"Oh shut up, Nikki!" Rhodes yelled from the other side of the gathered townsfolk. "We've all been thinking that of you and Amira both for a long time, and we've been trying to politely tell you that your gossiping and bad manners were starting to be a nuisance to us all, especially when you turned it on travelers. It's bad enough you talk to your own daughter like that, don't you be doing that to new members of our extended kin. I don't care if you don't believe her, though I certainly am starting to, but she's still one of us now, and we're all sick of your mouth."
Any conflict the others had over whether they should've stepped in or not- they'd all been thinking what the queen had said, and all had wanted to say it far too long, but at the same time, the queen was new to them, and Nikki had been among them from the day she was born, so a sense of loyalty to their own had warred with the relief that someone had finally the courage to say it -was gone when one of their own from birth said exactly what the queen had said and what they all were thinking.
It was Leop who started it, but slowly a few claps turned into a full-crowd applause.