Part one in Momo’s master plan to win the hearts and minds of the public:

Public humiliation. Otherwise known as Q&A.

Cedric and Junior had attempted to enforce a queue of questions, but the mirage of civility had only lasted a few minutes before people started shouting out at random, waving their pitchforks in the air as they addressed Momo with their very specific, increasingly delusional concerns.

“Your government told my son he could become a Holy Knight, but when he showed up to the capital, they told him the results of his Capability Test better matched him for a Horse Brusher. How is he supposed to provide for a child with nothing but a mane-based income?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Momo said, offering her best attempt at sympathy. “I’d like to clarify for the second time, that wasn’t my government, that was Jarva’s –”

“A Horse Brusher! Let him at least have a chance at being part of the Prince’s Royal Armchair Association. My good-for-nothing son might not be the next Aloysius, but he could at least serve as a good enough foot rest. He’s got a good back on him, sturdy knees.”

“That association has actually been retired,” Momo said meekly. “Given that the prince is dead, and employing people to be chairs was deemed inhumane.”

“Oh, great, now he’s dead. Instead of keeping him alive for the sake of the good people employed at the Armchair Association, you had to go ahead and kill him. What sort of transferrable skills do you have if you’ve been an arm rest your whole life? How is that humane?”

Momo blinked, speechless.

“Next question,” Cedric bellowed, glaring at the woman.

A tall reptilian man was selected for the next question. He wore leather armor and had a silver bow slung over his shoulder, a fresh rip of meat saddled onto his side. He looks like some sort of huntsman. Surrounding him were six smaller reptiles, pipsqueaks with big, round, doting eyes.

When he stood up, the other residents quieted. Even the belligerent woman grumbled her way to the sidelines, making room for him at the front of the picket line.

He seemed to command some amount of respect in the campgrounds.

Momo swallowed. She had a plan – but it required convincing someone with some clout among the other residents. Group think, and all. He seemed perfect.

Don’t mess this up.

“Hi there,” she greeted, smiling softly. “Your children are very cute.”

One of the six kids turned bright red, squeaking. He hid behind his father.

“Thank you,” he said. His voice was deep, measured. Unlike the torrent of residents who came before him, he wasn’t screaming at the top of his lungs for her to resign and die. “They are well fed and taken care of. No thanks to your government.”

Momo’s smile fell. Okay. Not a great start.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she repeated softly, like a proper politician. “But I really want to change that. I’m not Jarva. I’m here to help people.”

“People?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “The ones with skin and meat and muscle? Or the ones you order around to build bridges without pay?”

Momo laughed nervously.

“I get the concern. When I first came to Alois, I was scared of necromancers, too. But the friends I’ve made here have helped me realize that fear isn’t an emotion to live your life by. When you move past it, there’s so much… opportunity.”

She faltered at the last bit of her practiced spiel. She had never been good at rote memorization. Luckily, Sumire had forced her to practice for weeks before she hit the campaign trail. Together they fashioned Momo a proper backstory and motivations – that she was just a lonely girl from the Vagrant Dunes, down on her luck, when she was taken in graciously by a cult of do-good necromancers.

It wasn’t too far from the truth. California was mostly desert, anyway.

“Spare us the lines,” the reptile said with a glare. “I want to know how you intend to be different from the last shill. Refuge’s End has seen the rise and fall of many leaders – none of which cared to pour even a dime into our city. All they care about is control. Your little bridge stunt is no different. Upgrading the panopticon does not give us our freedom.”

Momo blinked. Shit.

Shill? Panopticon? This man has read way more of the dictionary than I have.

She breathed in. Stick to the strategy.

All she had to do was pinpoint his anger, and redirect it. Kyros’s [Brainwash] could only go so far.

Focusing intently on him, Momo cast [Silent Mindreader]. An image popped into her mind.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

She saw the huntsman sitting alone in the campgrounds at night, his children playing while he was hunched over a paper reading FROM THE OFFICE OF THE KING: CEASE AND DESIST. It was a decree from Jarva’s Kingdom about the sale of illegal game meats. According to the decree, to be a certified game huntsman, you had to receive free training in Jarvirium – but to receive free training in Jarvirium, you had to be born inside Jarvirium.

It’s a Catch-22, Momo thought, frowning. Jarva. What an asshat.

It was obvious from the memory that the huntsman didn’t have the money to move his whole family, but he also had to feed them somehow. So he was forced to sell his game illegally.

That seemed to be the central trap of Refuge’s End. Jarva had created a place where it was illegal to live, illegal to work, illegal to be. All the while profiting off the fines he sent and the bridge toll it cost them to go into town every day for work. A certified grift of a city.

Not anymore, Momo thought, anger rushing through her.

Remembering Sumire’s advice about connecting with the people, Momo stood from the stool she had been sitting on and walked to the front of the stage. The pitchforks were closer now, poking mere inches from her feet. Cedric gave her a worried glance. She waved him off and took a deep breath in.

If they tried to stab her, so be it. She was going to politic the shit out of this.

