The One Who Got Away
The Baron of Fen
“I sing of arms and the pony, he who, exiled by fate…”
—Virgill, The Aeneid
“Four-hundred and thirty five errors.” Those noble eyes had never once quit scanning the corrected document since Gaberdine had brought it to her, and he squelched a small feeling of triumph at the thought that Her Highness truly appreciated his work on the yearly budget.
“Yes, Your Highness,” echoed Gaberdine, still drawn up in the respectful posture he had assumed nearly a half-hour ago. His hooves hurt a little and his throat felt somewhat dry, particularly whenever Princess Celestia would take a small sip out of the teacup to her side. It was worth it to see the intense look of concentration on Her Highness’ face as she checked through the numbers and edits that his working group had put together on the unified Equestrian budget for the upcoming year. It was the high point in his career to date, and he had nearly burst with pride when the older ponies in his department had nominated him to make the presentation to Princess Celestia. After all, Parliament had taken many weeks of strenuous wrangling to get the budget passed, and the critical errors that he had uncovered needed to be dealt with before it could be signed and become law.
“Mostly missing apostrophes and improper capitalization,” she added.
“A correct budget is critical for the proper running of the country,” Gaberdine said, trying to keep the pride out of his voice. “There are several errors in the sums, also.”
“Seventeen bits,” said Celestia. “Shocking.”
“Indeed,” agreed Gaberdine. “Once all of the errors are corrected, the Parliament will need to vote on the budget again to make it legal.”
There was an exceedingly long period of time where Celestia did nothing but remain staring at the small red marks on the thick document in front of her. Then she set the budget down on the table with a thud and drew out a quill and some parchment.
“Lord Gaberdine,” she said quietly while writing, “the Equestrian government spends approximately one hundred and thirty-seven thousand bits per minute. The diligence you have displayed during your career in the Royal Treasury is a credit to your House, and to Duke Whinnysfield, your father.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Despite his best efforts, a small smile began to appear on Gaberdine's face.
“I’m not finished.” The scratching of the quill continued until Celestia rolled up the parchment and held it in front of herself, hovering in her golden magic. “Diligence such as this deserves a reward comparable to the benefit you are providing to our beloved country. Your father’s title shall eventually pass to your eldest brother Elderberry, if I am correct?”
“Yes, Your Highness. Or my second-eldest brother Plum, in the event Elderberry is unable to carry on the family name.”
Celestia nodded. “As you are aware, certain services to the Crown can be rewarded with noble titles, as House Whinnysfield was rewarded several centuries ago for their creation of the reverse-indexing filing system used by all branches of our Civil Service, correct?”
His heart beat faster with anticipation and unable to take his eyes off the scroll hovering in front of his nose, Gaberdine merely nodded.
“Good. For services above and beyond the call of your Royal duties as Court Clerk, I hereby bequeath you the Barony of Fen, under one condition.” The scroll bobbed in front of Gaberdine’s nose, and all he could do was follow it up and down while trying not to drool on the table. “A census.”
Blinking twice, Gaberdine echoed, “A census?”
Floating the scroll over to land in front of the stunned stallion, Princess Celestia nodded. “Yes, a census. You are to prepare a precise enumeration of every intelligent creature who lives in your new Barony by the end of this week, or the lands — such as they are — revert back to the Crown. The task would seem to be well within your ability. Do you think you can handle your new responsibility, ‘Baron’ Gaberdine?”
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
After a somewhat panicked trip to the family library and a desperate journey through the records revealed that there had been a reasonably large Barony of Fenwick that encompassed the Fen Valley several hundred years ago, Gaberdine was feeling a little better. The original lands and the title had been divided into two smaller baronies — the Barony of West Fenwick and the Barony of East Fenwick — although there was an entry in the ledger that indicated a third son had managed to retain some of the original lands and the title of Baron, along with an ancestral castle. As a third son himself, Gaberdine considered the resulting split to be much more equitable than his own much less profitable division of the family estate, and prepared for his departure with haste.
Time was of the essence. With less than a week before the rather odd deadline and several sheets of dragonfire-imbued parchment from Princess Celestia to return the resulting census, Gaberdine used his own personal funds to hire a pegasus carriage for the long trip. He packed lightly, only a half-dozen books and his personal items, and with a kiss to his mother, he departed on his journey.
Author comment: Welcome! Pull up a chair and stay awhile. The story is complete and was published one chapter per day (had to do two at first in order to get it in the FimFiction queue) and a bonus chapter from some of the comments that happened during the editing process (which sometimes can be more fun than the writing process).
A sequel, Drifting Down the Lazy River has just been published, following Turpentine, a young colt with a talent for painting who decides to run away from his orphanage on an exciting journey downriver to Baltimare, where he will find happiness by fulfilling his destiny to become a famous painter.
There's just one small snag in his way...
i60.tinypic.com/dxl305.jpg
Also, Neighrator Pony and company have put together a *wonderful* dramatic reading for this story, starting here:
Featuring the vocal talents of:
Dr. Wolf, Gina M, Illya Leonov, ShadowOfCygnus, itsannachloem, Shellah, Scribbler
Also with an 11 out of 10 star rating by Arcanum on Youtube.
And if you enjoy this, you may also enjoy two of my changeling romances:
Changelings, Love and Lollipops
Buggy and the Beast
Or the original romance story that started me writing these:
The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian, which eventually turned into four linked stories and fame. Well, a little.
From KatysCornerTX at DeviantArt, a wonderful representation of Green Grass and his hat.
img03.deviantart.net/3617/i/2016/246/f/2/green_grass_by_katyscornertx-dagd6t0.jpg
(Thank you, Katy. It’s beautiful. And Green Grass looks pretty darned good too :) Also, check out the Sunflower she did for Project: Sunflower. Awesome.
