//------------------------------// // 7. Sprouting Roots V – Heart-to-Heartstrings // Story: The Ship of State // by marciko322 //------------------------------// It was official: Construct was a goddamn miracle worker. Barely two weeks had passed since harvest; the heatwave had only just receded, which meant I could finally bear to stay outdoors for longer than an hour at a time. In that time, Construct had finished her barracks and sawmill, and had just about gotten the first real houses of the project up. Her ponies were some tough old bastards, and no mistake. Personally, I was starting to feel a little inadequate. I had spent that time mostly indoors, hammering out a speech to give at the Summer Sun Shindig, which had taken all of about four hours. The rest of my time was spent doing fuck-all, more or less. Compared to Construct, Hooves, even Lyra, I was more than a little bit superfluous right now. All these ponies working their arses off for me, and here I was, sat at a desk, doodling. Feh. I've been cooped up inside too long. Some fresh air will clear me right up. The matter settled, I rose from my desk and made my way out of there. In the living room, Lyra raised her head up from the couch's armrest, and quickly perked up. "Afternoon, Lyra." "Good afternoon, s- Adam." She hopped off the couch, and looked up at me. "Are you well?" "As well as I can be," I replied. "Care to take a walk?" "I'd like that." I waved her ahead of me, and followed her out of my house. I shut the door behind me, and locked it. Can't be too careful. "Where to?" "Eh." I shrugged. "Around. I wonder what Hooves and Green are up to. I... I guess I could move the still closer, if I want some exercise. Still enough time for it." I threw her a look. "What about you? Any ideas?" "...I suppose we could inspect the new buildings," she eventually came up with. "As good an idea as any," I accepted. "Shall we?" I pondered, as Lyra and I made our way over to the sawmill. It had been rather quiet recently, all things considered. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting all of this hubbub to result in. It still felt quite awkward to consider myself First Minister seriously. Honestly, it felt more like I was a homesteader than a head of state, inviting others to my property, trying to make it a commune or some such thing. Maybe that was just because I didn't have a fancy office in a skyscraper, like what I would have expected back home. Certainly, doing paperwork in what amounted to a spare bedroom didn't much glamorise the Free State administration. The most serious work to bring this project to life was done by others. Mainly Celestia, by virtue of starting the whole sordid affair off in the first place, and then funding the whole lot out of her own pocket (I sincerely hoped, at least). All I had done was roll with it. Well, maybe the announcement will change things, I considered, as we neared the lumber mill. Depending on how it'd be received, as well as how many would hear or read about it, and be desperate enough to take the chance, it could all add up to a big fat nothing-burger. Or, maybe, the Free State would become the biggest displaced persons camp on Equus, and suddenly I’d actually have a job. I just didn't know enough about the state of affairs in Equestria to know for sure. Still, to have this all be for nothing would be... pretty disappointing. At the very least, Hooves and Lyra would be fine. That was a comforting thought, at least. I shook it off of me as I ascended the steps to the main area of the sawmill. It was a surprisingly minimalist affair, with only one main saw dominating the centre of the building, and a few smaller manual saws set aside in a more carpentry-woodworking area cordoned off to a corner. A few ponies were working here already, pushing an enormous length of wood into position to rest just against the saw. They briefly stopped to peer my way when I popped up and into their space but, after a quick bob of their heads, soon returned to their work. One unicorn was in the reserved corner, a knife held aloft busily carving a frame of a bed into existence. I nodded in approval at the scene. “Work is progressing apace here, it seems,” Lyra chimed in, peering all around in apparent wonder. “Mmm,” I hummed. The saw churned into movement, picking up steam, until it was almost a blur of metal. The timber was slowly pushed up against it, effortlessly carving a single side off into perfect smoothness. “This might well be the single most important building we have here, so far.” “What do you mean?” Lyra turned her head my way. My gaze remained on the log rolling down its path. “Wouldn’t food be more important than lumber?” “Of course,” I said. “Food is always important. Can’t feed people on tree bark, after all. But you gotta think of the bigger picture here, Ly.” The log finished its journey, and