And we're back with the second chapter and the last one for the next two weeks. I tried to make this one a tad longer and have more scenes as I'm planning for the first chapters to show a more detailed look at this little slice of peace Lelouch and company have made for themselves and those they protect. Hopefully, this chapter will be in the 4 to 5K word range as I'm feeling a little happier than normal as I got to play with the neighbor's dogs. I don't care what your age is, dogs are dogs and can melt any heart and chase all stress from the body.

Chapter 2: The Workhouses

The repeating sound of the rubber-coated wooden wheels moving along the cobblestone path helped to keep Lelouch from drifting too far as he rode in his carriage away from one task to another, his work as the Lord did end, in a way, he didn't mind it so much as each task, however how small, helped at least one person and protect and safeguard his territory. Still, he didn't dress like a kind as outside the royal broach pinned to his chest, he wore clothing close to what he wore the night before, seeing no need to dress like a peacock as he knew he was king, and they knew it as well, he didn't need the people to stroke his ego everyone he went out.

Thinking about last night brought up its events and the arrival of his old friends, allies and enemies. Truthfully, his hatred for those who had betrayed him had never been particularly strong, as he had been drowning in grief over the suspect death of his younger sister, then Rolo's sacrifice before the cherry on top finding out that his entire life, their battles and all the highs and lows that came with that were nothing but pieces in his parent's twisted selfish game of attempting to slaughter God, the notion made him snort as irritation and bemusement as he had been called arrogant more than once but it's clear his pride came second to theirs for such a scheme.

When all was said and done, he couldn't bring himself to care enough to hate them, even now what feelings that lingered he wouldn't call resentment, an irritation perhaps but not much higher than that. However, they had the potential to make that irritation into anger as he could think of only a few reasons besides something as trivial as truth for them to have made such a risky trip to find him. They want the demon's help in fighting Schneizel. They want him to help them kill him, his supporters, Kururugi and…

Nunnally.

He let out a deep emotional sigh, his hand covering his eyes and sliding down to the bridge of his nose. He wasn't blind, nor was he uninformed. He had heard plenty of stories, first-hand accounts of the things she has done, she has authorized in the name of a peace that brings no happiness, a peace built on fear and death. She had become everything he hated in his family, arrogant, cruel, disconnected from the world and nearly apathetic to the suffering of others that her actions caused. He wanted to believe there was more to it, perhaps there was but he was also a realist. Reasons didn't matter, only the methods and consequences of those methods. He knew he was all but doomed to Tartarus, so he couldn't give her special treatment, no matter how much he wanted to.

But all that only mattered if he got involved again. If he let himself become a beast of destruction and death once more. But he wasn't the same hurt teenager, his scars were still there, and he doubted that he'd ever fully heal but he had the maturity of age, and new responsibilities, not just a king in his own right but a husband and father.

He would have to think about that some other time as his carriage came to a stop, with the driver being quick to open the door and let him step out onto the sidewalk outside city hall. People who saw him were as a quirk to bow to him, greeting him while reframing from looking directly at him. All except two as his daughters had been taken here straight from him, and had beat him there for as soon as they saw him, they stopped talking with Sayoko and the commander of his knights and raced over to him.

"Papa!" Aidokleia, the eldest, was the first to reach him.

"You're here!" Epainespoina laughed as he kneeled to embrace them, carrying both with ease.

"I am, little ones." He gave both a peck on the forehead, getting some amused looks from clerks and bystanders but he paid them little attention as his attention went towards the captain of his knights, the woman out of full armor and in something more comfortable with only pieces to cover her forearms and chest, which meant her lively pink hair was out for all to see. "Hope you didn't wait long."

"They had only been here a few minutes. We would have been inside but they couldn't wait to tell me about their day." Marrybell, former princess of Britannia and his younger sister, replied. Sayoko gave a respectful bow as she stepped away, allowing them to speak.

"We talked with auntie about other auntie!" Epainespoina explained.

"Is that right, I hope she didn't replace her as your favorite auntie," Marrybell asked them, getting both girls to fervently shake their heads.

"Nuh-uh, Mary gives best hugs!" The eldest of the two declared.

"She brings presents." Epainespoina followed that statement, as Marrybell even when it wasn't their birthdays, often had new toys, games or treats for them whenever she visited their house. It was even more when she had her wife with her.

"I'm glad to see that this Nelly hasn't replaced me, would you care to explain, Your Majesty." Marrybell might have been all smiles, but one would need to be a child or an idiot to not pick on her tone, she wasn't happy and most certainly suspected who 'Aunt Nelly' was.

