I stared up at the dark ceiling, wide awake.
Tomorrow was the first day. Celestia was leaving early tomorrow morning and then the majority of her duties would land on me. I had spent the last couple of days going over the schedule and Celestia promised to give me a set of notes but mostly she just wanted me to just figure things out.
While it was nice that she thought I could do this, this was the same mare that thought that releasing Discord was a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, I love Celestia, but at times she wasn’t the brightest alicorn.
Sun powers aside.
If I stay awake and stare up at the ceiling and am bored enough, the night will last forever.
The door creeped open and Luna moved inside carefully, peering in my direction, “Still awake?” she asked and crossed the room to climb into the bed next to me.
“What was I thinking? Luna, I’m an idiot,” I groaned and covered my eyes, “I can’t do this.”
“You’ll do fine, My Page,” Luna said and settled down next to me to look down at me, “I’ll help you any way I can and I’m sure Twilight will do the same.”
Pulling her close, I hid my face in her mane.
“…no, seriously. I can’t do this. Luna, if I do this we’ll be at war in fifteen hours. You know how I feel about politics. This won’t end well. I’ll snap and set some sort of ambassador on fire.”
Luna shook her head, “No you won’t. You can’t really use fire spells, remember?”
I glared at her, “Be serious!”
“I will, when you are,” Luna countered with a smile, lifting her head to look at me, “Page, you will do fine.”
Swallowing, I took a deep breath, “…I’ll try.”
Luna hmmed and scooted up to bump her nose against mine, teal eyes almost glowing in the dark, “And how about at the end of every day you finish without starting a major incident, you get a surprise…” she purred.
I blinked at her.
Luna really should be a motivational speaker. Morale completely restored.
XXXXXXXXX
“And here is today’s schedule, Lord Page,” Grey Velvet said and set the calendar before me on the desk, “Today is relatively light and easy.”
Picking it up, I read through it.
The morning was pretty much paperwork followed by lunch and then open court followed by a meeting with some sort of group and then paperwork until dinner.
“Not as bad as I expected,” I admitted and shifted my wings before sipping my tea, “What is the meeting about?”
“The funding of Canterlot Hospital for the next year,” the unicorn said with a smile, flicking through her clipboard, “But it is just a preliminary meeting before the real one next week.”
I slowly nodded, “Oh. So, I’ll just be deciding how much money will be spent on ponies in case of life and death. No pressure.”
That got a smile from the unicorn, “I hardly think Princess Celestia would leave you to do this if she didn’t think you could do it, Lord Page.”
I looked at her and then sighed and sipped my tea, “That doesn’t mean I have to agree with her. Tomorrow's schedule?”
“Right here,” she said and turned the page.
Picking the calendar up, I flipped through it. Meeting, court, meeting. Paperwork, budget meeting. Inspecting the royal guard.
Ambassadorial dinner, ambassadorial dinner, meeting about trade agreements.
New griffon ambassador arrives next week.
Hmming, I turned the next page. Yep, there is the reception to greet him. More meetings.
She was right, today was easy. Some of the other days were basically packed from sunrise to sunset.
“Question, Miss Velvet… how many of these do I ‘have’ to take?”
“As many as you want to, My Lord. It’s up to you.”
I slowly nodded and turned back to the first page again, “Let’s keep it like it is right now. As for the griffon ambassador’s arrival, make a note that we should serve griffon food. I noticed that last time all we served was pony food.”
Velvet raised an eyebrow, looking uncertain, “…Like what, My Lord?”
“Fish for example. I’m sure we will be able to find somepony that can handle it?” I asked, closing the calendar.
She cringed a bit and then nodded, “Of course, Lord Page. I will attempt to find somepony…”
“Perhaps a griffon? They would know it the best.”
“Of course.”