the saw slowly settled down into a resting position. The ponies now moved to the opposite end, preparing to push the log back into its original spot, readying a second cut on its second side. “Lookin’ good here so far. Let’s not get in their way here.” “What do you mean by bigger picture?” asked Lyra, as we descended the steps. “Suppose the Free State is an actual nation, about equivalent to Equestria,” I began, now meandering our way towards the almost-finished house a good chunk away. “Now, the vast majority of the Free State consists of wooded terrain. Mostly forest, but there is a little bit of more marshy, swampy bits dotted around the place, depending on how wet it’s been recently. Geological data says there’s bugger all here, except for nickel and tin. And, of course, agriculture is a little bit of a pisser right here, thanks to that magic field bullshit. That means the bulk of the Free State’s primary sector is going to be based on forestry. There’s just nothing else here to make it out of.” “Primary sector?” I inhaled. Inwardly, I relished the chance to explain something I knew about. Even if what I knew was really not terribly much at all. “Ah, right… let’s see. A nation’s economy can be divided into three categories, roughly speaking – primary, secondary, and tertiary. To simplify, primary means creating or retrieving resources, secondary means refining or manufacturing those resources, and tertiary means selling those resources to others – as well as providing services using those resources. So primary would include growing crops, rearing animals, chopping down wood, and digging ore out of the ground, and so on; secondary would be grinding those crops down into flour, or what have you, or baking bread out of ‘em, or cutting that wood into planks or chairs, or smelting that ore into ingots or beams, and so on; tertiary would mean actually selling all those goods to the citizenry, or other nations, or… I dunno, fixing up someone’s carriage with those planks from earlier. Hell, even things like hotels, or restaurants. Something like that. “A successful – and more to the point, independent – nation needs at least a little bit of all three; and we can do that. We can use our forests to gather timber, refine it into lumber, and thus into pretty much anything we can make out of wood, and then we can sell it, either to our own people, or to Equestria, or whoever else wants it. Ahem,” I cleared my throat, feeling unaccountably quite silly. “Assuming anyone wants to actually buy our products. Or, indeed, that our forests survive our lumber mills. Which, hopefully, they will.” A pause came over us, passing some invisible threshold that denoted our arrival at house number one, of about five. Lyra stared at me in wide-eyed wonder. I returned her gaze, mostly puzzled. “…I had no idea you were so knowledgable in matters of statecraft,” she gushed. I recoiled from her effusive praise. “Yeah, right,” I mumbled. “GCSE Business Studies is hardly a comprehensive introduction to grand strategy.” A shrug escaped me. “But hey, at least I didn’t go for Religious Studies, otherwise I might genuinely be in the shit now.” I huffed in grim amusement, pushing the door open and entering the building. Inside, significantly less construction was going on than I had expected. In fact, it became immediately evident that things had already wound down. Only one pony was in here – an earth pony stallion, packing up some kind of double-edged stepladder, clearly designed for pony hooves and not human feet. He nodded at me, lifting the ladder onto his back and tottering out of the building, carefully stepping past Lyra and out the door. The interior looked very similar to my own home. The recently-vacated hallway led into a dining room, with a kitchen separated by an open doorway. On the other side was a guest room. A set of stairs running parallel to the hall led to a second floor, with two bedrooms on each side and a bathroom at the far end. Each room was barren of furniture, or decoration, though richly strewn with construction debris. Plenty of natural light streamed in through the plethora of windows dotted around. “Nice,” I muttered, taking the sight in. “Very, very nice. Kinda wish I had a second floor, now. Reminds me a little of back home.” We didn’t linger too long in there. Dusting ourselves off after leaving, we made our way over to the next nearest house, which was very much similar to the first, except that it was already empty to begin with, both of ponies and rubbish; likewise with the third. The fourth, however, turned out to already be occupied. Opening the door prompted a ‘One moment!’ to emanate from upstairs, sounding very much like Hooves. Sure enough, after about six or seven moments had passed, a steady thump of hooves preceded his appearance at the top of the stairs. “Oh, howdy, mister Inns!” said Hooves, quickly trotting his way down to my and Lyra’s level, throwing me a friendly smile. “Ah wasn’t expectin’ ya to pop up here today!” “Yeah, I’m just taking a bit of a tour around, seeing what’s been going on here,” I explained, glancing around the place – which, now that I was paying attention, looked much more lived in than the previous empty buildings. A picture frame was nestled in the gap between the doors to the living room and a cupboard under the stairs. “Oh, I see you’ve… already claimed this one as your own?” “Tha’s right,” confirmed Hooves, leading us into his living room, where Deft was too busy arranging furniture – all wooden, of course – to pay notice to us. “Miss Construct was kind enough ta offer this house to us, once it was finished. ‘Course, we said yes – tough to let our foals rest in a worker’s barn, after all.” Hooves was watching me carefully, I saw out of the corner of my eye. I nodded, satisfied. “Good, good. Thank fuck I didn’t have to intervene myself… guess I shouldn’t have worried too much, Construct’s a bloody mastermind, after all.” “Darn straight.” Hooves nodded, as did Lyra. “Lady’s one tough nut.” His voice dropped to a whisper, throwing a shifty glance over to Deft, who still had not noticed us. “’Course, she’d hav’ta be, what with those wings a’hers. Maker only knows who, or what, did that to ‘er. Pegasus with mangled wings like hers a’ like a sandstorm in the Frozen North.” I dutifully ignored the ever-so-slightly queasy tone in his speech. “I’m sure it’s incredibly personal and none of our business. Have you got everything you need set up here? Beds, heating, appliances? Your foals settling in alright?” “Er, yeah, we do,” stumbled Hooves, taken off-balance by my abrupt change in topic. “Ah mean, yeah, they are. Still a touch shy ‘round the strangers, but that’s normal. For ‘em.” Deft, having finally concluded her task of making utterly pointless adjustments to the position of her coffee table, at long last turned around, seeming only now to take note of our presence and existence. “Oh, mister Inns! Ah’m sorry, Ah didn’t quite hear ya come in!” “Yeah,” I snarked. “I noticed. You two settling in alright here?” “Didn’t Ah already tell ya that?” Hooves interjected, baffled. I could only roll my eyes. “We’re doin’ jus’ fine, thank ya kindly,” answered Deft, throwing a very unkind look at her husband that seemed to immediately shrivel him up. “I can’t thank ya enough fer what ye’ve done fer us already… lettin’ our foals hav’ a place ta stay…” I smiled down at her. “There’s no need to thank me. I was just doing the right thing.” Just under the bottom of his breath, I could catch Hooves muttering, “Shame you had ta be the only one doin’ ‘the right thing.’” “Sorry ta be rude, dear,” said Deft, throwing yet another mean look at Hooves. “But did’ja need anythin’ from us?” I snapped my fingers in realisation. “As a matter of fact, there is one thing I want to ask you.” Both Hooves and Deft now stared up at me. “In a few hours’ time, I’ll be off to Canterlot, to announce the existence of the Free State to Equestria, and the world at large, and to give my mission statement. What are your thoughts on it?” “Yer mission statement?” Hooves now moved over to stand next to his wife, both of them wearing their bemusement plainly on their sleeves. “What’d’ya mean by that?” “My idea of the Free State is as a free haven, for those whoever may need one. To feed the hungry, house the homeless, give voice to the silent. In short, to give a helping hand to anyone and everyone who needs it. Just like you did, and just like Lyra did.” Hooves barked out a single, sharp laugh. “Hah! Oh, son, ya got guts. Ah’ve no doubt that, if yer actually gonna tell ponies about them plans a’yours, ya’d get half of Equestria knockin’ on yer door. Now, Construct’s one mean lady, but she ain’t gonna be enough ta stop ‘em all from suckin’ ya dry.” Deft was similarly disposed. “Darn tootin’.” I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. “…Is it really so bad over there?” “Well, Ah wouldn’t know,” admitted Hooves. “Ah haven’t heard from ‘em in a long while. But, really, son.” He gave me what I construed as a pitying look. “Ther's plenty of varmint ponies 'round the place. Ya really think we’d be here if it was all sunshine and paydays over there?” My silence was taken as answer enough. “Was there anythin’ else ya needed from us?” asked Deft. “…No, no,” I shook my head. “I suppose I’ll get outta your hair now. Thanks for your advice.” I made my way outside in silence. The door closed behind me with a deceptively climactic thud. I brought my hands up to my temples, massaging the tingling in my brain away. “Fuck. Suppose it’s too late to ask for a redo, eh.” “Adam?” Lyra was, as a matter of fact, still with me, walking up from behind to face me head-on, full of concern. “Sire? Are you well?” A weary sigh escaped me, along with my strength. “Yeah, yeah… I’m fine. Just… worried.” “Would you like to talk about it?” “Sure,” I said, idly snapping my fingers to try to start my brain up again. “Ehm… fuck it, might as well do one last thing today. I’m gonna go move my still somewhere more sensible.” I set off towards the forest at a decent pace, Lyra trotting alongside me. “What are you worried about?” she prompted. “Fucked if I know,” I said, resigned. “Worried about stuff. That’s about as precise as I can make it right now.” “Are you worried about ponies making their way here after your announcement?” Lyra guessed. “Nah,” I dismissed. “That’s the whole point of it, after all. Assuming anyone takes it seriously, and assuming anyone actually makes it here. I’m not so bothered about that.” “Then…” she continued. “Are you worried about… not being able to provide for them?” “No, it’s not that, Lyra,” I dismissed again. “In fact, ‘worried’ is the wrong word. It’s more… gah!” For some reason, the words just weren’t coming to me. “I don’t know! I want to be happy about this! I want to be happy that I’ve given you a home and food, and given Hooves and Deft, and their fucking children, a home and food! That’s a good thing, right? Doing good, helping people, right?” The dam around my soul was starting to crack. I had to push that shit down before it broke down irreparably, holding in a breath and exhaling cathartically. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “Fuck, I am happy that I’ve helped you, and Hooves… but. I know that I could do more with it, that I’ve been given more that I can work with, and that I’m trying to do more with. But… isn’t that wrong?” Lyra’s bewilderment called for a clarification. “I mean, realistically, the only people I can help are the ones who have been crapped on. Isn’t it… wrong to want there to be as many of them as possible? Even if it means there’s more I can do for them? No, especially if it means there’s more I can do… isn’t that disingenuous?” “…Are you saying it’s wrong to provide for the needy?” The question made me physically stop in my tracks, as if I had walked into a brick wall. The answer was such a simple thing, an utterly trite tautology, and yet I had to roll it around my head for a while before I could put it to the air. “…Of course not.” “There’s something more to it than that, then, isn’t there?” Christ, was Lyra good at asking uncomfortable questions. “…Yeah. I guess so.” Lyra only waited patiently for me to continue. Once it was made clear to me that I would have to be the one to carry the conversation forward, all my willpower drained from me, to pool around my feet and seep into my socks. “…You’re gonna think less of me for this, I know it,” I tried. It sounded pretty blatantly dogshit even to my own ears. “It’s… not a noble goal, really. At all.” “I would never think less of you,” Lyra encouraged. “I… I just want… to be wanted,” I admitted. “You know? That’s… why I’m doing all this- excuse me, going along with all this. Because if I do, if I invite all the poor and needy to me, and give them what they want, and need… well, they’ll like me for it, right? And…” I tapered off, humiliated. I couldn’t bear to continue spewing shit like that from my own mouth. “There are worse reasons to turn to heroism, Adam,” said Lyra. “Don’t think yourself lesser for your reasons, when it is your actions that matter most.” “Feh,” I scoffed. “I’m not a hero.” “You are one to me.” I stared at her for a long while. “…You know,” I began. “That might well be the most hideously cliché thing you could possibly have said to me, just then.” Despite my words, I couldn’t stop a smile from tugging at my lips. What she said next made it fall off quite decisively. “That isn’t your only reason, though, is it?” “…What on Earth are you talking about?” Lyra stopped walking now, sensing my hesitation, turning to face me directly. She tilted her body to one side, a look I couldn’t quite decode. “You say you wish to be wanted, and to be liked, yes?” She didn’t give me time to interject. “Why, then, would you move to a log cabin a day away from the nearest city? You could have gotten all the admiration and friendship you could ever have desired in Canterlot.” “I didn’t want to stay in Canterlot,” I protested, growing flustered. “I hate big cities-” Lyra stepped closer. “Then why not move to a smaller town, or village? Like Ponyville, or Hoofer? Why seclude yourself as far away as one can in Equestria?” “I-” Another step. “Is it because you don’t believe yourself worthy of it? That you must somehow seclude yourself for everyone’s own good?” “No-!” With one final step, Lyra shoved her muzzle directly into my face. “What is it that you are so afraid of, Adam?” … “...You want to know what I’m afraid of?” My voice was deceptively quiet, and deceptively calm. Considering the turmoil inside me, this was a very, very bad sign. I pushed my back against a tree, suddenly cognisant of how far in we had gone into the woods, and slowly slid down it to land on my arse. “You want to know the truth, Lyra?” I asked, almost accusing. “Well, here you go: I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired of it all. I’m so tired of inequality, of poverty, of turning on the news or reading the paper and seeing yet another fucking tragedy happening in some godforsaken corner of the globe and having to move on with my fucking day like it’s nothing. You wanna know why my decade abroad was the worst point of my life? It’s because it was right fucking then that I realised how truly awful the world was, and I realised that there was absolutely fucking nothing I could do about it.” Lyra’s eyes had gotten progressively wider throughout my rant, seeming now like they were millimetres away from simply falling out. I continued, heedless. “You wanna know something else?” I was really picking up steam now. That dam was dangerously close to collapse. “It didn’t even stop there, either. I thought that just moving back home would have fixed everything – that fool idealist in me still hadn’t died by then. Well, guess what – it didn’t. I moved back, and everything was just as awful as it had ever been, because the world doesn’t stop turning just because you went back to your childhood home. The only fucking difference it made was reading the news in a different language. “Falling into that dimensional pit was the best thing that ever fucking happened to me. Suddenly, here I was, in a land of magical ponies, where the grass is literally greener and friendship is literally magic, and horrible atrocities weren’t a fact of life to dismiss with a ‘poor sods, what’s for tea’ and to forget about! I moved into that log cabin and spent two years tending a farm and reading books, and they’ve been the best years of my fucking life, because I could go to bed in the evening, and not have to consider myself thankful that I could fall asleep in a bed, under a roof, and with a full stomach! “And now!” At this point, I was practically shouting, screwing my eyes shut in anguish. “Now, you and Hooves and Deft and three little fucking kids show up at my door and ask for a bed under a roof and a full stomach, because you couldn’t get it from your home because of poverty and inequality, and it turns out Equestria has news and papers dismiss and forget about tragedies happening right there in their own country, and apparently I’m the first fucking person to recognise it and try to do something about it! Me! A human! Not you pastel horses, who break out into literal song-and-dance numbers in the streets about friendship and love and peace!” At some point, I had thrown myself to my feet and not realised. My throat was growing sore from the abuse I’d hurled from it; my chest was pounding in that strange rhythm I’d only ever really felt once, which I recognised swiftly as blistering rage. Slowly, the anger and hatred and adrenaline flowed out of my system, back to whatever pits of Hell I’d summoned them from. It was safe to say I was gonna have to invest in a new dam. I sunk back to sitting, with my back against the same tree. Now, though, my head sank down to meet my hands in an embrace of despair. “Equestria was supposed to be a better place. Ponies are supposed to be better people.” I raised my head up, my neck creaking like a rusty hinge, to look Lyra directly in her still-too-wide eyes. “And now, with you and Hooves, Equestria is looking more and more like any other old place, back home, except with fancy magic and outdated architecture. Same shit, different universe. “So there you go,” I finished. “Life back home taught me not to care. And you know what I’m afraid of, now? I’m afraid… that you ponies are going to make me care again.” I raised myself back up to my feet, re-orientated myself, and picked up the pace to my still. “Just in time to be hurt, all over again.” I hadn’t made it five steps before a call came from behind me, almost deathly-quiet. “…Would you rather not have cared about me?” I stopped in my tracks, grinding my way around to face her like a statue on a turntable. I had no doubt that both of our faces wore profound sorrow. I swallowed heavily, her question ringing throughout my mind with a terrible clarity over and over again. “…Of course not, Ly.” The noise dropped from my mouth with an anchor’s weight, though landing with a deceptive softness. “What sort of person would that have made me...?” The rest of my trip was spent in silence – alone. By the time I had set my still down next to my flagpole, Lyra had already retired to her room. I was too tired to care; that was a problem for future-me. I was utterly exhausted, mentally and spiritually – doing alright physically, though. Had to take my victories where I could, after