" Who do you think you are?"
was the first thing they heard when Nicole and Cloud entered the conference room.
"Ooh, Rhea's mad."
Cloud whispered. Nicole rolled her eyes,
"Shocker."
"You get just a little bit of power and all of a sudden you think you can challenge me. ME? I am Tundera."
Rhea was screaming at the Minister of Internal affairs who'd managed to maintain a poker face but the sweat dripping along his face gave him away; it was so obvious he wanted to crawl under the table.
Rhea tended to have that effect on people.
In this particular circumstance she looked like a hangry lion. Grey streaked brown hair tied tightly in a ponytail which further accentuated her stone cold blue eyes that where shooting daggers and scarred arms she was flexing to look more intimidating.
Cloud took his seat by his brothers, Caleb and Conner and Nicole retreated to the back of the room, close enough to ward of any attack and far enough to be unnoticed, for some flawed reason that was the place for paladins.
Cloud could hardly hold back his laughter as the Minister of Internal affairs shrunk in his seat. Of course, none of the other ministers did anything to help; as snobby as they were no one would dare try to get in the way when Rhea was on a rampage, they were all trying to avoid eye contact for fear they became targets.
For this reason, no one took notice when the king entered the council room until he was at his seat.
" That's enough Tundera" ,he said calmly but firmly.
Rhea flinched. She didn't like being ordered around, especially by the child prince-turned-man king she used to babysit, but the oath kept her bound. She took a deep breath and finally sat down.
The king smiled and humorously said,
"Now, as much as I would like to address whatever just happened here, I have a feeling that it will come up in the course of our meeting. Shall we begin."
One by one, the ministers brought up their issues, deliberately stretching them out to give Rhea time to simmer down.
"So Tundera, whatever is the problem."
The king said with a sigh.
Rhea chuckled. She had long grown tired of the attitude he gave her.
"First off, your majesty, I mean no disrespect but if you want to address me you better do so with the respect you'd give your mother. I will not accept similar treatment as the neanderthals at this table. Do you understand?"
The king, stunned, nodded in acceptance.
"Thank you. Now, the reason for my earlier outburst whichI am sorry for was because your royal guard is so disorganised and so incompetent that you force my paladins, your personal protectors to chase a common rebel around the palace grounds. Why do you hire guards, why do you train them, why do you waste resources when you're not even going to use them."
" If I may," said the Minister of Internal Affairs, " your paladins are basically glorified guards. What was so wrong with putting them to use.".
The room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. All heads turned to look at the minister wondering if he had a death wish.
"This idiot" Nicole thought to herself.
Rhea was quiet, her eyes blankly staring into space. She couldn't believe this was what had become of them. She turned to the king but he just avoided making eye contact with her.
She stood up waved her hands and commanded, "Tunderas fall out." then just walked out of the room.
They hesitated for a second but followed suit.
Cloud, bewildered, looked to his brothers who looked just as ahocked as he was and asked, " What just happened?"
Rhea had gotten mad many times before but never had she simply walked out. No matter how one looked at it, it seemed she had simply giving up.
"Your majesty?" said Conner.
"Right." The king cleared his throat. "Back to the meeting. Anything else?"
Caleb stiffened, "Seriously, are you going to pretend that didn't just happen"
" I will not award insubordination with attention." The king snapped. " I repeat. Anything else?"
"Uh yes." said Connor as though snapping back to reality. " The rebellions have become more rampant. Just this week alone we've had three attacks.; the graffitti on the city gates....
His words faded, nobody could pay attention to the meeting after the latest events, and Cloud couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.