//------------------------------//
// Cabotage 
// Story: The Last Dreams of Pony Island 
// by horizon 
//------------------------------//

Cabotage

Ai.  Ai!
I'm cursed!
It's a curse,
it's the only explanation.

Two missing boats in a row,
and now Peridot falls into the bay
on a late-night walk.
Not that I'm not glad
the witch is dead,
but suspicious suicides
are never good for business.

Never mind Majority
and his talk of murder,
whipping up panic 
to distract everypony
from our crippling taxes.
How can anyone believe
his overheated tripe?
The old witch once tripped
over her front porch steps
and accused me
of sabotaging her storefront
with my magic!
She didn't need help
falling off a dock.

Ai,
I suppose
I should be glad
he's not pointing the hoof
right at me,
a week after I shouted
at the town meeting
he should lower taxes
just to shut the old witch up.

And now she's gone,
and I get a double share
of Myinnkyun's import trade,
which—let me multiply—
since the HMCS Pegafore
and the SS Tradewind
have both vanished
into the Brahmin Ocean,
is two times zero,
meaning ZERO!

No income since Summer Sun
yet I still have to pay duties
to keep the garrison drunk
while an army of sand-crickets
assault Myinnkyun's towering walls
with chirps of song!
Ai, ai!