Have any of you looked at a pool and it looked far shallower than it is? This happens due to refraction. For example, the light travels from the bottom of the pool, through the water and finally reaches your eyes. It appears shallower because the light travels in such a way. Or as another example, let's say you have a translucent glass, filled with water. Then you decide to dip a pencil into the glass of water and look at it from the side angle. What happens to the pencil? Well, it looks like it's been bent or damaged, when in reality, it hasn't.
You may be wondering why I'm talking about refraction and how things appear, but you'll soon come to understand. See, the Kingdom of Alfheim is in a similar state. From how you glance at the pool from the top, the pool looks shallow, like nothing is hidden. Everything seems to be in perfect field of view to an unsuspecting glance. This, this is the part where the talk about refraction comes in. As already stated, from a bird's eye view, the pool looks shallow; but unlike the glass of water, you don't have the ability to take different perspective's in. Therefore, your view is severely hindered, and you have no real depiction of how things appear from when dipped into the glass. This takes away the opportunity to investigate, as yet again, you don't have the possibility at looking at the pool from a side angle. You are given a single angle and are led to believe that this is the only angle.
The reason why I'm comparing this occurrence to the Kingdom of Alfheim, is because it's scarily accurate. Every Kingdom, government, rulers, or even people have things to hide. Things that you can't see, by merely looking at, or even spending a certain amount of time interrogating it. These things can't be identified through such convenient and easy manners. These secrets, things that are hidden away, can only be known by an insider. Therefore meaning, the public is unaware of them. This might seem obvious, however because it's so obvious, people tend to ignore it, or act like it isn't something they can do anything about. Which in most cases is correct. However, secrets are never good. They are a thin line between trust and doubt and hold power. Power stronger than most weapons. Most of the time, secrets are best left unsaid, but sometimes, you simply don't have the liberty of that choice and are forced to show the public the side angle that they been unable to uncover. Before the consequences are too grave to challenge. Before the reveal is made by the people who tried so desperately to keep it hidden, because if they themselves reveal it, it can only mean one of two things.
1. They have dropped their guard and decided to be open about all conflicts concerning their discussed matter.
2. They see no need in hiding it as it has become completely irrelevant to them and no longer holds any power or leverage over them.
I wonder if they'll be exposed before they get to make this choice, or will they stand firm until all preparations have been fulfilled.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. Only time will tell.