Demesne

"Yoshka, would you play with Karina for now?" Shana said as she walked back to her office, keeping track of the life of those following her through her connection to her core. Captain Yhallisu was still shadowing her footsteps but that could be because Lord Yllian was leading the former. He and Lord Rian had spoken briefly, and in the end the latter had stayed behind—no, wait, he was now walking in their direction, keeping his distance. The other wizards were trailing behind Captain Yhallisu and Lord Yllian as well, though besides Wizard Tsad, it seemed to be more out of curiosity than anything else. "I need to speak to Captain Yhallisu about Binder things."

She glanced sideways towards her friend at the request, and Karina nodded, even as the orange-haired girl kept looking back to make sure none of the visiting wizards got too close.

Unlike Wizards Taeclas and Lidzuga, Wizard Tsad and the other two Deadspeakers kept the life in their bodies heavily imbued, the imbuement growing with every breath. The life was also claimed, and there seemed to be several tamed but deactivated meanings in various parts of their bodies, or at least that's what she thought they were. Fortunately, that was the extent of her ability to critically analyze meanings, else she might violate Binder Lolilyuri's order to not learn Deadspeaking.

Still, Shana could make a guess as to their purpose. No doubt some were some sort of healing meaning, although the ones that seemed to cover whole limbs might be some sort of meaning to temporarily increase muscle strength, similar to the ones Wizard Lidzuga used on himself when he had to climb trees. Others were in their eyes and ears, extending all the way to their brains. Most of the meanings were deactivated, save for ones at their feet. While she couldn't identify what they were, she could make an educated guess: probably something to deal with the pain of being on their feet and walking all day.

Yoshka pouted. "But you just got here!"

"I'll be staying here for the week," Shana assured the younger girl as they walked hand-in-hand, since she had swiftly tired of carrying her cousin. "We shall have plenty of time to play together. I simply have to deal with this matter."

"Promise?"

Shana nodded. "I promise."

"All right…" Yoshka huffed, then grinned and reached up to mash her hand against Shana's cheek.

Gently extracting the hand, she nodded towards Karina, who stepped forward to take Yoshka's other hand. "Come on, Yoshka. While Shana's working we can play guard."

Yoshka perked up at what sounded like a new game. "Play guard?"

"Yup! She's got no one to guard her right now since everyone is so busy, so it's up to us!"

"Yay! How do you play guard?"

"We stand around like guards! First you need a stick so you can have your own spear."

"Okay!"

Yoshka turned and ran off, presumably to search for a fallen branch long enough for her to pretend it was a spear. Shana watched her run off, knowing she was likely to get distracted as soon as she met some other children playing a game that was more fun.

"Was that the right thing to do?" Karina asked her.

"It was… acceptable."

Karina nodded, then patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll be right here. No wizards are going to get close to you."

There was no reasonable way that Karina would be able to keep back any wizards who wanted to kill Shana. Not unless she very determinedly tried to skewer them somewhere vital with the point of her seeling rod. Hopefully this meant that any wizards who did try would consider her not worth killing.

The only one who had to risk dying was Shana, and if all she had to deal with were other Deadspeakers… well, this was her demesne.

They reached her office, and she led the way inside.

Yhallisu entered her office after her, glancing around the room and noting the placement of the furniture as Shana pulled herself up onto her chair behind the desk. "Please have a seat," Shana said, gesturing towards the one of the two chairs in front of her after she'd seated herself. "Maybe I trouble you to close the door behind you? I have papers on the desk."

The retired captain turned to close the door from what seemed like ingrained habit, only pausing as saw Yllian coming up behind him.

"Ah, Lord Yllian," Shana called. "Would you be so kind as to see to it that we are not disturbed?"

"Of course, Great Binder," Lord Yllian said. "Yhal, I'll need to borrow your knife for a moment."

"My knife?" Captain Yhallisu said, surprised.

"The Great Binder has declared that no sharp objects are to be near Binder Shanalorre's vicinity," Lord Yllian explained, "else she might get hold of them and try to hurt herself. Your knife, please."

There was a pause, and Captain Yhallisu slowly took his belt knife from its sheathe and held it out to Lord Yllian, pommel-first.

"Thank you. I'll return this when you step out."

