Disclaimer: I do not own Magical X Miracle

Note: N/A

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"Yue!" Merleawe called, running over to him. She had been on her way down to attend a Council meeting, when she had noticed someone collapsed on the landing on the staircase. Once she had gotten down about half of the first flight of stairs, she had recognized her friend, and had rushed to his aid. "Yue, are you all right?" She asked, concerned. To her relief, Yue picked his head up and then got to his hands and knees. Merleawe noticed that his glasses were a few inches away from him, one of the hinges broken, with either a crack or a scratch running across the right lens.

"Merleawe?" He asked, turning to look at her. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine." Even though he said he was fine, Merleawe noticed a laceration in front of his right ear that looked pretty bad until Merleawe remembered that head injuries tended to bleed a lot and weren't necessarily as severe as they looked. But the fact that he was hurt, even just a little bit, worried her. Not only was Yue her friend, he was also one of the hardest-working and most valuable members of the Magical Department.

"What happened to you?" She asked, wondering if he had gotten into a fight of some sort. Not many people were willing to stand up to Yue, but that didn't mean he was well-liked, so there was always a possibility someone would decide to pick a fight with him.

"Well..." Yue began, "I tripped." He admitted grudgingly, and Merleawe felt a bit relieved. At least someone hadn't tried to hurt him; he had just accidentally gotten hurt himself. It was then that Yue, likely following Merleawe's gaze, noticed the wound, and put his hand over it, frowning slightly.

"You say you're all right, but that looks like it might be serious. You should probably have a doctor take a look at that." Merleawe suggested, but Yue shook his head, and Merleawe noticed a faint magical glow around his hand. He's probably trying to heal it himself, even though he knows as well as I do that magic cannot heal very well by itself without herbs or crystals. She thought.

"It's not serious. As I said earlier, don't worry about me." Yue said, reaching for his glasses, then critically surveying the scratch on the lens before putting them on. "Anyways, there's no sense in wasting your time here. You should probably get to the meeting. I'll be there in a little while." He said, and Merleawe nodded. After all, there was no reason to worry about him. He could take care of himself; he was a mature, responsible adult and had been so when she herself was still a child.

Besides, Merleawe had issues of her own to worry about. It was beginning to look like both Caldia and Vilatta were eying Viegald as a possible target in what Merleawe hoped wouldn't come to a full-scale war. True, Merleawe had worked closely with the King of Vilatta in her years of missionary work, but the King of Vilatta had recently passed away and his daughter had taken the throne. True, she seemed to be a vain and cruel young woman, but Merleawe doubted, given the amount of sexism in Vilatta, as well as the very nature of government itself, that she was the sole driving force behind the aggressive attitude. Merleawe had just sent Vaith down to Vilatta's border with Viegald in hopes that his presence would help show Viegald as not as weak as Vilatta may have thought, but it would be weeks before she would learn if that strategy had been successful.

She had also reviewed Yue's plans, and though she had found them to be good in the case of preparing from an invasion from Caldia, with his plan, the southern border would have been left all but undefended. Merleawe knew Yue was aware of that flaw in his plan, but there had been no way around it; Viegald only had so much military strength.

So Viegald was being squeezed from both the south and the west. Merleawe doubted there would be much that could be done unless Viegald had the wholehearted support of her northern neighbor (which Merleawe had regrettably forgotten the name of). However, that nation was a democracy, and democracies tended to be pushy about spreading their system of government. Of course, Merleawe agreed that democracy was the fairest system of government, but Viegald had been a monarchy for as long as anyone could remember, and, as far as she knew, no one in Viegald wanted to change, especially since they had such a magnanimous king. And from the outside, the Council probably didn't look half bad either.

On that note, Merleawe was not looking forward to the Council meeting. Yes, Merleawe was patient. Yes, Merleawe was kind. But she was not about to babysit men in their fifties through seventies who insisted upon acting like jealous schoolchildren. True, recently one of the ministers had resigned due to ill health and passed his position on to his son, a man of about forty, but he wasn't any better than his father had been.

However, since everyone seemed to sense the approaching danger, the meetings had been going much more smoothly of late, with everyone contributing ideas on how to help the nation best prepare, but still no one could agree on anything, making each meeting frustrating and almost always extending past the time set for it to end.

But, then, there wasn't much Merleawe could do but keep trying to help others, to pray to God, and to hope for the best.

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Note: I just realized I forgot to spellcheck chapter 5. So, if anyone finds any mistakes, please feel free to let me know and I'll correct them.