Sofia the First: The Rise of Rulers

Chapter Twelve: Hugo

Chapter Twelve

Hugo

"Hugo."

"Hugo wake up."

I blink awake; the light coming from the window blinding me. I'm startled when I see Sofia standing beside my bed.

"Your hair's kind of a mess." She tells me. I wish I could say the same about hers, but it's not.

I push the covers off me and walk to the bathroom to take my morning piss. Sofia follows after me.

"You better hurry we have the last trial in less than half an hour." She tells me as I open the door to the bathroom.

The last trial. We've had two before this, Sofia and I passed both of them with ease. Today should be no different.

I hurry to brush my teeth and hair. When I come out of the bathroom Sofia is in my closet where she picks up a shirt and pair of pants and lays it on the bed.

"I've never seen you wear this shirt. I like it. Wear it." She says smoothing it out. I hate that damn shirt. It's hideous. It's a white shirt with little tiny red dots on it. It looks terrible in my opinion, but if Sofia likes it, I'll wear it every single day for the rest of my life..

I change, and the both of us make our way down for breakfast where Dad will discuss the details of today's trial.

The food is never served before my dad arrives, so we wait patiently.

"Sorry for my tardiness, I was greeting our guests," Dad says before he steps aside and in walks Axel with Astrid within touching distance of him (interesting), James with Vivian on his arm (no surprise there), and Zandar with Hildegard, the two whispering together (per usual).

Axels sits next to me.

"We high-fived." He says his voice low.

"What?" I whisper back at him.

"Her hand voluntarily touched my hand. On purpose. She wanted her hand to touch my hand. We high-fived." He says grinning. "Now what did you do with Sofia?"

I'm caught off guard by Axel's open confession. He's usually very closed off. That high-five must have really gotten to him.

It's then that my mind registers what he said.

"Just the usual, make out here snuggle together there," I say trying to keep a straight face until Axel's jaw drops and I can't help laughing.

I elbow him, "I'm kidding."

"I knew you were too much of a pussy"

"Says the guy obsessing over a high five."

"You and Astrid high-fived?" Sofia asks leaning over me to talk to Axel.

"Were you eavesdropping?" I ask her with a smirk.

"Maybe." Now I'm panicking because what if she heard what I said?

Axel glares at her for a second, debating whether she deserves the truth, and ultimately decides she does. "Yes, we did," Axel says grinning again. What a simp.

"We did what?" Astrid says leaning over Axel. I can see Axel tense and then relax when he hears Dad.

"Attention everyone please quiet down. For today's trial, you will all work on your ability to rule in an alliance. We will give you a fake situation and it's your job to come up with a solution. You will have one hour." With that, he walks out and shuts the door behind him. The clock on the back wall displays we have 59:48 minutes counting down.

"But what's our situation?" James asks.

Our castle Stewart comes in with a letter on a silver platter.

I hurry to take it and remove the red wax keeping it closed.

Dear Rulers,

There have been sightings of Blugona advancing into Whelshire. Four innocent civilians perished in a shootout along the border.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

I read the letter out loud and everyone remains silent thinking over the situation.

"Ok let's have the boys discuss how to eliminate the threats along the border and have the girls discuss how to evacuate civilians in the area," Axel suggests. He was always good at creating plans under pressure.

"Sounds good to me," Astrid says. Is she agreeing with him? Interesting.

We begin shifting seats, and I make sure to angle myself perfectly so that when Sofia stands my shoulder grazes her.

We are approaching 10 minutes left, and the boys have decided to send out fifty soldiers from each kingdom's army to surround Blugona and push them back.

Sofia came and told me a little while ago that the girls have decided to move all citizens within 3 miles of the border to the village school where they will set up cots and medical supplies.

Once both groups have put all their information together, we wait out the two minutes we have remaining.

Dad comes in right as the alarm goes off, letting us know we are out of time.

Both groups present the solutions to him, and he makes no indication of whether he approves or disapproves of our plans. Until he says, "It's not terrible, but there is always room for improvement. for instance, how do you plan on moving all of these villagers? Most people living out there don't have horses, how will they be transported?" He pauses. "Though for it being everyone's first time you all did extremely well."

With that, the last trial comes to a close. The weddings will begin tomorrow.