"You're too smart." I look up at him, his beautiful emerald eyes, and his smile.
"I've had a lot of experiences in this sort amount of time I've lived. Do you want to stay here? Call off our meeting?"
"I want to stay here. But you don't have to leave."
"Okay. Then we'll stay in."
"You don't have to stay. I'm sure you're very busy and you ha-" the door opened.
"What is it?" Gaara asks the nin standing at my doorway. The nin looks at us, with worrying eyes.
"What is it?" I repeat Gaara's words with seriousness lacing my question. He just looked at me. Worry, very much so evident in his eyes. This is bad.
"There seems to be a problem in the village." The nin says, still frozen at the door.
"What is the problem?" Gaara asks.
"The citizens aren't happy with some of the decisions the council agreed to with a majority vote recently."
"And?" Gaara asks, knowing there is more.
"They threaten to rebel." The nin's eyes traveled to the floor than slowly looked back to us "Also," he paused "there seem to be some ninja coming our way, a small, but powerful village not far from here. They feel they aren't being treated fairly by the other major villages. Mainly ours, they plan to attack and will concur Suna if they win." I look over to Gaara. His body has become stiff, unlike before, when he was relaxed. And although his eyes may not have not widened in shock, if you looked close enough, his eyes showed worry, fright, and an unsure. I'm not sure how someone can show so many emotions though just their eye, all at once, and yet, they themselves remain calm. Eyes, they are the window to the deepest emotions humans can experience.
Gaara will need a lot of support, which I'm certain about. No one can ever have this much on their plate and deal with it without any help. He may have the rest of the Suna government behind him, but he will need more then them. He will need his brother, his sister, and possibly me.
Gaara looked over to me. I smile faintly, knowing of what we must do.
"Go ahead, it's more important. Our meeting can wait."
"Thank you Kayla." As he rises from his sitting position, the bed re-surfaces to its original state. I look over to Gaara, who is now at the door. The other nin may had left, but Gaara stood at the frame looking at me.
"I really am sorry about this." He says his voice low, almost a whisper.
"Don't worry about it Gaara. These situations are more important than me. This is your job, a job you cherish. I completely understand. Now go, you have to work. And I likely will to." I smile, to show him everything is okay. I get up and join him at the door frame. "Be safe." Is all I can say, I wish I could say more, could have told him more. But I can't because I don't know what's going to happen, or what'll happen to him. He nods and leaves. Now, it's my turn. My job that I have to do to help him, but first things first, I need to talk to someone.
I knock on the wooden door in front of me.
"Yeah, yeah I'm coming!" the voice says from behind the door. The door opens and a blonde looks up at me, with questioning eyes. "What do youwant?" oh how I wish I could talk back to her right now! But it's not the time or place to do so. Hate that.
"I need to talk to you." I say, trying to seem as comfortable as possible with this, which I most certainly am not.
"So talk." She says, planting her right foot slightly to the side, her hands on her hips.
"Are you aware of the situations?" I ask.
"Of course I am!" she hisses.
"You realize Gaara will be, and likely is, under a great deal of stress because of it. He won't be able to do this alone. He'll need some advice perhaps, and he will need support. He will need you; he will need you to be there for him as both a Conrad and a sister. Please, make sure you are there for him throughout this process. I've already talked to Kankuro about this, he's agreed. I need to make sure you will do your best to help Gaara, both personally and with your work."
"What makes you think that I wouldn't do that anyway? I'm his sister, I know more than anyone else when he needs help and I'm always there for him. Always. So don't come around to me telling me what to do. You tell people what they have to do, what has to be done. Yet you can't be told to do something, and when things need to be done, instead of telling other people to do it for you, how about you do it yourself? I don't know why my brother let you into the council, you're of no use. Do yourself a favour and get out of here, you'd be better off, and so would we."
"What's your problem?" I ask, ticked off from her last 'speech' thing. "You've done nothing but hate me since I've gotten here. My job is to tell people what I think is an important decision, they are the ones who can choose if it's the one they want to go with or not. The reason I get other people to do work is because I'm busy with every other problem going on in this village and trying to choose what would be the best measure to take. Believe it or not, I do help the village out, more than you would think. I am of use, and so is my knowledge. I'm not leaving. So you're just going to have to deal with me."
