Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

If pastries are the mortar binding my fledgling peace together, paperwork is the quarry stone: heavy, dull, unavoidable. By late‐morning the throne room resembled a siege camp laid with parchment fortifications. Auditors hauled ledgers as if they were ballistae, ink pots bristled like arrow quivers, and murmured figures drifted through the air in ominous clouds ("seven percent export levy," "fourteenth sub-tariff repeal," "cost of sugar glaze per capita").

I, Elyzara‐who-would‐be-peacemaker, sat at the long council table armed with nothing but a quill, half a cinnamon roll, and the faint scent of Velka's soap lingering on my sleeve. The cinnamon roll was theoretically a morale booster. In practice, it was a target: Lord Vastrid had already eyed it twice as though suspecting subversive frosting.

"Item one," announced Head Auditor Praxim, a woman whose spectacles flashed with righteous terror, "verification of the Northern Tariff Suspension." She produced a scroll longer than my arm. "We require your signature on each duplicate. Initials are insufficient."

Mara—present as "Consultant for Moral Pastry Expenditure"—leaned across me. "May we stamp them with jam? It's faster."

Praxim's glare could have stripped varnish. Velka, standing just behind my chair, murmured, "Let the record show jam stamps are conceptually sound but legally dubious."

I inhaled, channeling patience. "We'll use ink," I declared, though the cinnamon glaze winked conspiratorially.

The signing began. Every few minutes another parchment appeared: stonebridge repair budgets, amnesty board guidelines, a petition from the College of Enchanters requesting hazard pay for proximity to revolutionary pastries. By page twelve, my wrist throbbed. By page twenty I considered sawing the quill into a baton and leading a symphonic revolt.

Mid-signature, I became aware of an itch prickle at the base of my neck, that sense of being watched by something worse than auditors. I glanced up. Across the hall, one of the royal portraits Countess Verradine, famed gossip and posthumous busybody tilted ever so slightly. Her painted eyes locked onto mine, then shifted toward a far doorway.

I blinked. The portrait straightened, expression pristine. Either exhaustion had conjured paranoid art, or Verradine was helpfully pointing out trouble. Given recent events, I chose the latter.

"Pardon," I told the auditors, setting down my quill. "Urgent… heritage conservation inspection."

Mara bounced up instantly. "I conserve heritage like nobody's business!"

We hurried toward the indicated arch, Velka gliding behind. Elira, scenting mischief, intercepted us with a neatly folded letter. "Urgent courier from the library," she said. "Apparently your father's private codices have… mobilised."

Because of course they had.

The codices lived in a seldom‐used wing colloquially known as the Labyrinth a honeycomb of archive rooms so twisty even spiders carried maps. Father's collection consisted of ancestral treatises on statecraft, heavy on intimidation and footnotes about proper chandelier sizes for executing diplomacy. During the pastry coup, we'd hoped to relocate them to a safer vault. We'd never found time.

Today, the corridor was alive with fluttering parchment. Leather-bound volumes scuttled like beetles, rearranging themselves into miniature barricades. A battalion of history scrolls marched single file, chanting footnotes. At their head levitated a particularly pompous tome titled Principles of Unquestionable Authority, its brass clasps clacking like teeth.

"It always starts with that one," Mara whispered. She brandished a jam spatula.

Velka stepped forward, shadows coiling at her fingertips. "Let me guess: they sensed the tariff reforms and decided to revolt."

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, respected treatises, could we postpone your insurrection? We're on a tight schedule."

The brass-clasped volume boomed in archaic Legalese: "REFORM WITHOUT ANCESTOR CONSENT IS NULL. WE PETITION FOR A RETURN TO TRADITIONAL AUTOCRACY. SIGN BELOW." A parchment unfurled, brandishing an inked guillotine.

Mara hissed through her teeth. "Who let legislation lessons read Les Miserables?"

Velka glanced at me. "Shall we negotiate or file them under 'kindling'?"

"Neither," I said, stepping into the paper gale. "We compromise." I raised my voice. "Codices! You claim heritage so protect it. These reforms preserve the realm from famine and war. Assist us, and I pledge a dedicated scriptorium to restore your fragile pages with the finest binding spells."

The books rustled, uneasy. I pressed on. "Continue obstructing, and I'll appoint every first-year student to annotate your margins with modern slang."

A collective shudder rippled through vellum. The brass volume wavered, then snapped shut. One by one, tomes stacked themselves neatly. The scroll march halted, turning like chastened children.

Mara exhaled. "Note: threat of teenage handwriting highly effective."

Velka brushed stray pages from my hair. "You just out-debated dead tyrants. How's your morning?"

