Demesne

After breakfast, it was back to work imbuing the fields.

Shana went back to her house to retrieve her reed hat and a towel. Unfortunately, the pale skin on her arms were going to burn under the sun—her skin didn't tan like Karina's, instead becoming more red, and then starting to peel—but that was what her meaning was for. The towel was soaked in water and laid over her shoulders dripping wet. Such a thing would be dangerously harmful in the northern demesne she'd been born in, but in this heat it was a relief.

Karina met her where they'd left the pole outside of Rian's house. They picked up the tool, and then it was back to where they had left off earlier that day, to imbue more meanings. While they had been inside the dungeon for breakfast, the fields had become hot, and would only get hotter the more the day wore on. Still, it was a way to contribute that she could do that didn't involve making any decisions. Her decisions had not been the best.

The constant breeze from the binding of airwisps Binder Lori had made near the beginning of summer helped cool them, even if it made their hats flap, but they were used to that. The breeze actually seemed cold today. Had Binder Lori finally decided to add firewisps to it to destroy heat? Shana hoped that was the case. Still, even with the cold breeze, the sunlight was hot where it touched them as they continued working.

The rest of the morning was hot and repetitive as Karina supported the pole on her shoulders, switching sides as her shoulder started to get sore. The wet towel on the other girl's shoulders helped cushion the weight, even as the water in it dripped and it slowly dried.

They weren't completely alone as they worked. The mushroom farmers went to check on the old mushroom farm, making sure that the fungus there was growing well, and trays of mushrooms were carried to the desiccator shed to dry. Not so far away, they could hear Wizard Taeclas singing some song about looking for fortune and love. When they eventually reached the corner of the field, they were actually able to see her as she worked. Unlike Shana, she was holding her pole by herself, though the butt end was resting on the ground.

Shana watched the other Deadspeaker work as she imbued. She was singing absently, with some verses of the song becoming 'nah nah nah nah' or 'dah dah dah dah' as she either forgot or didn't try all that hard to remember the words. Unlike Binder Lori, who just stared intently at whatever binding she was forming, occasionally lightly touching things with her fingers, Wizard Taeclass seemed unable to sit still when she was taming life into meanings, hence the singing. In the beginning, she also swayed from side to side where she stood, but that had quickly ceased, presumably because it moved the pole and made her lose contact with the life in the crops.

They worked at more or less the same rate now. Wizard Taeclas used to be ahead of them, but Shana and Karina had gotten better at working together, and while Shana needed to heavily imbue the meanings on the crops, it wasn't exactly complicated. She simply needed to make sure that the imbuement was sufficient to last the crops for their full accelerated growing period. Wizard Taeclas no doubt needed to do… well, things Shana didn't understand about Deadspeaking to make the meanings on all the dozens of individual crops that the Deadspeaker was claiming.

Still, given the number of crops that needed to have meanings applied to them, Wizard Taeclas was undoubtedly skilled to be able to tame so many meanings in the time it took Shanalorre to imbue about the same. She hadn't been able to compare her speed to Wizard Lidzuga in River's Fork—she only imbued the meanings he put in place, not having the time to observe how quickly he worked—but she was curious how he compared to Wizard Taeclas.

Of course, Rian had said that she was skilled with meanings involving plants, so that probably played a factor in any comparison, but Shana was curious regardless.

They worked through the rest of the morning as it slowly got hotter and hotter. Despite Karina and her best intentions, they had to take a few breaks to drink water and get their towels soaked again. No one's towels stayed wet for long this summer. Once they had replenished themselves and their towels, it was back to work imbuing crops. However, there reached a point when not even towels and hats were enough to ward off the heat,

"We can do another pace, it's not that hot yet," Karina said, even as she panted and sweated.

"No, Karina," Shana said firmly, holding up her arm, which was red enough to look burned. "My sunburn is starting to hurt. We're going back inside so I can heal and we can drink water before we start getting headaches."

"Ah, right, that's why my head hurts…"

Shana sighed and reached towards her friend, following her instincts to claim, bind, and tame a meaning, imbuing the meaning just enough to do what it needed to. It should mitigate whatever was ailing Karina until they could cool her down and get water in her. And herself for that matter. While her head didn't ache yet, she recognized the signs of an oncoming one. "You go and get into the baths to cool off, I'll handle putting the pole back in the tool shed. No, don't argue. You don't have long before your headache comes back. Remember, drink, then soak yourself in water. Wizard Taeclas!" she called.

Further along, the Deadspeaker turned towards them.

"We're heading back!"

