Breeze giggled nervously.
"Emerald, this- Brio will kill me if he-"
She laughed. "Relax, Breeze. They're not going to check for listeners."
She stared at the doors.
"Why are we even- why are we doing this?"
"Razzberry. He wants to get record book scores. This seemed like a good plan for that."
"That jerk?"
"Hey, hey, he's our friend now!"
"But you just said Razz-"
"Ok, we're actually spying for Runt. You know, your crush?"
"He's not-"
"Yeah, yeah, you're getting married soon, I know, and then you'll have lots of-"
"I will not! He's just cute! That's it. I have no attachment to him!"
Emerald smirked, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Breeze and Runt, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes-"
Breeze swatted at her and finished her rhyme. "Love, then comes marriage, then comes Kolb with a baby carriage."
Emerald rolled her eyes, a blush spreading across her face. "Get your ear to the door, blue-hair."
She did. Emerald did as well, head nestled tightly to the door.
The walls were paper-thin in the council's meeting room. A mixture of lack of funds and the assumption that nobody wanted to listen in on a village's boring meetings anyways. For the most part, they were right about the latter. Breeze was pretty sure they were the first two people in the history of the village to willingly listen to one of these meetings.
Emerald giggled next to her as the opening statement was read, then took out a book to begin writing in. 'Fun, huh?'
She gave Emerald a look, taking the book from her. 'We're only here for information.'
She waved Breeze off. 'Sure, sure.'
Someone who Breeze thought was the Mayor began to speak.
"As you know, our village has undergone changes."
Mumbling from the room. The elders were a ragtag collection of old men who'd been vaguely important when Emerald's grandparents were born. They'd since degraded. There wasn't a single non-white-haired member of the elders. They were all useless, bumbling old men now. The mayor was the only one who'd managed to keep a degree of non-senility about himself.
The mayor continued.
"Now, these have been tough to deal with. As you all know, many attempts have been made in the past weeks."
Mumbles of assent.
Breeze looked over at Emerald nervously. 'Attempts? Maybe we should go...'
Emerald stared at the door and shook her head. 'Curious.'
The mayor continued.
"I have gotten reports from the mining sector concerning the shortage of coal. The miners are beginning to have a hard time supplying Villagetown. Head Miner Sandstone Graybanner, please stand and speak on this matter."
They heard the shifting of chairs, and then what Emerald recognized as the voice of Pebble's dad spoke.
"We have hit bedrock. Universally. There is not a single space under Villagetown that is not mined down to bedrock anymore. We have built tunnels almost everywhere, branched out extensively...every iota of resource here has been mined."
