PeaceMaker

'I can see it..' Desilva thought to herself, 'the scowl poking out of his perfect smile. The sign this meeting was going to fall apart if something didn't change. I know what to do.'

"I understand your issues and concerns and in all seriousness, they are quite important," Desilva nodded, locking eyes with Feline.

"Huh?" Feline muttered, Desilva's answer confusing her further after Axel's wave of complaints.

"A single person holding down an entire group isn't acceptable. In fact, it's selfish. There other people who need to move forward and their lives are very well hanging on the decisions of this meeting," Desilva continued, "If we don't come up with something now, and put the plan in action, we're definitely going to lose."

"Hmm," Feline relaxed, taking another sip of her tea. 'At least there's one person in the room that actually has a bit of common sense.'

"But then again… although our future is important, my words right now would be considered your, 'last hope' right? This means I should be given the respect that I deserve as someone who is the deciding factor of all of this," Desilva snapped.

"Excuse me?" Feline coughed, choking on her tea. She looked up at Dominic again, flinching when she noticed the chilling mix of a disappointed and satisfied smile dancing on the edges of his lips.

"I understand that this means a lot to you but that doesn't give the excuse to demean my emotions just because you want results now. You have no excuse because there are better ways you could have said that that I'm sure the strategist would know, but seeing as you choose to say this, you chose for your words to be harmful. I'm not standing for that," Desilva retorted, a spark dashing through the brewing dark storm in her eyes.

"You're acting like we came here to attack you. All I did is speak my mind," Feline sighed, trying the shrug off the emotions welling in her.

"It may be your mind but your actions were hostile and I'm sure I'm not being imprudent when I say I know you know it too," Desilva looked away from Feline, cutting off any chances of her finding a rebuking statement. "Anyways, we didn't come here to argue over what validates me to be important because quite frankly, I am the last resort and only resort in a time where time matters."

Desilva exchanged glances with Feline and Litian giving a brief nod, "if we're done with the chit-chattering, can we begin the meeting now? I've decided to share what I know to help."

Dominic's expression eased into a smile, "Good. You can begin sharing."

"As Strategist Feline assumed, our village has faced many challenges in our time out here. Winter storms, droughts, and many more. The worst was the winter storm following after we were defeated in a war," Desilva explained, trying to control the emotions displayed on her face so she can appear as stoic as Axel… But failed. She hid her pained expression for a moment while the memories rushed in and then turned back to talk.

"In the upcoming months was winter and we were nowhere prepared. Thanks to the war, we were behind in getting ready for the war and had faced a severe drop in our population. We walked into winter bare-skinned and had to take severe methods in order to survive," Desilva sighed as she recalled her memories.

"Such as?" Dominic pressed.

"There's a large building in the village which we call central hall. It's larger than twice the size of most houses in the village and is now used to house meetings with the head of the village and for ceremonies but before it's purpose was much more important," Desilva explained, "since our population dropped severely, we were small enough to all fit in central hall so that was where we stayed. Huddled together in the large group with everyone, we were able to maintain heat."

"Huh?!" Litian gasped.

"Yes. We built central hall for cases of emergency, every detail in it was made to help us in case another kind of emergency like we had last time decides to repeat itself. That winter, we spent it all on renovating the central hall and preparing it for living. The cooking space attached to the back of central hall was created as a place to make food while we were huddled in there and it was attached so the heat from cooking would be used as a way to heat up the place," Desilva continued, waving her hand in several directions to describe the place.

"But I thought you said you were short on food?" Litian asked.

"We were. During the move into central hall, everyone brought every piece of food they had in their homes and put it in the cooking space. Many trees were chopped down too, their leaves used for food and their bark used for firewood," Desilva answered.

"D-doesn't that mean that you would've used up a lot of trees? I'm guessing that cooking for hundreds or people would take a lot of firewood," Feline spoke up.

Everyone in the room turned to her for a second, inspecting her words.

Desilva smiled, "yup, that's why we only cooked 4 times in a month. Using some wood from the trees we built this thing that can be used for storing the food after we made it. We made another small attachment to the building and put the thing for storing food there but there were holes in the walls of the attachment so the cold could come in and cool down the food. We used a plank of wood to separate the central hall from the storing attachment so cold wouldn't come in."

"What if on some occasions, heat wore out from the cooking and the cold could be felt, was there something to help with that?" Feline asked.

"Prior to the event, while the men were working on central hall, all women, despite how bad or good their skills were, were mandated to make as many blankets as they could before winter came," Desilva continued, "it was an all hands on board effort."