Weekly Digest 47 - (#150 - #152)

Threshing and Storage

The next day after breakfast, Lori watched as people began laying out the bundles of stalks out into the sun. There was probably a farming technical name for them, but she didn’t care. The bundles were laid out on the fields they'd been harvested from, stacked together in long lines out in the sun. People formed a long line passing the bundles from person to person, which Lori had to admit was very efficient. No getting bottlenecked by the door to the storage shed, no having to walk back and forth while carrying a heavy thing…

Lori mildly increased her assessment of the intelligence of her people.

While a line of efficient people did that, forming a line to get the bundles onto the field, then another line to lay out the bundles so that no bundles were casting any shadows on the one's beside them, ensuring efficient drying in the sunlight. The children were out in force with sticks and clubs and little slings of the sort her mothers never let her have when she was younger because they said it wasn't a toy, it was dangerous, and that if she wanted to have one she'd have to play with it outside the apartment…

She finally saw what they meant when she saw one boy use the sling to scare a choker away from the bundles being lined up. The stone flew in a curving arc, but it struck the choker in the back of the neck, and while in novels such a strike would have killed the little beast instantly, the ruff of feathers around its neck seemed to cushion the impact. Still, it did cause it to divert away from the stacks of grains and towards the irrigation cistern, where more children ambushed it with sticks and the sort of enthusiastic violence only a child could muster.

Other people were taking planks from their stockpile and trying to fashion some sort of temporary barricade with stones and the outdoor tables and benches they currently had, perhaps in the hope that it would be too tall for the chokers to jump over. Or at least, too tall for them to jump over before someone managed to scare them off. It wasn't the near-manic, purposeful work of the harvest, but rather a more subdued atmosphere. Moving the bundles was repetitive, thoughtless work, and people didn't seem to have settled on an idea for how to keep the chokers away yet. Lori saw a few of the people talking point towards her, sitting next to the third bathhouse, but someone shook their head at the idea, pointing not at her but the ground. Oh good, someone who knew how earthwisp manipulation was bad for healthy soil.

Riz was down there, just another blob of dark pink hair. While Lori was familiar enough with her temporary assistant's face to be able to identify her, she was far enough that Riz was indistinguishable from every other pink-haired head on the field.

Eventually, it seemed to be decided that they'd just set up the benches and tables on the side of the field that faced the woods, where the chokers were most likely to come from, and just loiter there to discourage the things from going at the bundles. That didn't seem sustainable for the whole week needed to dry all the bundles. Perhaps they were only planning to set a precedent to scare the little beasts off? That seemed unlikely to work. despite how many the children had already killed, there always seemed to be more of them, if the one hanging at her door was anything to go by.

Before this harvest, Lori hadn't thought beasts would bother with eating vigas. In her head, her image of the smaller beasts had them eating bugs, small slugs, larvae, other, smaller beasts like foot-sized scavengers. But no, it turned out that beasts also ate seeds and grains, and their harvest would be a tempting target while it dried. It was vulnerable to bugs as well, which was why some people walked around the bundles with brooms, the wide heads ideal for swatting.

Lori watched all this as she sat there, body relaxed as she worked on forming some bindings. It took most of the morning to finish getting the bundles out of the storage shed. When the storage shed had been emptied, all the bundles out in the field in the sun, people had headed over to her Dungeon to get the rest of the bundles stored in the second level's alcoves.

In the corners of the field, people were preparing small bonfires. Were they planning to have another roast? No, the fires were too small of that. Besides, with her awareness, she could feel the concentrations of firewisps in the kitchens, which meant that stew was being made. Perhaps those were for a night watch, to scare off the beasts at night? They'd done something similar when traveling, but those had involved bigger fires, with much bigger beasts.

Lori had hated the night watch, and the other Whisperer who had been with the group had as well. They'd needed to provide the heat and light for those times they hadn't been able to scavenge enough firewood, or it had been too grassy to risk a fire, which meant they'd been up half the night just trying to imbue the binding enough to make it last the other half of the night, and they would still need to wake up early to purify the water they needed for washing off the iridescence, drinking and cooking, and there'd been more than one night attack…

Really, just thinking of those nights made Lori want to go back to her room, curl up in bed and go to sleep.

