226 Chapter 226 Monsters or Misunderstood?

"A little jumpy?" remarked Aella, not having moved at all in response to his actions.

"New location, new possibilities," he answered with a shrug. "What's up?"

"I ran into Jozef in the gnome city and spoke with him," she started, but Firion nodded in understanding.

"He was trying to set up trade over there and must have gotten trapped when Bob closed down his bars," said Firion.

"You knew about him talking to the other kingdoms?" asked Aella curiously. It didn't surprise her that he knew, only that he hadn't mentioned it to her before.

"He didn't hide the fact that he was unhappy with Seifer being king, and spoke to everyone who had any form of power at all about overthrowing him and getting someone who knew what he was doing in his place. The problem that he kept coming up with, was that no one had any idea how to be king. Frederik was working on his own case to present to Seifer, but had to be careful about it because of the view Seifer had on him with his dealings with you. Jozef had decided to start talking to the other kingdoms in the hopes of getting somewhere with Seifer, and Seifer let him go, to get him out of his face."

"I'm guessing he didn't get far with the dwarves and the elves in the middle of their big wedding, and the halflings not wanting to deal with the politics of the other kingdoms. The gnomes were the only ones he could talk to," said Aella, thinking about it carefully.

"I suppose you brought him here?" sighed Firion. "Is he going to take my new job so soon?"

"He's supposed to work alongside you," said Aella. "He does have a lot of experience being a ruler, which no one else really has."

"True, but a lot has changed since he was in charge, and most of his ideas are antiquated for what we need now. It's fine," he said, holding up a hand as Aella went to say something. "You don't need to apologize or try to change anything. I can deal with this. When do you plan to start letting everyone pour into the town?"

Aella looked out over the trade town, spotting her hydra still playing in the streets with a variety of children, and said, "I was going to wait to let anyone in until after I babysit, but I don't think that's going to work with all of your people here now. I suppose as soon as I have the last of the portals done, we can start letting people come and go."

Aella felt like squirming at being caught in a mistake, but forced herself to stand tall. "With everything that has happened, I don't think I have a 'people' anymore. Everyone in the realm is under my protection, and I have far too much to do to think about any one group needing me more than any other."

"You know that the demon people see you as their personal leader, after you moved them all here," pointed out Firion.

"Yet I left them trapped in a domed city for three months and then didn't show back up for over a year," she growled at herself.

"Not anyone is perfect," he shrugged, then headed down the stairs towards the gnomish portal.

"He's right, you know," purred Precious, who had just finished licking the spot Firion touched clean. "Everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

"But if I make mistakes, the entire realm could die," sighed Aella, watching him walk down the street for a moment before teleporting above the halfling lands.

"Where are you going to keep the godlings for that week you're going to have them?" asked Precious as she spied a halfling and flew towards him.

"I haven't decided yet," she admitted, settling on the ground in front of the halfling as he approached her with a pony heavily laden down with bags of apples.

"Good day, traveler," the halfling greeted her with a bob of his head. "What brings you to our fair lands?"

Aella gave him a smile, relieved that he was being much nicer than the previous halflings she had encountered.

"I'm looking to make a portal somewhere in your lands, to allow the halfling people to trade their goods with other kingdoms."

The halfling scratched the side of his face thoughtfully, and looked out over the fields around them.

"When the people from the other lands visited, they stole a lot of stuff from us, and there wasn't much we could do," he said. "I'm not sure there are a lot of people who would like something like that here."

"What if I assigned guards to it, and didn't let anyone who wasn't a halfling use it?" she asked, thinking she could make an exception to having the assassins guard the other side of the gate.

"I suppose that might work," the halfling nodded, still not a hundred percent convinced. "It will probably have to be implemented and then we'll see if it works or not. Is there a way to take it down after it's up, if we don't like it?"

"Of course," Aella nodded, all to eager to get started. "Do you know where I should put it?"

"Well," he looked around and shrugged. "Somewhere in the middle of the lands, I guess. That way we can all get to it if we want."

She nodded and looked around, since this was about the middle of their lands. If she could find a good spot, she would get started. The halfling continued on his way, done talking to her.

"Why is everyone being so nice to us all of a sudden?" asked Precious, glancing back at the disappearing halfling.

"What do you mean?" asked Aella, settling on a good spot and starting on the frame of the portal.

"Well, Seifer isn't normally so cooperative, and every leader, or council, we've talked with, has agreed to let us get the portals in place. Even the halflings, who gave us such a hard time last time, are being friendly to us. I just think it's strange. Normally we struggle and have to argue and almost plead to get things to go our way."

Aella sighed and said, "Maybe everyone just agrees that this should be done. I think it's nice that everything is going well and I'm trying not to think about what big bad thing might happen next. I've had so much crap thrown at me; I don't want to look for more."

"I just don't want to be in the middle of something and have some big problem rear its head because we didn't pay attention to it," he grumbled.

"I can't keep an eye on everything at all times," she said. "There will always be problems of some kind showing up when we don't want them to. I plan to just get what I can done as fast as I can, so when problems do pop up, I have less to do while dealing with them."

"I suppose. We only have the portal in the elven forest left, right?" he asked as she went back to working on the portal.

"I think I want to make a portal for the lizard people and the lions, too. I don't know that they will use it, but they should have the option, being a group of people on the realm."

"What about checking on the old lands, where you brought the demons from? Do you think the fairies survived?"

Aella thought about it, pausing in the process of making runes, then nodded finally. "I guess I should check there before I activate anything. If a large monster is there, it poses a threat to the kingdoms south of the mountains."

"Do you think there are any goblins, orcs, or anything else, still alive in the mountains? What about the harpies, if you're including the lizards?" asked Precious, twitching his tail.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Those races were seen as monsters and were kill on sight by so many for so long, I think they would be harder to allow them than it was to get the demons and humans to work together."

"Jogug was an orc, and he wasn't evil," pointed out Precious.

"I should probably check on him, and that race of underwater people, too," muttered Aella, turning to finish the portal.

The moment it came alive, she teleported to the trade town. She needed to let Firion and Jozef know that it would need to be guarded on both sides by the assassins.