Hindsight was a terrible thing.
Only two days had passed. I had done a lot of thinking during that time. Very little of it was productive, in any way. In fact, none of it was productive. Wasn’t possible to change the past, after all. It didn’t stop me in the slightest.
What could I have done to save them? Too bloody much, was the answer. With the benefit of a few months’ distance, I had thought of so many things I could have done differently. My liquor collection was still gathering dust in a cabinet somewhere in my house – point one. That could have gone with Construct to Manehattan. That mare… Slinky, or whatever it was. Hated Equestria? At least she was alive to do it. Point two – blow off the residents, and ask for help anyway. Might have hated me for it, but again. At least they’d be alive.
Point three – avoid dealing with Equestria, and take Upper Crust’s deal. Might have fucked me sometime in the distance, yeah, but was that really so difficult to stomach compared to four dead? Point four, keep rationing the same as it was before the influx. We’d have been just fine as we were. I deliberately fucked things up, by all accounts.
Why didn’t I make the connection between more migrants and more food being eaten? What was wrong with me? To miss something so trivially obvious as that didn’t exactly infuse me with confidence in my abilities as First Minister, least of all going forward from here. Why did I keep the rationing lowered in the first place? Casting away the safety-net like that, just for the sake of… morale? Pulling my residents out of hunger?
So much for that, then. If nothing else, I could at least chalk all this up as a valuable learning experience, one paid for in blood. The exact lesson, though… well, there were a few to choose from. Think through things properly before making decisions as big as the ones I made – the ones it was my job to make? Check. Solicit second opinions for said decisions? Check. Look through the little details so you don’t get blinded by the big picture? Check. Don’t ever do this shit again, and toss it all into a flaming dumpster to be forgotten about? Check, I supposed.
I’d spent the second day ferrying supplies around for Sawbones. My first aid certification from back home was technically still valid, but I didn’t think I could apply much from it to a pony. Not to mention… I didn’t want to risk fucking something up in there and getting even more fucking ponies killed. Instead, I put things he needed where he needed them. I hoped it helped him, and his patients.
Construct had dutifully taken up the crop field work, and had gotten a few boxes of food to the clinic. I wasn’t big on the nitty-gritty of medicine – or magic, for that matter – but I still found it a little odd how Sawbones turned that into an IV solution. I hoped he knew what refeeding syndrome was. More lives on my conscience was not appealing.
By the third day, I found I wasn’t even all that down any more. Apathy had once again won the day. I’d made my decisions, then and now. All I had to do was inform Blueblood, and Construct, and anyone else who might have cared, of my intentions.
Just my bloody luck, then, that I’d given Blueblood my letter before he left.
I looked on the royal carriage with disinterest. It didn’t seem to differ too much from Blueblood’s usual; open-top, two guardsponies pulling it, white and gold with gilded highlights. The only thing of interest I could pick out was the second occupant, who was significantly larger than the first.
The carriage set down gently a few metres away. The door opened, and Blueblood leapt down first, soon followed by Celestia. The latter seemed to be rather disquieted by the lack of activity around her – it was still, after all, damn quiet in the Free State. Blueblood just stared at me. Perhaps he sensed that something was amiss.
“Greetings, First Minister,” called Celestia, nearing me with a somewhat forced kindly smile. “I am glad to visit the Free State once again.”
“Likewise, Princess,” I replied automatically. “It’s a pleasure to receive you here. I’m afraid I must apologise for the lackluster welcome, but the Free State is still in something of a crisis. As you two might well be aware.”
“I received your letter, First Minister,” confirmed Celestia, stepping yet closer to me. Blueblood kept his distance, still training his gaze on me, as if searching for something. “I would quite like to discuss its contents, somewhere in private.”
“Of course, Princess,” I said, voice tinged with defeat. “Ambassador, I… believe I would prefer to inform you of matters here separately. Would that be fine?”
“Yes, First Minister,” replied Blueblood, uncharacteristically meekly. Celestia just nodded.
