Why in the world did I agree to this?
I just couldn’t figure it out. Oh yeah, Celestia asked. Stupid alicorns. In every single sense of the word.
Hesitating by the doors, I looked at the gold inlays, adjusted my cloak with my magic and then my medallion. Why the ever flying fuck did I agree to this!?
I thought only Luna could talk me into doing this fucking stuff. No, apparently, you just needed to be female! Damn it!
Renewing my illusion, I took a deep breath before letting it out and entered through the doors. The guards went to attention as I approached the thrones, ignoring the ponies gathered to the side of the throne_room to watch.
Nope. Not happening.
Celestia can have her fun and I don’t mind helping out… not too much. But that’s not happening. Ignoring the thrones, I sat stood between and in_front of them before sitting down.
“Lord Page?” Light Velvet said as the unicorn approached. She was pretty young for her position as one of Luna’s court assistants, wearing a simple dark blue dress with her white coat and pale grey mane, “Good evening.”
“Good evening, Miss Velvet.” I answered with a nod, “How are you tonight?”
“Doing very well, Lord Page,” She answered with a smile, shifting the papers floating in her magic before continuing, “…We have gotten quite a lot of last minute appointments. As soon as ponies found out that Night Court would reopen even though Princess Luna was not back yet, we got hundreds of applicants.”
Oh, joy.
Likely nobles and merchants thinking they could get things past me they couldn’t get past Celestia or Luna.
Please let me not fuck this up.
“What’s first on the agenda tonight then?” I sighed.
“One Lady Glittershine would like to discuss the purchase of mining rights for the hills outside the village of Stonebend. A vein of Opal had been located there of exceptional purity. The claim and mining rights are being contested by the Grapevine family whom has a vineyard on the other side of the hill. Here are all the documents and an map of the area,” she explained and floated some papers and a map over.
Hmm. The hill wasn’t that big to be honest. Where was the water table? Mining was to be done by mostly earth ponies as they had the best affinity for the work.
Explosives and picks mostly. Or even water and fire where things were too fragile for explosives, such as digging gems out.
Finally, I nodded, “Send them in,” I said without looking up from the papers floating before me.
It didn’t take long before a voice interrupted my reading, “Lord Page, I would like to thank you for seeing to this case even though Princess Luna is unavailable.”
“Mhmm.” I answered and switched paper, barely glancing up at the bright blue unicorn mare, covered in enough jewelry to start a chain.
I just kept reading until she cleared her throat, “…Lord Page?”
I looked up at her, “Yes?”
Lady Glittershine visibly hesitated, “If you would sign the papers, I’ll stop taking up your valuable time, Lord Page. As you see, the counter claim is completely baseless. The mine wouldn’t be on their side of the hill and wouldn’t extend beneath their land.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening. The mine would pollute the ground water; It’s below the water table and way too close to large farms, not only belonging to the Grapevine family, but half the valley,“ I answered and shuffled the papers together, “Not only no, but fuck no.”
“Lord Page! You can’t possibly mean-”
“I do. Sweet dreams now, Lady Glittershine.”
“The Princesses would never…”
I raised my eyebrow as I watched her slowly trail off and then make a frustrated sound before storming off,
“I’ll be logging an official protest with Princess Celestia!”
You do that.
I really should have expected something like that. Without one of the Princesses, with me being really, really inexperienced in this stuff, of course they would try to ram stuff like that through.
I’m so fucking glad I refuse to have this as my day… well, night job. Luna can bloody well keep it in my opinion.
The peanut gallery was full of whispers and talks along the sides of the room where the normal onlookers were gathered.
Also not unexpected. Honestly, if it wasn’t the middle of the night I would have expected even more ponies to show up to watch. Now it was only the ones without jobs in the morning and enough spare time to waste here. Meaning, the normal rich hanger-ons and lobbyists that hung around the throne room when Luna held court.
Well, whisper on.
I may have agreed to do this, but if I’m to do it, I’m doing it my way and I have zero patience with your normal bullshit.
Luna sits and listens to it all calmly and then make her ruling.
Celestia could do the same with a smile.
I’ll hear you and read the information available. But I won’t suffer your crap.
“The next one, Miss Velvet?” I asked, looking over to the unicorn standing by the side with a stack of papers.
Smiling, she nodded and stepped up with a single paper. “A dispute between the families Harnthrew and Pineapple regarding the payment owed over the water from a well.”
“…How many of those do we have?”
“Four more, Lord Page,” she said with a smile, “We also have an application for Crown sponsorship for a business and other requests of loans and favours from the crown.”
At least those sounded interesting.
I took the paper Velvet held out for me and read through it. Seemed clear enough, one claimed there was a vocal agreement for a monthly fee for the water used and the other said there was no such thing. Lower courts had failed to get them to agree.
“Very well, send them in please.”
Oh well, back into the bullshit mine we go.
Its 11:24pm go to sleep
Celestia: "Yes, that's it, get into the van, Page. We're going ruling."
Page: "There is something not quite---YOU SONUVA- You got me ruling! Never get me ruling, I'm totally insane!"
*Vase opens up so a dark blue hoof can high-hoof Celestia.*
Next chapter, the press conference!
Am I the only one that wants to read more about all these inane court cases? Yes? ... No? ... I'll be quiet now.
8077336 Could be good. Just Page gripping the arms of the throne chair, grinding his teeth.
"Don't smack them, don't smack them, don't smack rhen..."
It would be funny if Celestia conned Page to help her out during the day at times. XD
Though it would be interesting hearing responses to Page's court decisions, also Changelings are the best miners.