“I’m not going to tell you how I’m different from Jarva. I think it’s obvious – he’s an ugly, tyrannical octopus, I’m a girl who fell into necromancy and badly needs a haircut,” Momo said, mustering all her nonexistent courage to look straight at the lizard. “I’m going to tell you what’s more important. What I’m going to do next.”

She took out a piece of blank parchment from the Ruler Book and wrote something down with her Quill. Turning her wrist, she flashed it to the audience, desperately hoping they could read her handwriting.

“I just decreed Law Number 1045 – the Free Hunting Principle,” she said, letting the adrenaline of the moment guide her trembling voice. “Tomorrow, I’ll make it so the Guild of the Hunt will open their first new location outside of Jarvirium – in Refuge’s End. And you, Mr. Sir, will be its legal guildmaster. A certified huntsman.”

The audience erupted in murmurs. The lizard stared at her, wide-eyed.

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “Don’t make such asinine claims.”

“They aren’t ass-in-line,” she said, trying and failing to match his evolved vocabulary. “I made a promise to myself that I’d run things differently. No bureaucracy. No red tape. I will change every single law Jarva made until every person in the Queendom is represented and happy.”

“That’s a bold claim,” he said. “Why should we believe you?”

“Because I just did it,” she said, pointing towards the skeletal brigade which had already gotten started on their newest building project. “Look I – I don’t claim to be the best person for this job, but I’m not afraid to ruin everything Jarva ever did in order to make your lives easier.”

She cleared her throat. Every nerve ending in her body was buzzing, but she had gotten into the flow of it now, the banter, the back-and forth. The crowd was receptive – open and listening. As much as she could feel bile growing in her throat for doing this amount of public persuasion, she just had to see it through.

“And if any of your kids want to be huntsmen too, you can train them yourself and they’ll be considered registered,” she continued, hammering the final nail to her point. “No ridiculous upfront payments. No fines. No expensive field trips to Jarvirium required.”

The huntsman had grown quiet, his pupils growing wide in disbelief.

It’s working, Momo thought, her stomach turning. I’m winning him over.

“That’s great and dandy for the huntsmen,” the woman from before interjected, daring to ruin Momo’s political high. “But what about the rest of us? I can’t even sell my flower crowns outside the borders without Jarva callin’ them contraband.”

“Or my zebra hot dogs,” another villager piped up.

“Or my grilled hyena sandwiches.”

“Or my fedoras with little flowers attached to them.”

Feeling the crowd slipping away from her, Momo waved her hands in front of her face frantically.

“Not a problem. Consider all of that taken care of,” she said. “No respectable merchant will face any problems in the Queendom. You won’t have to deal with cease and desist letters anymore.”

“Even for my illicit narcotics business?” another villager belatedly piped up.

Momo paused, grimacing. “Okay. Well. I’ll have to look into that one.”

Momo summoned the Laws and Regulations courier from the Ruler System. A giant scroll of every single law Jarva put into effect materialized in front of her, rolling its way across the stage and onto the grass. The residents eyed it in awe, reading off every rule they wanted scratched – and every new regulation they wanted added.

Momo fulfilled every single request. She felt like a rush like nothing else as the faces in the crowd turned from hostile to excited, miserable to awed.

“No more illegal sandwiches,” she said, scratching another law off with her quill. “Or hot dogs. And another Armchair Association will be opened up here in town, for anyone to join and make a career out of being furniture.”

“And we don’t want our passports checked every time we cross into town,” another resident said.

Coming off a power high, Momo just nodded, crossing the regulation off and saying “done.”

Cedric turned to her, his nostrils flaring. “What? You can’t just do that. You’ll take me and my boy out of a job.”

She froze. Oops.

“No problem,” she said, nodding her head. “We’ll just get you guys better jobs. There must be something you want to do more than stamp stamps and yell at people from under a bridge.”

“Can hardly ask for a better day-to-day,” Cedric said, crossing his arms.

“I’m sure we can find something.”

“Not so sure about that. Come on, Junior. We aren’t protecting the woman who’s threatening our livelihood.”

“But Da, I like her,” Junior mumbled. “She’s fun. I just got her to get rid of that law about how many chickens you can consume on a weekly basis.”

Cedric pulled at his hand, tugging him away from the crowds. Momo’s stomach immediately dropped, bracing for the inevitable impact of the pitchfork-wielding crowds.

After a few moments, she opened her eyes. No piercing wounds came.

The crowd had let go of their weapons. In fact, they were smiling at her. Giddy and excited like schoolchildren. The huntsman’s children had paraded themselves to the front of the picket line, grappling over the fence to get a chance to see her up close. Momo’s eyebrows shot up, caught off guard by their grins – big and dimpled and hopeful.

Even the shy one from before had wandered up to hand her something. It was a slab of meat wrapped in paper. A makeshift peace treaty.

“This is for you, Queen Momo,” the small lizard mumbled. “Thanks for not being awful.”

Momo’s heart swelled.

–

“While I’m very impressed at how you turned an angry mob into your personal groupies, I do have one question,” Radu asked much later, as they tore through six pounds of gifted pork chops. “How exactly are you going to pay for everything you just promised them?”

Momo chewed slowly and shrugged, the dopamine of the day flooding through her.

“Relax. The king has plenty of leftover money,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Probably.