"Then I guess you'll just have to endure every obstacle this village throws your way. If you are able to stay and endure it all, then, and onlythen will you gain my respect." She grabs her door, as if she were about to slam it in my face. But she just turns around slightly "Oh, and by the way," she says, as she turns back around "You have guts. No one has ever stood up to me like that. And by no one, I mean the people who I don't get along with. I'll give you props for that, but only that." She turned around and closed the door. Leaving me in the hallway, looking at the dark wooden door, what have I just gotten myself into?
I stare at the large wooden doors that stand before me. Another meeting, great, just another excuse for people to judge me and waste valuable time.
"You'll scare the door if you continue looking at it like that. To be truthful, I think the door would win your stare down though."
"Huh? Oh," my thoughts come back to reality. "that's funny."
"You didn't laugh, so it couldn't have been." The man leans against the wall.
"Sorry, I spaced out."
"In front of a door?"
"I guess so."
"Must have been some great space time."
"I recall seeing you in some meetings I've attended" I begin "but I don't seem to know your name."
"Ah, so you pay attention to the members around the table do you? I guess I'll have to be extra careful" he said, this person is a little too happy at this time of the morning, "Oh, right, my name! It's Atsuo. Nice to officially meet you Kayla!" he extended his hand for me to shake it, so I did.
"Time to go to the meeting." I say motioning at the doors. We both open one door that brings us to the darkened room with little light.
"It's about time you arrived Kayla!" a member from the council barked.
"Don't you dare start, not now, not when there are important issues to discuss. If you which to speak with me do so after this meeting has been completed."
"And I'm late too, not just her. So why do you only jump onto her case?" Atsuo asks sitting down in his chair. His energetic personality from just moments ago, now completely serious.
"Yes, but-"
"There is no excuse." Another intervened.
"As you are all have been informed, our citizens are unhappy with some decisions made by this council for them. Now, the one main thing that bothers them is that the rich are getting richer, and the poor, poorer. This goes back to one of our meetings we had a couple months ago. When I, as well as some others in this council was against the idea of giving large corporations more money. Companies like yours sir are receive large grants of money from our government. You are a conflict of interest, because you are on this council and you are only doing and voting for actions that would benefit you and people like you."
"Are you saying I should step down from my position?" the council member asks rudely.
"That is precisely what I'm saying. Our government will get absolutely no where if there are people within it who are only giving grants and opportunities to others in the same position as themselves. We are here for all of our citizens, not just the rich ones."
"She has a point you know."
"A valid one." Every member that originally voted against the grants to the rich begin to agree with me, and what I'm saying.
"But now what we must focus on is not individual members," I begin once more "no, we can deal with them later. Right now we must focus on what the village wants, and then we can determine what to do. We must go out and ask them what they want. What they need. We need to fix this before the small group of nin come. A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within*. We are a great civilisation, but if we continue as we are, we will be destroyed from within, and it will be that much easier to be conquered from without."
"What do you suggest we do?" and with that all members turned to me.
"We ask." I say simply.
Side note
Okay so this is a really short chapter, and I apologize (a lot!), I've been super busy and I really have to do this section in the story in different parts. Not because I want to, because it really I'd rather not. I'd rather keep the chapters to a minimum. But really, the ending for this chapter couldn't have anything after it, because for me, it just wouldn't work out properly. The importance of it wouldn't come off as strongly.
*quote from W. Durant
That damn quote, it took me forever to find! I thought of it and that it would be perfect for what she was saying. But I couldn't remember it properly cause I hadn't seen it in a year. I went through all of my papers to find it. I got so pissed/happy at the paper when I found it. And if you think it's impossible to get pissed off at a piece of paper than you are so very wrong. But hey I found it! Although I made a mess of my room in order too…
And again I have to say that I won't be able to update for a while (couple months) because exams are coming up which means stories come to a halt. But I promise that I will update as soon as they are done. And they will be long. To be truthful I likely will end up updating again but if I can't then please be patient.