautiful piece to have hanging on the wall in my office for ponies to marvel at when they walk in. Some have questioned if it will actually work, which is why I am waiting on Bunsen to finish the new project of developing some form of combustion agent to give it a test run with. Lead pellets have already been smithed for use in its first testing. I can't wait to see if it can actually survive a live firing!

Just because I have been busy, however, does not mean that I have not found time this season to do some follow-up investigation and repair after the disaster known as Hearts and Hooves day. The total damage happened to be: My floor was cracked and needed to be smoothed once more as well as engraved again, my desk was warped beyond use and had to be repaired, and lastly, my chair was completely destroyed and would have to be replaced. I made the mistake of asking Willow for help with this, during which I found out that he has yet to get over the hard feelings of our last encounter.

"Excuse me, Willow. I was wondering if you would mind holding off on sanding down those wooden planks to help me in making another chair."

"Why should I do this for you? Why don't you get Maple to do it for you? Since you both are so close and all."

"I would hope because I asked nicely and because you're a carpenter. We don't quite have anyone else here who can do it."

"You take my girl, embarrass me in front of everypony, and then come and ask for my help? Oh, how the tables have turned now! I don't know. Maybe I don't have any reason to help a bastardly, back-stabbing monkey like you. Give me one good reason I should do anything for you!"

"... What's my name again, Willow?"

"I, uh, I'll get right on it, Mr. Prodder. Just... stop looking at me like that. Stop it!"

I do not enjoy using such threats just to get my way, but perhaps those buttons he was pushing should be left untouched until a little more time has passed. I honestly wish I had not asked for his help, however, as I now have a nasty knot on the back of my head where I ended up striking it on the wall behind my desk due to an "accident". That accident happened to be that the back legs of my chair were not secured down by anything more than a little glue to make them appear stable and gave out from under me when I first sat down in it. I remember waking up in the infirmary, after everything went black while I was falling backwards in my chair, with my head bandaged up, and quite a few ponies staring at me with wide, anxious eyes. They asked me what happened, and when I told them it was because my new chair had given out, Maple immediately went to hunt down Willow. I'll suffice it to say that it took half of Songring's militia to pull her off of him when she found out that he had indeed sabotaged my chair. I'm glad that she's there to look out for me, but she might be a bit overzealous in taking the fight to someone on my behalf. At least I believe that Willow has gotten it all out of his system and that perhaps we're "even" now.

One thing that has been on my mind ever since my last entry has been my run-in with Salmon. I cannot shake the memory of seeing him so ablaze and passionate when he told me how disappointed in me he was. It continued to bother me, which is why I went to visit him one day and sit with him on the bridge while he was fishing. He beamed at me happily when I approached and asked me to take a seat with him as he would love the company, acting as though we had never had a disagreement at all. Even when I brought it up, he had very little to say about it, and asked me to let bygones be bygones. I could not tell if he was avoiding confrontation, or if he had something he did not wish to tell me. "I did come to just have a talk with a friend, Salmon, but it's something I would really like to know. What possessed you to do that? You're usually very content to let me make my decisions. What made you stand up to me on this issue?"

"I'm sorry if you feel like I challenged your authority," he began sheepishly, clearing his throat and pulling his wicker bucket hat down a bit further over his eyes to shield them from me in case I was angry.

"I'm not upset, Salmon. You were right. It just doesn't seem like you to act that way is all. I'm merely curious now what would drive you to be so adamant and go against your usual nature. Is there anything I should understand so I know what to expect in the future?"

Salmon kept his hat down, his smile fading as his lips pulled tight and he cleared his throat many times. We remained quiet while he thought, merely casting his line out a couple of times before he finished contemplating an explanation for me. "It comes with age I think, lad. When you've walked so many roads and seen where they lead, there are just some you can't bear to watch somepony you care about travel down it too. Have you ever thought it a curse to be right when you predict what will happen to somepony or something?"

"I certainly have."