Lori was staring at the bundles in the field when Riz came up to her. "Great Binder," the woman said in a tone of voice Lori had never heard her use before. Well, didn't remember her using before. Really, she had better things to do than try to remember every tone of voice the woman had ever used. Even if she could use Mentalism to remember it, she wouldn't.

"Erzebed," Lori said, not turning to look at her.

"All the sheaves of vigas in the Dungeon are dry, your Great Binder," Riz said.

"Yes, they are." Lori wished she had some water. Despite the day not being very hot, she was still sweating a little, and could use a drink. "Dry enough to thresh, I believe."

"…yes, Great Binder."

Lori nodded. "Perhaps you should get started, then?" It had taken all night to get it all dried. She'd needed to seal all the alcoves and remove the moisture from the air to encourage desiccation, and had needed to double check the walls and ceiling for moisture seeping in. The heat had needed to be kept low so that the second level wouldn't turn into an oven, and she'd needed to make a very extensive binding of airwisps so that she could force the dry air through all the stalks, even those up against the wall under other bundles.

Fortunately, she'd had all night, and with only minimal heat and using firewisps to recycle the heat already in the alcoves, the circulating dry air and the bindings to keep the air arid had dried the wood far slower than her experiments, but it had allowed her to be able to affect all the alcoves at once. The few holes she'd made for air to pass through all the alcoves so she could make one large binding instead of several smaller ones for each alcove had been easily fixed.

"Um… we'll need to use the second level, Great Binder," Riz said.

That made Lori blink, and she almost turned to look at Riz before going back to staring at the field. "Why?"

"We need a solid hard surface to put the stalks on so that we can thresh them," Riz said. "And it helps that the third level doesn't have sand. It's even windy, so we might even be able to winnow there."

"Well, make the arrangements with the weavers, ropers and carpenters and clean up after yourselves," Lori said. "Then get back up here. You might need to bring me lunch." Lori frowned and considered that. "You might need to bring lunch for both of us."

"Er, why Great Binder?"

Lori pointed at the field she was looking at. "I still need to dry the rest of that."

Riz blinked and followed her finger out to the field.

"I might need to surround the vigas with ice," Lori said, keeping her eyes on the field and the bindings she was placing. Having her eyes to supplement her awareness helped her get it done faster, even if the wisps were actually visible with her eyes. Without her connection to her Dungeon's core, she wouldn't have been able to perceive the bindings unless she ran right into them. "It will make the process more efficient. Happily, that also means that the chokers won't be able to get at the grain, which is also useful. Unfortunately, it means no one will be able to approach the grain until I bring down the wall, so we might suffer some loss to bugs."

"You're… going to dry all the vigas," Riz said slowly.

"We are notwasting a week," Lori said. "If people want to keep dealing with beasts for that long, it might as well be large beasts that give more food. This way the harvest gets finished faster, we don't waste firewood—" whatever people were going to use those bonfires in the corners for, it was clearly only because of the bundles of stalks drying in the field, "—and people can do other things."

Riz looked between her, the field and back again. "If you say so, Great Binder."

"I do, in fact, say so," Lori confirmed. "Go, see that people are threshing, and tell them to stay from the bundles when I bring the water up."

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said, voice still sounding strange. She looked down at the field one last time before she started walking towards her Dungeon again.

Lori watched Riz go down and talk to the people around the field, occasionally pointing towards her and the Dungeon. They glanced her way, but she ignored them, focusing on the field. Fortunately, the bundles were laid out in a straight line—more or less—so she could be efficient with the airflow, thought it looked like she would need to make walls with ice to enclose the bundles as they dried…

Hopefully it would only take a day or two to dry everything…

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In the end, it took three days for the grain in the field to dry with her binding to accelerate the process. While most of that delay was from needing to remove moisture from the whole stalk instead of just the head where the grain vigas was, she had also forgotten that there was moisture in the ground to account for and didn't realize where all the additional moisture in the air that was slowing down the desiccation was coming from. It didn't help that she only remembered to check well into the second day, so the binding was extracting moisture from more than just the stalks for all that time.

