Gala

Gala was on another one of her walks. She walked on the boardwalk as the sun rose before making her way through the crowded streets of the morning market. The smell of the fruits engulfed the air and was trapped by the thin alleyways further concentrating the smell. Tobacco and weed also filled the air as smoking dens dotted the streets squeezed between fruit stands.

As Gala made her way through a crowd of people negotiating prices over a bag of apples, she stumbled across a boy nailing a poster to the wall of a corner building. When the boy finished and walked away, she approached the poster, curious about its contents. It seemed to be an announcement from the crown. Gala guessed it was the announcement of her becoming Earl Regent of Wailing Wind. It dawned on Gala that this would be one of her last walks, so as she continued approaching the poster, she took a deep breath of the smell of fruits, tobacco, weed, and a hint of feces from people’s homes not far from the fruit market.

However, when she got within reading distance her eyes widened, and she immediately ran off back to the palace. Gala knocked a couple of people over on the way and was delayed with apologizing profusely and picking them back up, before continuing. When she arrived, the guards told her to slow down, but after she explained who she was, was able to squeeze passed them. As Gala opened the palace doors, she acknowledged that having an unmemorable face to the general public was sometimes not a good thing but supposed it wouldn’t be like that for long.

She dashed through the halls, and after she became out of breath, and after at least ten minutes of running, she arrived at Nero’s chambers. She pounded on the door. The bodyguard posted outside his chamber stopped her, pulled her off, however, and told her to calm down. He was a tall and brutish man—the opposite of Nero—and shoved her back while demanding what was so urgent that pounding on the prince’s door was necessary. Gala told him to get off of him, which the bodyguard immediately complied with.

Gala jumped back to Nero’s door to continue pounding, but Nero had already opened it by then. Nero, confused at the commotion, asked what she wanted. But before Gala could explain what she had seen, she asked about a nick on the bottom of Nero’s dragonvine. “It’s from shaving,” he explained.

Gala nodded and forced herself into the room. Nero hastily stepped back to let her through before closing the door behind her. “It is eight in the morning,” Nero complained. “What do you want?” Gala sighed and explained to him what she saw on the poster. It was a royal announcement from Maximus personally accusing the People’s Lord of killing Titus, but more importantly, the kidnapping of Claudia. Nero had two questions off the bat. The first was what the People’s Lord was, which Gala quickly answered before Nero moved on to the more important question of how and when his mom was kidnapped. He tried to keep his composure, but Gala noticed panic slip out of his voice.

“I don’t know,” Gala responded. “Probably at some point on her way to Wailing Wind. But you know what doesn’t make sense? How we haven’t been told about this? I found out through a fucking poster,” Gala said, infuriated. “Do you know how long it takes to make copies of posters like that? At least a couple of hours.” Gala fell onto Nero’s bed since there were no chairs. There wasn’t much of anything in his room. Only a bed, desk, small bookshelf, closet, and a small nightstand with a drawer for the few papers he was allowed to look at.

“Why didn’t Dad tell us this?” Nero asked.

“I don’t know,” Gala responded. She sat up on Nero’s bed. “But why don’t we go ask him now?”

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Nero hesitated and said that he might be busy, but Gala didn’t care and dragged him out of his room, with only his night robes, down to the opposite side of the palace to confront their dad.

When they got to their dad’s chambers, they found five guards posted outside. Gala demanded entry, but the guards said the king was busy. Instead of arguing with them, she called out for her dad to let them in. The guards tried to shut her up, but Maximus opened the door and told them to come inside. As soon as Gala stepped foot into his chambers, she demanded answers. “Why in the fuck would you keep this a secret? That is our mom!”

Maximus tried to get her to quiet down, but it was in vain. She kept demanding an answer in the harshest way possible without offending the king. “Fine, shut up, and I’ll tell you,” Maximus said. Gala closed her mouth. “I received the news during the night, and I had little time to respond. I immediately ordered the commission of posters around the city, and I’ve been meeting with advisors and generals ever since.”

“She’s our family too,” Gala rebutted. “If you want to save her then we should have told us. Maybe we would have a solution!”

“Like what?!” Maximus demanded. “What? Ask nicely if you even suggest talking with the People’s Lord then I will kick you out of this country until the day I die.” Maximus paced around the room in frustration. “Also, what is this insulting clothing? Can you imagine what the people would think if they saw the both of you dressed like this?”

“Oh, I know. Not get swarmed every time I leave the palace to go on a simple walk. That’s what they would do,” Gala responded.

“So, let me hear it. What is this genius plan you’ve got cooked up?”

During this exchange, Nero had been tapping his foot and biting his lip. He was trying to say something but didn’t want to interrupt their argument, but when Gala didn’t respond to Maximus’s question, Nero answered for her. “Talk to them,” he suggested.

Maximus was insulted. “Did you not hear anything I just said? Are you that stupid?”

“It doesn’t have to be on your behalf,” Nero clarified. He stared at the ground when he talked. “I can go off on my own and say that I want to know if mom is ok. I can demand that I see her with my own eyes, and if they accept terms, then she will be returned. If not, then spies can trail them back to wherever they are hiding here, and we can move on from there. Once we get Mom out, we can go after the rest of the People’s Lord.”

No one spoke for a moment. “You know he’s right,” Gala spoke up. Maximus scoffed at the suggestion. Gala continued. “What’s wrong with the idea? We have no leverage. We have armies but nowhere to command them to, we have an enemy but no way of knowing who they are, and they have Claudia!”

“I won’t negotiate with terrorists,” Maximus said. “They have Claudia.”

“Please, don’t act like you haven’t kidnapped their entire lives,” Nero said. Maximus and Gala snapped their heads at Nero. Maximus fumed with anger at the statement, and Nero turned red. Gala shook her head, trying to tell him not to escalate the situation further.

Maximus walked up to Nero. “What did you just say?”

Nero bit his lip once more and tilted his head in uneasiness. “We spend almost all our money on the army and partying, while a race of people who don’t speak our language see none of the benefits. Who do you think is behind this? A Borzor man held a knife to my throat. You remember, don’t you?” Nero didn’t ask Maximus the question firmly but rather was afraid of what his father’s answer might be. Maximus seemed on the verge of an explosion, but Gala interjected before.

“Leave him alone, dad,” she said. “And he brings a good point. They don’t see us as their rightful overlords and have every reason to go against us.”

Maximus backed off and looked at both of them. “Romulus will be here in a couple of weeks. I wrote him a letter putting him in charge of getting Claudia back. Until then, you can talk to them, but no agreement gets made without my permission. Understand?” They both nodded. Maximus threw up his arm at the door and told them to leave. “Don't come back unless you have Claudia around your arms.”

As they left, Gala asked why Nero and Maximus couldn’t bury their hatchet. “Things like that don’t go buried,” Nero said. “I can still talk to him and live the rest of my life, but he isn’t sorry or seems to have any empathy for what happened. Until that happens, the hatchet stays up. Plus, the hatchet is in his hands, not mine.”

“How are you going to get into contact with them?” Gala asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”