“Good, good…” I hadn’t even turned around fully before Celestia’s voice stopped me in my tracks once again.
“Adam? Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
…Yes, as a matter of fact. There-
“Have you been a naughty boy, Adam?”
…
“Princess Celestia.” I didn’t bother turning around to look at her. My voice held enough chill for her to get the hint. “I realise that you are not quite up to date on the affairs of the Free State, and neither is Blueblood. I know you do not realise the implications of that phrase – innocently as you have intended it. That’s why I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that to me. Four of your little ponies are dead because of the consequences of my decisions.”
I looked back for a moment, throwing Celestia a tired glance. Her face, I saw, had become carefully neutral. Blueblood’s reaction was less restrained, though he at least had the sense to keep quiet.
I said nothing more – no-one did. After a long, silent moment, I turned back around, and made for my house. A single set of soft hoofsteps quickly joined in.
“Explain,” said Celestia, staring at me intently.
I sighed, slumping down in my seat – Celestia opted to remain standing, in the middle of the living room. Where could I even begin? Where could I pinpoint the exact reason for my failure? What was the first domino?
“…You want a detailed explanation? Fine. The first of my fuck-ups was the Summer Sun speech.” That, I saw, was not what she expected me to start with, judging by her raised brow. “I knew what I was trying to do with that speech. I knew it damn well. That’s why I did it, for fuck’s sake. Mistake number one – it was too much at once. I was prepared for… maybe an extra few dozen. Fifty, sixty, at most. Instead, I got five hundred. There was no way I could have fed that many. I bought time – rationing. Intense rationing. We expanded our crop fields as quickly as we could – forgot that normal crops don’t grow very well here, at all. Wasted a week or two’s effort. Call that one and a half.
“Figured it out in the end, I can grow here just fine, but ponies can’t – just had to give ‘em a little more personal attention. We’d still not have enough to make it to… a week or two from now, four months ago. Even with what we could forage from the surroundings – which was a lot, but also not enough. I sent Construct off to Manehattan with every penny I had, to buy as much food as I could.
“Mistake number two. After Construct came back from Manehattan, I eased up rationing. Not for a single day, either; until we’d run out of food fully. Almost, anyway. A month ago, if you’re wondering… probably closer to three weeks, actually. Still too fucking much. We still had more people – ponies, excuse me, coming in, every day. Mistake number three – didn’t make the simple fucking connection there, either. More mouths to feed, means more feeding. Means less food.
“Mistake number four, I didn’t do a fucking thing to solve any of this earlier, until it was already too fucking late for four people. There was so much I could have done for this not to have happened. Taken Crust’s deal, asked you for help, asked anyone for help, sent Construct with more to sell, stockpiled more food earlier, fuck!”
My head fell into my hands; I massaged my forehead to drive away a headache that wasn’t there. “I failed, Princess. My first test, my first real test as First Minister – a leader of a group of people that depended on me – and I failed, spectacularly.”
My voice fell away. I had run out of things to say. What else was there left to say?
I focused on breathing. In, out. In, out. After a while, I shook my head, and lifted it out of my palms, looking at Celestia instead.
“This was not your fault.”
“Bullshit,” I immediately spat, leaping to my feet to pace. Celestia had said precisely the wrong thing to me. “Not my fault. I am the only person at fault, Princess. I am literally the only being in the Free State capable of being at fault. Not my fault! I invited these people here myself, Princess. I had invited these people here specifically to prevent things like exactly this from happening to them, and I did not!”
…
I sighed. There was no point in getting angry. What’s done was done. “I didn’t, Princess. I made the call to cut everyone off, except the foals. A solution to a problem I created myself. A shitty solution. One that killed four people. And I wasn’t even aware of the consequences until two fucking days ago.”
“Was…” Celestia apparently rethought whatever question was on her mind. After a while, she tried again, with another one. “Do you know what you did wrong?”
