PeaceMaker

"Oh! I heard of that before," Litian gasped. 'Although I never acted on it.'

"I agree with you," Dominic nodded, turning to the rest of the people in front of him, "does everyone else agree?"

Litian and Axel nodded a yes, but Feline was reluctant to agree. She looked down at the almost empty cup of tea in her hand and swirled the meager drops of tea around the cup before lifting it to her lips and finishing the tea.

"Me too," Feline replied, placing the empty tea on the table and a genuine smile, "I agree."

"Ah…" Desilva muttered, her eyes darting away from Feline when she saw the genuine smile on her face.

"Ok, then," Dominic chuckled, clapping his hands together in excitement. He brought down his trembling hands and placed them beneath the paper on his lap, "how many people will we be needing Silva?"

Desilva turned to Dominic abruptly, like she had been caught red-handed in the middle of a prohibited action. "O-oh," she muttered, "we might need one hundred people, maybe even more if we want to get this done quickly. Maybe 500 total?"

"500?" Dominic repeated, "I think we can do that, but I think we should approach the work differently."

All eyes were fixed on Dominic.

"Spilt the 500 into two different groups and have them work on different days. For example, the first group works on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while the other group works on Tuesday, Thursday and saturday. Every week the days they work are switched, so it doesn't feel like one group works more than the other," Dominic suggested.

"Why not just have them work everyday?" Litian asked, cocking her head.

"I want to increase the amount of work they can do daily to get more work done, for example, have them work 20 hours instead of 18," Dominic explained, "if we do it like this, each group will build on one day, build the first 12 hours and then mix the next 8 hours, and then take the next day off to rest while the other group works."

Having only confused gazes staring back at him, he continued to explain.

"Group A would work for 12 hours and then use 8 hours to mix mud for the next group to use the next day when they start building. Meanwhile while the next group works, group A will be resting on that day. Group B ends their work day by mixing mud and then giving it to Group A to use when they start working the next day. This repeats for a month," Dominic explained, switching gazes from Feline to Litian to Desilva and finally Axel in hopes they understood what he said.

"I get it, but still, why not have them work everyday?" Axel repeated Litian's question, "we could have a team of 500 do this everyday too and be able to get more work daily."

"Yea but, they are bound to get tired," Desilva interrupted before Dominic began explaining, "if we use full man power everyday for 18 hours then they are bound to get tired eventually and some might even slack off when they notice there's a large number of people working. If we split them into different groups and rotate their work days, then they are bound to recover in the day they are given to work and they might even pay more attention and work harder in smaller groups-"

She stopped talking, realizing she had cut Dominic off and turned to him apologetically. "Right your highness?"

"Correct," Dominic grinned, feeling the urge to pat her head but held back.

"Okie then!" Litian giggled, "it seems like we got done all the things we wanted to get done today!"

"Then I guess the meeting is over?" Dominic asked, his lips trembling as he smiled brightly, "I'd like to mention one thing though."

Everyone turned to Dominic immediately, their gazes seeming to ask, "what is it your highness?"

Dominic chuckled. "I'd like you to go and spread the word out now. And start slowly implementing it. Tell the cooks to reduce their food a bit starting today and the woman to start making a lot more clothes, infact tell them to use any loose clothing they have to make a thicker and better quality one. I'd rather they create at least 500 thousand clothing than create more and have them barely be able to stand the cold," Dominic ordered, "I want them to start getting used to it now before the meeting with Desilva's village elders where it all gets official so it isn't like some strange plan when it gets introduced officially. It also gives us a head start."

He looked at Litian and Desilva, "I am taking you two with this task. Desilva, you start telling your people and Litian you do to ours. It should be a rumor to the people in the camp but actually acted upon. We will split into groups and so on after the meeting. We will start the building a wall process immediately after the meeting, since I'm sure we wouldn't want the ground to harden anymore than it already has when we start digging."

Desilva stifles a chuckle.

"Feline, you will work with the physicians," Dominic continued, locking eyes with Feline, "you have gotten close with one of them right? So I'm sure it will be easy for you to influence them and I certainly know you can influence our medics."

'Hah… he really got mentioned at this time?' Felie thought to herself, her eyes dimming momentarily at Dominic's words, 'how great…'

Dominic let out a shaky breath and grinned once again, "Are we good to go?" he asked.

After looking at the series of nods after his comment, he gave his own nod. "Meeting adjourned."

*

Dominic sat by the side of the window facing the back of the tent and gazed emptily at the setting sun.

Everything seemed to be going well. A draft wind tickled his cheeks, numbing them.

'Winter is fastly approaching,' Dominic thought to himself as he stared at the sun, hints of helplessness in his eyes.

He looks down at his trembling hands, 'long can I keep this up?'

"Your highness!" Axel called out from behind him, urgency clearly heard in his voice.

Dominic's eyes strayed away from the window slowly, as if they wished to gaze at the scarlet skies, drowning in the merigold sun as it sunk into the horizon.

'Let this work please…' Dominic thought to himself as he shakily stood up from his seat, 'we've gone too far to let it all come crashing down.'