Suddenly, the silence that had invaded their conversation was interrupted when Ren turned to address someone and invited her to their table. The girl called Myra seemed upset for some reason. Rian looked over to see Ren looking perfectly cheerful. He looked between the two, confused by the contrast in their moods. As usual, Halieu didn't seem surprised by what was happening at all. Rian was really hating being the only one out of the loop.<br/><br/>In fact, he was about to open his mouth to ask just what was going on when the mood became serious again. Rian leaned over and poked Halieu a few times in the arm until his friend sighed and turned to look at him. "Come on, what's going on?" Rian asked in an almost whiny voice.<br/><br/>"Ren just said. They're friends," Halieu said dismissively. Rian frowned. He knew there was something wrong with that answer considering how Ren's "friend" Myra was acting. And besides that, he'd been more asking about what everyone was so worried about.<br/><br/>"That's not what I meant," Rian said, possibly forgetting that their friends across the table could hear him easily. "You know what's going on don't you? Come on!"<br/><br/>Halieu shook his head. "I don't know and I don't want to know." Really, he was doing his best to<span style="font-style: italic">not</span>find out what was making everyone so nervous. Whatever it was couldn't be good and he tried to avoid stressful situations.<br/><br/>"What if it's really important?" Rian tempted. "We might be able to avoid something bad if we know what it is." He was back to poking his friend in the arm.<br/><br/>Halieu sighed. "Please Rian. You're being very annoying."<br/><br/>Rian took a break from the poke attack. He looked across the table to their two friends, realizing he just left them totally behind in the conversation. A nice change of pace, but one he decided to fix. He looked at them with a straight face and pointed at Halieu. "He's a mind reader."<br/><br/>Halieu let out a breath and let his head droop. There was a time and a place for everything and Rian just didn't understand that. Oh well. Too late now.<br/><br/>-------------------<br/><br/>Alexander raised his eyebrows. What these two were saying was... against everything he'd ever been told. There could surely only be one king, and that was his father. The prince turned his head to look at his father. He was struggling now to hold on to his smile and turned down to address his son.<br/><br/>"Alexander, I believe our friends here are going to insist on being difficult. If you would please fetch the head guards..."<br/><br/>Lexi was confused, but he of course did as he was told. Normally, fetching guards wouldn't be a task given to him, considering he was, well, the prince. It did happen occasionally though that he would be cast from the room at some point during some of his father's meetings. In truth, his father didn't want Alexander to see his true self, so whenever he would be forced to drop his friendly act, the prince would be caste away. Lexi himself was blissfully unaware of this.<br/><br/>"Yes, of course father," Alexander said dutifully, excusing himself from the room discreetly, to go find the guards.