8077297 it was 12:32 pm from where I am. *Shrugs*
My goodness, Page sure does hate politics.
Lord Page 1: Noble jerks 0
So this'll be something, no doubt just being Luna's herald had the nobles plot for various means to deal with him, be it murder or blackmail. But now he's really gonna rack up the points before he even reveals his ascension.
Let's see how things go
8077344 And on occasion, stare at the stack of applications and glance to the nearest torch, and contemplate setting it on fire via "accident".
I dont know why but I love it when stories on here show the princesses (or page in this case) solve ponies problems or deal with snobbish nobels in court.
I hope you a liitle more before or after the press conference and if the ponies find him off puting or more approachable with his behavior to bullshit.
8077336 Yeah, a quick look at some cases, how they went. Maybe 1 or two of them being real interesting cases or mysteries. One of them could set a precedent that neither Luna nor Celestia tried.
8077297
8077380 it was 2:24pm where I am
I now want a law and order equestria
That moment when you realize that you should stop reading other people's fanfics and actually get to finishing your own.
8077488 In the criminal justice system, the ponies are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The guards, who investigate crime, and the Princesses, who banish the offenders. These are their stories.
8077336 hell no.
Page ruling and dealing with applicants in his unique way?
I'll be more than ok with some more of these sprinkled in as chapters. :)
8077543 I third the motion! All in favor of Lord Blank Page becoming the Equestrian equivalent of Judge Judy...?
8077537 change groups for corps... All will be well
Please please longer chapters.... we nearly get anywhere when it's allready over!
I'd love to wait a bit for the chapter to come out but these short ones (while amazing) are slowly killing me!
The cases are real
The rulings are final.
The pony's court.
8077593 AYE!
8077713 all he needs now is a catchy sounding tune and a band to play it.
Not really an ending. I understand this is one of your longer chapters, but I feel this was cut right in the middle of some comedy. I get if you want to keep each chapter/update to 1000 words but in that case I would prefer the next chapter/update to be chapter 37 part 2 (called 38 if you want).
As 8077612 says: "I'd love to wait a bit for the chapter to come out but these short ones (while amazing) are slowly killing me!"
Same here buddy, same here.
8077336
Yeah, I hear and 38+ do too.
8077713
Brilliant!
8077612 or he could publish everything he have, and that's probably the full story?.
(if you look at the publishing date's its every second day for 3 months, and that's pretty much impossible if he not already pretty far in the story, if not already finished)
8077852
Yes and no. There maybe a story plan but then be writing a day ahead of time instead of having it all done. There's many ways to write a story.
I agree with Lord Page I have a vary low tolerance for BS.
fighting over a water wheal this is a easy fix make booth party's dig new wheals and fill the old one in with the dirt or they can simply get along with the one.
I might stop reading this for a couple weeks just to accrue a backlog of chapters to read. I dunno. These short chapters are just so light on content. It's like being hungry then eating one grape.
The pain of every straight male ever...
Yayyyyyy! :)
8077537 love it
Love it mate, keep up the good work!
Also it would be fun to read more of Page in night court.
I'm counting down the chapters before Page tosses a noble through one of the windows....
There's been several stories where OCs have done that--maybe there should be a vignette contest between authors to see whose OC does it with the best flair?
Oh, don't worry Page. This is just the beginning, the practice for your future ruling.
8077336 I usually enjoy them, if for nothing more than a few laughs. Sometimes there are legitimate concerns though. For instance, even though this one seemed cut and dry, Its only because Page understands the impact the mining would have on the area's water supply. Some may not think of that and just go with the unicorn mare.
I could see that becoming a thing with Page. His departing moniker as it t'were.
I feel like these chapters have gotten to be less like stories and more like tiny updates in between whatever big threat is going to pop up bext. Honestly I really like these "Slice of Life" chapters, but I wish they were more in depth. The story is progressing but it doesnt really feel like the characters are developing much in the story, the best anology I can think of for this is a line of numbers (Representing the characters development) 1 being the start and 10 being the end, these tiny chapters are like "1... 2... 3..." then they skip 4-9 and the next chapter comes out and the character is at 10. Its like the readers have to fill in the blanks and imagine their own scenarios.
Vocal Agreement? They would require a physical document signed by both parties for the payment agreement to be legally binding. I would have to look deeper into it to see where ownership and supposed agreements were in place.
8081893 thats equestria. Not your country
8081985
Fully aware of that, but would you take a case of 'he said-she said' without some form of proof? They would have to produce more than "they said this and i say it's not true."
Hmm... JJDIDTIEBUCKLE. The T is painfully absent in this court is seems. At least he is honest, even if it’s brutal.
8081893
Actually for example in Germany, a vocal agreement is legally binding it is just so that if you go to court with it how are you ging to proof that this agreement was made?
If it was just between 2 people than it is 1 vs 1 so court decides in favor of the one accused oft breaking the agreement, so in the end nothing happens
8077336
Pretty sure Page's cases would go a little like this:
8077336
Moi!!!!
reminds me of "a mark of appeal" by Estee: it starts with Luna holding night court for the first time since her return. half the petitioners were ponies Celestia had already said no to, the rest were extremely petty problems.
Page rolls the Nobels over
LIKE A BOSS
9226803
Dude I really miss that show to be honest. Thanks for making me feel old.
11069648
Don't sweat it old timer.
Alicorn Blank Page... Deal with it 🤘
11069648
It's now on dvd and Fimfiction is writing masterpieces of the MLP universe that let's the comics look like foals work.
11315361
To be young again 👍