I snorted. “’Course I do. I was here, Princess. I didn’t… plan ahead. I didn’t see the big picture. I thought one solution to a problem was enough.”
“Will you do it again?”
I frowned, looking Celestia straight in the eyes. “…Tragedy’s a fine learning experience, is it, Princess? Four are dead. That’s practically criminal negligence. How can you be so cavalier about this? Am I really the only person that cares what a sky-smashingly monumental failure I am? They used to be your ponies, Celestia! I got them killed!”
“…That’s not how I see it.”
Celestia got up, slowly, ambling over me as if I was a predator, ready to pounce. “You did not do this deliberately. You tried your best. Four ponies are dead, yes, and that is a tragedy. Does that overshadow the fact that all the remainder of your subjects are still alive?” She pushed my chin up with the tip of a wing, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Don’t let your failures overshadow your successes. Hundreds of ponies -”
“Just over a thousand, now.”
“…Over a thousand ponies are still alive, here, because of your actions. A lesser pony might have gotten dozens, hundreds… everypony might have starved. Yes, I will admit that it is a tragedy that four have perished, and yes, it would have been preferable if everypony had survived this crisis. That does not diminish the fact that you led a thousand ponies through a famine.”
“Poorly,” I replied, flatly. “Nice speech, Celestia, and nice platitudes, but it is still only my own damn fault that I even had to deal with this whole shitshow in the first place. Does it count if you pull four people out of a building that you, yourself, set on fire? I could have prevented this. I should have.”
“Then you will, next time.”
I exhaled, averting my gaze to the floor. “Yeah. About that.”
“No.” Celestia pre-empted me, now frowning herself. “Absolutely not. I will not allow you to give up at the first difficulty. Your people still need you. They will need you after this is resolved.”
“They can figure it out between themselves, then,” I said. “I no longer have any interest in making decisions that get people killed. I’m not qualified. Blueblood can have his fucking premiership. I’m done.”
Then, my chin abruptly jerked forward. Celestia had pulled me in closer – though I doubted the red on her face was because of her being flustered. “You would do so?” she asked, lowly – dangerously. “Simply abandon your subjects, just because of one mistake? Do the lives of your people mean so little to you? What would those four ponies say to you if they had heard you say that?”
“Nothing,” I spat, grabbing a hold of her wing and throwing it away from my face. “Because they’re dead. And if they weren’t, they’d spit in my face for what I’ve done.”
I spun around on my heel and stormed off, only getting to the kitchen before running out of distance to put between us. I couldn’t believe it. I was the only person blaming myself. Not even Celestia blamed me. Even though…
I looked out of the window. It was a surprisingly sunny day out, for October. Blue skies, not a cloud in sight. Must have been a common sight in Equestria, but here it just became incongruous.
I wished I’d fought harder right at the start of all this. I should have given the founding documents back to her. Told her to shove off, and leave my reading in peace. I wished I’d called for help… hell, I wished I’d called for help at all, much less right when I got five hundred people on my doorstep. I wished I’d been smarter. Had more experience. Had connected the fucking dots I’d needed to, before it was too late.
I wished I could have saved those four ponies.
…
“…Then again,” I mused to myself. “If wishes were fishes… I’d have joined the merchant navy.”
“That’s not an expression I’ve heard before,” said Celestia, behind me, not quite making me jump out of my skin – though it was a close thing. One I should have expected, really, considering I’d only moved about fifteen metres away from her.
“You wouldn’t have,” I said, trying to calm myself down a little. “I just thought it up. Pointless to try to wish mistakes away. I thought I could have gotten away without having to take any regrets to my grave.” I chuckled, once – a low, bitter sound. “Guess that’s out the window, now.”
I shook my head, turning around to face my conversational partner – who was now looking at me piteously. “I’m sorry,” she told me, lowly. “This was not your fault. It was mine. I made the decision to give you so much. If I had not done so, this would not have happened. I shouldn’t have done this to you. I shouldn’t have assumed. I’ve taken things too far.”