Fortunately, not one seemed to have figured it out. They only saw that she was able to cut the time it took to less than what it wouldn't normally have been, so Lori's dignity remained intact. The farmers who had cracked open some of the vigas to check the state of the grain also said it hadn't been hot enough to kill the seed, which… was something that Lori absolutely knew could happen, so she had made sure not to heat the grain too much! Yes, that was definitely had happened…

Over the next week, most of the demesne was involved in processing the stalks to get out all the grain and store them into the jars that had been made for them, which was much more efficient for storage. There was some grumbling at the shot, fat stalks the vigas was on. According to Riz, the long, thin stalks that Lori was familiar with were usually used to make brooms, which helped with sweeping up the threshing floor to recover every bit of grain, as well as cleaning after the mess threshing made. Beast-feather brooms were apparently too stiff for the job. The blacksmiths had used their hammers to break the modified stalks into fibers pliant enough for sweeping so they'd gotten some new brooms out of it.

Lori having done her part, stayed out of the way since what was being done was brute force manual labor, which didn’t really need her since there were enough bodies to throw at the problem. She went back to her routine of drying wood, excavating the third level for more stone to continue the construction of her Dungeon's entrance, making ice for their arrangement with River's Fork and their own cold room, and beating Mikon in sunk and chatrang as she made more pieces to play lima with. By the end of the week, much of the vigas had been stored in jars in the storage shed.

The next day, a week after the threshing began, in the middle of the afternoon, Lori felt bindings enter her demesne.

Bindings shehad made.

After several weeks away, the Coldhold had finally returned.

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Everything Back To Normal

"Erzebed!"

The name echoed in the air, and Lori winced. She'd forgotten to bind airwisps over her ears this time, and as a result they rang from the volume of binding of airwisps she had just used to call for her temporary assistant. Lori go up from where she'd been sitting while curing wood and methodically deactivated and unbound the wisps shed been maintaining. Best not to risk a fire by leaving it unattended. Lori grabbed her staff and started walking downhill to the river.

Her temporary and hopefully soon-to-no-longer-be assistant met her partway down, again trying to conceal her annoyance. "Yes, Great Binder?" she said. Again, sounding like she was trying to be patient, and only sounding like she wasn't patient.

"Do we have anyone outside the demesne hunting beasts?"

"No one went out today, Great Binder," Riz said. "We need to get the last of the threshing done."

Lori nodded. "Send a hunting party out. Let's have roast for dinner."

Riz blinked. "Now? I think they've already started the stew for dinner."

"Then we'll have both," Lori said dismissively. "See to it, Erzebed."

Riz sighed loudly. "Yes, Great Binder," she said reluctantly. "I'll see to it… I suppose there's still time to go out and catch something…"

Lori nodded. "Good. I believe we'll make tomorrow a rest day as well."

Riz blinked, frowning a little. "Well… I suppose we're almost done… but realistically Great Binder, we'll still have to work tomorrow and maybe the next day to get everything done properly."

"Tomorrow," Lori said. "That will be all, Erzebed."

Riz closed her eyes for a moment and sighed again, but hurried off, her head turning from side to side as if looking for someone a she did so. She started calling out names as Lori continued walking downhill, heading for the river.

It was a fine day, or so Lori thought to herself. She walked to the end of the stone dock on the Dungeon-side of the river and sat down on the edge, playing her staff next to her. The dock was empty, all the boats on the other side of the river on the other dock as people there cut up cut down ropeweed, planted the seeds that were on the stalks, and gathered up firewood to bring over back ot this side. She let her feet dangle over the water, the soles just barely not touching the surface as she watched the dark shapes of small, fist-sized fursh too small to be worth catching to eat even compared to immature seels. They rummaged among the plants that had managed to take root in the mud that had started to build up after she'd built the dock, digging for slugs and little graspers and squids. Yes, so relaxing to just sit there and just watch the water go downriver, letting her gaze linger on the on the water as far as her eyes could see…

Lori kicked her feet, most definitely not impatient. She was also most definitely not tempted to most definitely not increase the outputs on any of her bindings made of water. No, not at all.

When the shape that she most definitely hadn't been watching for appeared downriver, Lori didn't stand up excitedly and therefore didn't almost fall into the water, drown and die. After all, she was the Dungeon Binder. She obviously wouldn't do something so foolish, and any pointed comments about rocks were about an isolated incident. No, she stood up with slow dignity, mildly surprised since she hadn't been expecting anything to come up the river. No, not at all, she definitely hadn't been expecting anything!

Still, now that she saw something coming up the river, it behooved her to see what it was, lest it be something unwanted, like a raiding party from another demesne! After all, it was coming from downriver, and there was another demesne down there. You can't trust another demesne. They weren't you, after all.