"There are so few times when you actually have the chance to fight it and not have to be right. I take those chances whenever I can find them. I'm sorry that it meant me challenging your decision. I just simply could not live with myself watching something like that befall you when I had even the smallest chance to stop it."

"What would befall me? Being alone? I'm quite alright by myself, Salmon, and still prefer to keep my distance in most regards... Too much complication at this time, you know?"

"It's not that. It's her. That sweet lass Maple. I didn't want anything to happen to her... I don't know if I could stand seeing another Cherry Heart take place." The haunted way he said that name brought us both to an abrupt silence again, watching the floating bobber in the water as I waited for him to continue, and he waited for the memory to pass. "You know where she's from, right? Maple's family is from Lopeyette."

"She mentioned that to me. She said it's not like Ponyville and Canterlot. Why is that? Isn't it in the civilized regions of the Sun of Chance? How can it possibly be so bad?"

"There are just as many dangers in a civilized world as a savage one." Salmon paused as he cast his line back out and asked me if there was anywhere I needed to be. No duty that I could contrive was as important to me at that moment as the curiosity he had peaked in me with his statement. Feeling like Salmon's usual habit of derailing on topics and being unfailingly long-winded, I decided to be partition some CCMI space to record his words for review. I feel I should not paraphrase his words, as they hold quite a bit of information relevant for cultural discoveries and... interests closer to my own fancy. “Canterlot is the central political seat of all of Equestria. Best of the best, if you will. Celestia is a kind ruler... a loving, caring creature in all regards. Sure she might have to do what she doesn't wish to so that lesser beings like us can learn and grow, but she only does it for our benefit when she must. Ponyville sits right in the shadow of Canterlot, nestled in a valley below it, and can be seen from the mountainous city on a clear, sunny day. For such a being of benevolence, it's no wonder that she does her best to keep her surroundings as nice and borderline perfect as she can. The farther you go away from Ponyville though, the less there is she can do, and the less her attention can be called to. Lopeyette is one of those places that just did not come to her notice before it was too late.

“I remember back when Lopeyette was first founded. I was just a small little thing; a colt playing with his friends in the streets of Gullswatch. I recall visiting Lopeyette once or twice with my folks, back when it was a little farm town out on the edges of the Sun of Chance's borders with the Armored Poem. A little town of wooden houses and a market street made of red-brick buildings. A volunteer fire department, a sheriff's station, some grocery stores, pharmacies, and even craftsponies all set up shop there to do business with the fine families that made their living working the land. Everypony smiled back in those days. That's not just the grace of memory either, that's the truth of it. If ever there was a happy little town, it was Lopeyette."

"Sounds like a quaint little paradise for an honest working individual. What happened to it?"

"Industry, Benjamen. Industry happened. Business hits like a damn train when it doesn't have anything to keep it in check. A port city located on the banks of the Sapphire Seas, far away from the prying eyes of government and regulation, and with plenty of room for future progress: Lopeyette was the perfect place to start up an industrial corporation. I remember seeing the huge smoke stacks from the large building before it was ever completed... that was the last time I saw the place when I was a colt. I know that the factory opened up and began production shortly after. They made something like toothpaste I believe, or something else trivial like that. Anyways, that was the spark that lit the fire of the industrial revolution in Lopeyette.

“They came from all over. From Canterlot, from Cloudsdale, from across the seas, and from the other side of the continent even to see the wondrous creation. Paupers of all kinds. Honest folks who wanted to do some hard work and earn themselves up a little bit of savings to begin living their own dreams with. This new plant gave them the hope of employment, and even that vague opportunity was enough to draw in hundreds, if not thousands, of them to Lopeyette. When that factory filled up, another one sprang up next to it within weeks. Then another, and another, until finally you could no longer see what were once the humble beginnings of the little town. From the sea it was blocked by a harbor, bustling in and out all kinds of frigates and barges with their manufactured goods, from the land it was overshadowed by the looming smoke stacks and gargantuan factory buildings, and you could not see it from the sky through the smog that collected above it. That was what might be considered Lopeyette's golden age, as it boasted the promise of wealth and opportunity for everypony that had the will to work in their heart.