“Load of bollocks,” I immediately repudiated, again. “Don’t push it on yourself. You might have handed me the gun, but I was the one who pulled the damn trigger. I know damn well what I’ve done.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “You shouldn’t have gone through this. If you… if you desire it, I can have this all forgotten about, and dismantled. You could return to your old life. I won’t hold it against you. Nopony would.”
“Mmm.” I hummed absent-mindedly. “Yeah. I guess I could.”
As a matter of fact, I couldn’t. The Adam Inns of five months ago was a different person to who I was now. Fundamentally so. Lives on one’s conscience was not something that could be washed off with hand sanitiser, so to speak. That was knowledge I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life.
As distasteful as the idea may have seemed to me, my people were still depending on me. Despite the fact I’d nearly gotten a huge chunk of them killed, and actually did get four of them killed. To my shame, I found that there were few people who could have done a better job, and who would have been accepted by the residents. The thestrals, maybe – and that might well have been it. Who, now that I thought about it, might well have also had some… minor concerns with me handing the reins over to an Equestrian. Not to mention what they would have done with my residents.
And, finally… “But if I gave up now,” I finally finished, “those four ponies would have died for nothing. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
I felt a wing wrap around me as I turned around to face out of the window once again. That was the long and short of it, I supposed – a goddamn sunk cost fallacy, albeit one with extra bells and whistles on. We’d come so far already; what was one (enormous) mistake in four, five months when there was so much of the future to get things right in?
I sighed.
First Ministership was not what I thought it would be.
“Have you at least learned from your mistakes?” asked Celestia, softly, as if afraid to disturb me.
“Yeah,” I exhaled. “A couple of things. Think things through properly. Ask other people before you commit to a decision like that. Consider their consequences before they arrive. Plan ahead of these consequences. Expect consequences other than the obvious ones.” I shook my head. “Can’t believe I paid so much for such trite lessons. Christ…”
“So long as you become a better person from them,” said Celestia. “There is no shame in that.”
“There’s shame in a few other things, though.”
That, apparently, was the end of that.
In truth, though, the most valuable lesson I’d learned was not one of the ones I’d told Celestia. I had come at the problem of First Ministership the wrong way, much more fundamentally than simply being an idiot. Nation management was not a short-term issue, not discrete, and not simple. I had to rethink how I approached it.
The fundamental issue, the one that my actions could all be boiled down to, was that I had assumed that once a solution was applied to a problem, that was the end of it. Five hundred ponies show up? Get them housed and fed. Not enough food? Ration what we have for as long as we can, until we get more. We’ve got more food? That’s enough rationing, forget about it.
Forget about it. Christ on a bike. You’re a fucking moron, Inns.
Not short-term. I couldn’t afford to dismiss problems until I knew, definitively, with actual, real proof in-hand, that they were actually solved. Once we’d gotten those huge lorries of food in, I had assumed that would be that – and look where that got me. Food insecurity was not something to stick on a to-do list – and, as a matter of fact, I doubted I could even consider it ‘solved’ after our harvest. There were, after all, still going to be more ponies – or whoever – coming in looking for greener pastures – Heh. Ponies looking for greener pastures. Nice. – and our two crop fields were still only capable of feeding about a thousand and a half, dangerously close to our current population. Food production was now going to be a constant top priority.
Not discrete. Once those lorries showed up, I had promptly forgotten about the issue entirely – until new evidence all but slapped me in the fucking face. Issues like that needed to be treated as continuous – that is, I couldn’t just slap a band-aid on until it fell off. I needed to check things regularly, see if the solutions I’d come up with were actually effective. Fire-and-forget management… well. The fruits of such a strategy now weighed on my soul, didn’t they?
Not simple. A equals B. Simple enough, right? No food, therefore get more food – a neat fantasy. Even something as simple as getting more arrivals to the Free State, continuously, had somehow evaded my calculations. The simplest, bare-minimum consideration had thrown me off – since I’d assumed the problem had already been solved with Construct’s journey to Manehattan. I had failed to consider additional related variables. Not to mention there were many ways to go about solving just one problem. No food – forage, ask for more, grow more, even take more if absolutely necessary. So long, of course, as I didn’t replace one problem with another – or many others.
