Demesne

When Lori woke up the next day, she felt strangely miserable, and it had nothing to do with the loud knocking on her door. That was its own, separate misery.

A third misery was added as a loud voice called out, "Your Bindership, wake up! You told me not to let you sleep in, remember? It's time to get to work." Rian's voice, and with it came memories of last night telling him to do exactly that, UGH!

Making a sound between a groan and a growl, Lori reluctantly sat up on her bed, rubbing at her eyes. Despite the fact that—by her orders— it probably wasn't that much earlier than the time she usually woke up anyway, Lori felt like she was severely lacking in sleep. It was what always happened when she didn't wake up on her own. "I'm awake, now stop it!" she called out towards the door.

"Oh good, you're up!" Rian said cheerfully—and loudly—through the still-closed door. "I'll be back in a bit to make sure you didn't just flop into bed and go back to sleep, like you ordered! What fruits to do you want for breakfast?"

Lori glared at the door, but she had in fact foolishly told him to do that. Well, if she was going to be up unreasonably early anyway… "All of them!"

"All of the fruits we have, got it! Enjoy your bath, your Bindership!"

Lori glared at the door some more before grudgingly slipping on her tsinelas and getting to her feet as she headed for her private bath.

A quick wash, the water comfortably cool then comfortably warm, and Lori was feeling far more awake—unfortunately—and still miserable, though her thoughts had cleared. By the time Rian came back to check on her, she was already half-dressed and pulling on her trousers. While the fog of sleep had mostly been faded away by that point, the misery of having to wake up early hadn't, and she was in a foul mood as she went down the stairs to the dining hall, her staff in hand. The quartz embedded into it vibrated as they hadn't in a long time, full of lightningwisps, and a piece of charcoal rattled around in the coalcharm at the end of her staff, currently unlit but ready. She'd rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and pinned them in place to keep them from being a hindrance, her head bare since her hat would only have gotten in her way.

The kitchen was active, breakfast seemed already in progress, and there were already several people at the tables. A glance out through the doors showed her that the outside of her demesne was still cloaked in early morning light, and a brief check through her connections to her core showed the pervasive presence of dew. Ugh, just the sight made her want to turn and crawl back into her bed…

There was a pile of fruits on the table in front of her chair, which did in fact seemed to consist of all the varieties of fruits they had available. And while the table was occupied, it was less full than usual. Only Riz, Rian, Shanalorre—and her cousin, who had folded her arms on the table and was sleeping—and… uh… Lori reached for her pouch out of habit but she was fair certain she didn't have a rock with his name on it. She could recall that much. The older former militiaman who wasn't Yllian. Eh, she'd just wait for Rian to say his name.

"Good morning, your Bindership," Rian greeted cheerfully, and Lori had an urge to strangle him all over again. However, now that she could actually see him, he looked as awake as she felt. His eyes slightly half-lidded, his hair was wetter than it usually was when he came out of the baths, and seemed to be shivering slightly. Still, he had a clearly forced smile on his face—unusual in itself, since most of the time his smiles were theatrically sincere—and he seemed to be forcing himself to sit up straight. "All the fruits, as you requested. They should tide you over until the rest of breakfast is ready. Kolinh says everyone is ready to leave as soon as we've all eaten."

Ah, Kolinh, that was his name. Lori nodded in grumpy acknowledgement as she sat down and reached for a golden bud, scoring the skin with her thumbnail and tearing it open from that tear. "Hrm."

"The arrows and rocks have been packed up," Rian continued, taking her non-answer as encouragement to keep talking—colors, did she remember to imbue the bindings on them? No, she hadn't, she'd decided she'd imbue them in the morning!

"Where have they been packed up?" she asked, simply to narrow down where to look.

"They're on the boat at the dock," Rian said. "Do you want to inspect them before we leave?"

Ah, there they were. Lori waved a hand dismissively as she chewed and swallowed the yellow wedge in her mouth. "That won't be necessary," she said as she started imbuing all the bindings, taking care to heavily imbue the ones anchored to the stones. "Shanalorre, where is the abomination now?"

"It has not strayed far from its previous location last night, Great Binder," the other Dungeon Binder said. "The abomination is currently immobile and staying in place. I believe it is still asleep at the moment."

"Hopefully, it will stay so until we get there," Lori said.

"Somehow, I doubt it.," Rian sighed. "But I suppose that's what all the arrows are for, right?" He looked towards the kitchen and got to his feet. "I'll go get the food."

Lori glanced down at the fruits in front of her and quickly grabbed a happyfruit, beginning to peel it open. She needed to eat as many fruits as she could before proper breakfast arrived.