"Improving." Yet dread tugged: these small flare-ups hinted at deeper tremors. Who else might resist change with more than ink?

Returning to the council chamber, we found pandemonium 2.0: a courier from the southern coast waving salt-stained letters, ambassadors arguing exchange rates, the steward staggering beneath a platter of apology biscuits.

Head Auditor Praxim intercepted me. "Your Highness, miners' union delegates have arrived. They insist on seeing the amnesty board now. And Lord Vastrid," she added with relish, "is hiding in the cloakroom, claiming pastry poisoning."

Velka coughed delicately. "I may or may not have given him a custard with extra nutmeg."

"Nutmeg isn't lethal," Elira noted.

Mara winked. "Unless you fear spices and progress equally."

I rubbed my temples. "All right. Elira, escort the miners to the east solar give them tea and an oath copy. Riven, document Vastrid's complaints, then send him vegetable broth. Mara, coordinate apology biscuits for whichever codex lobbyist files the next grievance. Velka" I paused, searching her gaze. "I need you to check the royal mirror network. If sabotage can enchant books, it can corrupt scrying lines."

She nodded, expression turning flinty with purpose. "On it."

Orders flew; people scattered. I squared my shoulders and re-entered the chamber. Signatures still waited, but now I moved among them with fresh fire. Every scroll I signed felt like hammering a nail into crumbling walls patchwork, but progress.

Time blurred. By afternoon, the tariff suspension was officially ratified, the miners placated with draft amnesty forms, and even Lord Vastrid had slunk back, pale yet resigned. The steward presented a tray of lavender shortbread "to soothe lingering hostilities."

I sampled one—crumbly, perfumed, ridiculously calming and allowed myself a moment's stillness. Then Velka returned, hair wind-tossed, obsidian eyes sparking.

"Mirror lines clean," she reported. "But I traced the earlier enchantment it originated inside the treasury archives. Someone tried to forge a royal credit order, siphoning funds to unknown accounts."

My pulse thudded. "We have names?"

"Not yet, but we have a spellprint. Elira's cross-referencing scribe records. Give her hours."

I closed my eyes, counting heartbeats. Saboteurs unmasked, codices pacified, tariffs undone yet corruption seeped like water under doors.

Velka's hand found mine beneath the table. "This is still a victory," she murmured. "You're binding cracks faster than they split."

"I'm binding them with pastry and threats."

"Exactly," she said, smiling. "And it's working."

I looked around: councilors eating lavender shortbread, Phoenix badges and palace crests mingling over budget sheets, twins napping beneath the table with a conquered cheese phoenix as pillow.

Working. In a ramshackle, sugar-dusted way, yes it was.

I leaned back, letting the realization settle. We hadn't solved famine, rewritten every cruel law, or convinced every noble to surrender their gilded chamber pots but for one improbable afternoon the machinery of state ground forward without grinding anyone beneath its gears.

A soft thump drew my attention: Aeris sleep-kicked a ledger, sending pages fluttering like startled pigeons. I gathered them, tucking a blanket around the twins. Their tiny snores mingled with the shuffle of exhausted scribes. Across the hall, the croquembouche keep had miraculously survived the day; someone likely Mara had planted miniature paper Phoenix flags along its sugar ramparts.

Velka returned from a final circuit, hair damp from evening drizzle. She dropped a sealed envelope onto my lap. "Courier from Stonepass urgent, but not alarming."

I cracked the wax. Inside lay a brief note from Elder Farin Blackwell, scrawled in broad, uncompromising strokes:

First relief wagons arrived intact. Children ask if the princess really defeated angry books. Bridge inspection begins tomorrow. Send more biscuits. Trust being rebuilt one brick, one bite.

I smiled so hard my cheeks ached. "They want biscuits."

"Victory taxes," Velka said, eyes gleaming. "We can oblige."

A sudden crash interrupted us Elira, arms overflowing with account scrolls, had stumbled over a snoring Vastrid. She righted herself with icy dignity. "Apologies. I require shelving space and a treason-proof nap."

Riven sprang to assist, though he mostly succeeded in tangling their robes. Mara materialized with coffee the color of midnight panic. "Elira, one sip and you can alphabetize the stars."

I laughed—tired, true. "All right, triage. Elira, sleep. Mara, no caffeinated astronomy. Riven, document today as 'Historic Moderate Success.'"

They obeyed with weary grins. Even Vastrid managed a grudging nod before crawling under a table, muttering about pastry amnesty.

Velka touched my elbow. "You, too. Rest."

"I will." I glanced around at the paper forts, the dozing revolutionaries, the twilight filtering lavender through stained glass. "But first thank you."