all. It was getting a little late in the afternoon, the sun dipping down considerably, though still not casting shades of red and orange across the sky. Construct’s crew were still hard at work, starting work on some new building. This one, at least, seemed rather larger than the previous houses, seeming to me more like apartment complexes. Construct might well have been building literal commie-blocks, from what I could make out of the tiny amount of progress they’d made on it so far. I wasn’t concerned about it. I had faith that things would basically be okay, on that front, based on Construct’s competence – which I had no reason to doubt. I was more preoccupied with Blueblood’s appearance – or rather, its absence. Yet again, Blueballs was nowhere to be found. I’d already packed what little essentials I’d need for my excursion to Canterlot – due to begin in, ah… ten minutes or so – as well as everything I’d need in terms of documentation, notes, a few blank parchments for taking more notes, and so on. All that was left for me was to wait. “First Minister?” A voice called from my left. It was Construct, cantering to me with a decidedly nonplussed demeanour. “…What are you doing?” I frowned. “You haven’t heard…? Oh, of course you haven’t. Fucking Blueblood…” I snorted in irritation. “Anyway. Yes, I’m leaving for Canterlot in, hopefully, the next nine minutes. Off to announce the Free State to the unwashed masses, don’tcha know. I’ll trust you to be in charge around here until I return.” “Wh… I, uh…” “I know,” I consoled. “It’s quite a lot to throw on your shoulders immediately – because somebody couldn’t be trusted to deliver a single fuckin’ message! But I digress – I’m sure you’ll do fine.” “...Thank you, sir,” said Construct, having taken a moment to compose herself. “If you don’t mind, though, I had a few other questions.” “Shoot.” “Why is a still on your property?” That was an easy one. “It’s mine.” That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “…It’s yours.” “Yeah. What would a still that wasn’t mine be doing on my property?” Her increasingly ‘sick of this shit’ look gave me great joy. “…Do you have a permit?” “You don’t need a permit in the Free State.” “…Right. Of course you don’t.” Defeated, she moved on to other matters. “Anyway. Next, we’ve finally got a medical specialist approved. My unicorns can start cataloguing disease in the area for eradication at your discretion; likewise with inviting the medic.” “Fantastic.” And indeed it was. It was only a matter of time before it would become needed; better to get it in as soon as possible. “Go ahead with both. I’ll get to evaluating your specialist at some point, after I get back. Don’t let me forget, if you’d kindly. Though, to be honest, I’m sure I won’t really need to.” “Thank you, sir.” Construct bowed politely. Then, her professional mask slipped off. “One last thing, if I may…” “Ah! First Minister!” Right on cue, Ambassador Blueblood arrived. His flying carriage (not open-top, thank fuck) had set down a short ways away, the two guards not bothering to unlatch themselves. Poor bastards. Hope they’ve got some stamina. Blueblood, himself, was almost sauntering towards me, wearing a clearly false smile that I was savvy enough to return. “Ambassador,” I greeted. “Excellent. Right on time, as well. I’ll be with you in just a moment.” I turned my attention back to Construct. “What is it?” “…Is Lyra okay?” …Fuck me, does gossip here already spread that fast? “Why do you ask?” “Well,” she stammered, clearly not used to speaking of such trite matters. “It’s just that… I saw her, walking back to your house, and she seemed… really downcast, for some reason, and then you came from the same direction that she did, and I thought that you might know what happened to her…” “Nothing happened,” I said, firmly. “We exchanged some words. Why she took them poorly is beyond me.” I scoffed. “Fuck, why I took them poorly is beyond me.” “…I see.” The professional mask was returned to its proper place, and Construct gave me a curt nod. “Thank you, sir. I should get back to work.” And without another word, she was gone. I turned back to Blueblood, who was now staring at me quite oddly. “You really have a way with mares, don’t you?” he said. I couldn’t believe it – something that was actually kinda funny, coming out of Blueblood’s mouth. I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sure I do, Ambassador. She was practically slobbering over me before you arrived to spoil the moment.” I tactfully decided not to crack a joke about Celestia’s own improprieties in that department. “Shall we depart?” “Yes, let’s.” Blueblood went first into the carriage, with me just behind. With a quick glow from the Ambassador, the door shut, and the carriage lifted off the ground, ready to make the journey to Canterlot – where the future of the Free State would be decided.