It had been two hours, two long arduous hours, until, finally, Trixie had made her way through every single inane form and agonizing petition.
"Somepony's abusing the 'urgent' sticker," she grumbled.
But that was fine, a few hours lost was nothing really; she could go to bed, have a power nap, and enjoy the rest of her day. Surely nopony else would think to bring work in. Surely.
Trixie had been utterly convinced of her freedom; right until a light brown old Pegasus mare with a thinning grey mane cantered into her office without so much as a "how do you do".
Being a good host was not entirely natural for Trixie but she wasn't about to chase the old mare -with her obviously overburdened saddle bags- out of her office too quickly, no matter how much she wanted a break.
After sitting the old mare down with some tea Trixie opted to hear out what ever her concern was. Who knew it might actually be important, unlike those horrific offers of a photo-shoot in play pony magazine she kept getting. 'I hope Ditzy didn't get any, what if Dinky saw them?!.'
"Oh! You're too kind Madame, oh I mean Dame Trixie." the mare replied kindly, taking a sip of her tea; Trixie repressed a smirk of pride and instead gave a polite smile, it was nice to be acknowledged.
"Oh, i'm just doing my part madame." she replied, her tone a mixture of polite humility and barely restrained smugness.
Shaking her head the mare replied, "Oh no Dame Representative" -two titles!- Trixie reflected happily.
Unaware of Trixie's internal celebration the mare continued. "Our old representative was terrible, even when he bothered to do any work it wasn't very good and he'd take any chance he could to spend the day skiving off, dozing, eating fatty foods and drinking. Couldn't depend on him to tell us what color the sky was, not that we'd ever need it." she added half seriously.
'Hah! take that Blueblood, Someponies round here really do appreciate me.' she thought with pride, it almost made sitting through all that nonsense this morning worth it. 'Though if Blueblood really did get forms telling him that he needed a bunny on his mailbox to seem more approachable I can't blame him for drinking.' she mused.
"Why thank you madame it's always a pleasure to meet a mare such as yourself; so what can I, Dame Representative Trixie, do for you this fine afternoon?" she asked politely, her hoof waving for the mare to come forward with her concern.
The elderly pony shook her head in the negative and rose from her seat, hooves clip clopping against the hard wood floor as she stood on her rickety old legs. Trixie was worried for a moment she'd simply collapse right there.
"Oh it's nothing much Dame Trixie, I was simply going to drop off a little petition, feel free to look it over when ever you need, it's hardly urgent." she replied sweetly. Reaching back into her saddlebags, the old pony removed a single sheet of paper with her teeth and placed it down upon Trixie's desk.
Smiling, Trixie replied "but of course madame, i'd be happy to, i'll do it right now if you want." she said confidentially, it was a minor thing, no trouble at all really.
"But there is one more thing, i'm sure it won't be a problem for you Dame, but on my way in I saw some paper, it seemed somepony had left some forms for you on the porch of all things rather than with you, i'm sure it was just a mistake." she aid sweetly, reaching back to her saddle bags.
'It can't be that many, she said only few!' Trixie thought desperately.
Seeing the old mare struggling and not wanting the Pegasus to hurt herself, Trixie instinctively sent out a light wave of telekinetic energy to aid the old mare and she gripped what felt alike a brick made of paper.
'There has to be over a hundred of those things!' she thought, her eye's zeroing in on the thrice damned "urgent" tags sticking of the forms sides. Trixie let out an tiny whimper of equal part rage and despair as the papers dropped to her desk with a resounding "thump."
"Oh thank you Dame Trixie, so kind of you, don't know how much longer I could have held those up; well i'll leave you to your work have a wonderful day Representative!" she said Cheerily, cantering out of catatonic mare's office with far more energy than with which she'd entered.
In the distance Trixie could make could hear her front door swinging shut and accompanying it was the sound of muzzle meeting desk. Trixie idly glanced through half lidded eye's at her now empty tea pot, 'no more tea bags, no more coffee and it's to early for bourbon.' the representatives eye's drifted back to the seemingly mountainous pile of work still ahead of her; Trixie sighed and started humming a funeral dirge.
"Nopony knows the troubles I've seen, nopony knows but me..."
