Notes: Yes, this had been abandoned, and no, I have no earthly idea why I came back to it. Partially because every few months or so, and always on a really bad day, I would get a line from folks who asked me to finish. Having been one of those people who has pleaded for stories to be set free, I refused to be one of the writers who tormented people with unfinished tails. The first five chapters have been redone, and the sixth is new. The story will be completed, but I can't promise you when. My homework load demands that it be sooner rather than later. So, hold to hope.

I owe you.

There had to be a handbook somewhere. A secret handbook passed down from Queen to Queen; an ever-compounding pile of bullet lists added to by each monarch. Really, that was the only explanation. Inside half an hour Azkadelia was weaving what little magic she had left to the creation of oatmeal and the healing of lesser wounds, while Lavender Eyes was trying to subtly rest all her weight on Ahamo as she ranged through the troops, simply being seen as alive and walking around.

Step one to rebuilding a kingdom: stop the people from starving. DG remembered her European History teacher trying to beat into them that bread was the cause of every revolution, ever. Feed the resistance fighters today, and figure out a way to feed the oppressed masses tomorrow. A well-fed populace has much less reason to revolt than a starved one.

Step two: give the people something to believe in, to rally behind. The people had had an enemy to stand against that united every guild in a way that centuries of negotiation couldn't. Now they were poor, oppressed, starving, and Lavender Eyes wanted to give the factions something to fight for, rather than against.

DG was sure this moment would have helped her on her post-Civil War Reconstruction test right up until the moment Lavender insisted that they do something about the foul smell of this place. There was blood and gunpowder curdling the air around the tower, but Lavender Eyes laid her hands on DG's temple and reached into her mind and bade her conjure a breeze. She felt the plan laid out in her mother's mind, and swept up a gentle whisper to play round the tents and through the night.

There was something else her mother had DG tie through the spell; all of it light and colors that she didn't understand. But DG heard a fighter laugh that night. There was nothing in her history lectures about magically instilling a little hope.

That first night Lavender cut Az's tumbling locks short, down to DG's length, and gave her eldest daughter a pair of dark pants and a light blue shirt. DG could have sworn that she was looking at herself in seven years. DG didn't ask why they changed Az's appearance, but she understood in the glow of the morning.

When Az stepped out of the Tower the next morning, no one flinched at the sight of her like they did the day before. Az and DG walked together in the early morning light; thanking soldiers, healing wounds, and serving soup, all in perfect harmony. Suddenly they became the daughters that everyone remembered. With those simple changes the Witch was stripped from Az's countenance, and people saw only DG's sister.

There was a great, big, exceedingly well-organized plan to all of this, and that's when DG knew there had to be a to-do list. There was no way that her mother and sister just happened to do everything perfectly. Lavender remembered every last soldier's name. Ahamo swapped war stories and made the men laugh with tales of humiliating longcoats.

But the prize went to Azkadelia. She spent her morning draining her magic to see everyone properly fed for the next few days, and then spent the rest of the day burying the dead. She worked herself to the point of collapse digging graves, only stopping when the dizziness got too much to keep moving. Even then she would only pause for a moment to breathe, wave off assistance, and sweep her new bangs out of her wide, un-made-up eyes with a raw and muddy hand.

Eating only came when it was insisted upon by on of the Cain men, whose tender care of her convinced all the generations of Resistance fighters that she was to be trusted. One would bring her to wherever the other was with DG and the sisters would eat together, while the camp barely concealed their active analyzation of the situation.

She looked so young and so innocent in those moments. She would let small smiles creep out when DG told stories, and nodded her thanks when Jeb washed her dishes for her.

But everything was tempered by a shadow of guilt that sprang up whenever Glitch would glitch, or a soldier would mention a home, or the dead.

It was real guilt, DG knew that, but it was being used. Az understood the rules and regulations of a public persona long before the Sorceress had taken her over, and her time trapped in such a conniving brain only made Az better at it. She twisted her own emotion, showing just the right amount and at the best time.

And it worked.