He knew that he owed her more, both as the captain of his knights and his sister but now wasn't the best time to discuss such sensitive issues, so he kept it brief. "They finally found us, but Cornelia is not in the right headspace to explore right now." Marrybell picked up on this, but didn't seem happy about it but she decided to trust him and keep the conversation light.

"Perhaps that is for the best, does she have that Guilford with her?" She hadn't been close to her half-siblings like he had been, either before or after her mother and sister were killed by V.V. That being said, it was practically an open secret among the royals that Guilford would marry Cornelia, as few other men had ever caught the war woman's eye for more than a few minutes and none other had kept it for as long as he did.

That was a fact Lelouch knew well and exploited once upon a time. "I doubt you could separate that man from her for long." He might have cleared the man of his command, but he wasn't so foolish to believe he trusted him, never mind liked him. If he tried to separate those two, the former spearhead of the Empire might do something foolish.

Marrybell hummed as the father of two kept his daughters secured in his arms, the girls playing with his hair and talking about styling it with flowers they could get from the gardens, or shells from the riverside. "That he can help keep her safe in the palace, the last thing we want is something seeing the Witch of Britannia and getting ideas."

Cornelia, unlike herself, who focused mainly on counter-terrorism in already established territories, had been the one that played a major role in those territories being won, using an approach akin to cooking your dinner with a flamethrower. After all, it wasn't just her brutal campaigns of conquest that earned her the nickname 'Witch of Britannia', on more than one occasion had executed captured POVs and rebels in draconian ways, from drawn and quartered, breaking them over the wheel, being burned at the stake or in one case, tied to the barrels of her tanks and blown to bits.

All that widely known information was why she was surprised at the sheer idiocy of this Kusakabe person who thought that's same woman would even entertain the notion of negotiating with him, he only had the luck of Euphemia being present else Cornelia would have just as easily ordered the Hotel blockaded if not destroyed to save time. But safe to say, while effective in conquest, it meant she was one of the most hated Britannians on the planet and she could imagine more than a few residents from former areas having lost their homes and/or families to her methods of war. All it would take was one person with a grudge and a knife to end her.

"They tolerate Zero and the Blood Witch just fine." He reminded her, leaning in close as to prevent the girls, who were in their own little world, from hearing him.

"We've proved ourselves, and even then, there are people that dislike or distrust us," Marrybell replied, as she hadn't had the easiest time when she first arrived, and had to deal with a couple of murder attempts in those early days but she survived.

Lelouch didn't argue with her but instead chose another approach. "When the time comes, and depending on their answer to the option, we have to give the people the benefit of the doubt. They might not like her, but they should at least tolerate her." Their town, his little kingdom was a patchwork of people comparable to the old empires of old, with numerous backgrounds in politics, culture and religion which had served as the sources of tensions and even flashpoints of conflict in the past. But they had managed to remain peaceful as everyone worked to better the situation for the whole.

Was it perfect? Of course not, nothing that had humans in the equation could ever be such a thing, but people were trying and he's not had to deal with anything more than brawls and disagreements between small groups now and then.

Still, Marrybell remained skeptical of it. "Do you truly believe that she would choose to remain?"

"No."

"I see," They'll have to talk about this later, preferably with their dear older sister present but for now, they had other things to worry about as she turned to the little girls, a bright smile on her face. "Well, why don't we get back to it? You girls are in for it, a little look into the boring day of your father's work!" The two cheered as Lelouch rolled his eyes.

"Bring on apples!" Epainespoina cheered as they moved to enter the building.

"I'm going to sit in a chair and be queen!" If nothing else, his eldest was ambitious but she was mistaken to think he had a throne in the town hall, and 50 years too early to take it as he planned to hold onto it for a long time.

While Lelouch spent the day busy with matters of state, Rivalz found himself with Chiba in the workshops, forging everything from pipes and tanks to charcoal-heated geysers and pumps. While they didn't have much in the way of traditional electricity, the locals of these lands had found ways to achieve it through unfamiliar means-chief among them, magic. Thanks to his experience with mechanics and machines, Rivalz was an easy pick for this, while Chiba also had some experience, if only in minor maintenance of knightmares.

Even as he worked, using tools that used magical fuel cells, Rivalz still found it hard to believe that such a thing was a thing, as while he like every kid had dreamed of magic, he had always assumed that it would be separate from science yet here he was, welding steel pipes together for plumbing works, a never-ending job from what he learned from the older workers as the town was always expanding, and the city planners had wished to ensure that all municipal functions functioned smoothly and had back-ups, so every house had 2 pipes that carried water in, on different systems.

