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fandomweekly2025-03-07 02:38 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2025-03-07 02:38 pm
Entry tags:
[#251] Being Grand Emperor (Original)
Theme Prompt: #251 – Royalty
Title: Being Grand Emperor
Fandom: Original
Rating/Warnings: PG / None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Grand Emperor Boofeldt is doing his best to rule Carraxia fairly, despite his advisors’ concerns.
Grand Emperor Boofeldt was not happy, which should have been no surprise to anyone, least of all Boofeldt. If he was honest with himself, which he always tried to be, since no one else was ever entirely honest with him, he hadn’t been what he’d call happy since being crowned Grand Emperor at the tender age of eight. Since then, he’d taken to measuring his moods in terms of his level of dissatisfaction with his life, ranging from ‘stoically resigned to his fate’ to ‘wanting to run away from home and never come back’. Inevitably, some days were worse than others but… well, you get the picture.
The only thing preventing him from running away from Carraxia, never to return, was that he couldn’t face the thought of abandoning his people. The Royal Court he could well do without, but his people needed him. Who else would stand up for their rights? Certainly not the Royal Court, who didn’t believe the ordinary people of Carraxia should even HAVE rights, because the weren’t of noble blood, whatever that meant. Blood was blood, as far as Boofeldt was concerned; everyone bled the same colour, the nobility didn’t have special blood, or more of it, they simply thought they were better than everyone else, which had nothing to do with their blood and everything to do with their snobby attitudes.
Anyway, he’d been doing the best he could for his people, ever since the day the heavy gold coronet of the Grand Emperor, which incidentally STILL didn’t fit, had been placed on his head. Most of his days were a battleground, trying to impose his will over the protests of his advisors, who kept trying to insist that he didn’t understand what the people needed. Personally, Boofeldt thought it was his advisors who didn’t understand what the people needed, being more concerned with what would best serve their own ambitions. He was doing his best to re-educate them on what really mattered, to his people AND to the planet, but it was slow going.
He’d already had to fire one of his advisors for inventing a host of subordinates for himself and paying them from the Royal Treasury’s coffers, thereby lining his own pockets with gold. Boofeldt had also fired every single imaginary subordinate, so that no one else would be able to use them, and had returned the former advisor’s accumulated wealth to the treasury, setting the disgraced man to work tending pigs on one of the Grand Emperor’s own farms, under the close scrutiny of one of his most trusted subjects. Learning a trade would do him good.
As for the recovered gold, that was being spent on upgrading housing in some of the poorer areas. Boofeldt couldn’t fix everything overnight, but he thought he was heading in the right direction. He’d raised the taxes of the nobles and the big corporations, much to their disgust, but kept everyone else’s taxes at their current level. He’d raised the minimum wage in all occupations, so that the poorest were being paid fairly, and was offering interest-free loans to those who were still struggling, mostly farmers whose crops had been damaged or destroyed in the floods a few years ago. He’d even instituted a new guild to build and maintain flood defences. As a sideline, they handled installing and maintaining irrigation systems. After all, the floodwaters had to go somewhere. There was no point wasting water that could be channelled to where it was needed.
So here Boofeldt was, fourteen-years-old, feeling he was just about getting the hang of being Grand Emperor after six years in office, and now the Royal Court was wittering on about him getting married. Again. He’d shut them down three years ago, saying he was much too young, not to mention too busy, to even think about marriage, but now it seemed that ever noble house on the whole planet was sending him letters of introduction to their sisters, daughters, cousins, nieces, granddaughters, or any other eligible young woman in their households who they considered suitably well-bred to become the Royal Consort.
This list included, but was not limited to, a twice-widowed grandmother, in case Boofeldt preferred a more mature woman, and a three-year-old who was described as already being quite comely. At least most of the others were within a more acceptable age range, between thirteen, which might just barely be okay as long as Boofeldt insisted on a long engagement of, say, five years, and twenty-two, which he considered a bit old, but marriages amongst the nobility were weird, boys quite often being married off by the age of sixteen to women as much as twelve years older.
Not that Boofeldt had any intention of getting married anytime soon, despite being urged by his advisors to make sure he had an heir, or preferably several potential heirs, as soon as possible. Boofeldt could even sympathise to an extent, because the Dragon under the mountain would only accept someone of the Royal House as ruler of Carraxia, and since his mother had died in childbirth and his father had never re-married, Boofeldt had been an only child. Which was why he’d been crowned Grand Emperor at such an early age, his father, the previous Grand Emperor, having suffered an unfortunate accident that had resulted in his death. Because of that, Boofeldt tended to keep away from the fishpond, and limited his alcohol consumption to a very small cup of wine with dinner. Better to be safe than sorry.