After the first week of reconstruction Lavender had the basic infrastructure up and running again, with Resistance runners traveling back to their homelands to spread the joyous news of the Witch's fall, complete with their own personal testimonies that Princess Azkadelia was as different from their captor as night was to day.

It turned DG's stomach to see her sister being anything other than what she really was, to see a public lie; but she understood. This wasn't Az; it was Princess Azkadelia, the part she had to play to keep the OZ intact. She wouldn't be allowed to feel her grief, to let it simply burn through her until she had lifted some of its weight.

DG would have to play a part too, she understood that, but she just didn't know which part yet. Would she forever be seen as a warrior, or the slipper? Or would she slip into the background and just be a girl after her one chapter in the spotlight? She kept herself up at nights, wondering what she would have to pretend to be to fill the void, or how she would shut up that little voice in her head that was asking her how she planned on convincing herself that she was all right with pretending.

For now she helped Glitch with his plans and tended to minor wounds while she followed around Raw and the other Viewers. She couldn't work as hard as Az, under these rules of outward appearance, because if she did it would make Az seem all the less outstanding in her difference from the Witch.

So DG talked to people, as was always her way. Just like sitting down next to a trucker at the diner, you start talking about something else and all of a sudden the big, burly men are pulling pictures out of their wallets and talking about saving for their kid's college fund. She knew every name and knew every story by the end of the first week. She could recount their children, where they'd been stationed, and whom they had lost to the Witch's reign. Her heart taking in it all.

The word spread far and wide about the royals and how they were everything the people could have hoped for at the end of this long night. They were sending word to every faction within the kingdom to come and see for themselves, as if the loyalty of the Viewers, an ex-Captain of the Tin Men, and the most infamous leader in the Resistance wasn't enough.

The soldiers were thrilled with their Cain high commanders. The elders and ex-Tin Men attached themselves to Wyatt and wanted the world back as it was, while the youth would bleed and die for Jeb and the new order of things. With those men at the head of the military peace would be restored in a matter of weeks.

If those people could see underneath like DG did, they would see that for the Cain men to lead the Resistance through the Reconstruction was ripping apart their fragile relationship.

From the outside you would never know that Jeb and Wyatt hadn't passed more than a few words to one another since Wyatt had laid out to his boy in no uncertain terms that everyone needed to see them supporting Az. Jeb knew it before the words had crossed his father's lips, and he would have done it all on his own, but he couldn't stand being told.

From the outsider view all you would see was Glitch drawing up plans to rebuild the infrastructure, and Raw healing the wounded. They couldn't see Glitch sneaking into the brain room at night, staring at the piece of himself that could never go back, wondering what he might have been if he was smart again. Nor would they see the other freed Viewers shunning Raw, refusing to forgive him for former cowardice until the Elders declared it so.

Nor would they see what DG did with all those stories she heard. Each night she and Az would curl up in hiding, wrapped around one another, as Az would demand every last story from DG. She wanted to know everything, every death, and every pain. They would sob themselves to exhaustion, bleeding themselves for every life ruined by their childish stupidity.

At the end of the week, as they were making plans to move from the Tower back to Central City (both a show of strength and a place the factions would be more willing to come to see the restoration than the fortified tower),

Lavender Eyes waited up for her girls. She was surprised they could still function after not really sleeping for so many nights. She would watch them curl up in their isolated tent before she let herself drift away. Claiming it was her concern for them and her people rather than all that must still be done to those girls that kept her up at night.

Ahamo wrapped his arms around her and whispered, "You have to tell them."

Lavender relaxed into him and muttered, "I know."

"You thinking about not doing it. About just keeping it to yourself." She chose to ignore her husband's penchant for knowing exactly what she was thinking and said, "Az is killing herself to make the people believe in her. And DG is trying so hard to be a princess, trying to figure out who she is in this world, and to be what people want her to be. I don't want to change her."

"She's still our daughter Lav. She knows that we love her, and she knows who she is. She may be a little confused about where her path is supposed to go, but she knows the girl she really is, no matter what smile she has to put on."

"I know love, but that's what terrifies me." She turned her eyes up to her husband then laid her head back against his shoulder and whispered to the night, "I have to take that from her. Take herself from her, and pray that she finds her way back."