Far away from the small town of Ponyville, the young knight's sentiment was being mirrored by a monocle wearing and mustachioed archduke, currently residing at his desk and surrounded by a dozen stacks of paper and open folders. Stray paper seemed to spread out on every nearby surface and even onto the light gray floor; practically trapping him behind the dark mahogany desk at the back of his long spacious office.
'I'd never given much thought to that childish, -the paper work seems to breed- joke, but now I have to wonder.' he reflected, the archduke's eye's almost glazing over as he took in the amount of work ahead of him and just how far behind he'd fallen.
Repressing a groan of irritation Fisher lifted his head from the tax forms he was trying to revise, money was being wasted on useless projects and he needed to make somepony see it, he thought sternly; as he rolled his neck until he hearing the characteristic pop.
It had not been a good week for Archduke Fisher, nor a good month in fact, he reflected. Life had seemingly been going downhill ever since the disastrous events of the Gala.
He repressed a shudder, thinking on his princess's ultimatum. He'd been hoping for years for the court to be lambasted for their childish and self serving games, only to have been caught up in the mess himself.
"Damn them all" he ground out bitterly.
His eye's glancing over his tastefully decorated main office, deeply colored drapes inscribed with his family seal upon the walls, sculptures and trinkets he'd received as gifts or that served as examples of some new magical engineering and enchantment project.
'How could I have been included in that? Yes, the factory was my decision, the resources were needed elsewhere, couldn't she see?!' no, nopony could see the importance of his work except him. Nowadays he could scarcely get a word in edgewise in most circles. his "tribablist" remarks had left him isolated, socially and politically, somehow they'd even seeped into the tabloids so he was dealing with complaints and accusation that he'd fired none unicorn workers unfairly!
'The nerve!' he thought, puffing out his chest importantly.
He couldn't keep distracting himself though, in a few months everything would surely settle down and he could speak to the princess alone and enlighten her as to the importance of his work, until then he had to continue proving his mettle and he wasn't going to do that by sulking.
Unenthusiastically he returned his attention to the tax forms in front of him, his entire form completely over shadowed by the piles of paper work stacked up in front of him.
'Even my own aides have abandoned me!' he groused, telekinetically reaching out for the bottle of water stored in a bucket of ice all the way on the other-side of his office.
He sighed, idly considering cracking open a bottle of gin he'd received as a gift from one of his factory owners and kept on the desk for when the pony in question came by; but it was far to early to consider a drink, furthermore Fisher had never been able to stand anything but perfectly aged scotch, everything would just leave him feeling ill.
One might wonder why a pony as practical as Archduke Fisher would agree to take on so much work that he'd have been able to so easily fall behind.
Normally this sort of work would mean nothing to him, it was why he kept so many aides at his side at all times: all of them were thoroughly trained, intelligent, and able to recite facts and figures at a moments notice. Together those six fine unicorns had allowed Fisher to sort through paper work, both political & business with the ease of a perfectly efficient printing press.
Much of the work could technically be handled by his employees, at least the business concerns, but if Fisher wasn't there to look over their shoulders every other day they'd make some sort of foolish mistake and it wasn't as though he could trust some commoner with governing a province. The archduke restrained an undignified guffaw at the mere thought of it.
'Commoners leading a country, ridiculous.' he reflected, before glancing again at the seeming ever growing stack of paper; 'there must be over a thousand of them!.'
'I could really use my Assistants right now' the the Archduke reflected mournfully. But where were they in his hour of need when the next form could very well determine the fate of the nation and have nothing to do with casual Fridays!
Having a day off! Some ridiculous holiday and unlike normal the offer of a politely sized bonus had not been enough to keep his Assistants at work, instead they'd disappeared off to revel with their fellow commoners while the ponies that did all the real work were stuck signing papers.
'The injustice of it all!'
His throat dry, Fisher once again reached out with his natural born magic, finally grasping the elusive bottle the Archduke returned his attention to the paper work, he was done with the the Taxes for the moment, with that though in mind he dragged another form in-front of him.
But before he could so much as glance at it, his hold on the bottle slacked, just slightly and just enough for it to swing into the largest stack of papers. The expected happened, as a terrific and horrific domino effect ensued.