I sighed.
“Christ. I actually feel kind of sorry for you,” I told Celestia. “You’ve had to deal with shit like this for… what, three thousand years? Ahrinyet. I’ve been at it for less than half a year, with a nation orders of magnitude smaller than yours, and already I’ve fucked things up spectacularly.”
“The calculus of leadership is a cruel equation,” said Celestia. “Often, we can only do the least worst that we can.”
“Mmm.” I nodded. “No wonder. I was always more of a fan of algebra, myself.”
Finally, that seemed to break the doom and gloom, making Celestia break out into light chuckles. “Oh, Adam,” she finally got out. “You are a very strange human.”
“Heh,” I chuckled myself. “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”
If wishes were fishes… I might not be able to bring back the dead… but at least I could try to prevent any more from joining their ranks, in the future. It was the least I could do, while I still drew breath. Just like I promised them, the first day.
...we’d all be swimming in riches.
The conversation with Blueblood was considerably more shouty.
“What in all the starless hells were you doing?!” he thundered. “Were you too busy brushing your bucking mane for three weeks to notice your ponies starving in their streets and homes? Could you not even for a moment bring yourself to even step foot outdoors during all that time to take even a cursory inspection of your realm? What are those glasses of yours even for?”
At least there’s one person in the Free State who recognises my fuckup besides me.
“This is not how a nation is run, First Minister! A leader needs to, on occasion, pull his head out of his rear and actually do something! I was under the assumption, when I departed on Equestrian business, that you were in the process of attempting to resolve the crisis you created! And now I get told, offhand, that four ponies – who used to be Equestrian subjects, need I remind you – are now dead?”
Ah, Ambassador Blueblood – defender of the little people.
Blueblood, having spent most of his anger, dropped down to mere seething. “I cannot believe I was taken in by your act. How could I have allowed myself to believe that a simple farmer would have the skill to tend to a nation’s subjects?”
“You think I believed that?” I broke in, cutting Blueblood’s tirade short. “With all due respect, Ambassador Blueblood, don’t be so fucking stupid. If you recall from our… first meeting in the Free State, I made it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with this whole sordid business. I told Celestia my interest in statecraft was purely intellectual. And look where we are now. Both of you helped push me into this. If you hadn’t, perhaps I might not have been consumed by the desire to do some fucking good from it – maybe the Summer Sun speech that led directly to this disaster might not have fucking taken place.”
“And why did you not do anything more after that had happened?” accused Blueblood. “Where was the decisive action you showed on those first two weeks? You showed capacity, First Minister, to think! What happened? Why did you suddenly stop trying to fix your subjects’ problems?”
“You think I didn’t fucking try?” I retorted, now growing a little heated myself. “I must have forgotten the bit where I didn’t send Construct off on what was effectively a personal errand that was not part of her job description to try to keep my people going until harvest! The bit where I instilled draconian rationing measures to try to keep what little food we had going for as long as we possibly could!”
“Then why are four ponies dead, Inns?”
“Because I fucked up!”
The sudden volume of my voice made Blueballs flinch back, his frown softening slightly. It was too late for him to apologise, though; my dam had burst yet again. “Yes, fine, I admit it! Again! I fucked up, okay? I didn’t think! Do you know how much leadership experience I have? Five months’ worth! You think that’d have been enough for me to just suddenly develop sense? Disaster management? Horizontal thinking? I used to be a guy living in the middle of nowhere reading fucking books, before Celestia threw a crown at my face and you walked in here calling me a dirty fucking pig! How can you possibly expect me to not fuck up leading a thousand fucking people through a fucking famine? Forgive me, Ambassador, for expecting problems to go away once I come up and apply solutions to them!”