But what about the Duchy of Grand Fenwick?
Booby prize? Booby prize.
Eenope. You just got thrown under the cart, son. Welcome to the wonderful world of bureaucracy.
That odd *thump-squish* you just heard was the cart's front wheels going over your soft little body.
And there go the back wheels too. Take a moment to enjoy the oddly pain-free sensation of having just been run over by Trollestia's cart. Moment won't last though, enjoy it while you can.
Oh, look at that. The cart was carrying anvils and one just fell off and landed on you as the cart bumped over your body...
I like your writing style a lot.
I've been looking forward to this story.
This looks interesting and I will definatly read this.
Good work on this so far, loving the style so far.
Ahhh poor Gabby...
Seapponies, I don't think I've ever read a story with them in it as a main thing.
Nice job!
I do hope this is one of those stories where the unwitting buffoon stumbles onto a happy ending handed to him in the guise of misfortune.
Pffhah. A language purist put on a budget document
I'm getting a somewhat Vetinari vibe from Celestia here. This sounds far too much like the setup of 'Going Postal'
Just read the first chapter and I'm loving it. From the comments so far I can tell this is only going to get better. Like and fave for now, more comments later.
Short, but intriguing. I think I'll stay to see where this goes.
From here, we can calculate that the budget of the Equestrian government seems to be about 175 billion bits / year.
SEVENTEEN BITS?!!!!!
HEADS MUST ROLL!!!
Ha ha, ennobled and given a long job far-away. Way to kick 'em upstairs, Celestia. All for annoying her by being an obstructive bureaucrat.
I don't know much about government and just about every word said in the beginning; but I am willing to try this out!
Arma equumque cano...
6369442
That would be the 'barony' consisting of a castle and no estate to support said castle. That our protagonist approves of such a division says little good of his perceptiveness.
6369442
I'm just going to stash this shiny, metallic hoofball in the Canterlot dungeons until everything quiets down…
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137,000 bits * 60 minutes = 8,220,000 bits per hour
8,220,000 bits * 24 hours = 197,280,000 bits per day
197,280,000 bits * 365 days = 72,007,200,000 bits per year
If he had managed to find an error as large as yours he probably would have gotten a very nice duchy.
6555677
Now that we have the math.
Just what are they spending it on to blow 72 billions bits a year?
6369442 Finally, someone else who's read "The Mouse That Roared".
Hmmmm... intriguing.
6649885 probably Blueblood...
Fucking Gavelkind.
Ah, The Mouse That Roared. I suppose a duchy would be too much. Or too little, if I recall the show lol.
6649885 Those are probably just because of inflation. Notice how in the show every bit you see is shiny looking and new? Seems to me like they've made of solid gold, since it never tarnishes and they've never been decommissioned ever, or replaced with a different variant to reset the economy, and they've just always been in use and whenever the Crown doesn't have enough in treasury a unicorn gets a shitload of rocks and makes a few really high value bits, since I imagine adding protons and electrons to a single piece of rock from the others equally in all of the metal's atoms is horrifically tiring and requires herculean focus to do without making it unstable by putting too many protons and electrons on one but of it and basically making uranium covered in a thin sheet of gold. Because that's the scientific(ish) way to transmute stones to gold, and we've seen you can change the physical makeup of things with magic so it might be canon! Wow, I've just wasted 13 and 1/2 minutes of my life that I'll never get back nitpicking something someone else nitpicked... I feel a strange combination of emptiness and satisfaction at what I've done here.
6649885 How do they blow 72b bits a year? How the hell does the Australian government fuck up the census?! It's one of those 'JESUS CHRIST!' moments in life.
Surely that would be 'squashed'?
Great start, I know I can always rely on you, Georg.
Oh my. Gaberdine is just that kind of "intelligent, but absolutely, torturously clueless" character that gets on my nerves...and apparently also on Celestia's. Ouch.
7926541 He's just a piece in a much larger puzzle who needs to find out just where he belongs.
Just wait until you meet Turpentine in the sequel....
6649885 Well, if you equate one bit to a U.S. dollar, they sped far less than the United States. And Equestria is just as large if not larger. So pretty reasonable.
Ish.
7936825 The problem is that I am 99% confident they are not equal at all. The bit is worth a lot more than a buck. It is only a couple of bits for a jug of cider, which would be more like five dollars for us, more so if it was alcoholic.
Came back, found it had a sewuel, so now here I am again, trying to get back into the mood.
The first time I read this, it quickly enchanted me.
I can only hope, after so much time, that my mind will not fail to make this just as good a second time.
Had me smiling. Great job man.
I highly suspect that Celestia has something up her sleeve. I have always perceived her character as both a bit of a practical joker and one who never does anything without reason
6649885
Considering that 72 Billion Bits/year is for the entire government of Equestria (not just Canterlot), that seems about right.
Federal budget for the United States is about $3.8 Trillion.
This does not include the State, County, & City/Local Government.
Budget for the UK Government (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) is about £772 billion. ($1.019 Trillion U.S.)
7969077 It also has a wonderful reading:
Ah, yes, when there's someone you don't want in your court, and you don't want to bother killing them, just give them a useless barony in Russia's!
6555677
Why of course! I'm thinking...Sicily?
6649885
Cake?
6649885
Maybe it's a really small currency? Like Rupees or something.
9556179
6649885
Well, considering it takes multiple bits (let's say 3) to buy a single apple from one of the largest apple supplyers in Equestria, and with an average markup of 200% giving that a store value of 9 bits for a single apple, yeh I'd say bits are pretty close to.worthless as a currency
Ah, returning at last to my favorite story.
Time to settle in for a good read ~
A pony should really sing of legs.