The archduke desprate to keep at least on thing in his office straight slammed his hoof against the form in front of him -forgetting his water- and watched helplessly as his work fell apart before him. The glass bottle simultaneously released so suddenly from its magical confines spun out of control, leaving a spray of clear liquid over the nobles desk and papers.
"No, no this cannot be happening, not today of all days" he ground out desperately. Hoping if he could just close his eyes for a moment everything would go back to normal.
Archduke Fisher was left in the awkward position of quite literally being buried in paperwork, another metaphor he had never before considered. He was tired, dark shadows surrounded his eyes making keeping his monocle in place difficult, but he could not stop working yet, it would make a mockery of everything he stood for!
Rather than begin the futile task of reorganizing his work in such a state Fisher in stead pulled forth the only form that had escaped the disaster unscathed.
'If I can just finish this one, i'll be back on track.' he thought. Right before his eye's began watering at what met him.
The Archduke could take no more he threw up his hooves and clutched his aching head in desperation "what does it all mean?!" he cried.
"Why is it all in Prench?!" The noble archduke neglected to look at the back of the two sided form.
Elsewhere seated on a red cushioned silver lined lounge far lager than would be considered practical for anything but five ponies, richly adorned in the finest jewelry and surrounded by some of the greatest artwork and food in Equestria Vicereine Puissance huffed in annoyance. Her lunch break was almost over.
'Soon, i'll have to return to dealing with all of that mundane, minutiae work!' she though irritably, she'd made good headway through the morning but that didn't make it any less boring. Unlike closing a deal of experimenting with one hew newest purchases.
'One more slice of cake won't hurt and if my lunch break foes a bit longer who will care?' she asked nopony but herself.
'Even Solar Flare is gone!' She thought with irritation. Looking over from her comfortable seat at the small stack of papers on her desk over in the center of the -throne room-, it wasn't that large, but it was still unreasonable to expect "her" of all ponies to spend time on such horrid work.
Tragically Her Chief of Staff had been invited by one her other assistants down to the vault where the Vicereine kept her other precious oddities. Normally Puissance was happy to let her Solar Flare off for a day, normally the mare would stay by her side regardless, but this time she'd been invited to some sort of celebration and had not refused.
It was actually rather disquieting since, when not away, Solar Flare would normally be by her side like a loyal hound.
'A loyal hound that could help with this rubbish they call paper work for me.' she sighed despondently, reaching over to the small table next to her chair and taking a lazy bite out of the cake she had waiting for her.
Ever since Princess Luna's explosion of childish petulance after the Gala, Vicereine Puissance had been far more restricted in what she could do for entertainment, add in that the princess seemed far more insistent than every that ever noble appear at court meant she was thoroughly overworked!
'Only 12 hours beauty sleep, i'm going to fall apart!'
Oh and of course now that her position was weakened in Luna's eye's some of her old rivals and relatives were starting to come forward, causing no end of headaches for her.
Shaking her head, Puissance redoubled her efforts on her cake. 'Maybe I should give the whiners some cake, it would perhaps make them cease their unjustified complaints.' she thought.
A few minutes fast and the Vicereine slowly and meticulously ate her cake, ensuring not a crumb was missed, she certainly wasn't trying to waste time to avoid work.
"All good things come to an end" she sighed, looking at the empty plate. "I suppose I really should finish those reports, really nopony knows the amount of work I must suffer through!"
In a small, smartly decorated and meticulously organised office Viceroy Nightlight continued to work, the very model of efficiency.
"Awfully quiet today" he mused, his eye's not straying from his work.
Duke Greengrass was not a happy noble, he hadn't been in an especially good mood for months now unless he was in his garden, but today was even more irritating than usual, his shadow and most prized assistant had disappeared. He couldn't blame her, not exactly, it was a holiday after-all and it would look bad for him to have seemingly "kept" her working through it.
Still that left him stuck at home with nothing to do, the two of them had spent the previous day puling double time to get all his work out of the way, sadly this left him with nothing to do.
So instead he was down in his garden contemplating new schemes, all of which he'd have to run by Notary when she returned.
A small part of him wanted to simply drop the spade or, more accurately, finish planting the extremely rare flower, then drop the spade gallop out into the streets and engage in a little free for all in the great game of the court and life. Sadly that wasn't an option, not only had Luna clamped down on anything remotely fun about Courtly sports but no one would listen to him anyway he thought miserably, before returning his attention to the newly planted flower.
