The Path

The Council of the Nine Kingdoms

The Council of the Nine Kingdoms.

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Every 300 nights, the Council of the Nine Kingdoms meet in Emmeline's Kingdom.

Three representatives from each Kingdom are present, along with the head of state, from each Kingdom. With them they bring their entourages, families and friends.

Along with the representatives, are the thousands of people from each Kingdom, who joined the revelry. Many come for the meetings, but many more come for the festivities.

It is three days of meetings and six days of partying.

Every inn in Emmeline's Kingdom is filled to overcapacity and even local villagers offer their homes, for a fee, to the travellers from the other eight Kingdoms. Many villagers fix up their barns and other outbuildings, to accommodate the influx of people.

Many more bring traveling caravans and set up outside the Grand Hall, where the meetings are held.

For as far as the eye could see, the land around the Grand Hall was filled with tents and covered wagons and other structures, to house the huge migration of people.

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In the past, the meetings and parties had been held at Emmeline's castle. But once we became a part of the meetings, the sheer amount of people forced Emmeline to build a new meeting place, far from her castle. Stories of me and my families had spread through the Kingdoms like wildfire and people descended upon Emmeline's Kingdom, hoping to catch, even a glimpse of the five amazing children, that had come fro a world beyond the known Kingdoms.

The hall is massive and can hold some 20,000 people. Emmeline had followed Dad's advice and joined a 200 room Inn, as they call it, along with a casino, if you can believe that, and shops and restaurants. Dad called it a 'one stop' entertainment centre.

Emmeline didn't quite grasp the phrase, but many did.

The huge injection of finances that Emmeline's Kingdom received, soon made it, not only the choice for the Kingdoms meetings, but a hot tourist attraction as well. Not with the same insanity that the meetings caused, but enough to keep all in Emmeline's Kingdom employed and prosperous.

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The Council meetings are a pompous, lavish affair, much like Relina. In all honesty, I find them extremely irritating and even more boring.

Unfortunately, I have to attend, along with the others in The Five.

We have our own special booth, high above the crowds, where we usually sit and watch the proceedings.

At least we look like we are watching. In actuality we mostly drink, bitch, talk and sleep. We take turns, sneaking away to go outside and visit the shops and casino. They have some unique gambling games here and they are a riot to participate in. Zeke and Ilene have become pretty adept at several of the games and they usually walk away, their pockets laden with domies.

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The meetings themselves, are no more than a collection of requests from each Kingdom, for help in proceeding with various projects they wish to complete. At one time, such a meeting would not even be considered and I have to give Emmeline credit for the fact that she has united the Kingdoms and they do help each other.

It is hard to believe that for many thousands of years these Kingdoms were either fighting with each other, or engaged in an uneasy truce, that could be broken by a simple rude word.

It was Emmeline's battle with Deark that united the Kingdoms. They have remained as friends and ally's ever since since.

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The meetings have also consisted of the different Kingdoms expressing their plans for upcoming celebrations. Like Maynard's Rock, it seemed that the lands of the Nine Kingdoms would use any excuse to have a party.

Unfortunately, many of these celebrations included our families. Seems that every 30 nights or so, we are off to one of the Kingdoms to celebrate something. There were so many in fact that we decided that only one or two of us would go to the celebrations, or else we would never be home.

It was mostly a drawing of straws that determined who would go. In the beginning everyone wanted to attend, but the shine soon wears off constant partying. So, short straws lost.

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Actually, Nanny Lea was joining us at the Council meetings straight from a celebration in Zer. This one, she actually volunteered for, as she did with every celebration in Zer.

We were starting to get more than a little suspicious, but as always, Nanny Lea was tight lipped.

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This meeting of the Council of the Nine Kingdoms was going to take on a different tone.

I had an appointment to speak to the Council, on the third day, after the usual boring bullshit. The other four would be at my side, but it would be me speaking. I wasn't looking forward to it. I do not like to speak publicly.

And this was even more irritating, as I was doing it only to pacify Relina.

Pompous bitch.

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Like the other Kingdoms, we had three Council members as well; Dad, Mom and Auntie Jessie. I was considered the official head of state for the Kingdom, but I rarely, if ever, sat at the council table, preferring to be in the booth, so I could easily slip away, if I so wished.

As for Uncle Bobby, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Council, but he loved going to the meetings. He usually sat with us, or explored the shops and casino, much to the chagrin of Auntie Jess, who would rather be doing the same. But we had to have three representatives and Nanny Lea was always busy, so poor Auntie Jess drew the proverbial short straw.

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When at the meetings, we stayed at the castle with Emmeline. Everyone seemed to get along except for me and Relina. We did our best to keep it civil, but I found the best solution was for us to simply stay out of each other's way and basically not speak to each other.

Which we did.

Pompous bitch.

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We arrived in our usual manner. Jenny and I transported everyone to a location in the forests, on the outskirts of Emmeline's Kingdom. We would have preferred to simply ghost to Emmeline's castle, but Relina insisted on having us arrive, as the other representatives did. We all had specific times to arrive and we had to do the whole procession thing.

There were horse drawn carriages and servants, in the forest, awaiting us and we arrived at the castle with all the revelry that should be associated with people of our stature. There was a lot of cheering and waving and smiling.

Such a pile of bullshit.

But unlike the others, who arrived days before, we arrived on the day of the meetings and taken immediately to the Grand Hall, where I would officially open the session of the Council.

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Relina's idea, of course.

Anal bitch.

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As always I would hurry straight to the booth and have a drink, before I got up and gave my huge speech, which consisted of the simple phrase,

"I proclaim that this general assembly of the land of Nine Kingdoms, be open. Queens Relina and Emmeline officiating."

And that was that.

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I was not to address Council until day three, so I still had to endure the pain of the meetings for two and a half days.

Thank my stars for the others and especially Nanny Lea.

The meetings had no sooner begun, than she took me by the hand and out of the Grand Hall.

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"Time to get out of here."

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I happily agreed.