Len could feel the woman's hatred for her. It was loud, it was ugly, and it was pretty damn justified. It's not like there was any good reason for her to have anything but hatred for her. There was the basic fact that her presence had disrupted a damn good racket that the Silver Sentinels had been operating. She'd caused a great deal of grief and had outright kidnapped her father. The fact that he'd been trying to extort Len into surrendering her title, her power, and probably eventually her life didn't really do much to change the fact that there was plenty of reason for there to be animosity between them. Len didn't particularly begrudge her the hatred, but the insubordination, that needed to be tamped down on fast.

"Listen closely, dear... what was your name again?"

"Klarion."

"Right, my dear Klarion. I really need you to understand me when I tell you that I am well beyond my last nerve with you and your ragged band. It would definitely make my life more difficult to kick you out of the city and would kinda go against my magnanimous approach of all being welcome here besides. That doesn't mean that I'm not willing to do it if you push me to far. Your father remains in his timeout because it's an easier way to solve this trouble of us butting heads than me executing a purge. Don't imagine for an instant that I'm not willing to execute that purge if it comes to that, though. From this moment onwards, you will arrange for any former Banished entering the city to be welcomed back into society. You will personally see to it that their claims to housing are met and they are restored to whatever familial sleds they are owned. You will mange this personally and without delay or complaint."

"Or what?" the woman asked flatly.

"Or, I will make good on the threat I just laid out you daft woman. I will destroy everything you've built here and kick you out with less than the Banished that you sent to their deaths got. Maybe you'll luck out and end up as fodder in Claymar's eventual assault on this city or maybe you'll die before ever seeing another face. I honestly won't care what happens to you if you cause me any more grief. I am really trying my best here not to be a tyrant in the face of a bunch of assholes who really seem hellbent on convincing me that's the better option. I'd advice you not to push me past my limit here."

Len expected some pushback for that, perhaps only some snark but... something. She wanted to believe that she'd gotten through Klarion's tough shell of stubbornness with the threat of personal annihilation, but all the Sentinel managed was a grunt of acknowledgement. Whether that was something that could be relied upon or not was anyone's guess but Len decided she'd have to let it slide so long as no more blatant insubordination was on display.

"Great, now that we've got all that cleared up, I suppose I'd better talk to our newcomers."

"If you say so, Head."

It was a fairly pathetic display that she came upon. As reported, it was nearly a hundred poorly clothed, poorly fed, generally abused individuals ranging from solo affairs to small families, all with desperate looks of need in their eyes that broke Len's heart. It was a miserable state of affairs that had led them to this moment but she wasn't the guilty party on that front. All she could do was try to fix it."

"Hi there, folks," she said, projecting her voice as best she could. "You're all here because you heard about my invitation and chose to believe it. My subordinates here have clearly failed to provide you with anything resembling security so I'll keep this brief. The rumors are true. Not only is that old bastard of a leader dead and buried, but the new Head is a Dark Elf, a woman of brilliant vision who's seeking to rectify the mountain of fuckups that her predecessor made. I can't promise that I'll be perfect in the role but I think you'll agree that I'm a better shot than you had before."

She'd hoped for at least a wry chuckle or two out of the bunch, but these were damaged people who'd been betrayed by every level of their society. They had precious little trust to go around and they weren't interested in wasting it on her just yet. She sighed and tried again.

"All right, enough with the pleasantries, let's get you inside, fed, and see if we can't do something about those rags you're stuck with."

She waved them in and instructed Keris to take them to the part of the city she liked to refer to as the food court. Then she turned a pointed glare back to Klarion.

"I'm going to get these people fed. You're going to scrounge up some clothes for them and start the work of identifying them. Can you do that or am I going to have to threaten you further to get basic shit done?"

"No, Head," Klarion replied stiffly. "I will obey."

"Fantastic, when you're done with that, and I'm done with my work, report to my sled so we can have a more direct chat about things."

"You expect me to come to your seat of power. The very place you captured my father after he came under a banner of peace?"

"No, I expect you to come and sit down for pancakes with me so we can hash some of this crap out because I'd really rather not spend the rest of the leadup to what's likely to be a bloody battle with you acting pissy. Cheer up, Klare, if you play your cards right you might even be able to walk out of here with your dad. Probably not, but I can at least arrange a chat between you two. Your alternative is to remain firmly cemented as my enemy and see how long you last in that position. I'll give you a hint: not long."

