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Lyse sets the latest letter from Tataru down on her desk, heaving a sigh and rubbing at her temples.
She'd left the Scions, had no longer expected their help, and yet as a part of the Alliance, they'd stopped by pretty frequently for visits or meetings or to drop things off or to ask for help and now…
Now the majority of the big players are off-world, apparently, and those who are left are busy trying to fill the big shoes left behind.
So she doesn't have any help from the Scions. Big deal, she thinks to herself.
She's Lyse Hext, daughter of Curtis Hext, sister of Yda Hext, and she can do this.
Probably.
--
Making a ruling council is easier on paper than it is in practice.
Lyse is used to working in a group, having spent years working with the Scions, so she at least knows how to get people together and try to channel Minfilia as much as possible to get them to have productive discussions.
She's a fighter, not a politician, but nobody's expecting her to be a politician.
It helps, a little bit.
Lyse has Raubahn at the meetings, and an assortment of other interested parties, but there's no blueprint for how to run a country without a main ruler.
Should they have eight councilpeople? It would give her and Raubahn spots, as well as representatives from both the Ananta and the Qiqirn, and one from the M tribe, but then there are only three spots left for a representative from Ala Gannha, one from Ala Ghiri, and one from the Ala Mhigan Quarter. She knows that the merchants want a representative as well, and the people from Ala Gannha and Ala Ghiri aren't sure that the Quarter needs a spot when they have her and Raubahn already on the council, and the refugee leaders want a spot too. And with eight people, that could lead to a deadlock on issues, but adding more people will just make it harder to get anything done, and--
"Ugh," she says aloud, since there's nobody here to overhear her in the palace gardens. "Why does this have to be so complicated?"
She can't go to any existing rulers, since they rule by themselves - even the Syndicate isn't much help, since they still have to work with Nanamo to get things done.
Well, that also means they're free to do whatever they want, she supposes. Monarchy's off the table, a council is on the table, so now they just have to… figure out what the table should look like. And how big it should be.
And, luckily for Lyse, if they're going to be a council, the decision isn't just up to her.
She takes another deep breath to further center herself, and then goes to find Raubahn.
--
After a long conversation with Raubahn and a quick chat with Raganfrid of Ala Gannha and his counterpart from Ala Ghiri, Lyse goes to do her favorite part of governance - walking around the Quarter to chat with people.
Freedom of movement, fresh air, and still technically doing her job? The only way it could be better is if some of these people would spar with her and let her get off the excess energy she's built up by sitting in meetings all morning.
She stops to talk to an older Hyur lady sitting by the aetheryte, who tells her about her grandson in Little Ala Mhigo, and Lyse makes a mental note to look into him. From there, she bumps into a Roegadyn man working on restoring the outside of a house, and they chat a bit about future projects that his team wants to work on.
There's a little girl running around on the next street, and Lyse joins her and her friends in a quick game of tag before the kids all scramble into a house at a call from a woman who's probably mother to at least one of the children.
As always, her last stop during this exploration walks is the prison, and more specifically, Fordola's cell.
Raubahn is planning to add her to a primal-fighting force with the Warrior of Light unavailable, but until then, she remains her, and Lyse continues to come visit her just to make sure she has company.
Lyse still doesn't like her very much, it's true, but this Ala Mhigo they're creating is not going to start off with bloodshed, she's decided.
They've had quite enough of that.
--
M'rahz Nunh is waiting for her the next day outside her makeshift office, and though she'd had plans for the day, hashing out details of their alliance with the M tribe is probably more important.
And after that, she has to bring some of what they'd talked about to Meffrid, and some of it to the Qalyana, and have a quick chat with their representative from the Qiqirn, and by the time she's done with all she needs to do, she's exhausted.
Not too exhausted to make a pass around the Quarter, though. If she's going to be one of the people on the Council, she refuses to be unavailable to the people like the Mad King was.
It's only once she's retreated back into her room at the end of her walk that she realizes she hasn't thought about the Scions all day.
Well, that's not entirely true - she'd missed them, and she'd thought briefly about them at different points, but today's the first day she can remember that she didn't stop to ask herself what would Y'shtola do here? or Papalymo would have handled this better.
Because she hadn't needed to, she thinks. She hadn't always known the right things to say, it's true, but she'd been able to look to her notes, or to M'rahz, or to Raubahn at various points during the day.
And would someone have handled it better? Well, depends on who you ask, she supposes. But with the knowledge she has at her disposal, she's pretty sure she did the best that she could, and again, the rest of the slowly-forming Council had been there to shore up any faults in her strategies.
It won't be easy, Lyse knows, but tonight she goes to bed with the knowledge that they will be able to get Ala Mhigo back on their feet, all by themselves.
--