'Seeing as Notary's not here it's probably for the best' he ruminated, leaving the flower to it's new home and instead pouring himself a light coffee, anything stronger left him jittery these days.
'After all, last time I tried to get a plan running without going through Notary first it didn't end well.' he reflected.
It wasn't that he entirely depended upon Notary to aid in any of his old plan's success, but she provided valuable assistance and she could be trusted to carry out her part without fault; even if she could be overly critical and a bit of a killjoy sometimes, it was what he paid her for.
'Besides, I still remember the first holiday she took' the young Duke reflected with a shudder.
Notary had been working as his primary assistant for two years, and ,as useful as she was, he'd started to feel a bit smothered. It seemed no plan he concocted got away without her at least trying to change something, and, while they always went of without a hitch, even before she arrived he'd been looking forward to throwing something really grand together without needing to justify it to anypony.
'It had seemed like such a good idea at the time too.' He reflected, 'But working with Notary had made me forget how spectacularly incompetent everypony else can be'.
The exact sequence of even which lead to him winding up dangling by his tail from a three story building, while wearing a monster mask and sporting red whelps on his rump, was one he would rather never have to contemplate again.
That Princess Luna, of all ponies, saved him, thankfully without bothering to look beneath the mask, was just a perfectly ironic cherry on top of the embarrassment sundae that day had been. Upon her return Notary had been able to coax him from under his bed by forging no less than four alibi in twenty minutes to safeguard him from further humiliation.
"I think I'll just stay in today," mused Greengrass, "It's probably the safest thing to do."
Normally anypony in Prince Blueblood's office would be able to hear the quiet -tick tock- of an old grandfather clock, or at least it looked old: it was actually made on special order two years earlier and he'd bought it solely to make his office look even more sophisticated.
Sadly when there was no work to be done, no assistants trotting about and generally nothing for Blueblood to do, the infernal ticking was incredibly irritating! So he'd done the only thing that had made sense at the time: he proceeded to turn the wretched thing off. It had taken three tries before he remembered how as normally one of his aides would do the job.
Blueblood sighed, 'I really shouldn't have done that, now I don't even know what the time is. Of all the days to forget my watch.' he thought irritably, barely holding his head aloft as he gazed at the door expectantly.
-Knock knock!- "Bluey, you in there?" a chipper voice called out.
The sound cut through his bored daze like a knife through hot butter. The young Viscount flung himself from his chair and made for the door; completely forgetting his magic.
The door swung open and revealed a bouncing pink earth pony, a large smile on her muzzle, a dark pink fluffy mane and a large bowl with some pink mixture inside it balanced precariously on her back.
Blueblood smiled. "Right on time miss Pie," he said, despite having no idea what time it actually was.
Without missing a beat she bounced into his office cooing at the array of fancy and expensive item he had laid out, though she stopped not far from the door.
"Thanks, I actually thought I was a little late, getting the strawberry frosting ready took way longer than I expected; wow your office is so big, I practically got lost on my way here" she said cheerily.
Before he could say anything she continued on, "Seems kinda lonely though I think you and I are the only ponies here?" she said, sounding half amused and half suspicious as she looked him over; Blueblood gave a rueful smirk.
"Of course my dear, it's a public holiday after-all, well for anypony but we noble members of the Night Court, I simply couldn't bear the thought of such a lonely day without you though, so I got everything in order yesterday. It would be hardly gentlemanly of me to invite you here only to work wouldn't it?" he asked, putting on his most charming smile, his right eyebrow disappearing under his blonde mane.
Pinkie Pie's smile became down right devious as she replied, "So it's just us, alone on the whole floor all night long, right?" he nodded, "with no chance for anypony to interrupt us?" the puffy pink pony asked slyly, glancing at him through half lidded eyes; Blueblood couldn't hold back a smirk.
"Most assuredly, the whole floor is at our disposal" he replied..
He was pleased to see her break out into a joyful smile, her tail flicking in excitement.
"Then let's get baking!" she cried, slamming the door behind her.
If anypony had been around they could have heard the muffled giggles of the two ponies echo through the empty lobby.