“Good morning,” she chuckled. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Grandma, she wasn’t in the room Nana gave her...”

“Oh, I just had breakfast with her, she’s... chatting with Ashen.”

“Oh! It’s all good then. Come on, Nana’s sisters are making us a crazy amazing breakfast! Did you know her uncles go to fish before dawn every morning? I heard them waking up this morning and followed them, it was so much fun catching fish!”

Cessilia chuckled. She could see Darsan having fun amongst the fishermen, happy to use his strength for something other than fighting and repairing his mistakes... Grabbing her hand, he took her back to the Dorosef residence. Despite the early hour, it was already quite noisy inside, as expected. The tribe was obviously used to having guests, and right as she stepped in the courtyard, Cessilia was blessed with the delicious and now familiar smell of fresh fish beignets.

“Cessi!”

Tessandra appeared, her mouth stuffed with half a beignet, the other half she offered Cessilia, who happily took it.

“You look tired,” chuckled Cessilia.

“I didn’t sleep much,” her cousin winked at her, “but that was one of the best nights of my life, until that big idiot of your brother decided to make the worst ruckus possible and wake everyone up in the damn house...”

“What, I was getting ready to go fishing!” protested Darsan.

“Your dragon butt face probably scared all the fish away,” groaned Tessandra, still bitter about the rude awakening.

“You dragon poop,” retorted Darsan.

“Dragon fart.”

“Dragon boog–”

“Oh, can you two stop?” Naptunie sighed, appearing behind Tessandra. “That’s really disgusting and I just had breakfast too...”

“Morning, Nana.”

“Good morning! We have more beignets if you want! Although you might have to wait a bit, I think we’re going to distribute them downtown...”

“That’s nice, but I already had breakfast with Grandmother.”

“Oh, is she alright? Lady Kareen really drank a lot last night...”

“Trust me, Grandmother is a heavyweight,” sighed Tessandra. “She’s fine. ...Is she around?”

“She’s with Ashen,” explained Cessilia.

“With the King? Why?”

Cessilia shrugged. She wasn’t quite sure either, and although she did have her suspicions, she didn’t really want to imagine what they could be discussing at the moment. She’d probably hear about it all later... Tessandra grinned, but didn’t say a word.

“Well, what’s the plan for today, Nana? I am not handing out fish beignets all day again, I’m warning you.”

“Actually, I think we should go back and help with cleaning the streets,” sighed Nana. “Food isn’t really an issue, but I heard some streets are still blocked and a lot of people remain homeless and had to sleep at neighbors’ last night...”

“I don’t mind working for free,” said Tessandra, “but I doubt the neighborhood is going to remain so selfless for long. People were already struggling before the battle, it’s going to be even worse now. And two of the four bridges were destroyed too, it’s going to cause a big issue with the trading in and out of the Capital... we’re bound to have even more clogging than before.”

Suddenly, an idea came to Cessilia’s mind. Her green eyes went toward the destroyed parts of the castle, then to the Capital’s outskirts. Perhaps this battle was actually going to be the solution they had been waiting for to get the country going again...

“Tessa, can you and Darsan go ahead? I have an idea I need to discuss with Lady Bastat and Nana.”

Her cousin nodded without asking for another explanation. Tessandra knew Cessilia enough to figure that if she didn’t ask her to stay back, she didn’t need to. Moreover, she had regained her full strength now.

“See you later, Nana!” Darsan happily waved, before leaving behind Tessandra.

Cessilia chuckled, and turned to Nana, who got even redder, caught waving back.

“Do you like my brother?” she asked.

“W-well, Sir Darsan is really quite nice...”

“He is,” Cessilia nodded, without teasing her any further.

“What did you want to talk to me and Lady Bastat about?”

“Do you know where we can find her first?”

Nana nodded, and guided her outside, just a couple of streets away. There, Bastat was busy chatting with another man from her tribe, arguing about some fabric she had in her hands. When she spotted Cessilia and Nana coming toward her, she frowned, and dismissed him with a sigh.

“Everything alright?” Cessilia asked.

“I wish my father was here,” murmured Bastat. “My tribe is a bit restless with everything going on, and they have a hard time relying on me so fast... but I can’t bother you with that. Is there anything you need?”

Nana turned to Cessilia, a bit curious to know as well. The Princess took a deep breath, and nodded.

“I think we need to build a city,” she said.

The two young women exchanged a glance, confused.

“A city? How so...? Aren’t we supposed to rebuild the Capital first?”

“I think we need to rebuild the Capital and build a new city at the same time,” said Cessilia. “This morning, I had breakfast with my grandmother, and she gave me an idea. She wants to build herself a palace here.”

“A palace?” exclaimed Nana, shocked.

“Yes, but there is literally no space left in the Capital to build more, right? So, Grandmother will have to build her secondary residence outside, farther than the Outer Capital. ...What if we used this opportunity to create a new city?”

“But, building a whole city will require a lot of funds,” muttered Bastat, “and workers...”

“If we provide jobs, people will come,” said Cessilia, confident. “My grandmother has a lot of money, she could pay forward for her residence, so the workers would be able to be paid for building it! But what if we applied this to a whole city? We can create jobs and get people to settle. It would reduce the traffic into the Capital and provide new opportunities to everyone who was trying to get there!”

“...That would be great,” muttered Nana, “but how... I mean, where will we find that amount of money to build an entire city?”

“Even with requesting the cost for the repairs and damages be paid by the Yekara, I doubt that will be enough,” nodded Bastat.