Despite the concerns of his advisors, Boofeldt simply wasn’t ready for marriage, and had no desire to become a father when he wasn’t much more than a child himself. Besides, none of his prospective brides thus far had appealed to him, they were pale, silly creatures with a tendency to faint a lot. The Royal Bloodline, in his opinion, could use some fresh blood.
Sighing, he donned his royal robes, preparing to meet the latest batch of potential spouses.
The End
The only thing preventing him from running away from Carraxia, never to return, was that he couldn’t face the thought of abandoning his people. The Royal Court he could well do without, but his people needed him. Who else would stand up for their rights? Certainly not the Royal Court, who didn’t believe the ordinary people of Carraxia should even HAVE rights, because the weren’t of noble blood, whatever that meant. Blood was blood, as far as Boofeldt was concerned; everyone bled the same colour, the nobility didn’t have special blood, or more of it, they simply thought they were better than everyone else, which had nothing to do with their blood and everything to do with their snobby attitudes.
Anyway, he’d been doing the best he could for his people, ever since the day the heavy gold coronet of the Grand Emperor, which incidentally STILL didn’t fit, had been placed on his head. Most of his days were a battleground, trying to impose his will over the protests of his advisors, who kept trying to insist that he didn’t understand what the people needed. Personally, Boofeldt thought it was his advisors who didn’t understand what the people needed, being more concerned with what would best serve their own ambitions. He was doing his best to re-educate them on what really mattered, to his people AND to the planet, but it was slow going.
He’d already had to fire one of his advisors for inventing a host of subordinates for himself and paying them from the Royal Treasury’s coffers, thereby lining his own pockets with gold. Boofeldt had also fired every single imaginary subordinate, so that no one else would be able to use them, and had returned the former advisor’s accumulated wealth to the treasury, setting the disgraced man to work tending pigs on one of the Grand Emperor’s own farms, under the close scrutiny of one of his most trusted subjects. Learning a trade would do him good.
As for the recovered gold, that was being spent on upgrading housing in some of the poorer areas. Boofeldt couldn’t fix everything overnight, but he thought he was heading in the right direction. He’d raised the taxes of the nobles and the big corporations, much to their disgust, but kept everyone else’s taxes at their current level. He’d raised the minimum wage in all occupations, so that the poorest were being paid fairly, and was offering interest-free loans to those who were still struggling, mostly farmers whose crops had been damaged or destroyed in the floods a few years ago. He’d even instituted a new guild to build and maintain flood defences. As a sideline, they handled installing and maintaining irrigation systems. After all, the floodwaters had to go somewhere. There was no point wasting water that could be channelled to where it was needed.
So here Boofeldt was, fourteen-years-old, feeling he was just about getting the hang of being Grand Emperor after six years in office, and now the Royal Court was wittering on about him getting married. Again. He’d shut them down three years ago, saying he was much too young, not to mention too busy, to even think about marriage, but now it seemed that ever noble house on the whole planet was sending him letters of introduction to their sisters, daughters, cousins, nieces, granddaughters, or any other eligible young woman in their households who they considered suitably well-bred to become the Royal Consort.
This list included, but was not limited to, a twice-widowed grandmother, in case Boofeldt preferred a more mature woman, and a three-year-old who was described as already being quite comely. At least most of the others were within a more acceptable age range, between thirteen, which might just barely be okay as long as Boofeldt insisted on a long engagement of, say, five years, and twenty-two, which he considered a bit old, but marriages amongst the nobility were weird, boys quite often being married off by the age of sixteen to women as much as twelve years older.
Not that Boofeldt had any intention of getting married anytime soon, despite being urged by his advisors to make sure he had an heir, or preferably several potential heirs, as soon as possible. Boofeldt could even sympathise to an extent, because the Dragon under the mountain would only accept someone of the Royal House as ruler of Carraxia, and since his mother had died in childbirth and his father had never re-married, Boofeldt had been an only child. Which was why he’d been crowned Grand Emperor at such an early age, his father, the previous Grand Emperor, having suffered an unfortunate accident that had resulted in his death. Because of that, Boofeldt tended to keep away from the fishpond, and limited his alcohol consumption to a very small cup of wine with dinner. Better to be safe than sorry.
Despite the concerns of his advisors, Boofeldt simply wasn’t ready for marriage, and had no desire to become a father when he wasn’t much more than a child himself. Besides, none of his prospective brides thus far had appealed to him, they were pale, silly creatures with a tendency to faint a lot. The Royal Bloodline, in his opinion, could use some fresh blood.
Sighing, he donned his royal robes, preparing to meet the latest batch of potential spouses.
The End