Least Squares looked at the second pile of reports, his quill in his field and the summary-report half-written upon his desk-stand. *Most* of the central districts reported third grain harvest complete, but there were a scattering of complaints of sunlight shortages and damp, unharvestable fields in the western tier of districts. No, irrelevant. There was always a period of clear skies, they could catch up the harvest in that week of grace.
The southern towns and villages were mid-way through their fourth harvests, and the reports were - terse and irate. For many, especially those not so far south as all that, it had been a harvest too many, and all the warning signs were clear as print, clear as cursive, clear as the scattered dots on the charts he kept pinned to his study walls. He got up from his desk, and added another rank of said dots to the charts in progress, adjusting on the fly for their usual weighing-factors, based on their latitude and control-district assignments. Almost no-pony outside of the Academy could follow his adjustments schedules, and many in the Academy were merciless in their disdain for his abstracted weighing criteria. Arbitrary, said Confirmed Bias. Opaque, cried Peer Review. Utterly undocumented, denounced the fastidious Prior Art.
The weighing factors had never steered Least Squares wrong, and he had done the math, in his apprentice days. And once again when he had been a journeypony under the late Curve Fit. And one last time at his master's defense, while the board had watched him, chalk in field, scrawl out the equations, board after board, erasing as he needed for the additional space, and explaining as he wrote. The old pegasi had stared stonily at this upstart unicorn with his arrogant, ambitious linear regressions of fundamentally nonlinear systems. But his solutions worked *better* than their clumsy nonlinear approximations of the behavior of the data-sets.
Because they were wrong about the world being fundamentally, elementally chaotic. He knew this was true - it was what his cutie mark had whispered to him, how it had sang him to sleep all those long, lonely nights. He was Right, which is why he was where he was today.
The charts and the summaries complete, he bound up his reports and rolled up his charts.
The council would be convening soon, and he needed to be there beforehoof, to put up the charts, and lay out the summaries and the agenda, already pre-written.
He had known what would be decided before he had laid eyes on the reports. It was time.
The Council of the Seasons met in an ancient, wrought-stone chamber in the oldest wing of the palace, a quarter that the Princess and her retinue never entered, let alone visited for any period of time. The tapestries were more like old banners, pre-unification tribal standards preserved by ancient magics renewed every generation or two by journeyponies from the Academy's archival training sections. And if the old tribes were active in any component of Her Highness's government, they were here, on the Council of the Seasons. The seats were held, explicitly, by balanced members from the three major tribes, plus the administrative aide to the Council. An aide who traditionally had been a pegasus, until the cometary career of Least Squares had displaced the usual appointee to the position.
First to arrive was the United Grange Council's representative, Sub-Chairmare Deep Wells. Scurrying in behind her was the other earth-pony organization's representative, Under-Secretary Latex Grommet of the Associated Trade Guilds. Deep Wells' crony, of course. Unless you'd consider 'lackey' a better term for their relationship. The two organizations were expected to be completely orthogonal to each other in relationships as well as interests, and yet, ponies being what they were, the representative of the Granges had managed to maneuver her client into the position. The seasons just didn't matter enough to the Guilds for the post to be anything other than a sinecure from their point of view.
Next to arrive was Dean Golden Mean of the Academy, with her own pile of reports floating in her ironically bronze-colored field behind her. She wasn't in maths, being from one of the equinities colleges, but she tried her best, bless her heart. She never quite got the equations down right, and although she always tried to make it a fight, Least Squares knew how to spin her upside down before she got going. And after all, he was Right, and she was usually wrong, excepting those sessions when they found themselves in agreement.
The pegasi arrived after the Dean, Propraetor Glide Path of the Cloudsdale Council and Head Foremare Solar Gears of the Factory. Surprisingly enough, the pegasi rarely gave Least Squares any problems. When they did, it was for material concerns which were difficult to finesse with equations or mathematical trickery. Water supplies and energy budgets were what they were, and could not be argued out of their positions with clever figures.
Last to arrive was- Archmagus Soul Mirror. That was a bit of a surprise. Usually she sent Magus Half Light or some other underling to act as her proxy, having never really taken much interest in her nominal role as head of the Council. Despite its control over the most puissant rituals still in the hooves of mortal ponies, she just hadn't thought it worth her time, or at least, that was what Least Squares had heard in confidence from the Magi who appeared, session after session, to give the Archmagus's regrets and to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Council.
This probably meant something, and Least Squares resisted the urge to grab his copy of the agenda and the summaries to see what he had missed.
The Archmagus gaveled the Council into session.
"Master Squares, please summarize the summaries, if you don't mind?" belled out the Archmagus in that ripe, round accent that made Canterlot such a pompous, self-involved place to make a living in.