“Some promises are just too big to be kept.

“Industry and business are not ponies. They cannot feel. They know only productivity and profit margins. They do not know compassion, charity, or even common decency. Those who own them also are subject to being consumed by their creations, and becoming one with the beast they made.

“Some ponies just did not make the cut and could not find work, others were let go and left to their fate as soon as they were less profitable than useful, and some even got downright hurt in those factories and could not work anymore. Even those who could work saw less and less in their pockets each paycheck, and soon were barely able to afford what they needed to merely survive. That kind of poverty leads to alot of unhappy ponies, Benjamen, with all of them stuck in a place that no longer wants them and nowhere else to go. There were only two classes of ponies there: Those who fought and clawed for every little bit they could find just to see their next meal, and those who constantly put their hoof in the other one's face and kicked them back onto the ground beneath them.

“Desperation breeds the worst in everypony, Benjamen. It breeds some things that we would like to never believe exists in any of us.

“It's a sad day when even your own children have to spend their day in a factory putting the caps on bottles of toothpaste just to make sure they can stay fed and clothed. That's what it came down to. Nopony could even so much as earn enough to take care of those they loved if they were the blue bridle class. Schools closed down and were replaced by juvenile workshops. Honest businesses found less and less patronage, they just shriveled up and were forced to close and vacate the area. The only ones left were those with the lowest prices on the most questionable and unsatisfactory goods that could be afforded. When the most successful establishments in the city became bars, folks gave it the motto: 'Lopeyette's two finest exports are whiskey and misery.'"

"Why didn't anyone do anything? Regulations? Protests? Unions?"

"Too far away from Canterlot for anypony else to realize exactly how bad it had gotten there. Protests just meant ponies losing what little they had in the form of employment and left on the street with nothing. Unions just made everything even worse than it already was.

“If you give a pony with nothing left in the world even a shard of hope, you can bend him to do anything for you. That's an extraordinary amount of power for one to have, and nopony could ever live up the responsibilities that would come with it and not become corrupt. The unions sure didn't. It took just a whiff of success coming those who ran the unions by riding atop the backs of the desperate and the abused to become no better than those who owned the factories and enterprises, if not worse. To prey on those who have lost everything by offering them promises and hope just to use them for your own benefit; there's little I could ever imagine being as despicable as that. There is no honor in one who would be so cruel, but honor does not have a favorable profit margin. Unions just became a face for what was truly robbery and organized crime. The promises they made of better working conditions and higher wages were all for naught: The "Fees" they charged their members ate up every little bit of extra wage those workers ever saw, and then those claims of better conditions could not be lived up to by the businesses who were already fighting to keep their accounts as far in the black as they could after being strong-armed into paying more for their help. Ponies that did not join a union did not get work; it was as simple as that. Soon enough, the unions had extended their reach to property owners, to public services, and everything else they could possibly dip their hooves into. Everypony in Lopeyette had to give the unions their unfair share.

“Being a sailor turns you up in some interesting places, Benjamen. More than once we washed into the Lopeyette harbor and were granted shore leave for a week or two while we waited for our next voyage. In all honesty, Lopeyette was a great place to end up on shore leave for most stallions on those boats. Being stuck on a tub in the middle of the sea for weeks or months at a time with only other anxious and unfulfilled stallions makes any breath of fresh air a godsend, especially when you can go on a binge of all the things you were denied while out at sea. Liquor, gambling, mares; there were plenty of places to throw your bits away in Lopeyette for just a laugh and a memory. I was just like any other seapony walking off that galleon: Ready to spend everything I had earned on just a week of good times before I was shipped off once more. Time and time again, I looked forward to ending up there just to get a taste of all the things that could not be gotten anywhere else, because everypony in Lopeyette was more concerned about getting your bits than with what was right and reasonable. Blinded by the lights on the streets, and the smoke in the pubs and peep shows, I could not have been happier in my drunken and drugged stupor.

“Like everypony else, I had to wake up sometime.

