Demesne

Distressingly, it looked like Lori's pack was mostly untouched. Her clothes were still in there, slightly rumpled, and the almanac had been tossed into it as well. I made sure to wrap the book properly so it wouldn't curl before I put it back into her pack, and made sure that her soap—which was absolutely dry—was securely in its little leather pouch. I rolled up her bedroll properly, stuffing her pillow inside, and was glad to see that a casual checked revealed no ink stains. It wasn't as fluffy as it used to be, but there was no need to replace the stuffing yet.

The bedroll still stank though, so apparently she had still been sleeping on it. Just not as much sleep as she should have.

Lori was sitting on the boat, and was moving around like she was trying to find a comfortable position. She took her pack and placed it behind her as a cushion, muttering about needing her chair. I made a note about having the boat she used for making beads be designated for use on her personal trips as well.

She seemed to find a comfortable enough position, since she settled down and closed her eyes, letting everyone else finally started boarding the Lori's Boat (Unnumbered But Technically 'One'). Not that the anyone seemed eager to sit next to her as it became clear she seemed to have fallen asleep, or was at least dozing. Riz and the other militiawomen had probably gotten more than their fill of her smell, and everyone else was keeping their distance. Unfortunately, Lori was sitting in the back, so poor Clowee had to sit next to her to operate the boat.

I'm sorry, Clowee! Hopefully the wind when the boat got moving will blow the smell away from you!

"Here," Riz said, handing me her pack, with its bedroll and blanket tied to the outside. They were made of hard-wearing canvas, looked like they'd been used for years, and were good for years more. "You didn't bring anything, so use this. I'll sleep on your stuff when I get home. There's soap and a towel in there too."

"You don't—actually, yes, thank you," I said. This little overnight stay hadn't been planned, but since we were taking Lori away, I had decided to stay so that it was clear we weren't just abandoning them to deal with the aftermath of the dragon by themselves. I wasn't Lori, but I was here, showing that Lori's responsibilities to take care of the demesne were still being fulfilled. Besides, I needed to talk to Yllian anyway. "I'll try not to use up everything."

Riz nodded and gave me a quick kiss, to immediate snickering and commentary from the other militia around us. "Any orders you want me to carry back?" she said.

"Tell Kolinh to send people here tomorrow, this time packed to stay if necessary," I said. "Though don't wait for her to wake up before sending anyone. She'll probably be sleeping in late, and will most likely miss breakfast. Lori should be rested enough to start making more decisions by the time she wakes, so she can get started on dealing with putting the demesne back together now that the dragon is gone."

"And if she doesn't?"

I considered that. "Then tell Kolinh to have someone come get me and I'll see if I can talk some sense into her again. Hopefully when she wakes up she'll be back to her usual responsible, hardworking megalomaniac self. If she's back to normal, getting me can wait until Lori's done fixing things back home and heading over to fix things here." It shouldn't be necessary, since Lori had already been reminded of things she had to do, but…

Well, maybe whatever she was writing is still really interesting.

I headed back to the mine with Riz's pack and a spear, the boats staying to make sure I wasn't caught by the two still-mobile abominations before leaving themselves. There was work to be done.

Yllian had come out and was looking around at the landscape, the sky, and the dragonfrost on nearly everything, which people were already shoveling out of the way to avoid the inevitable slipping hazards. He nodded to me as I came close. "Will she be all right?"

"As soon as she gets more sleep and a bath," I said. "From what I can tell, it seems to have been a loss of self-control. I couldn't tell you what she was indulging in, but she wrote a lot of notes about it, and it seemed like Whispering. Not much she can do around here anyway. Most of this stuff—" I kicked at the dragon frost, "—isn't water."

"I know. I hate it when it snows air. It kills people when it sinks down to the shelters and no one catches it."

"Good thing this shelter is up a hill, isn't it?" I said. "I'll put this inside and come back out to help you clear a path so we can start emptying the latrines and getting more drinking water. Uh, but let's not do the last two in that order."

For some reason, Yllian burst out laughing.

––––––––––––––––––

Between the weak sunlight outside and how late it was in the day, there wasn't much time to work before it got dark, especially with two abominations nearby. With what little light remained, we focused on clearing dragonfrost from around the door. Some used the spearshafts to try and scrape off dragonfrost from the stone about the entrance so it wouldn't fall down, while the rest of us used shovels to loosen the dragonfrost and toss it downhill. We were just able to clear a path down to the river, and refilled two of the water barrels before it was too dark to try and fill more, even with the good wisplights from Covehold.

Afterwards, I waited my turn to use the baths, such as it was. It turned out that the room Lori had excavated for use as a bathing area had become drinking water storage… and most of the 'drinking water' was in the form of large blocks of bound ice, because of course it was. Hence, the water reservoir room had become the bathing area, complete with a stone basin that was filled by pulling off a piece of wood that was the stopper on a pipe leading from the reservoir Lori had filled. At the far end of the room from the reservoir was a recess on the floor that all the water flowed down to, which had a bound tool at one end that seemed to draw in the water into a pipe built into the stone wall. Impurities in the water were expelled into a bucket from an outlet of the pipe and the now-clean water was sent back to the reservoir so people could bathe into it again.

At least we weren't drinking it.