"But of course, Your Eminence. As you will see from the copies passed out with the agenda, we are definitely coming to the end of the growing season in most parts of Equestria. As you can see here, in this chart of the reports of field pests and yield declines, we have passed the point of diminishing returns in the majority of districts. We could squeeze another grain harvest in the northern tier, but the losses in soil fertility in the south and central districts," Least Squares waved a pointer at the relevant, utterly cryptic scatter graphs on either side of the main chart, "Would more than wash out the gains northern farmers might make in chasing that last half-harvest."
"Grain isn't the only metric we have to keep in mind," growled Deep Wells. "There are truck crop farmers and fruit orchards throughout the northern and central tiers that could still pull in that last few dozen bushels out of the fields and groves. This tail-end of the season is their margin, it can be the difference between a profit and another year in debt to the banks."
Least Squares resisted the urge to sigh or roll his eyes at the interruption. "And yet the grain harvests still out-produce the truck croppers and orchard ponies by five to one. Even those ponies have largely diversified into grains in the last two generations as new fields opened up. They'd be losing almost as much as the monoculture grain farmers to the fertility decline curve."
"Water supplies are short," barked Solar Gears. "And mostly tied up in the west. We're working on wringing that mess out, but we'll need an extra week to transport the maldistribution eastward."
"Thank you, Head Foremare, I was just getting to that. The preparations for and the Running itself requires a good week of clear skies. How will that effect your logistical concerns?" the administrative aide pivoted, somewhat prepared for this particular interruption.
"Makes it difficult, of course. You can't move water without moving clouds, and clouds in numbers are kind of the opposite of 'sunny skies'. Propraetor?"
"Obviously!" harrumphed Glide Path, a rare stallion in government. "We could, I suppose, transit in corridors, and maybe avoid the major ritual centers?"
"The ritual courses," said the Archmagus, "Are located in deliberately central regions where the effect can most efficiently and effectively cover the countryside without gaps. You cannot 'avoid' such a deliberately distributed series of courses. How rapidly can you transit without serious, neigh, dangerous consequences?"
The Propraetor blinked in surprise, his ears folded down. "We could, I suppose, organize a derecho, and roll the lot eastward in a single bound, but I wouldn't want to guarantee the surface integrity of the path taken."
"The surface integrity of the path taken?" asked Dean Mean, confused.
"He means the derecho would tear down trees, rip roofs off of homes and shops, and generally make as much of a mess as a hurricane landing," Least Squares snapped, irate at having lost control of the session. "The point of the Council is to *avoid* the necessity of such radical corrections in course."
"Only if they can be avoided, Master Squares," chided the Archmagus. "And there are extraneous factors which, I think, you have not included in your calculations this year."
Least Squares frowned, caught flat-hooved. What would the Archmagus have access to, that would require such improvident haste? Magic harmonics, of course, reports of dark magic outbreaks. The distribution of dark-leaved saplings and spontaneous wild magic eruptions had, of course, been taken into account in his calculations, there was a set of charts over to the right, and he turned around and scanned the scatter-graphs to see if he could spot any ignored trends the Archmagus might have been talking about.
"Master Squares, if you haven't included them, why would they be on your charts? Unless you've factored in the return of the lunar princess?"
Least Squares blinked, completely nonplussed. "Princess Luna? The little alicorn Her Highness brought back with her from the Summer Sun Celebration? What does that have to do with-"
"Master Squares, why do you think we even have this Council? Why do we go to all of this trouble to interfere in natural processes which otherwise would govern themselves, in their own times, under their own self-guidance?"
"Magic, of course. Earth pony magic, that distorts the processes of the soil, pegasus magic, that warps the courses of the winds, and unicorn magic, which unbalances the elemental harmonies," Least Squares cited textbook dogma at the governor of dogmas and the publisher of textbooks.
"Yes, magic. And when our returned Princess first fell, her Fall smashed us utterly flat. Dark forests from Baltimare to Vanhoover, monsters erupting from every crossed pair of ley lines in the nation, and unicorns run mad in every family, ruining every good thing and making every terrible thing worse. Nightmare Moon was a *catastrophe*, and her carrier has now returned to us. A small seed, true, but she will grow great before you will even be able to blink. Even yesterday, I spotted a star winking in her tail," said the Archmagus, balefully.
"No, the returned princess is full of power, uncommitted, dangerous power. Our imperious Princess, Sol Invictus - Celestia is well-controlled by her own will, her own self-training. She couldn't derange Equestria if she tried. And judging from some of the recent Galloping Galas, I sometimes suspect that she does try, from time to time, if only to test her own self-bounding," the Archmagus continued.
"But you don't know about this Luna, Archmagus?" asked Least Squares, tentatively. This was all politics, and the sort of politics that might put an unwary bureaucrat in the dungeons from the sound of it.
