Dark grey clouds over Aemilia

It was the twelfth day of the tenth month of the year seventeen hundred forty-eight and Princess Emilia Antoinette woke up at the tenth hour in the morning. The bed was empty, except for herself, as Merida Vala had already gotten up, she had a habit of getting up much earlier than Emilia Antoinette. In her nightgown Emilia Antoinette walked up to the window and opened the curtains, and *gasped*, before regaining her composure after which she *shrieked*. What she saw was a horrible sight, there were clouds over the Confoederatio Aemilia, and no ordinary clouds, but dark grey clouds, without a hint of pink in them, and they weren't, like, pretty at all. Absolutely horrified she called for help and Merida heard her and stormed into the room. "Em what is wrong!" Merida inquired before Emilia Antoinette motioned her to take a look outside at the dark clouds. "Oh, the weather is a bit unpleasant, were you planning to have a picknick today?" she continued sarcastically. The princess shook her head and pointed at the clouds, "The clouds, they are grey!" she exclaimed while Merida shook her head, "Yes, my dear, the clouds are grey, fire is hot and water is wet". Princess Emilia Antoinette looked confused before stating that clouds are never grey, they are always pink, and this is the first time that clouds have been grey, at least during her lifetime. Merida paused for a moment, thinking about what her spouse just told her, but she had difficulty understanding it, as clouds to her had various colours, usually white, grey or dark grey when it was bad weather, and magenta on the island of Murder. But clouds had never been pink to her. Princess Emilia Antoinette on the other hand had lost interest in Merida and had decided to take a shower so she could get dressed. Merida heard her cursing in the bathroom, annoyed that the water would not get scorching hot as Emilia Antoinette preferred it. "I'll make you some breakfast Em, we can discuss the clouds then, okay?".

Merida and crown princess Aimée Isabelle, the daughter of Merida and Emilia Antoinette had had breakfast before so they only had a coffee while Emilia Antoinette had a croissant with butter and lingonberry marmalade. "Aimée, what colours are clouds?", Merida asked, and Aimée Isabelle thought for a moment before answering "Usually pastel pink, but they are dark and grey this morning, that feels like a very bad thing and I am worried.". Princess Emilia Antoinette nodded while she was stuffing her face with the last bites of the croissant. Elisa Donder, a lackey at the palace entered the room to pick up the plates and cups, and to clean the table, and Emilia Antoinette got up to help her, and carried the porcelain to the kitchen while Elisa wiped off the table. In the kitchen, the two women washed the dishes in silence while Merida and Aimée were discussing the latter's performance at school and also her homework. Unsure, PEA asked Elisa if she had noticed something weird about the clouds today and Elisa nodded, saying that it looked like bad weather was approaching, but Elisa did not mention the colour of the clouds, so Princess Emilia Antoinette began to suspect that the colours she and Aimée saw weren't seen by everyone, and she wondered how it was possible that this had changed today for the both of them.

After finishing drying the last plate Princess Emilia Antoinette asked Crown Princess Aimée Isabelle to accompany her for a walk in the palace's orangery, where despite the name no oranges were grown, because of their association with the demoness. Instead, the orangery was full of kiwi plants and kiwi berry plants, two of the favourite fruit bearing plants of the princesses. As they were snacking kiwi berries, PEA asked Aimée Isabelle whether she had always seen pink clouds, and whether today was the first day for her as well, that the clouds seemed grey. Aimée answered that the clouds had been pink most days, but that there had been days that they had seemed grey before, and that that had always been a bad omen, something bad happened on those days, like the death of a pet when she was younger. Aimée took her mother's hand and whispered "Mom, I am afraid that something really bad will happen, if we both see it."

As they were talking and snacking on the kiwi berries, they started noticing that the clouds began to grow darker and darker, almost resembling anthracite and despite it being the middle of the day, it was getting darker and darker outside, until it appeared to be the middle of the night. Guards armed with torches were seen outside, rushing into the orangery. They escorted the princesses to the chancellery, where chancellor Charlène Jolicoeur-Schafenweide was awaiting them, together with Merida Vala and the cabinet. "We have reports from the coast that the tide is extremely high, despite no warnings from the meteorological office this morning, and there is risk of significant flooding across all coastal towns from Stadt Sankt Rosa to Volksburg. We are evacuating these towns for now but there is no way we can house them all if this goes wrong, it's most of our population. We have to hope there will be no flooding and everyone can return later today." Princess Emilia Antoinette turned to an official from the classis (navy). "Are there any reports of anything happening at sea that could explain this?" The official shook his head, there had been no such reports and he had called to colleagues in Baudrix, Bomei Island and Gogledd Cybwl and they did not experience the same rising tide, or the black clouds. Merida took the word, "Tides are usually caused by Tarsica right? The gravity from our satelite causes the tides to rise, if Tarsica would suddenly be closer to Micras, our neighbours would experience the same tidal issues. This must be a supernatural phenomenon, something big, something extremely dangerous."

An officer from the Kriegskorps Ludwigshafen enters the room and Chancellor Charlène Jolicoeur-Schafenweide asks him how the evacuations are coming along. The officer sighs and explains what has happened. This morning as the dark clouds began to form and the tide began to rise, clergymen from the Ludwiggian Reformed Church began preaching, saying that judgement was coming to the Confoederatio Aemilia for its heresy and paganism, they blamed the Prinsessenvertaling that they had to use in their churches, a version of scripture without misogyny and homophobia, and that the country was run by witches, they had urged the masses to reject the orders from the Kriegskorps for an orderly evacuation and many marched with them into the Lanzerwald toward the west. Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe up to a million people, from Sankt Rosa, to Oudorp, Volksburg and other cities and towns had joined them.

Princess Emilia Antoinette heard to these stories in horror as she realised that her country was falling apart and everyone was in grave danger. She asked the official from the classis where the tide was the highest, thinking that would be where the supernatural being would be closest to. Stadt Sankt Ludwigshafen, he answered, and PEA took her car keys from her purse and told the attendees that she had something to do. Charlène tried to stop her, saying that it was too dangerous, but Emilia Antoinette only nodded, realising it was stupid what she was going to do, but she couldn't think of anything else she could do. After a few seconds she answered; "I'm going to talk to this being, whatever it is, maybe it can be bargained with, if it can't, do what you think is the right thing to do, I have no other ideas whatsoever."

After driving five hours in a row, Princess Emilia Antoinette reached the beach of Stadt Sankt Rosa, she parked her pink cabriolet on the pier and walked towards the waterline. She could barely see her hand before her own face, and she did not see the giant wave coming her way. The wave was 20 meters tall and it washed her away, the princess lost consciousness as she was taken into the ocean by the wave retreating again. She was extremely cold when she woke up on a sandbar, several kilometres from the coast. The clouds were still dark, but the sea was quiet again. Emilia Antoinette tried to think and come up with something that she could do about this situation but she realised that she had no idea what had happened and that she would probably die from hypothermia, all because of her stubborn decision to face the supernatural by herself, without as much as a hint of a solid plan. Just then she heard a voice, "Hey Em, what are you doing here?" Emilia Antoinette let herself fall back into the cold sand, she was at a sandbar in the sea and she was hearing the voice of the Eternal Mistress, she was convinced that she was dead. "Do you think that I am stupid Em? I can see you're not sleeping..." the Eternal Mistress said. The princess raised herself up again, what if she wasn't dead and it was really her and the Eternal Mistress on this godforsaken sandbar. "I thought I was dead, Anna." she said and the Eternal Mistress shook her head. "I heard my baby is in Walstadt, Herodias, I wanted to see her so I left Murder and came to here, but my presence must have made things a bit difficult. I stopped because I saw the tide rising and I feared I would cause flooding if I continued.

Princess Emilia Antoinette thought for a moment, "Yes Anna, this wasn't the best idea, but if you return to Murder, I will make sure that Herodias visits you so that you can see her." The Eternal Mistress cried out from joy and thanked the princess and left, causing the dark clouds to disappear and leaving the princess alone on the sand bar. After another hour she was rescued by the coast guard, who had been frantically searching for her after her car had been found on the pier. At the shore Merida was waiting for her, the two women hugged and kissed each other. Charlène waited for them to reunite before bringing the bad news, "Princess, the Nazarenes are still rebelling, even with the disaster averted, they are trying to ally themselves with the Monovians."