After taking a bath, I joined Yllian for dinner. It was slightly awkward, since there wasn't as much space to eat as the dining pavilion, so I was eating with Yllian's wife and stepson, Aryss and Ayban. While we'd done so before, and I was one good terms with all three, there was something about being the lone stranger in the community that made me feel like there was someone staring at my back.

There probably was. People had settled down and were behaving, but this was still the demesne whose people had put themselves in a near-famine situation from stealing and hoarding their own food. Lori was never going to let them forget it, and neither was I, though I reserved my reminders for the people who were actually guilty of theft and hoarding. And if that meant reminding them they punched like an empty reed basket, so be it.

I informed Yllian of my observations of what abominations we probably had to deal with, doing my best to keep the language mild enough so that no one was turned off dinner. "Though I think Shanalorre is working on dealing with them. The undead and rampant life, at least. Everything else…" I sighed. "Well, Lori will probably have to deal with the Whispering things, but I have no idea how we'd deal with twisted vistas and insane thoughts beyond marking them to avoid. Ugh, she's going to hate walking around the woods… How did you deal with those two in the militia?"

"Mentalists and Horotracts," he said as if it was obvious… which, yes, it was. "They'd identify both, then claim and unmake them."

I groaned. "And we have neither… I'll have to ask Lori if I can recruit at least one of either next time. This is starting to become untenable. Well, more untenable than it used to be."

"I think we're doing rather well as things are," Yllian commented. "If the demesne were more densely populated, then we'd need to hurry to be rid of all traces of a dragon's presence, but as it is we can just let the things sit and fade away on their own since we don't really go that far beyond the immediate dome."

"Even though the wisps that might start a forest fire?" I said.

Yllian shrugged. "If a fire hasn't started yet since the dragon left, then there's probably nothing that can start a fire, in which case they can also be allowed to fade on their own."

"You have a point about the wisps, but Lori is going to hate it. You know how she can be. Things need to be done, done, done."

"I'm sure she'll cope. As it is, the biggest threat left would be the abominations, and you said that the Gr—Binder Shanalorre is dealing with the matter from where she is."

"She's not getting all of them," I pointed out. "The living ones that aren't really going to be bothered by losing the rampant life that was on them will still be a problem. But I suppose it does cut down on the number of abominations we'll have to deal with to a more reasonable amount."

"You're not coming," Yllian said mildly. "Something like that is far too dangerous to include someone as inexperienced as you, Rian."

"Normally I'd insist on coming along anyway to learn but many of the things I saw were disgusting, so just this once I'll stay put. How are we for food?"

"We were able to gather everything, and the Great Binder caught three seels before we had to close the dragon shelter, so we're well-stocked. However, I'm worried about how the fruit trees managed to survive this. The cold no doubt killed all their leaves, and several might have been tricked into thinking that winter came early. We might have problems with the trees next year."

"Let's worry about that next year, we have more than enough problems today as it is," I said.

"Our future selves are going to hate us," Yllian observed.

We both sighed.

"I suppose I might as well enjoy just having these problems to deal with. When the Golden Sweetwood Company gets here again, everything's going to get so much worse."

Yllian looked at me curiously. "Having more settlers, skilled labor, new equipment, and wizards is things getting worse?"

"You won't be the one trying to keep Lori from doing something unreasonable and paranoid," I said. "At best, she'll insist all other wizards confine themselves here to River's Fork and take away all the bound tools she made so that the Whisperers can't examine or modify them."

"Oh no. What a hardship, to have all the wizards staying in this demesne," Yllian said flatly. "However shall we cope?"

"Hey, I want us to have wizards too, you know! It's just she'll probably worry that they'll obey the Golden Sweetwood Company over her, and she doesn't like having challengers to her authority." And she'll worry they'll try to kill her to take her demesne, or set up rival demesnes, the thought of which she can't stand… "If she could be absolutely sure the company wouldn't try to place itself as a rival authority… well, she'd still be worried, but not as much as she is now."

Yllian hummed, sounding commiserating. "Well, better you than me," he said.

"Your non-vote of non-confidence warms my heart."

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I slept in Lori's alcove that night. Lit by the glowing rock Lori had given me what seemed like a long time ago, the little room still stank a little, even after being aired—or at least, having the door open so that the ventilation could force the smell out—but it had a door that locked. While some people punched like an empty reed basket, they might feel confident if I slept in the same room as them, and at the moment it wasn't safe to move back under the dome. The dragonfrost was still sublimating, and we didn't want anyone asphyxiating in their sleep.

Lying back on the sleeping niche, the bedroll on top of the pile of straw—I'm made sure to turn it over and check for still-wet ink, just in case—the smell was bearable, but it wasn't going to fade into the background any time soon. Riz hadn't bought a pillow, but that was what the pack was for. The sound of the air moving through the ventilation was a low, constant breath. It had been a long day, but hopefully our Dungeon Binder would soon be back in working order.

…

The spaces on either side of me felt too cold and empty. Did that mean I missed Umu, Mikon and Riz, or was I just feeling lonely? Or was I just trying to tell myself I did love them so I wouldn't feel guilty about enjoying their company? Someone who did love them probably wouldn't need to actually think about that, right?

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, and when I did, I dreamed of rain.