"It's what I *do* know that worries me, Master Squares! We must reinforce our defenses and tie down any wild magic before it has a chance to be… influenced by new factors!" The Archmagus was positively shrieking by this point in the discussion. Least Squares' ears were not the only ones to be pinned flat by this display of uncontrol.
"OK then! Early Running of the Leaves it is then! Thursday next sound good to everypony? I'll be sure to make sure the farriers get out their supplies of running shoes as soon as we're done here. Good meeting?" chirped Latex Grommet, grinning wild-eyed at the snarling Archmagus.
"You actually need to hold a vote," said Least Squares with his horn digging a hole in his copy of the agenda, unable to meet the eyes of the members of the Council.
"All in favor?"
Author's Note
The site needs a 'bureaucracy' tag. 
The Council, or rather, that sub-quora which had managed to show up on such short notice, waited impatiently upon the Chair who had called a supplemental session. Well, sighed Least Squares to himself, technically it was a supplemental *to* the current session, not a new one in and of itself. There wasn't even a procedure for the seating of an extra-seasonal session. He wasn't sure what exactly the effect upon the Council's charter if they had actually tried to implement an extra-calendary – it might even break the charter, and the seals and empowerments contingent upon that very, very binding document.
So, a supplemental meeting *of* the 3997th. Technically sessions didn't have to be solitary consultations, the Archmagus would just gavel back into session as if they had simply retired, rather than a proper adjournment. The Council's unusual irregularity of convention left this gap wide open in its charter, especially when a session-in-progress broke up as it did last moon, with irregularity of procedure ladled over top of the inherent irregularity of the charter proper.
The Propraetor had been replaced by the new Praetor, elected or chosen by Cloudsdale's impenetrably obscure and involuted process in the moon since the last meeting of the session. The terrible scramble necessitated by the Council's hasty decision had turned pegasi politics upside down and shook it like a half-empty bushel full of half-rotten apples. Some of the bad apples stuck to the bottom of the bushel, and the rest tumbled out of office, good and bad alike. The new Praetor had sent a starchy lawyer named Blown Sheets as her proxy.
Sheets refused to meet anypony else's eyes, just sitting there in front of her pile of reports and copy of the agenda. She also held the proxy of the new representative of the Weather Factory.
Deep Wells and her sidekick Latex Grommet had weathered their own travails more smoothly than the pegasi. There had been remarkable little damage from the quite minor derecho they had voted for, and nopony on the ground had made the connection between the windstorm and the responsibility of the Council membership in ordering that (very minor) disaster. And the Running of the Leaves had been a great success as these sorts of celebrations go. It had gone absolutely perfectly as an event, at least in Least Squares' opinion, as well as in the eyes of the general public.
Well, outside of Cloudsdale.
Least Squares really had no idea why they were here, honestly. Some further mad start of the Archmagus. He flipped through the thaumic and monster summations, looking for trends one last time as they awaited the absent unicorn's pleasure. Admittedly, there had been a recent rash of outbreaks, but extraordinary? Not by historical measures. A rather distressing upward inclination, but these things had natural variance. No scatter-graph mapped to a flat line, up, down, or horizontal. There were… ups and downs. But it was only a few weeks' worth of reports! That was barely enough for a inference, let alone a conclusion.
Soul Mirror finally breezed into the council chamber with Dean Mean on her heels.
"Thank you ladies and – well, gentlecolt, I suppose now, Master Squares. Thank you for appearing at such short notice. I am now reconvening the – Master Squares, what session is it?"
"3997, Winter, Your Eminence."
"Right, reconvening the 3997th session of the Council of the Seasons. We had hoped that the scheduling of the Running ritual in a timely and enthusiastic manner would have settled our business for the session, allowing a leisurely convening of the 3998th in a number of moons, but further events have proven that the new grand thaumic environment is still quite unstable and requires further heroic treatment to contain the energies wracking Equestria's over-strained ley lines." The Archmagus barely bothered with the formality of the gavel, irritably picking it up and rapping it on her copy of the agenda at Least Square's unvoiced pleading gesture.
Least Squares settled back in his seat, and looked again at his copy of the agenda, realizing that it said nothing of what the Archmagus was going on about. Apparently they would be operating totally off-agenda, then.
"Cloudsdale has had quite enough of ‘heroic treatment', Your Eminence," observed Blown Sheets in a distinctly frosty manner. "Your last mad start has pushed both pega- that is to say, has driven two members of this Council out of office in some disgrace. I hold the proxy of Praetor Crimson Blaze and the Weather Factory's management, and you can be quite sure, all of your credit has been spent in Cloudsdale. You are now, informally, upon a cash basis with the Weather Factory."