Lori heard a shout behind her, a cry that was taken up and started to spread, and soon her demesne was in an uproar as the Coldhold, the boat they had sent to the demesne of Covehold became visible to people who didn't happen to coincidentally be standing on the stone dock. Fortunately, there were few people outside, since most of them were in the second level threshing the vigas, but from the way some people ran into her Dungeon, that would change soon.

Lori decided she'd rather not be on the dock when that happened, lest she get accidentally pushed off into the water. She stepped off the dock just as some excitable children rushed towards it for a better view. she glared at them, and they slowed down to let her pass before moving past her once the way was clear. She formed a seat next to one of the new walls creating the entryway to her Dungeon, careful not to destabilize the structure. She still hadn't gotten around to adding bulwarks to the outside, but maybe she should soon…

People started cheering when Coldhold was close enough to distinguish people, and the men on board started waving to those on shore. On the other side of the river, the few people who were visible had stopped in what they were doing and were cheering and waving a the boat as well. It was quite noisy, and Lori was glad she'd moved back from the dock, otherwise the amount of noise would have been extremely annoying. People started streaming out of the Dungeon, letting out exclamations as they saw the boat and joining the crowd in front of the dock. The boat started to slow, getting ready move into the dock, which was getting full of people…

"All right everyone, get back!" she heard a voice call out clearly from the boat. There was no binding of airwisps involved. The person speaking just knew how to make themselves be heard. "We need to use the dock, and everyone is crowding too much, someone might fall off. Please get back on shore, and we'll come to you." A pause. "That means everyone, please. Come on, the longer this takes, the longer it will be before we can get off the boat!"

People began to move off the dock, and people on the shore had to move back as a consequence. It wasn't everyone in the demesne. She could feel some people, likely the smiths, loitering near the smithy by the voids of wisps they presented in her awareness of the demesne. There were also still people in the kitchens, likely still cooking the dinner stew, and a few people were washing clothes in the laundry area. Still, the space in front of the dungeon seemed full of people.

The Coldhold finally maneuvered and slid into the dock, and someone moved across the walkway between the boat and one of its outriggers to step onto the dock and start tying up the boat so it didn't drift away. Once that was done, people started getting off the boat moving off the dock and heading towards the crowd. Then there were loud, tearful reunions and… people recoiling? All right, she was pretty sure that there was something wrong with a man and a woman stated embracing only for the woman to jump back holding her nose.

"Oh, right. All right, clear a path everyone, clear a path! We ran out of soap a while back and have been washing with only cold water! To the baths everyone, even if they love you, no one is going to touch you the way we all smell now! Go, go, go! And can someone get us all some soap please?"

Apparently the smell was very intense, because people not only parted, they gave the men disembarking from the Coldhold a lot of space. Some people actually did fall into the river, and it was only the fact it was still shallow there that prevented people from drowning. Still, the smell apparently wasn't enough to discourage everyone, and some lucky people found themselves getting hugged, even if the person doing the hugging was clearly holding their breath. Someone presumably ran off to get them some soap. And, since the men all rushed into the baths not carrying anything, probably new clothes and toweling as well.

Lori paused, frowning thoughtfully at that. Actually, where was all the demesne's soap being made? She didn't remember building a structure for them, and they weren't in the second level…

Well, something she could have Riz… no, something she could have Rian find out for her!

He was back. He was finally back. Her competent, useful, capable lord was back and now she could get things done again!

Now that it was back inside her demesne, she could finally feel the relative positions of all the bindings that came together to make up the Coldhold. It took only a few moments to sort through, identify and deactivate the binding that powered the water jet driver that propelled it. Best not to leave it in a state it could be moved. A few of the children were already looking at the boat with interest. For that matter, so were some adults.

Sighing, Lori looked around and was relieved to spot someone she recognized, walking over to them. "Umu," she said.

The blonde weaver started in surprise, turning around stiffly to face Lori. "Y-your Bindership," she said.

Lori pointed at the boat. "Keep anyone from getting onto that boat until Rian and the others are finished with their bath, all right? If they brought back anything for the demesne, I'd rather not have it mysteriously disappear all of a sudden."

For a moment, Umu looked like she was going to refuse. Then she glanced towards the men's bath and sighed. "Yes, your Bindership," she said, moving to stand on the dock

Lori nodded in satisfaction, then walked away to go back to curing wood. After all, there was still an afternoon to work in, and it wasn't like the people Riz had sent to get more meat had come back yet…

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Lori was sitting next to the curing shed maintaining the binding inside it when the brat suddenly walked up to her.