Off to the side, Chiba was helping move larger pieces of steel, hot from the furnaces onto massive impact drill stations where they were beaten into shape, or flattened into large, thick sheets. Because of this, the warehouse-sized building was far warmer than outside, with most having some level of sweat on them as they worked. Despite the clear industrial machinery, it wasn't solely iron and steel as he heard the sounds of cows and other animals, used in transporting goods in and out or driving some other machines.

"You finished with that weld yet?" His supervisor came around, a tall dark-skinned man of Middle Eastern descent, his accent as thick as the man's beard.

"Almost, I want to be sure it's watertight," Rivalz replied as he looked over the two pieces of copper piping, trying to spot even the slightest hint of imperfection which he would need to sort out.

This response pleased his boss who let out a hearty laugh from his gut. "Good man!" He slammed a hand onto his back, the force of which nearly sent him off his bench as he turned to him, lifting his welding mask to properly see his boss.

"I'm still shocked by the fact I can understand you." He replied as he had only noticed once he had come in and was assigned a role, that the entire place was filled with a mix of people: Britannians, Europeans and Africans, but also people of Middle Eastern, Central European and Indian descent. Despite that large and diverse group of people, they all understood one another perfectly.

"I stopped thinking about it a while ago, it's nothing else, it makes work easier as I don't need to learn a second language." The man replied, referring to the enchantment spell cast from the bell tower of city hall which served as a universal translator. So long as it was a language programmed into the device casting it, it could nearly instantly change it for the listener so while Rivalz was speaking the king's English, his supervisor was speaking Arabic but each heard their language. Of course, its range was too far, so farmers and those on the outskirts had to make deal with learning another language or bringing interpreters.

"What's all this for anyway?" Rivalz asked, directing his gaze to the large crate of pipes he had already finished, nearly filled and ready to be taken away from his station and replaced with an empty one.

"They're building some warehouses across town and need piping for among other things, fire suppression." His boss replied that with all the construction projects happening at once, workhouses like theirs were expecting to meet the demand for supplies. Even now, one only needed to look outside to see wagons being loaded for transport with finished goods like this, but also nails, bolts, screws and bolts-little things but essential things for any construction project.

"No one wants their food to burn to ash in the middle of winter." Rivalz joked as the man laughed in turn, pleased he had a sense of humor.

"Aye. But it'll also have running water for flushing and washing hands in restrooms and drinking. Municipal regulations to ensure that it can both accommodate guards and act as emergency housing." He explained as a woman pushing a wheelbarrow of charcoal went by, her destination was one of the large furnaces where she grabbed a shovel, opened it up and started throwing the fuel into the fires inside, once that was done, she pulled a level and giant bellows activated, blowing large volumes of air into the furnace to increase the head of the flames

Rivalz only paid some attention to that as he thought instead, to such precautions being put in place. "Lelouch really thinks ahead?"

"You mean his highness?" His boss raised an amused eyebrow at how Rivalz seemed scared about his question which he waved off. "Don't worry, little man. I won't judge, it takes a while to get used to it, but the brat's got a good head on his shoulders."

"You speak like you know him."

"Not personally, I've just seen his efforts for a while now as I was in one of the first groups that came here. I couldn't stand that my family lived in fear and took a chance when a friend told me about this whole 'Arc' thing. And in the 4 years we've been here, I can say I haven't regretted it."

"Trust me, there is joy in watching your little ones play in the fields without worries of secret police and city-killing missiles."

With that said, his supervisor left him to his business as he got back to welding pipes. The person next to him, a nice enough person if on the silent side, worked on assembling components into water sprinklers that would be installed in a building in its final stages.

With Chiba, while she worked on helping forge the larger pieces, people off to the side polished the large containers that had already been finished and just needed to be transported to their locations where they'll be either placed into pits and buried, or placed on the roofs of buildings. The work she was helping with was meant to be shipped out in a couple of days as they were a large reservoir project upstream that diverted water from the river for farming purposes to lower the strain on the already built one that supplied both the farms and the town.

"And the fish?" Chiba asked one of them, having been listening in to their conversation about the situation.

"There's already something planned for that, it'll keep most fish and debris from the reservoir. Though I heard that it won't have filtration stations like the first one." One of them replied as they worked, moving a piece of solid still freshly shaped onto another station.

"Probably because it's going towards farming and they want to keep that river minerals in it." One man with a hammer shrugged as he started to beat the hot metal into shape, the sparks and bits of metal flying about, but they all wore adequate protection.

