Once things had settled down somewhat (and the fire had been put out) Mibbet settled down with the spokespeople for each group.

“So what do you plan to do now?” She asked,

“Well first off we have a city to rebuild, and this time nobody to tell us how it should be constructed” Eileen replied with a grin. She had been thinking on what she could do with all that creative freedom for quite a while, and now, at long last, she was unleashed.

After the less moderate faction of followers of Ordurlee had made good their escape one had chosen to remain, a Mister John Doe (Yes Really,) the gentleman in the suit from earlier.

“We have a mess to fix, and I have to undo the damage my brethren caused, as for the so called “deed” to the city, well according to the laws of the kingdom it would never have been legally accepted. So we should probably hold a mayoral election, under the understanding of curbed powers of course. This should never have happened to begin with, and we need to ensure that it never does again.”

Ben who was in charge of sanitation was already long gone by this time. He had a lot of cleaning up to do (though by general consensus the paint was left where it was, and the insult to art that was the “statue” mysteriously vanished. (It would randomly reappear every once in a while whenever the cities cleaners had a few to drink, usually greeted by an eye-roll from the locals. Though some decided to treat seeing it as a good luck charm, a sentiment that would have thoroughly horrified it’s original designer, who as we all know was definitely not inclined towards such fanciful frivolity.)

Letta of course was with her class, making sure they knew there was a proper time and place for rampages. Thus far the general sentiment amongst the students was “whenever somebody offers you decaf” was a grown up reason, and probably not worth bothering about since coffee grossed them out anyway. (This can be blamed entirely upon the existence of coffee flavoured ice cream, which as we all know tastes absolutely disgusting. The reason for this is probably a conspiracy among adults to make kids believe that even ice cream tastes gross with coffee. Curbing childhood curiosity about the actual beverage as a countermeasure against the terrible hazard of caffeinated kids, a horrifying prospect that every adult dreads. This abomination is created by steeping decaf in the blackest pits of hell for a few days, making sure no sugar is added, and using the worst beans money can buy to complete the illusion. There is no other reason on earth coffee, which tastes great, and ice cream, which also tastes great, could EVER combine to produce the gastronomic catastrophe that is coffee ice cream, and I challenge anybody to prove otherwise.)

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Once a year in the city of Jussasayme a festival takes place, nobody outside the city can ever explain why it happens, or would even want to try, but there are good reasons for it, if you care to hear them. (Most people ask about it, but when the tale is told they seldom believe it, unless Princess Rosalind’s involvement is mentioned, in which case it suddenly gains credibility in most peoples eyes. After all weird crap happened around that girl.

To start with the entire day is treated as a day off from school, and everybody pulls back to the walls. Which are decorated by a large collection of miniature Trebuchet. These are ceremoniously loaded up with bags and bags of colourful paint, then the kids are unleashed upon them. The randomised bombardment from these, and bottle rockets though is never stopped by the adults. (In fact they often join in on it,) until large swathes of the city are covered in splats of bright, and sometimes even obnoxiously coloured paint.

After this things are pretty much a normal festival for the most part, well except for a free cuppa for every adult in the city, (decaf is banned for the entirety of the day, not that any of the locals drink it to start with as I’m sure you understand.)

The day is considered to be a complete administrative holiday, with filling paperwork in on the day being considered a strict taboo, usually punished by having an entire bottle of red ink poured over the paper in question, (not even the locals seem to know why this is, but is seems the local churches of Neyt and Ordurlee wholeheartedly approve of the policy, or don’t dare to complain about it.

That done they head down to the newly built shrine of Wannashowa, where occasionally not one, but two Princesses sometimes attend, then head to the town square. There replicas of blocky buildings are set up, all identical save the paint, and a bonfire is started using them. There’s of course singing, and dancing, and pony rides (don’t ask why the ponies in question have little model wings on their backs, all it will do is give you a headache.) There’s also a few games of course, and even the most prissy and proper individual in town knows this as an opportunity to really let their hair down and have fun.

This ritual goes on for a full twenty four hours, and nobody tries to stop it, after all you never know when The Duly Elected Representatives Of Order are watching, and it never hurts to work a little harder to deter them right?

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In the city, by the hillside an architectural revolution was gradually taking place, the boxy terrors that had made so many miserable were torn down, and new places built. The so called “undeveloped area” had now become a historic district. The old styles inspiring new generations of architects to build what was in their head. So what you would see in future you could be sure of one thing, the place may still be made out of Tikkitakki, but it would never again look just the same.