"Wiz Lori," the girl said, "itay told me to tell you that Lord Rian had told tito Ralii to tell him to tell me that he needed clothes and you have all of his clean ones."

That… what?

"What?" Lori said.

"Itay told me to tell you that Lord Rian told tito Ralii to tell him to tell me that he needed clothes and that you had all his clean ones," the brat repeated dutifully.

No… it still made no sense.

"Who needs clothes?" Lori said, trying to clarify some of the pronouns.

"Lord Rian," the brat said. "He told tito Ralii, who told itay, who told me, and now I'm telling you."

Ah… well, that was helpful. "And… why are you telling me this?"

"Lord Rian told tito Ralii to tell itay to tell me that if you asked, he said it's because he doesn’t have any clean clothes, and putting on the ones he had… de-feats the pur-pose of taking a bath," the brat said with such painstaking care that it was probably a direct quote.

Lori nodded, standing up as she deactivated the binding in the curing shed again. "All right. Follow me and I'll give you what Rian needs. Then you can take it to him."

"I'm supposed to give it to itay so he can give it to Lord Rian," the brat said. "Since Lord Rian is in the boys' bath."

"Ah. Well then, let's do that."

The brat nodded and followed Lori as she headed to her Dungeon where she'd been storing the things Rian had left behind in her care. Not even back a day and her lord was somehow finding work for her to do… it would have been annoying if she wasn't so relieved. Maybe she could finally get the third level turned into a farm over the winter…

Rian was back, and everything was back to normal.

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I Missed You Too

Rian was the first out of the bathhouse, wearing a new set of clothes and holding a bundle of cloth that looked distinctly like a used set under one arm, the pack that he'd given Lori before he'd left over his shoulder. He headed to his house, putting the clothes and the pack on the table, sighing in relief. He looked around, seeming to note how clean everything was, sighed in what seemed to be relief, turned and then recoiled.

Lori blinked at him. "What?" she said.

"You were there?" he exclaimed, voice slightly high-pitched as if he just seen her drawing blood.

Yes…? Obviously. "Yes, obviously," she said. Lori had most definitely not been loitering around the bath.

Rian stared at her. "Did you follow me?"

Of course she had. How else had she gotten here? "Of course I did," Lori said. "How else would I have gotten here? I saw you were done, so now we can talk."

"We still need to unpack the Coldhold," Rian said. "Is this urgent?" He frowned. "Wait, did someone get murdered while we were gone? Is that it?"

"No, of course not. Don't be silly," Lori said. "If someone had gotten murdered, I'd be in my room with all the food as I waited for the murderer to die."

Rian opened his mouth, paused, looked thoughtful, then opened his mouth again. "Allthe food?" he said.

"How else is the murderer going to die?"

"So, your plan for if a murder happens was to literally starve everyone else to death?" Rian said, sounding very much like her mothers.

"What else can I do? It's not like I can find out who did it," Lori pointed out reasonably.

Rian stared at her. "Because finding out would require talking to people, which you don't want to do, and you don't trust anyone else to find out for you because they might be the murderer?"

Lori nodded. "Exactly."

"What, even Riz?"

"Especially not Erzebed, if the person murdered was Umu."

Rian sighed. For some reason, he started smiling a small, pained smile. "Yup, I'm definitely back." The smile widened slightly. "So, did you miss me?"

"Yes, your competence was definitely missed." It had been, after all. "Now, I need you to get to work."

Rian sighed again. "Can I have the day off to recover from the trip?" he asked.

"No," Lori said. "You can do that some other time." Tomorrow was going to be a rest day, after all.

"Ah, nothing like coming home to make you wish you were somewhere else wishing you were home." Rian had a looked of resignation on his face, despite the fact he was still smiling a little. "All right, what do you need me to do?"

"I had Erzebed go out and hunt some beasts to roast," Lori said. "She can handle the food. I need you to organize the celebration of the safe arrival of the Covehold expedition."

Rian blinked. Slowly. It was just fast enough to not simply be him closing his eyes for a moment. "You… want me to organize the celebration for our safe arrival…"

"Yes," Lori said. "Upon consideration, Erzebed isn't very good at it, so it will have to be you. You have until the hunting party comes back with meat to properly organize it, otherwise it will likely start regardless, and then it will be a chaotic mess."