"You idiots, that's what fertilizers are for. You honestly think they'll supply the farmers with water that could be dirty to spray on their crops and supple livestock." Another knocked them down a peg, as even if that water wasn't meant for human consumption, it was being used for things that were.

"I'm sorry, but how large is this first and second reservoir?" Chiba asked, as she knew this place couldn't be older than 5 years, that it didn't have that large a population, and most building techniques were nothing compared to how fast Britannia could set up cities. Even if everyone pitched it, she couldn't see it being too large.

The second worker paused for a moment to think about it. "Let's see, if I'm not mistaken, the first one holds around 105,000 Kilolitres. The second one is meant to be bigger and when filled, should hold 600,000." She found herself blinking in surprise.

And she wasn't the only one as the worker who suggested that filtration and other cleaning stations for the water barked out. "That's almost 6 times bigger!"

The first, reaching for another tool, merely shrugged his shoulders. "Well, farming takes a crap ton of water, not just for irrigation, but also for ensuring livestock have plenty of drinking water." Before coming here, his family had worked in agriculture and he knew that even relatively small farming needed a lot of water, as everything from root vegetables to fruit-bearing trees drank a lot of water to stay healthy and produce the produce they were farmed for. Frankly, he thought that the new reservoir was of a small size but they had other priorities with winter coming in.

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about water shortages then?" Someone joked, getting laughs as one didn't need to go far in town to find a water fountain, or fountains that both birds and small kids liked to play in.

"Good, I didn't follow some pale-faced pretty boy to need to worry about that." Someone added as they pulled a lever and let red hot liquid steel pour from the furnace, into the cast which will serve as the mold.

"The guy's as pale as a corpse, no doubt but he's a man I'm willing to follow." One of them noted, as Nagisa remained largely silent and listened, learning more about this and how the man she knew as Zero, or the exiled prince.

"Hard to believe he used to be a terrorist with such a flair for the dramatic, youth I tell you." Someone added, getting laughs from them as they worked but Chiba was surprised by something said.

"You mean he tells people about his past?" She asked, the group turning to hear surprised that she didn't know till they remembered she was a newbie and moved to explain.

"Of course, he does, I don't think he's made any secret of it. The man proved that he was more than the stories as I remember when he would frequently leave that fancy house of his and help us workers in the fields or building. Still, I swear he could work in the hot sun for weeks on end and never get so much as a tan." One of the older ones replied, a Welsh accent in his words as he recalled those days even before they left, as the boy and the rest had been a rather secretive lot. It makes sense in hindsight why.

Nagisa was perplexed by that, recalling the rage and betrayal she felt when she saw the evidence against him, misleading as most of it was, that didn't wipe away the fact that he was responsible for terrible acts. Yet despite that, she also recalled how people acted when he returned with them, meeting him with such love and respect that only a king or warrior of times long past could have enjoyed. "So, you don't care about his past or…?"

That same Welshman snorted. "Of course, we care, man has more bodies to his name than most people have hair on their heads as no matter what, he's just another Brit royal." He wasn't going to fall over himself to praise the boy just because he ruled them, he was their boss but that didn't mean he was without fault or flaw.

"But he's proved that he's more than it, repentant too as he might not follow my faith, but he does seem religious and often prays and does his best to create and build, rather than dominate and destroy." Someone else, younger than the first stated though Nagisa could tell he was being purposely vague on the details as she wouldn't pretend to know him that much, but as a whole, Britannia had been an atheist country, despite still retaining the Church of England, renamed the Church of Britannia, mainly due to how difficult it was to justify the actions of Charles, his predecessor and his predecessor when all three, as the heads of the Church, were expected to act in a much different way and treat people more equally.

That didn't mean that there weren't still practicing Christians within the empire, there were as it was mainly the upper class that didn't care for it, but Lelouch was born into that upper class, its highest level and even while exiled in Area 11, remained an apart of it thanks to Ashford being a school for the elite. When she added to his actions as Zero, she couldn't see him being any more religious than his father, not unless he was also a hypocrite.

"I would call him a true Christian king, but I doubt he even owns a bible nevermind attends church." A statement from her fellow workers threw even more fog onto that theory.

"The words of the Hidden One are impactful if you leave them in your heart. It soothes the soul to know such a wise and kind God cares for the dead, it means my parents are in a good place." Someone replied, grasping at the bident-shaped necklace they were, this person being a visible believer in whatever faith Lelouch and most likely his family here practiced, the only issue was that she couldn't place it as no religion she could think of had a bident as revered to be anything close to sacred or holy like the cross.

