To Kijazza, it was a day like any other day. She spent her early morning idly fiddling with an abacus, the beads swished back and forth at her telekinetic demand. Today, she was particularly interested in the value of sand. Given that there was pretty much an endless supply of it all around them and that there was no current market for sand (what could it be used for, after all), the answer probably should have been that it was absolutely worthless.
Kijazza found herself unsatisfied with this answer. No, she was sure there could be some use for sand, a way to tap into a new, potential market and boost Solterra's economy. It just warranted further study. Sand had a lot of unique properties; surely, there was some way to make one of those properties marketable.
Her concentration on this matter was interrupted when the sound of a horn echoed throughout the court's sandstone walls. The zonkey pegasus looked up from her abacus, confusion written on her face. What in Novus was that? She peered about, noting others had taken note of the sound. Some of them were starting to move (some slowly, some quickly) in the direction the sound had come from. She trotted behind a couple of them, straining her long donkey-like ears to hear what she could hear. There was no better source of information than the local gossip.
Unfortunately, it seemed that most were in a quiet and somber mood, and those that were chatting were so infuriatingly quiet, she could barely catch a word. She thought she heard the word "sovereign" tossed around a few times, but she could not be sure. She HATED being out of the loop. She continued to follow the other equines until they arrived in a courtyard. There, she could see a mare in the middle of the courtyard near the horn.
She frowned in thought. All right. So, obviously, this was some call to meeting or something, right? She took in the sight of the other equines, seeing that some were waiting around, a few were bowing (for some reason?), there was a mixture of expressions all around. The atmosphere seemed thick, tense, and suffocating like something monumentally serious was about to occur. It made Kijazza uncomfortable.
She leaned near to the equine closest to her. "Psst."
She tried again, just for good measure. "PSST. You... yeah, you. Hey. Uh, you got any idea what's going on here? Why does everyone look like someone died?"
