//------------------------------//
// Chapter 34 
// Story: Other Duties As Required 
// by Hiver 
//------------------------------//

Slipping back into wakefulness, I slowly blinked my eyes open. The sounds of the village drifted up from outside and it was well after sunset.

Not sure if it was my little tantrum or getting to spend some time with ponies I loved and talk things over that did it, but I felt more relaxed than I had in months.

Stuff is still bad, but we'll deal with it as it comes. Somewhere during… talks… today I even had some ideas. Vague unformed ideas, but ideas.

Pulling my wings a bit tighter around myself, I yawned before slowly relaxing and stretching before letting go with my tail. A flap of my wings put me down on the floor and I stretched again.

Fooood.

Leaving the bedroom for the living room, I find breakfast already laid out. Multiple kinds of fruits, diced mango, even a bowl of strawberries.

And a glass of ice tea.

Smiling, I moved to sit down, pulling the bowl of mango over and picking a cube up in my magic to eat.

Love mango. Luckily, they were really common in the jungle here, we were unlikely to ever run out of those at least.

There was a short knock on the door and I glanced up, "Enter."

Flower Rain slipped inside, "Good evening, your majesty," she said with a smile.

"Good evening, Flower," I answered, "Had breakfast yet?"

"Yes sir," she agreed with a nod, "Sleep well?"

I smiled a bit, "Actually yes. I did. And before I forget, Midnight is bringing some visitors back. They're Kirin and their entire village might be moving in if they like what they see."

Flowers eyed widened slightly, "Kirin? What's a Kirin? And how many?"

I flicked one ear, "Kirin are..." I started before I considered how to explain it, "They are to unicorns as bats are to pegasi. They have horns and magic, but it's more elemental. They apparently have scales on their backs like a dragon and manes that are more like that of a lion," I said before I frowned, "I never actually seen one myself."

Flower slowly nodded with a frown of her own, "They're coming here?"

I sighed and nodded, "Midnight found them on her expedition. I'm not sure we can handle that sort of influx easily, but they're barely a thousand of them left that we know of. Midnight thinks it may help moving them to a new environment."

"..Just a thousand," Flower said softly, her ears drooping, "But sir, at those population numbers..."

We had done a lot of research on sustainable population numbers during the setup of Nocturnis. The five thousand bats or so remaining was a safe number as long as we weren't dumb about it.

A thousand however...

That was on the lower limit of what was even possible.

I sighed and nodded, "I know. But nothing says they have to keep to themselves, all ponies are cross compatible. If we weren't, bats would have died out long ago."

Flower nodded in agreement before taking a deep breath, "A thousand, I'm not sure we had a single intake that big since forever."

"Yes," I agreed, "We're going to need to check with their representatives when they arrive, but I suspect they prefer to keep their hooves on the ground. That would make things easier."

"It would," she agreed thoughtfully, "But I know we don't have enough ground structures for them, even temporarily. But at least they’re cheaper and faster to build."

I smiled, "Flower, they're not all arriving tomorrow. We have a couple of weeks until their representatives arrive and nothing says their entire village will pile onto a train at once even if they decide they like it and want to move here. We'll have plenty of time, they might even like to build their own housing. We don't know yet."

She slowly nodded, "That makes it better."

"It does," I agreed, "When they arrive, we'll find out more. If they eat like dayponies or what. In honesty, it would likely not be a bad thing to get more ponies that prefer being awake during the day, especially if they have magic. As I understand, lack of ponies with magic is one of the bottlenecks we have in several of our endeavors."

Flower now looked thoughtful, "That's also true, sir. It may be a problem if they need a lot of grains we can't grow here, but we could always expand our ricefields more to offset it a bit."

"We likely should anyway," I mused, "And on different spots in the river for redundancy. Our goal is for our population to grow after all and having a buffer for failed fields would be good."

She nodded, "We do have some of that, but we don't have enough ponies for many more of them. At least ponies that know how to farm."

"Don't have to be an earth pony to pull a plow."

Do you even plow for rice? I have no idea. I should likely know that.

"No, but it certainly helps," Flower said and sighed, "And bats as well as most pegasi are pretty useless at it. Not only are we too light to get a good enough grip, but our wings get in the way of harnesses. That along with the strength difference mean that earth ponies are something like five times faster in finishing a field. Maybe Kirin are farmers? They have to be, right?"

"Well, they had to eat something in that valley they lived in," I mused, "Another thing to check I suppose. But this might actually be a self solving issue as long as they don't just all jump on the train and arrive at once."

"Sounds like it," Flower said with a thoughtful frown, "I'll pull Solid and Fluttershy into it, see what they think. See if we can't have some preliminary site surveys so we have somewhere to show when the representatives arrive as an example on where housing can be built."

I nodded and chewed a piece of mango, "Good plan. We have a couple of weeks before their leaders even get here with Midnight. What's on the schedule for today?"

"Well, there is a meeting with the merchants council at midnight and then a guard inspection just after," Flower said, not even checking her clipboard, "After which there is an open four for three hours. And I have some new papers for you to look at after that and I'm sure Starlight has the same."

"Likely," I agreed and sipped my tea.

Starlight had really thrown herself into the administrative stuff. She seemed to like the structure of it, she was like some sort of bureaucratomancer.

She was actually really helpful.

Chewing on a strawberry, I then nodded, "Alright, anything for this evening until midnight?"

"Nothing scheduled, sir," Flower said with a smile, "So I guess you have a free evening. Any plans?"

I thought about going flying or something but then shook my head, "You know, I think I might just read a book."

"That sounds like a good plan."