…
“…Christ Almighty,” I muttered, sinking down to a sitting position on the floor. “Three weeks without food. What the hell was I thinking?”
Apparently, we had both spent our anger now. Blueblood approached slowly, his frown now inquisitive instead of incensed. “Did you not think to check? On what was happening? Even if you had committed to a plan of action?”
“No,” I said tiredly. “I didn’t. I’d assumed that if anything more came up, it would have come up the same way every other problem came up to me before – just shoving itself into my face. And, well… it did. Just far too late for me to do anything other than minimise the fallout.”
“Did nopony inform you of what was happening in your Free State, Inns?”
“Whose job is it to babysit me, Ambassador?” My gaze turned piercing. “My sincere apologies for not having the time to hire a goddamn secretary to wipe my arse for me!”
“What about Construct?”
“What about her? If you’ve forgotten during your absence, Construct is a project manager of a glorified real estate development plan. She hasn’t got ties to this place in the same way you or I do – when she’s done with her job, she’ll fuck off. She is not my fucking maid. I’m sure you could have filled me in on what was going on in my Free State – if you were actually fucking here when shit went fan-wards. Maybe if someone came up to me and socked me in the face then, those four people might still be alive now.”
Blueblood didn’t have an answer to that. Not even a follow-up question. I hoped he got my point. That, or maybe he felt complicit in those deaths now. For some reason.
I sighed. “Well. Like I told Celestia – expensive fucking lessons, huh. At least I grew some sense right at the bloody end. That smaller field should be enough to stop more from dying, while we wait on the big one to finish this shit off.”
“Better late than never,” agreed Blueblood, in a tone that tried its best to not come off as bitter despite the implications of the words themselves. “I… I apologise for my vitriol. It was not my intent-”
“Don’t bother,” I said, picking myself up from the floor. “I deserved it. I expect to hear it again, even, the next time I fuck up.” I chuckled faintly. “That’s an order, Ambassador.”
“…I think I can do that,” said Blueblood, smiling.
I had given myself one day to wallow.
As it turned out, digging a grave was rather much work. True, I was never one for manual labour (of this sort, anyway), and true, I was still somewhat weakened from not quite eating enough, but I was still sweating and panting much more than I was expecting to. Four graves might well have put me in a fifth one. Still, as the hours passed, the earth moved, the pits grew… my mind wandered.
Before I had arrived in Equestria, I was… nobody. A student. An amateur poet. An enthusiast of… quite a few different fields. Perhaps I could have made some small difference to somebody’s life before I kicked the bucket. Preferably positive, I mean. Now, I was First Minister of a Free State that was just about to come out of a famine. I had bodies to my name, if only through negligence and idiocy. That was the legacy I had to my name at the moment.
Somehow, only now did it finally begin to feel real. Only when I was throwing soil over my shoulder onto a pile did the magnitude of what my life had come to really sink in. People had come to me hoping for better, and I’d failed them. Some of them, perhaps, but some was worse than none. And, apparently, the only person who found that even a little disquieting was myself. Not even the pony who considered herself the protector of all ponykind saw fault in me for leading four of her little ponies to an early demise.
Two graves dug.
It must have been that damned herd mentality. I’d have thought that death would have been much more serious in Equestria, for ponies, compared to Earth. Tragedies like that were not a fact of life here like they were there. And yet… I had had the great misfortune of having to come around to the families of the dead – no small feat, considering we still didn’t have a proper residence registry, and thus I didn’t know where ponies actually lived – and inform them of their loved ones’ deaths. Only one pony dared to even raise their voice at me.
I couldn’t understand why. Why wasn’t I blamed for it? Did I simply not explain myself enough? Did I have to provide proof of my complicity in their deaths before they’d feel justified slagging me off? It might sound silly to some, for me to desperately wish consequences for my actions – besides the ones I’d pushed on myself, I mean – but… at the same time, was it really okay for me to… simply get away with having let four people die?