Rian looked towards the ceiling. "All right. Can I unpack the boat while I think it over."

She gave him an unamused look. "Rian, I am not letting you procrastinate to solve the problem."

"I'm not procrastinating! I need to think about it, and I might as well be productive while I'm doing it."

Lori stared at him, then nodded. "Fine. Yes, be productive." She tried to think of anything else she needed to inform him about. There were several, but getting to them now would take too long. "Actually, did you bring back anything?" Her eyes narrowed. "How much did it cost? Are there any beads left?"

"Yes, we have beads left," Rian said. "And yes, I got you new boots, new underwear and new socks. I hope you appreciate how embarrassing it was for me to buy women's underwear for you."

"I appreciate it," Lori acknowledged.

"I'll organize what I found into a report and get it to you," Rian said. "But tomorrow."

"Yes, yes," Lori said, "but what did you bring back?"

Rian grinned. "I got you a nice book I'm sure you'll like."

She gave him an unamused look. "Rian, you had better not have wasted our beads on lewd illustrations."

"Wha… NO! I got you a little almanac that was being published locally. It has notes on local species, edible foods, things like that, but the reason I got it for you is because there's a section on magic that the Dungeon Binders and wizards around Covehold and the demesnes around have been finding useful. I skimmed it, and a lot of them seemed very useful and fun to use. There were also some illustrations and things I didn't understand which I'm hoping you did, since it seemed to be a description of how to actually make the magic in question. To be honest, I have no idea what any of it means, since it's all in weird notations, but I figure you'd know. I even got it packaged in glass to bring it to you so that it wouldn't get iridiated and damaged, which was expensive… but you wanted glass too, right?"

"Those were probably flow diagrams," Lori said, but her eyes were wide with excitement. If it was public knowledge, there was probably nothing truly amazing in the almanac, since anyone who had managed to innovate something like that would keep it to themselves, but if they were useful… besides, she'd been starved of reading material that wasn't something Rian had written even before she'd founded her demesne! At this point she'd have read anything, even those obviously made up stories included in lewd illustrations!

Well, only one or two, they were boring and repetitive and she'd never seen the point of them, but they'd been words in a narrative order and she was desperate.

"I'll give it to you later, it's buried under all the medicines and medical supplies and seed crops," Rian said. "Don't give me that look, I need to supervise unloading a boat while trying to plan a celebration. I'm already doing a lot."

Lori huffed. "Fine. Be quick."

"Yes, your Bindership," he said cheerfully. It was that obfuscating cheer that she suspected was occasionally false.

Lori nodded, hesitated, then turned to go. "Well, welcome back," she said, dismissing him with a wave.

"Hey, Lori?"

She stopped and looked back towards Rian. "Yes?"

"I missed you too."

She frowned at him. "Too?"

For some reason, Rian rolled his eyes. "Well, I have things to do and you're distracting me."

"You're the one who called me back!"

"Yes, yes, this is my fault, I'm aware."

Lori nodded curtly, turning and leaving the house. She turned and headed for the bone pit to get some teeth. Rian was back, and she had to finish making lima pieces so she could utterly defeat him with her new game board…

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Rian went straight to the Coldhold, only barely slowed down from waving at everyone he passed and saying a few words to them. By the end of it, there was a small group of men with him, who followed him to the boat as Lori sat on the seat she'd made next to the addition of her Dungeon's entrance . He slowed down a little when he saw Umu on the dock. Lori couldn't hear what they said, since she was minding her own business and extracting the enamel from the teeth and separating it from the bone, but they talked briefly, and there was a lot of nodding on both sides. Then Rian waved at Umu for some reason, even though he was standing right in front of her, and stepped around her, moving hurriedly towards the boat. Lori got the sense that the men around him were amused. That sense was greatly helped by the big smiles and audible laugher as Umu walked away, heading hurriedly back to Lori's Dungeon.

"Umu," she said as the woman was about to pass her.

The weaver jerked to a stop. "Yes, your Bindership?" she said.

"I assume you kept anyone from trying to get on board the boat."

"Yes, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "Good work. I assume you'll be returning to the table now that Rian is back?"

The weaver's face reddened some more. "Yes, your Bindership," she said almost defiantly.

