Chapter 77: Chapter 77 A Tempest Temper
Without another word to the demon, Aella teleported back to the throne room. Reaching down, she healed Father Rice, removing all of the damage he had received to his eyes. The two girls drew close to watch in wonder.
"I hate magic!" she declared, once she was done, moving past the regents and sitting in her new throne. They had replaced it after the crazy advisor destroyed it. "Frederick, take the girls and Father Rice to the room you had the Heroes in last night. I'll deal with these nobles until you return. Seifer, are you alright?"
The demon was eyeing the little girls with almost a fearful expression. "I don't care for children, Your Majesty. They're too easy to break."
"Fair enough. You can sit. They won't bite."
He nodded and moved to his chair while Frederick led the three out of the throne room.
"Your Majesty?" asked one of the nobles, the same one that had tried to speak to her before. "My family is grateful that you are having workers clear the sewers under our estate. I was only wondering when you thought we might be able to move back home?"
She turned to the noble and looked over the crowd of them. "How many of you are here, concerning the same issue?"
They shuffled their feet around, not sure if they wanted to answer. Finally, about half of them stepped forward to join the first demon.
"You will all remain in the warehouses until I say you can go home. Now leave. If the rest of you mention it, you will remain in the warehouses forever. Now, who's next?"
The nobles that were dismissed, left as quickly as they could, grateful she didn't do anything worse.
"Your Majesty," said the next demoness, curtsying. "It pleases my family, that you are willing to allow the house of-"
"I don't have time to listen to you try to butter me up. What do you want?"
"Well, Your Majesty, my family is in charge of the trade wagons you sent out not too long ago. We were wondering if you wanted us to break the wagon trains up when they became full, or return as a group, in order to unload before returning to the route?"
"Are you finding a lot of food and goods?" asked Aella, getting hopeful. The food she had managed to secure for her kingdom would only last so long, and finding food would help immensely.
"There are farms to the south that have managed to bring in decent harvests, despite the drought. They are willing to trade the bulk of their crops to the trade caravans, in exchange for other foods," confirmed the demoness, obviously pleased to have made Aella happy.
"Good, that will help. Send plenty of runners with the wagons, so the runners can return to let us know we need to send more wagons, and have the wagons return that are full. The food surplus is to be stored in the town I mentioned before," said Aella.
"That is where we have been taking it, Your Majesty," said the demoness with a nod. Curtsying again, she turned to leave.
The next noble didn't look very happy, when he stepped forward.
Frederick returned and headed to his throne, next to Seifer.
"Oh, good. I have things to do," said Aella, jumping up.
The nobles all seemed to droop as she turned to look over them, as if afraid of her.
"If you can make your request in one sentence, I will see you before I leave," she said to them.
"Your Majesty, the Master of Guards has been killed, and I would like for my son to have the position," said one noble, stepping forward quickly.
"I'll see him this evening and make my decision then," she said, turning to the next noble.
"A fight broke out overnight, that caused intense damage to my estate and I would like recompense from the family of the one responsible," said a noble demoness, pushing past the demon that was about to speak.
"How are you aware of this, since no one is to be outside of the warehouses after dark? I should think you can pay for said damages. Next!"
The demoness' mouth snapped shut and she stormed out of the room.
"There is a shortage of food, because the nobles are taking it all," said an old demon, stepping forward.
"Really?" she turned to the Advisors who were sitting at their tables. "Have someone look into that. I will not have my people starving because of greed."
They nodded and took notes, waving the old demon over for more information.
"I have a gift for Your Majesty, and would request you spend time with my son?" asked a noble demoness, holding out an ornate package.
"I accept your gift, but I have no time for play. Next."
For the next fifteen minutes, the nobles tried to shorten their requests to one sentence. Only twice did she send them away when they tried to explain their requests. Giving her regents a nod, she teleported back to the training grounds.
Dead people lay all around her, and she spied the heroes ahead of her, finishing off a group of human soldiers. She could tell it wasn't that problematic for them, and many of the soldiers were throwing down their weapons and pleading for their lives, after the last church official fell. Josephine spotted her and ran over immediately.
"Did you find her? My sweet Pearl?" she asked, looking around as if to spot her hiding behind Aella.
"I took her back to the palace, as I didn't think you would want her to see all of the dead bodies," said Aella, motioning to the forms all around them.
"Oh…but if she travels with us, then she's bound to see fighting and dead bodies," said Josephine, looking confused. "I want to see, her. Is she alright?"
Aella thought about the hair incident and nodded. "She's just fine. Father Rice has both her and Fina.
"Fina was there, too? That's fantastic!"
"Who is Fina, exactly?" asked Aella. She never got an opportunity to ask the man.
"She's my niece. My sister died right after she was born, from a sickness. The poor girl was born early, and everyone expected her to die, but I healed her often enough, she survived. When they took the two, I wasn't sure she would survive away from me."
"Well, she looked just fine when I left them. Are you guys done here?"
"A lot of the troops that had been sent out on various tasks, returned when you activated the wall, so we were able to dispatch most of them," said Alfred, joining them.
"Only a few ran off, but I don't think they can cause too much trouble," Curt said, putting his sword up.
"What about the soldiers that surrendered?" asked Aella, glancing at the group that was sitting together, looking terrified.
"We were wondering what you wanted to do with them," said Alfred, turning to look at them as well.
"We have a crowd watching us," said Josephine, nodding towards the wall.
Everyone turned to look, and saw a large group pressed up against the wall, watching. Many of them were children.
"We can leave those other soldiers, and tell them that if they don't cause harm to any of my people, I'll let them live," said Aella, walking towards the wall.
"That sounds reasonable," said Alfred. "I'll go inform them."
Reaching out, Aella went to touch the wall softly, and felt the faintest hello from it. Jerking her hand back, she rubbed her fingers against her shirt.
"Did you want to talk to the people on the other side of the wall?" asked Curt.
Aella studied the people on the other side. "Why do I need to? They aren't in my kingdom."
"You could offer them sanctuary over here, away from the church?" he offered, looking at the many children in the group.
"I imagine the church is going to lose a lot of its power, now that it no longer has the war to control the people. I have my own people to worry about, and we barely have the food to feed them, much less more people."
"Why don't you have more food?" asked Josephine. "It's so dry over here, almost as if someone has prevented the water from traveling over the land."
"I was wanting to ask you about that," said Aella, turning back to her.
Alfred was sending the humans off, to try and make lives of their own, when Aella noticed something she had never seen before. Clouds were gathering in the north. Huge, black, broiling clouds.
"What are those?" she asked, her voice tinged with a hint of fear.
Josephine and Curt turned to see what she was looking at, and they both gasped.
"That's one huge storm!" exclaimed Curt.
"There's something wrong about that," whispered Josephine. "It almost feels angry."
"I know, I can feel it, too," Aella said. Did she do that when she cut all those magical lines? Was the demon keeping the water at bay?
"Aella, we have to do something! That storm is going to kill a lot of people!"
"What? How?" she asked, confused.
"It's going to drop so much water, people will drown. You'll lose everyone and everything in its path!" cried Josephine.
"But how do we stop a storm?!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Sdrawkcab
Sdrawkcab How do you stop a storm?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone