The twilight bled through the windows and over Melina and her desk. She placed her fingertips to her temples as the stress from the building tension of the crowd outside her palace reached her more than it should. And she showed it more than she should. The datapad to her right showed the demands of her subjects. Independence, democracy, and...execution. And for what?
After all I've done for them, after all the prosperity I brought to them!
She rose from her desk, flanked by her Triarii. The advisors had all fled, but at least she still had her personal guard. Together, they stormed out of her office and through the main corridor. Down the main stairs, and into the palace lobby. From there, she burst open the main doors and stood between them as her Triarii sallied out to meet the crowd at the gates.
"People of Kata'asaqua, voice your true worries! For too long have I offered you the love of my embrace, for too long have you lived in the prosperity that I brought to you, for the matter of my ancestry to be of any concern." She held up a datapad showing her father's face: Darth Metus, Dominus of the Ascendancy. "This is all you should care about! My father is the Dominus, that is the only fact that matters."
She breathed heavily as the crowd fell silent. "So tell me! What is it that this malice is borne of?" She waited a moment, the crowd yet silent. Finally, a voice broke the quiet.
"The taxes are—" She interrupted him nearly immediately. "The taxes that pay for your public education? The taxes that pay for your universal healthcare? The same taxes that pay the salaries of the valiant defenders who protect us from the horrors of the Shiraya Expanse that surrounds us? The taxes that keep the rest of the Ascendancy from devouring us whole?" The crowd fell silent again as she finished.
"You've grown too accustomed to the safety and prosperity I have brought to this planet. Does anyone think this is a bad problem to have?" The crowd was yet silent.
"That's what I thought. I will give a public address in the morning. Please see yourselves orderly to your homes. Until then, have a splendid night."
With that, her Triarii entered the palace behind and the doors came to a close.