“Cherry Heart was just a name, and did not mean a damn thing to me other than a place to spend some cash and get a quick, fun fling for a night. I met her in some shoddy little hole-in-the-wall establishment in the red light district. With a graceful sashay to her step, she found me that night and sat with me at the bar. A beautiful face on that filly... Big blue eyes, creamy-beige colored pelt, and a dark maroon mane and tail. Her smile was hollow... but I never even noticed at the time. I've never forgotten her face, not a single moment of what I knew of it. I remember her telling me that she'd love to have a big, strong fellow with her that night, and for the right price I could certainly be him. For just a few bits that didn't mean anything to me anyways, how could I turn down the offer of a mare's warmth and comfort? Giving her half of what she asked for then, we left for some cheap, messy bedroom in a disgusting little motel to get the deed done with. I took her and her offer there, selfishly sating all the needs and desires I had built up during the months of seafaring on little more than a toy that I cared nothing for. Just a thing. An object. I never saw her as a pony... not until I couldn't make a difference anymore. I simply got off and fell asleep with a smile on my face, never caring what she did after I had given her the second half we agreed on and our business was over.

“I remember waking up to the sun peeking in through the ratty blinds and curtains on the window, hitting me in the face and agitating a splitting damn headache. Hangover of the century it felt like. Rolling over to try to get the sun out of my eyes, I found that Cherry Heart was still in the bed with me, lying silently with her eyes closed. The sweet angel looked so peaceful lying there, but I could not stop myself from bringing my hoof up to stroke her mane once in hopes to see her beautiful blue eyes again. She would not stir. No matter how much I stroked her, or called her name, or nudged her gently, she would not answer.

“Cherry Heart lay cold in the bed with me, her eyes refusing to open and her chest still and breathless.

“I was in shock. I guess most would have leapt out of the bed, but I stayed there in awe and dismay. What happened, I asked myself so many times. An empty box of tissues lie on the floor next to her, its contents scattered in a mess of used wads thrown about. A bottle of pills, sleeping aids, rested overturned on its side on the nightstand next to her along with a tin flask that reeked of booze. Her pillow was wet where her eyes had rested, and her legs were wrapped around herself tightly for comfort. I knew then, and I know now what happened to her after seeing all of that.

“Cherry Heart must have been crying that night. The poor gal tried to keep herself quiet so not to wake me, but she cried about what she did… about what I did. Loveless and alone in the bed next to somepony who didn't give a damn about her, she needed pills just to get some sleep. Pills and a bit of booze to help her forget. She then curled up and tried to tell herself how it would all be okay. How things would one day get better if she just kept hope..."

I could not take my eyes off of Salmon's face when he fell quiet, gritting his teeth and fighting himself not to tear up in front of me when he remembered the scene in total detail. A fish had long since stolen the bait off of his line, but he still just stared at the bobber in the water while he suffered through the memory once more for me. There was nothing I could say to him, just merely wait for the moment to pass and for him to continue. When he did, it was with a voice quaking with passion.

"Things never did get better for her, Prodder. She never woke up from that sleep. Her last moments were spent crying in a bed with a stupid seapegasus who couldn't even be asked to show a little consideration or care for his fellow pony." Anger stirred up in him, his voice rising as he still could not look away from the slowly running water beneath the bridge. "Is that where you think she wanted to be, Prodder? Do you think that was what she dreamed of being? Just some plaything for selfish stallions just to see her next meal? Now there's nothing left of her but a memory... a memory of just another whore who couldn't make it in the city of Lopeyette. Just another body thrown in a shallow grave and a name filed away in a half-assed police report." Heaving for breath, Salmon gulped back the tears and finally looked at me. His rage had smoldered away and left him solemn. "... Overdose. Accidental of course. She never meant to hurt herself, but it was the only way she could cope with what she had to do. I could have stopped her... I could have made a difference, Benjamen, but I just didn't see my chance. I could not look past myself to realize just how much pain the poor dear thing was in, and that I could have been the one to save her. I could have saved her, Ben... I could have saved her, but I didn't."