Wizard Taeeclas nodded and gave them a wave of acknowledgement, then flicked her hand in a sweeping gesture to tell them to get going. The woman would probably be done soon.

Shana had to tell Karina to go ahead of her, rather than linger and try to help with the pole regardless of what they'd discussed. Without her friend, handling the long tool was awkward. Shana had to rest it on her own shoulder and hold the pole with both arms extended so that she'd have enough leverage to control it and keep it from bouncing as she walked. The wire somehow managed to keep digging into her shoulder, despite her attempts to turn the pole so that it wouldn't.

By the time she managed to reach the baths, Shana could feel her own headache threatening, and she quickly had her fill of the drinking water coming from the spigot on the wall. Once she had enough that all she needed to do was wait for the symptoms to abate, Shana quickly stripped off her clothes, finding an empty shelf to put them in, and headed into the baths.

Since it was the time when the sun's heat was peaking, the bath was crowded as usual, full of women talking about the day's work, gossiping and discussing the coming harvest and when the next one would be now that Taeclas and Shana were at work. Shana nodded as people greeted her, answering when she could.

"Good morning, Lady Binder. Hot today, isn't it?"

"Finally coming in, Lady Binder?"

"Working hard again today, Lady Binder? You should take a rest or else you won't grow tall!"

"Lady Binder, do you need a new hat yet?"

"Shana! Over here!"

Shana answered as she could, even as she turned towards the call of her name. Karina waved the ladle in her hand towards Shana from a spot near the basins. Her friend looked much less overheated, and her arms and face were noticeably darker than the rest of her. Shana in contrast simply looked redder in those areas, and her limbs were already starting to hurt from the sunburn.

As it was her own injury, it took only a moment to use her meaning on herself, ridding herself of the sunburn. Her arms and other areas would still peel, but it would no longer be painful when it happened.

Shana gave Karina a grateful nod as she squatted down onto the space next to her friend and closed her eyes as the other girl poured water over her. The water was refreshingly cooling, the heating deactivated as unnecessary at the moment. While her threatened headache did not immediately recede, her head immediately started to feel cool, and Shana let out a sigh of relief.

––––––––––––––––––

When Shana and Karina came out of the baths, they were still wearing the same clothes, much cooler but already starting to sweat. Downriver they could vaguely see the site of the sawmill, well past the laundry area, what seemed like a strange shadow in the air above it to mark its location. Their hats on their heads, they headed into the cool of the dungeon. Inside, lunch was being prepared, the large copper pots resting on the cooking fires and the stew inside bubbling away, while trays of bread were baking underneath.

"Thank you for helping me again today," Shana said once they were out of the heat. Even the short walk between the baths and the dungeon was enough to get her sweating, though the damp towel around her shoulders wiped that away.

"You're welcome," Karina said. "I told you, any time you need help to grow food, you can always ask me!"

"I… didn't ask you, though?"

"No, but you need the help, so I'll help you."

Shana couldn't really deny that.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the children from River's Fork who were her responsibility sitting at their usual meal table. The table had three jugs of water and many cups on it—traveling was very thirsting in this heat—and they were talking to the children who'd stayed in Lorian about their respective holidays. Three had brought board games, and enthusiastic games of pincer were being played.

"Shasha!"

"Yoshka," Shana greeted as her younger cousin rushed at her with a hug and…ah, her arms had been sunburned. "Give me your hands." She raised her voice. "Everyone who'd been sunburned, come here and form a line!"

Yoshka obediently held out her hands as the other children lined up behind her. Not all of them needed to be healed, but all had reddened skin from being out in the sun. Shana could understand. No one wanted to be in the cabin of the Coldhold in this heat. Up on the deck and risk of sunburns it was.

"Shasha, we saw a beast on our way back!" Yoshka said as Shana finished healing her. "It was as big as a tree, and it had these things on its back, and—!"

Yoshka continued regaling her with the story of her sighting of what sounded like the typhon beast. Shana made a note to inform one of the hunters later, to add to what they knew of the beast. The other children also chimed in with what they knew, although it wasn't much more than the fact that they'd seen the beast drinking from the river.

Once everyone was healed, Shana let them get back to what they were doing and sat next to Yoshka. Karina took her leave to find her own brothers and sisters to make sure they were behaving themselves. Despite the din of all the children chattering, drinking, and playing board games, Shana found herself folding her arms on the table, laying down her head, and falling into a light doze as she waited for lunch.

It had been a long morning, after all. Even a Dungeon Binder needed to rest. So Shana did, waiting for lunch to be served.