I wasn’t even going to bury any pony here this day. I was digging empty graves to put empty coffins in. Just for the sake of making myself feel better. Of working through my feelings. The dead deserved better than that, didn’t they? I could have chosen to bury the one pony without any family here. Snapper was his name; the pony that Sawbones had brought in right in front of me, that day at the clinic. I thought I remembered him from somewhere before then. It didn’t make me feel any better that I couldn’t recall exactly where from.
Four graves dug.
One each for Snapper, Tinted Brass, Fern Crook, and Creosole. Not that they’d ever actually find their final resting places here, of course. The three with family would be released back to them. Snapper… was most likely going to be buried somewhere here in the Free State. Not here – this was just a personal ritual. Probably I’d have an actual graveyard set up alongside this fake one, elsewhere, or just have them cremated. Maybe.
Nevertheless, in went the four empty coffins. Filling the graves back up was significantly easier work. Before too long, only four rectangular patches of ruffed dirt marked my efforts – together with four white crosses, one at the head of each patch.
I stepped back, finally done, feeling the hours of labour across every sore muscle in my body. Honestly, now that it was done, it seemed simply laughable. What was the point of all this?
I exhaled, shaking my head. Despite it all, I did in fact feel a little better. Even though this simple empty gesture might not have meant anything to anyone other than myself. Even though this didn’t actually fix anything meaningful. Even though I could have spent this time better, more meaningfully than simply… paying homage. Even though I’d done all this for nothing.
I struck my shovel into the earth, fixing it in place, resting an arm on its handle to lean against it. I wasn’t a religious person, not really, but… I hoped, wherever the spirits of the dead were, whatever they might have thought of me… I hoped they knew I wasn’t going to forget them. Not now, not ever.
I looked up. It was tough to see the sun past the treetops dominating half the horizon, but the warm orange across the sky was a dead giveaway – I’d spent perhaps a little longer here than I’d intended. Mid-October evenings were deceptively chilly; it was fortunate I’d spent most of it digging, but now that I was not so preoccupied, the chill of the faint breeze billowing across the land sent me into shivers.
I looked back. Four white crosses stared me in the face.
I figured it was a small price to pay, to pay my respects to the ponies I’d failed.
Hey… guys. It’s me. I… I hope you’re in a better place now. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what I promised. I know better now, at least. I… hope you can take some small comfort in the knowledge that I learned from my mistakes. I’ll do my best to make sure no-one else has to join you here. I know where I’ve went wrong. I won’t fail anyone like that again. I…
I’d promise, but… I’d rather prove it.
I took my shovel with me when I left.
Construct was waiting for me at my door when I returned. A gentle smile was upon her.
“First Minister,” she greeted. “I was waiting for you here.”
“So I see,” I returned, sticking my shovel in the earth off to the side. I’d worry about it rusting later. “You got anything for me?”
“Crops are done,” she said, simply. A little too simply, for her, but I didn’t much care – harvest time had finally come around.
I sighed, sagging in place from relief I was sure I didn’t deserve to feel. “Oh, ye Gods,” I breathed. “Thank fuck. Yes,” I continued, more firmly, to Construct. “Get it done. I’ve…”
I didn’t bother finishing, but Construct clearly knew what I was trying to say, going by the crinkle around her eyes and the faintest of nods she threw at me. I walked past her into my house, having four months’ worth of exhaustion rush me all at once.
I couldn’t even take satisfaction in knowing that soon, my people would start getting fed properly again. Because they wouldn’t, would they? Was I really going to make the same mistake I’d made months ago? No – I was not. Spontaneous decision-making was a thing of the past – with my newfound experience, I was never going to do that. Rationing was going to be a fact of life in the Free State, until I’d solved our food insecurity definitively – or, failing that, until we’d done so.
I didn’t even bother undressing before I fell into bed, next to my roommate Lyra – who, I was heartened greatly to discover when I put a hand on her, was still warm, and breathing – and alive. There, at least, was one person who I had not failed yet.
And, God willing, one person, of thousands, who I would never fail.