'Klare' pondered her options for a moment. She clearly didn't want to accept but couldn't really come up with a good excuse not to, either. Eventually, she offered a reluctant nod.

"I don't like it, but if the Head commands it, I must obey."

"Fan-fucking-tastic. I'm so glad you decided to see things my way. Now then, I need to be on my way so that I can tend to what would have been a much smaller mess if you'd just done things right in the first place. We'll talk tonight. Don't be late."

"Yes, Head."

With nothing left to say on the matter, Len trudged after Keris. It wasn't that difficult a task to catch up since her secretary was in the process of herding a large procession and seemed a bit nonplussed with the whole situation. Keris, for all that she really was trying to be a better person in light of her recent fall from grace, was still something of a snob. Being surrounded by people who she'd have happily dismissed as human garbage a few short weeks ago was looking to be a bit much for the poor girl. A better person would've leapt in to save her from her obvious discomfort. Len was just an all right person these days and opted to hang back just enough to leave the heavy lifting to the frazzled woman rather than take on the hassle herself.

No matter how many times she came to the courts, Len was always impressed. So much of the food options on display were equal parts gourmet cooking and live theater with each stall having their own unique twist on things to tantalize passersby into spending their hard earned coin. In this case, that coin was all Len's, she'd informed them that they'd be coming in advance and had made it clear that they'd provide as much as any patron could eat. Thankfully, the previous Head's coffers had been quite full and this was exactly the sort of thing that that kind of money was made for.

It was an interesting thing to see the various reactions from the crowd of ex-Banished. Some knew exactly what they craved, had probably been regulars at the various stands that they filtered to. Others, especially the younger ones, seemed clueless and sometimes even terrified of the options that they had on display. It made sense. Many of the younger individuals here might not have had anything more extravagant than a shank of wild beast that they'd managed to capture without rousing the suspicions of the nearby city. The children especially would've had no way of imagining the splendors of what could be produced by people who actually dedicated their lives to the singular trade of preparing food rather than having that be a distant second in importance to keeping a fire stoked enough to make it through the night.

What had been done to these people was terrible. A great wrong that needed righting and getting them fed wouldn't even begin to pay back the debt that was owed. Still, you had to start somewhere and one could do worse than starting with filling bellies. Bit by bit Len watched the desperate faces relax slightly as a result of being granted the first decent meal that any of these people had had in years. There wasn't anything near trust in their eyes, but there was at least a little less skepticism. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

Once they'd all been fed, the work of sorting, gathering names, identifying niche cases began. For the most part, all of the Banished present had been kicked out in recent years, six or seven at the most. The Head's reign had been nearly twenty years, but he'd only begun entertaining his worst tendencies more recently. That was a blessing of sorts, in that it meant that the survivors actually had a lot of information to relay about exactly how they'd ended up in their Banished state. Some of the children were in worse shape, with kids no older than Kes having lost their only guardians to the tundra and barely making it to the safety of the city on the faint promise that Len had offered them of a return. Layer upon layer of disgust welled within Len.

She found herself regretting not doing more to punish the upper class that had happily exploited the Head's abuses for their own gain. The idea of wreaking a bloody vengeance on them all burned in her mind before she crushed it. While there was a fair bit of righteousness in her, she knew that those instincts were more from Pitch's influence than her own experiences and she was dead set against giving into them unless she absolutely had to. Did those fuckers deserve a slow and painful death? Undoubtedly. Was she going to sacrifice bits of herself to make sure that they suffered the fates they truly deserved? Not today.

Still, if some of the new entrants into the city decided that they were more interested in their own vengeance than in any sort of reintegration... would that be so bad?

"Cammie, you little shit," Len growled. "Enough of that. Get back to work."

"Fine, fine," replied the singsong voice of the murder gremlin. "It'd be so easy to do it, though. Ya know?"

"Easy has nothing to do with the matter. Just stick to what I need you to do, all right? You've got targets to keep an eye on. Has Klarion been getting up to anything nefarious?"

"Nah. For now, at least, she's doing things by the book. Will probably find a chance to screw you over soon enough but for now she's sticking to the path of least resistance on not pissing you off. Ain't that neat?"

"Beats the alternatives. All right, keep spying on her for me. No way of knowing when she might decide to pull something on us."

"Roger roger. Happy to be of service :)."

"How did you manage a smiley face in my own mind? You know what, I don't want to know."