The pegasus leaned forward, her wings spread forward and cupping around her glittering eyes. "Cash. On. The. Barrel."
The Archmagus was unimpressed by the lawyer's bluster, her body-language relaxed and dominant. "Please, Miss Sheets. The Weather Factory will do its duty, as it has for a thousand moons. What would you do otherwise? Their own charter is dependent upon the continued authorization of this Council. A word to the Weather and Forestry Councils and Cloudsdale's monopoly could be broken in an afternoon. You have no idea how little leverage your grasping managers have left to them among the chairmares. I've been discussing the matter among my peers. It's quite surprising how badly the situation has degenerated while the Thaumic Councils have been… distracted. You have made yourselves quite unpopular."
Deep Wells snorted in irate agreement, eyeing the unsettled lawyer and her wilting, fading dominance posture. "How dare the pegasi sent one proxy for two seats," sniffed Latex Grommet so that her patron didn't have to do so. "Is there even a council member from the Factory, or haven't they gotten that ironed out yet? You can't be a proxy for an abstraction, there needs to be a pony seated."
"Precedent suggests that a pony sent thus as a ‘proxy' be seated as the member official," suggested Least Squares. He owed the pegasi a good deal for their tolerance of his anomalous position, but that that much. It wouldn't harm the lawyer to enjoy proper and official status. Might even be a useful line on her CV down the line. Assuming that the Archmagus didn't get them all thrown into the Princesses' dungeons for lese majeste.
"You can't do that!" objected Blown Sheets. "We don't have a quorum!"
"I count four members of six, plus a prospective member awaiting seating," said the Dean. "Either you're the proxy of the Praetor, and the prospective member from the Weather Factory, or you're an interloper, and it is the duty of Least Squares to call the bailiff and have you ejected from the chamber."
Least Squares looked up in alarm from his copies of the monster reports.
"Oh, relax, Squares, look at her, she's going to take her medicine, isn't she?" smirked Golden Mean.
"Fine, whatever. My career was ended as soon as the Praetor ordered me to Canterlot," surrendered the outnumbered pegasus. She was quickly voted a seat and sworn in.
"The agenda!" barked the Archmagus. "The Running wasn't enough to tie up the fresh surges of wild magic across the land! We need to – hrm, co-opt the new princess! Make her a *part* of the cycle of ritual."
"There isn't any room for princess participation in the minor autumn and winter rituals," began Least Squares, "And the grand ritual for the Wrap Up is explicitly egalitarian, it won't work at all with a royal element."
"Which is why I'm proposing we co-opt Nightmare Night," said the Archmagus.
"Are you mad?" demanded Least Squares. "I thought you were *afraid* of the return of the Nightmare!"
"It's a folk festival!" objected the Dean. "There's no *ritual* there!"
"It's a festival!" yelled the suddenly-defensive Soul Mirror. "They all have rituals built into them, it's just a matter of finding the narrative flow. And there's a proper redemption aspect built into Nightmare Night! It could work, really it could!"
"I don't know about any of that, but Nightmare Night is good for business," observed the Sub-Chairmare of the United Grange Council. "It's a proper harvest festival, it is. Or could be, if we didn't rush the Running like we did this year. Doesn't quite work out when Nightmare Night comes *after* the Running like it did this year. Gonna be too damn cold for the foals, you know?"
"I don't know that a festival about the new princess chasing foals about and gobbling them up is going to do anything but upset the new princess and earn at least *some* of us time in the dungeons if somepony were fool enough to mention it in open court," opined Latex Grommet. Soul Mirror glared at her, but the Archmagus wasn't the Under-Secretary's patron. She was a loyal client; she only toadied to one pony at a time.
Least Squares relaxed, clearly the Archmagus's wild start was, well, a non-starter.
Then the Dean spoke up.
"Princess Luna isn't the only new magic in the land. We've got these six mares with their magic jewelry running around causing trouble. Why don't we co-opt *them*? There's just the right number for the pageant ritual, isn't there?"
"I don't know, Hearthswarming is so esoteric, the balances are strange, and there's so much variance from district to district," equivocated Least Squares.
"Good thing you don't get a vote," laughed Deep Wells. "Sounds like a hoot to me. And much less likely to get us all thrown in an oubliette!"
The Archmagus fumed, but was out-numbered by the less-obsessed members of her Council.
"Shall we put it to a vote?"
Author's Note
The timelines of the show as aired are hilariously haphazard. I managed to confuse myself twice trying to tweeze out an actual seasonal schedule.
Oh, and I guess this is ongoing? Damnit, I wanted to write a one-shot... and this is eating up my Black Company writing time.
Oh, well. I promised myself daily chapters, I didn't say in what story.