Another nod. "Well, I'll tell you the same thing I told the other two." Though, come to think of it, she hadn't really told Mikon, had she? She'd have to remedy that, that woman was the most actually capable of flirting of the three, and therefore was the one most likely to be distracting. "Whatever you have in mind, don't let it get in the way of Rian's duties, understood? Your desires are far less important than the continued survival of the demesne. Am I clear?"

A stiff nod. "Yes, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "Good luck, then." She dismissed the woman with a wave as she continued.

Umu stood there for a moment before wandering off. Lori wasn't sure if she was weaving or helping with the threshing or something else. Well, not her problem.

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The hunting party came back before sunset, with their own handcart of meat that, given it had been out in the open air and was probably full of dustlife, would probably all be roasted, lest it go bad. The cookfire and bonfires were already lit and ready, and some tables and benches had been carried out of the dining halls. The lightwisps she'd bound to the corners of homes were just starting to become visible, and the Coldhold had been unpacked, the contents stored in one of the alcoves of the second level. Lori had needed to raise a wall in front of it to close it off so that things wouldn't be 'misplaced'. Rian had actually asked her to do it, a notable departure from his usual almost naively trusting nature.

"I'm not taking any chances," Rian said with overblown grimness as she built the wall with stone, building a little doorway that she would block off with a boulder, mostly because it would keep her from forgetting where it was. "The boys and I sailed a long way over dillian-infested waters to get those things, I'm not letting any of it get lost." The shudder that came next seemed more genuine. "One followed us around for a day and kept bumping into the hull. At that point we pushed it as fast as it would go".

That… actually did seem fairly terrifying. Lori remembered seeing dillians sunning themselves on the surface of the ocean on the crossing, and they had looked intimidating from the safety of the large, fast-moving boat. She didn’t' want to think of what it would have been like to encounter them on the much smaller Coldhold.

Riz had gone with the hunting party, which explained why she hadn't immediately presented herself to Lori asking if her tenure as temporary assistant was over. Because when the hunting party arrived and Riz saw the Coldhold being unloaded, she immediately sought out Lori.

"Great Binder!" she declared, skidding to a stop in front of Lori.

"Don't run down the stairs, it's dangerous," Lori said reflexively.

"Great Binder, you said this was a temporary position. Rian's back, so that means I'm done, right?"

"Not yet," Lori said, pausing in her construction. "You're not done until you report everything that's happened to Rian and inform him of everything he's missed."

"But then I'm finished, right?"

"Yes, yes, then you're done."

Riz sighed happily, then turned with a bright smile towards Rian, who'd been standing nearby and completely ignored. She opened her mouth.

"Later," Lori interrupted. "Rian is busy."

"EH?-! But… But…"

"You're still working for me Erzebed," Lori said. "Go and make sure dinner gets done."

"Come on," Rian said. "We can help make sure all the plates are ready and you can start telling me what I missed, how about that?"

Riz blinked, looking torn, but sighed and started to smile. "Sure."

Lori rolled her eyes. "Don't wasting time flirting," she said, going back to finishing the wall.

"I wasn't flirting!"

Lori gave Rian a flat look. "I wasn't talking to you."

"I'm pretty sure she wasn't flirting either."

Her look didn't change, but she glanced at her temporary-and-soon-to-cease-to-be assistant. Then she shook her head. "Just get to work, you two. I don't want a repetition of the No-Plate Crisis of Eventually."

"Yes, your Bindership!" Rian said brightly. "Go up without me Riz, I'll catch up."

Riz nodded, turned and headed up.

There was silence for a moment.

"So… you're avoiding the issue?" Lori said as she finished building the wall, and started to make a boulder to block the hole with.

"I'm… procrastinating?" Rian said, looking embarrassed.

"That turned out terribly last time. Find a different solution."

A sigh. "Yes, your Bindership."

"And don't let this interfere with your duties, understood?"

"Very clearly, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "If you need advice on how to prevent it from interfering with your duties, ask Riz. She managed to get her duties down while being constantly flirted at."

"I'll remember—wait, what?"

"What I said. Now stop procrastinating and get to work, or the dinner celebrating your arrival will turn out terribly. Go, get moving."

"What happened while I was gone?" Rian said, sounding incredulous, but he did as he was ordered, muttering to himself.

Lori hummed to herself as she finished the boulder, securing the spoils from Covehold. Then she went upstairs to clean her stone plate in preparation for the meat to come.