Demesne

When I woke up, the lights were dimmed, and I could hear several people making various sounds they were usually too dignified to make while awake. It wasn't just snoring. There was snorting, whistling, loud sighing, bubbling tongue flapping, and… was that babbling? Yes, someone was talking in their sleep, the words slurred and indistinct because their mouth wasn't forming the words properly. It sounded like Tae.

…

Yes, that was definitely Tae, she just said 'Good morning, your Bindership'. Why was she dreaming about greeting Lori 'good morning'? Although maybe she was just practicing saying it in her sleep. That also seemed like something Tae would do.

For a moment I just lay there, staring up at the stone that was far too close to my face and not thinking 'where am I'. I'd never really had any trouble recalling where I was when I woke up. I have had trouble getting up when I wake, but that was usually because it was so comfortable to just lie down and go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, I had the not-really-an-honor-at-all-just-mostly-annoying of being the lord of this demesne—and technically another one as well—I couldn't really indulge in just staying in bed, doing nothing. I had to get up and make sure the dungeon was in good shape on behalf of Lori, see to it that everyone was sufficiently occupied so they wouldn't come up with any mischief, not turn prematurely gray worrying what trouble Lori has gotten into…

Also, while my bed was usually just comfortable enough to want to stay in bed, that was on a wooden bed, with four bedrolls and blankets acting as padding. At the moment, I only had a single bedroll to separate me from solid rock, which was just barely comfortable enough to sleep on as long as I fell into the dark quickly. Waking up in it was another matter.

I didn't move, staying on my back as Umu breathed deeply next to me. Her front was pressed against me, one arm on my chest, her cheek on my shoulder. One leg was draped over my shins, no doubt to keep me from kicking in my sleep. She was very warm against my side, and although we were both fully clothed, I couldn't help my reaction. But…

Craning my head, I tried to look past Umu, who'd laid her bedroll out on the wide bench that was up against the sleeping niche. I couldn't see Mikon in the niche and bench opposite us, or in the niche and bench opposite the alcove's opening, so… she was probably sleeping on the floor next to Umu's bench. Straining my ears, I thought I could hear her breathing.

Lying there, I let myself slowly become resigned to having to properly wake up and enjoyed the feeling of Umu sleeping next to me. I'd have to wake her to get up, and I was all but certain that would also wake up Mikon, so lying back like this wasn't procrastinating, it was being considerate!

I shifted my shoulders and back slightly against the bedroll to be more comfortable, then settled back and was considerate.

I actually dozed off a little, and might have been snoring slightly when I felt a fingertip on my forehead. It was a gentle touch, not pressing, but I could feel it even through the light sleep I was in. The finger began to move back and forth on my forehead, moving left and right across my brow. It barely touched my skin, yet I could feel it there, slowly moving back and forth, the fingertip slowly tracing spirals as it moved.

One eye reluctantly opened, and my neck just as reluctantly turned. The lights on the second level were still dim, but it was enough to see Mikon's face looking down on me and Umu. She had a fond smile on her face as she continued moving her finger, which had stopped making spirals and was now slowly moving down my nose. "Good morning, Mikon," I said softly.

Her smile grew. "Good morning, Rian," she said as she moved her finger to the tip of my nose. "Next time, please sleep on the floor so we can both lie down next to you."

"Sorry," I said. "I forgot."

"I know," she said. For a moment, the two of them stayed like that in companionable relative silence, Mikon's finger now tracing circles on my nose.

Eventually, I said, "I should probably get up and take over the night shift, shouldn't I?"

Mikon nodded. "You should. Shana is still awake upstairs waiting for you." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Well, she's upstairs waiting for you. I don't think she's next door, in any case."

Should you really call it next door when the alcoves do not, in fact, have doors? And that finally made me decide to get up. Shana would stay up waiting for me, because for all that it was a terrible idea for her to choose Lori as someone to emulate, she had taken well to copying Lori's more obvious positive traits such as her sense of responsibility and work ethic, although she seemed to have no inclination to not pay attention to people's names. Of course, that same sense of responsibility meant she'd keep waiting for me to show up, and it might be a while before she thought to send someone to retrieve me.

