I enter my office. I notice that Elizabeth is sitting in my chair. Her silver hair glowing as always. She looks up as I enter. I wish she wouldn’t sit in my seat. 

“You’re late. I have a lot of paperwork that needs to be shifted through.” She says looking back down to the paper. 

“I had a meeting that took longer than I expected.” I explain. “I have finally reinstated the archduchy of Merey.” 

She looks up as soon as I mention reinstating the archduchy of Merey. She’s probably wonder how I got her father to agree to such a thing. 

“In that case, you can work on these papers. They all pertain to Merey and since you’ve taken such an interest in it. I think you should deal with it.” She says taking a stack of papers and pushing it to the side. Soon Leo will have to deal with it instead of me. At least my workload will lighten up a bit more. 

“Can I have my chair.” I look at the poor wooden one to the side. In all honesty I much prefer my chair. 

“No.” 

“I am the emperor.” I say with authority. 

“Yes, you are also a gentleman, or would you rather make a lady sit on that pathetic excuse of a chair.” She says not even looking at me. She’s so cruel. She should defer to me. Also, the chair is mine. With that thought I plop myself onto the stool, I mean chair. I then notice I have twice as much paperwork. 

“Do you want me to pull an all-nighter?” I ask incredulous.  

“Stop complaining, I'll help you when I finish with my portion. And even with my help it will still take all night.” She promises. Can I get that in writing? I need a contract. 

Let me see. Stamp, stamp, stamp. That there needs a revision. How did this end on my desk? Is this even a serious proposal? I crumple the paper into a ball and throw it at Elizabeth. She glares at me then gets back to work. I really need to grow up. I need to take the moral high ground. Then again, I'd be nice to her if she was just nice to me. Ungrateful. I took her in and this is how she repays me. Oh, this is an interesting proposal. Still needs some work though. 

“Look at this.” I say handing it to her. She grabs the proposal and reads it quickly. 

“That’s a good find. The bad news is we don’t have the money to fund the construction. Instead we could focus on reconstructing the city of Merey.” She says handing me a piece of paper. It does seem to be an interesting idea. 

“It also fits with the theme of stability that I've been working on these last few years.” Never underestimate the power of symbolism and propaganda. “Let’s go with this.” 

I stamp the paper and give it to her. She puts it into the approved section. 

“So how did you get Father to agree with your plan?” She asks in a small voice. I almost didn’t even catch it. I freeze. How am I going to put this gently to her? Actually, better yet, I should avoid this topic like hell. She’d probably kill me if she found out what I agreed to. 

“We just both agreed that the stability of the empire was important.” I say. 

“You owe him a favor, don’t you.” She cuts me down. Now how am I going to avoid this one. Only one course left. 

“Yes, I owe him a favor.” I admit. I’m almost certain I feel the room becoming cooler. Then again, I might be oversensitive about this. Luckily, she doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the inquisition. 

Hours later I'm almost finished with half of my paperwork. I look up to see that she fell asleep. I can’t believe that she abandoned me to my grim fight against the tenacious monster known as paperwork. How could succulent, amazing, refreshing sleep beat me. In the end she couldn’t even keep her promise. She’s a liar and traitor. I shouldn’t have trusted her. I get up from the stool. I then pick up her slim body moving her to the sofa in the corner of the room. It’s a good thing I have the backup sleeping area. Sometimes a man needs a quick power nap. I then cover her with a blanket. Can’t have her getting sick. I’d never hear the end of it. Plus, my image as a kind emperor would be destroyed. On that note I can finally take back my chair. 

A/N: I would like to mention that for the longest time this was my brothers favorite chapter. It came about because he stated that allonians love their paperwork and told me that I couldn't create a good chapter about paperwork. So I set about creating this one chapter just to spite him.