Breakfast was filling, comfortably warm—meaning it was probably still too hot—and unfortunately quick as everyone ate hurriedly, even Shanalorre. By the time they were all finished, people were already starting to enter the dining hall, meaning that others arrived to occupy her table. For once, the other Dungeon Binder didn't try to wake up her cousin and coax her to eat, instead asking the brat to take care of the girl in Shanalorre's stead. The brat gave a cheerful affirmative as the two of them guided Yoshka to sit at the other table, where the young girl once more curled up with her head pillowed on her arms.

"Do you want me to examine her?" the Deadspeaker—Lori glanced at her head, and was glad she was wearing a cloth today—Taeclas said as she sat down, giving the young girl a concerned frowned. "That sort of lethargy isn't normal in children her age."

"She's fine," Shanalorre said. "She's been examined before and is completely healthy, she just likes sleeping. Once everyone else is here she'll wake up because there's food and people to play with."

Lori distinctly saw the sleeping girl's head move in a nod.

...

Well, it wasn't like Lori couldn't understand wanting to sleep more.

Thankfully, there was no delay from overly long goodbyes and pointless crying. Lori had barely seated herself on Lori's Shed Boat and made herself comfortable on her chair there when the former militia and hunters began making their way aboard, as well as onto the other boats.

Three boats were being used to convey everyone to River's Fork this morning, her own and two others. One of the boats was simply for all the pikes, ropes, jars and other equipment that had been prepared for this hunt, while the other carried the people that wouldn't fit in Lori's Shed Boat. In what seemed like a few moments, the three boats were off, moving together down river.

"You should get some sleep," Rian said, sitting on one of the side benches of the boat such that he was leaning back on one of the poles along the sides of the boat. In front of Lori sat Riz's friends, in the middle of whom sat Shanalorrre. The women seemed to be fretting over the smaller Dungeon Binder, which they had never done for Lori, offering to vacate their seats if Shanalorre wanted to be comfortable. "We have some time before we get to River's Fork, so you might as well get a nap in."

Lori frowned at him.

"What?"

"Why aren't you operating the boat?"

Rian pointed behind her. "Riz pulled non-rank. She made the completely logical argument that she has more experience operating this boat than I do, so she should steer."

"I also said you should get some sleep," Riz said from behind Lori.

"Yes, Riz," Rian said in the same tone Lori heard her Ina use when her Nanay was nagging as he made a show of leaning back and closing his eyes. "Sleeping now."

He actually did seem to go to sleep, or at least fall into a doze, despite the movements of the boat as the steam jet driver propelled it over the water. Lori gave him an incredulous look as she settled herself more comfortably in her seat, continuing to imbue the bindings she had so painstakingly prepared last night. In front of her, Shanalorre was leaning against one of Riz's friends, using the woman as backrest as the Dungeon Binder closed her eyes and also seemed to fall asleep.

Lori shook her head as she sat back to be more comfortable. Really, trying to sleep was a futile effort with all the movement. The boat had a strange rocking motion to it as the front moved up and down, meaning it simply wasn't possible to settle in place. Closing her eyes to help her concentrate on the bindings she was imbuing, Lori let the motion keep her awake as she leaned her head back and—

"Your bindership? Wake up, we're almost there."

Lori jerked awake, blinking in confusion. Had she actually fallen asleep? She hadn't been that sleepy, had she? However, a hurried look around revealed that they were in fact approaching the dome of River's Fork, meaning she'd been asleep since… well, she'd been asleep.

"Shanalorre, where is the abomination now?" Lori said as she rubbed at her eyes to try and pull herself to wakefulness, straightening up in her chair and wincing at the small aches her slouch as she had slept had given her.

"It's roused and is moving towards the river, Great Binder," Shanalorre reported, rubbing at her eyes. "I… I think it was in some kind of altercation with one of the surviving smaller abominations. It seems to be injured, though I cannot say for certain."

"Are the injuries enough to make it easier to deal with?" Rian said hopefully.

Shanalorre tilted her head, eyes closing slightly as she concentrated. "I… am unsure. However, the abomination is still mobile, so…"

Rian sighed. "Well, looks like we're all still going to need to earn our keep today," he said.

"I don't pay any of you anything," Lori pointed out.

"Ah, right. We're not even earning anything, we're donating our time." Rian directed a pitiful look towards her. "Are you sure this can't count towards out taxes when you eventually get around to doing that?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "I'll consider it."

"Um…" came Riz's voice behind her.

Lori turned her head so she could see the woman out of the corner of her eye. "What is it, Erzebed?"

"Does that include all the 'donations' over the past year?"

She was distinctly aware that all of the other women at the front of the boat were also listening intently.

"I'll consider it," Lori said flatly.

Why did everyone cheer at that?