"I should probably get up, then," I said.

"You should," Mikon agreed, her fingertip now slowly moving over my cheekbone.

I remained reclined. "I'm going to have to wake up Umu, aren't I?"

Mikon nodded. "You will."

I sighed. Stupid necessary evils. One shouldn't have to wake up someone sleeping so comfortably!

Of course, there were ways to do this relatively painlessly, but…

Watching me, Mikon pouted her lips and started kissing at the air, her eyes not leaving mine.

Yes, that. Her encouraging somehow made things more awkward. Yes, all of us had been naked together. Yes, I'd been intimate with all of them. Yes, Riz and Mikon had started being much closer and mutually intimate with each other, and yes, when Umu's bell had been rung she tended to be so disoriented Mikon could get away with cuddling with her and helping her ring her bell further, but still, it was awkward being actively watched and encouraged to kiss someone to wake them up!

However, there wasn't really a way to wake up Umu at this point that wasn't… well, inconsiderate. Normally, I'd carefully extract myself and try to rise from the other side of the bed, but since I was in a stone sleeping niche… well, that wasn't an option unless I was capable of Whispering and willing to try and excavate through the stone to the alcove on the other side of the wall. As I wasn't capable of Whispering, my willingness to excavate through the wall was pointless.

All right, kissing her awake when she might want to keep on sleeping might also be inconsiderate, but I was fairly certain she'd regard it as romantic. Giving Mikon one last look that tried to convey both a desire for her to look away—however silly that was—and annoyance she was being so pubescently juvenile about this, I set about waking Umu enough to be able to get her to move so I could get out of bed.

Suffice to say, I succeeded, though it took some time. Fortunately, it wasn't a noisy endeavor, and so we only had an audience of one before Umu was satisfied enough to let me go. Mikon knelt there the whole time and watched, seemingly enjoying the whole thing, though it didn't seem to be in the voyeuristic sense—well, not entirely in the voyeuristic sense. After that, it was only fair I give Mikon the same treatment—even though she was already awake, and clearly had been for some time—while Umu caught her breath.

All right, it was an enjoyable way to go from 'sleepy' to wide awake, even if it was a little frustrating that such was the extent of what we could do. But now that I was awake… I had work to do. Leaving my bedroll in the sleeping niche—there was really no need to roll it up—I headed upstairs to the dining hall.

It was mostly empty at this time of night—or day, since we were going by the water clock because Lori hadn't been dimming and brightening the lights regularly—although there was someone at the kitchen keeping a single large pot of food warm to feed the night shift. As expected, Shana was indeed there, sitting on a bench near where the night shift guarding the door was gathered and looking achingly like a little girl trying to stay awake. She was so tired her face was slipping from its Lori-like resting glare position, and she actually looked her age for once. On the bench with her, lying down upon its length with her head on Shana's lap was Yoshka, somehow managing to stay balanced on the narrow plank.

"Shana—Shanalorre," I greeted. She blinked sleepily and it took her a moment to turn and face me. "I'm here. You can go to sleep now."

"Ah. Lord Rian. Good, good…" she said, rubbing at her eyes briefly. "Nothing of significance to report. The air coming in through the vents remains cold, but only in comparison to the recent summer heat, and is not yet freezing. Wizard Taeclas has results to report on the experiments she conducted, although she is currently…" Shana paused in her report, opening her mouth wide and only remembering to cover it with her hand partway through as she yawned hugely, "…currently retired. Wizard Lidzuga is still resting, though it is probably time to rouse him, as I can no longer continue functioning as an active Deadspeaker…"

"Your report is noted, Binder Shanalorre," I said, deciding to meet her with the formality she was still insisting upon. "Do you want any help getting Yoshka downstairs?"

Shana blinked up at me, then back to the little girl on her lap. "That would be appreciated, thank you."

I nodded, looking towards the nightshift volunteers. Ten people awake, including Yhohim who was probably left in charge, and sitting near the dungeon's front door. The rest were curled up and asleep in their bedrolls nearby so that they could immediately respond if something finally tried to force its way inside. I caught Yhohim's eye and pointed down at Yoshka, indicating she needed to be carried.