A stout woman came walking towards them, smacking one of the workers upside the head with her clipboard. "Alright, people, save the debate of theology for your own time, we have work to do!"

"Sure thing, boss lady!" They replied as she rolled her eyes, but left to continue to keep an eye on this as someone with a fresh wheelbarrow came in and dumped into their furnace.

But with the topic of the sins of their leader, they couldn't bring up one of, if not the greatest of them. "Still, what happened with Princess Euphemia, it's just tragic." With the truth known, most saw the princess as naïve, but ultimately a kind person with pure intentions struck down by circumstance and cruelty. Many had watched those events eagerly, especially those in other Britannian areas as even if small, they carried the hope that her idea would prove successful enough for it to possibly be enacted in other areas.

"We can offer up prayers later, right now we have to finish this line of steel beams before the day's over." A Jewish man ended the conversation there, as they had the coming fall festival to mourn her and the rest of the fallen.

When the lunch bell was wrung, Rivalz took a breath, wiping the sweat from his brow as he got up and joined the rest as he exited the humid and warm workhouse for the outdoors, filled with benches, tables, shrubs and trees. It was a contrast to be sure, but one he suspected was intentional rather than keeping them in there or some bland mess hall.

Waiting for them was a small table set up with kind-looking people manning it, with them were large pots still steaming along with chilled water or juice. The hungry workers formed up and after washing their hands, grabbed plates with each of the several cooks putting a serving of something on their plates of their choosing, as he didn't have any allergies or religious preferences, Rivalz took a serving of rice, mashed potatoes, beef and gravy and apple juice. With that in hand, he went out in search of a spot to sit, finding that Chiba had already got her food and was seated by a bench.

Walking over, she spared him a glance but didn't say anything as he took a seat and started to eat, a quick look over to her showed that she had taken rice, soup and fish along with water. Rivalz didn't say anything at first, not knowing what to say as while he had expected things would be weird after the honest-to-God magic of the previous day, he wasn't expecting to learn so much more about his old friend, how much he had changed from the boy he used to know.

"Your day is as weird as mine?" Rivalz opened up the conversation, getting a short laugh that lacked any humor in return.

"I used to think that was the norm, clearly that bastard has made it his mission to blow my expectations out of the water," Chiba replied, picking at her food, and eating it slowly.

"Tell me about it, I miss the days when we would skip class and gamble against nobles." God, that felt like it was decades ago, not just 7. "Now he's a lord and here I am, still welding pipes together." That was a depressing thought, that while his friend fought an empire, leveled mountains, toppled cities, rescued princesses and even traveled to another world, here he was, still working a blue-collar job.

"Beats the heavy work of forging steel beams for large projects." Chiba cracked her neck, as when she said she had experience with maintenance, she didn't think she would be placed here.

"Can't say I disagree with you there." Rivalz smiled, taking a long drink of his juice before looking to the side, past the garden and into town, as the workhouse, and the rest of them sat on a higher part of town. Even now, he could see people going about their days, running their businesses, or handling their little ones. "Do you think he'll do it?"

Chiba didn't need him to explain his question, she had been dealing with it for a while now herself. "I don't know. I didn't know what to think before, I thought maybe he was living in the woods, or under another assumed name but not…this." She sighed, as this was proving harder than she had expected.

"I used to think he was too laidback for anything other than caring for his sister, now that responsibility has exploded into an entire town, a town that seems to respect him," Rivalz stated, thinking back to the image he had of his friend, then what he heard about him over the news, which morphed into what he saw when that lazy unfit boy become a tall, dashing man that would stand his ground against the monster that was the Dog of the Damocles.

A part of him wondered what Shirley would have thought of him, she always believed he could achieve greatness if he only applied himself.

"So, would he put it all at risk by helping us? Another world it might be, but we managed to get there, so if we poke the bear one too many times, it might come here." Chiba stated, as she could imagine his concerns and fears that Schneizel and his ilk would find a way here and while she hated him, she didn't wish to drag another world into their hell.

"I can't say, all I can is that I need to talk to him soon, and I'll make sure tonight," Rivalz concluded, his gaze as hard as the steel they worked as he might have fallen so far behind that he couldn't even see how high his friend had reached, but he'll be damned if he let it remain that way.

This took extra work to get done, but I'm happy with it. The next chapter will be out on February 8th, so nothing next week. Again, if you liked it, please leave a comment and follow my story. If you're new, you should read the first book of this, it's not hard to find as it's the only other CG story I have posted right now, but for clarity's sake, it's End of an Era.

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