I rested my hand on his shoulder to try to bring him out of his memory. "We all make mistakes, Salmon. I understand."

Salmon took a deep, shaky breath to calm himself and wiped his eyes to clear them. "That's why I wouldn't let you make that same mistake, Ben. Maple's such a sweet filly... such a beautiful little thing. Puts on a tough show, but she's just trying to run away from what she had to do. When it was shoved in her face... Ben, I could not let you live through what I did. If anything had happened to her... I could not let you live with the regret of knowing that you could have done something to stop it. All she needs is somepony to look at her and let her know they care... that she means something to somepony."

Even if it was rather roundabout, his story had made so much clear to me. I finally felt like I at least marginally understood Maple and the way she acts, and Salmon's threat to fight me if I refused to go offer my sympathy that night no longer hurt my pride. It seems that this world is not immune to the same type of problems that I can see must have corrupted many cities on Terriel. I find it terrifying to write that these creatures are capable of being more human than I would ever wish to believe.

"I wouldn't believe something like that could happen to one place, Salmon. Why didn't Celestia do anything?"

"She didn't know. Lad, there are only so many places her attention can be at one time. Lopeyette was one place that just slid under the radar for too long. Once she saw what it had become, there was nothing she could do to fix it."

"She's a goddess though, isn't she? Certainly she has the power and means to take care of it."

"What would you have her do? Burn the town? Punish the factory and business owners? Pay off all the debts of the city? She can't do any of those things; all of them are doomed to fail. She cannot bring herself to destroy so many for something that may not be all of their faults. She cannot exact retribution on the greedy and sinful there because they will only be replaced with the same once another pony gets a taste of their ill-gotten success. Any money she gives will only end up being spent once again on the vicious cycle that is in place, and will find its way into the pockets of those who already have more than they will ever need."

"So she just doesn't do anything about it?"

"That's not true. That's one of the reasons you're even here in Songring. Lopeyette's fate was what brought about your position even existing, Benjamen. Do you think Ponyville had a Development Coordinator when it was first founded? Gullswatch? Cloudsdale? Those places were started by ponies of their own volition... started by a group with a goal in mind and dreams in their hearts, but with little or no guidance. When Celestia saw what happened in the absence of her attention, and just how terrible things could become when a town suffers from neglect, she did all she could to never let something like that happen again. She created the position of Development Coordinator for the royal court. Tell me, don't you send her letters? She may not be able to watch what we do out here, but I'm sure she reads them, Ben. It's her way of letting us know that she's there for us, and she has you here to keep something like that from happening once more."

That would have meant alot to me if I thought Celestia really believed I was a capable and worthy individual for such a position. This sounded more like propaganda and placation more than it did a convincing argument for her acting out of sheer benevolence and good judgment. She knew me for a week! I had just gotten to Equestria, and she expected me to take that kind of responsibility too? To play as her guard dog so that Big Bad Enterprise didn't sneak in while she wasn't looking? I can understand what Salmon believes, but I just don't think I can share the same naivety.

Perhaps I am just holding a grudge though. Maybe I am letting bias blind me from her true intentions, which I just refuse to believe can be so simple and good. Maybe she does care, and I just won’t let myself see it.

Our topics shifted after that. We spoke of how the weather had been nice to us, and how it was fortunate that it seems hurricanes do not blow through this far inland towards the Fatal Horns. A short discussion was had about the native wildlife, and Salmon informed me that he had been personally seeing to it that the tanks in the area were well taken care of. He has a soft spot for the big creatures, he told me, and finds them fairly peaceful to have around even though they scare off all the fish when they stamp over to the river's edge for a drink of water.

Hold on, I am being interrupted by my assistant. Dawnstar insists that she needs me to look into something for Springfield and that it cannot wait until after I finish writing. I will resolve the issue and return as soon as possible to wrap up my thoughts on this rather uneventful season.

Author's Notes:

I will admit that I got carried away with this one. Perhaps I channeled Salmon's ability to prattle a bit too well. Hopefully it entertains and informs, instead of drones and bores.