Yhohim nodded, getting the attention of one of the men waiting near the door—Lamos, I saw, one of the former militia from River's Fork, though were they really 'former' militia at this point?—who stood up and started towards us. "I'll take care of her, Gr—Lady Binder," he said, but waited until Shana gave a bleary nod before he began picking up Yoshka. Shana got to her feet, letting out another polite yawn before leading the way down to her alcove.

I watched her go downstairs guiltily, before turning to walk over to Yhohim near the dungeon's heavily barred entrance. It was time to get to work. Still, I spared a moment to think of Lori, and hoped she was all right. Even if she was in a better position than we were because she had Whispering… well, I worried.

At least she had a book to read if she got bored, which was more than I could say for myself. Actually, why was I worrying? She was either finding work to soothe her perfectionist soul, or she was indulging herself in finally having reading time. She was probably doing great.

Lori's hand shook slightly as she wrote, trying to get the flow diagram down on a still-blank corner of the current sheet of paper that she had carefully drawn a line around to separate it from the other notes, flow diagrams, and random ink stains. Her eyes wanted to droop, and she could feel the strangely empty feeling of having been up reading for far too long, but she couldn't stop. She had to note this binding down while she still could, before the dragon created the next—

Her finger slipped, smearing the still-wet ink and she let out a frustrated growl as she smudged out the diagram she'd been drawing. Not all of it, but enough that she didn't have space to redraw or annotate the thing. Best to start again. She blearily looked across the paper again, but there was no more space, not without making other diagrams confusing to read…

Carelessly resting her pen on the pile of straw under her—there was a dark stain from the ink, but since it was already there, she might as well keep at it—Lori reached out for another sheet of paper, balancing it on the plank on her lap. Her hands rose to rub her eyes, and she just barely remembered to check for ink before she did so. She'd been awake for… ugh, she didn't have a clock, so the exact number was hardly relevant, but it had probably been a while.

Lori should probably get a little sleep before Riz called her for breakfast. It would be agonizing if she had to check up on everything tired. She should put down the paper, cap the pen, move the straw a little so it didn't stain her bedroll, and—

There was a knock on the door. "Great Binder? It's time for breakfast."

Impossible! She'd practically just finished dinner and dimmed the lights on the second level for people to sleep, it couldn't possibly be breakfast yet!

Yup, Lori's probably doing great.

Lidzuga came upstairs not long after Shana had left to retire, looking much more well-rested, and carrying a pen, ink bottle and a notebook with some loose sheaves stuck into it. The cover of the notebook was plain and unadorned, which was probably intentional because I'd seen him using the book as a drawing board.

"Lidz," I greeted. "Did you have a good rest?" When I'd checked with Daising—who'd volunteered to keep an eye on the waterclock, joking that all medics did that anyways as they waited to go off-shift—it turned out I'd been asleep for a probably little under ten hours, or at least as close as we could figure from the clocks. That was probably the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep I've had in months, and Lidzuga had slept for longer. I'd checked on him before I'd gone to sleep, and he'd been dead to the world.

He gave me a sleepy smile. "I did, thank you for asking. Sorry for last night, that was… irresponsible of me."

I nodded. "Don't do it again, all right? Or at least do it only on your own time when we're not relying on you. While I understand losing sleep about something you're enthusiastic about, now really isn't the time."

He winced. "I understand, Rian."

"Good. If it happens again, I will not be nearly so amicable. Now come on, let's get some breakfast." According to the water clock, it was still about an hour until the time everyone woke up and those working the kitchen actually got started on making breakfast, but there was a pot that still had warm food in the kitchen, and breakfast was when you ate it. "How's your research coming along? Did you at least lose sleep over something good?"

The abrupt change of subject seemed to confuse him as I led the way to get us some food. There wasn't any bread, but the stew had added grains in it that served the same purpose. We got some bowls, full of the meats and now-soft vegetables that had settled in the bottom of the pot and got to eating as Lidz hesitantly began telling me about what he'd been working on. Something about seel snout shapes?