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Outside the door, she could feel the wizards starting to crowd in. "See to it that we are private and the rest stay outside, Lord Yllian." Shana paused for a moment as she considered how Binder Lolilyuri would phrase the rest, then added, "Use as much violence as you believe necessary to complete the task."

"Of course, Great Binder," Lord Yllian said. The gathered wizards no doubt turned to stare at him, and when they did, she struck.

Shana was being completely objective when she regarded herself as lacking compared to Binder Lolilyuri. The latter was a well-educated, intelligent, experienced woman who had likely spent literal years learning how to perform Whispering and acquiring the myriad of skills she possessed that allowed her to construct her Dungeon and the village around it. Shana was completely uneducated, and the only reason she could tame any Deadspeaking at all was because she was a savant. Her Deadspeaking was instinctive, could only do one thing, so complicated she herself did not understand it, and had been completely useless to use as a basis for understanding her own ability.

There were in fact only two other things she could do when it came to Deadspeaking besides heal: imbuing magic onto life and claiming life to bind it to her will.

And in a demesne, a Dungeon Binder's claim was supreme.

Through her connection with the demesne's core, Shana reached out to the life in the bodies of the three Deadspeakers—Wizards Tsad, Makoi and Lafhaiel—and claimed all of them, binding them to her will. There was a few moments' pause, no doubt from shock and surprise, and then she felt their attempts to challenge her claim. It was like someone trying to take a ball she was already holding, only the hands trying to take it away from her were too small and their muscles too weak, their grip beneath her notice. As long as she remembered to actually grip the ball, they couldn't take it from her.

The door closed in front of Captain Yhallisu, and he slowly turned to face Shana, who once more gestured towards the chairs. She said nothing, waiting for him to either seat himself or say something she needed to respond to. There was a considering look on his face as he tried to decide how he should react to the situation, slowly taking a seat and settling down on it.

For a moment, neither said anything, simply staring at each other. Shana waited for a polite length of time, but when it became clear that Captain Yhallisu wasn't ready to speak, she reached towards the stacks of paperwork and began to read them so she could catch herself up on the demesne's affairs. Most of it was tabulations of the food consumed, inventory of the food being added to their stores, but there were also notes of the few things that the demesne had been able to produce for itself.

"I assume there are things you wish to say," Shana said, not raising her gaze as she perused the reports. "You no doubt have questions about the demesne and its current situation. Ask. I will not have a more convenient time than now, as I will have other responsibilities to oversee."

The demesne had some level of seeling and beast hunting, although since the former was mostly conducted by adults without Karina to regularly organize the endeavor—something that would be corrected in the coming days—it happened irregularly, but they also aimed for the adult seels, which naturally had more meat, fur and skin. Over the year, they'd been treating furs, and now it seemed like they had enough to give everyone at least a shawl or wrap. This was in addition to the fur-lined blankets they'd assembled for the demesne's people last winter, so hopefully people would be warmer in their homes this year. She would be, as Binder Lolilyuri will likely have her reside in Lorian Demesne for the winter, but Shana would be able to go knowing that the people under her responsibility would also be comf—

"What happened to you?" Morbid fascination colored the words.

Shana paused in the middle of shifting to the next page. "You will have to be more specific," she said, finally looking up to meet his gaze. It was skeptical and disturbed and… yes. One that didn't take her seriously. "Many things have happened to me in the past year. I began using Deadspeaking, I claimed the core of the demesne, I had to start making decisions intended to keep the people of River's Fork from dying from various causes…" She shrugged. "It was an eventful time."

Captain Yhallisu's eyes narrowed, frowning slightly, before he said. "You are nothing like the girl I remember."

"No, I am not," Shana agreed. "That girl was not capable of shouldering the responsibilities of a Dungeon Binder, so she needed to step aside. I am here in her place. Now, I believe those are enough questions about me. What questions do you have pertaining to settling here in River's Fork Demesne?"

There was another, much briefer stare, and then Captain Yhallisu's lips pressed together. "Yllian told me that that you'd surrendered the demesne to the Dungeon Binder upriver."

"Yes, I did. The demesne was on its way to starvation, and Lorian Demesne both had food and the resources to begin imposing discipline on certain members of our population who were overconsuming and hoarding food. If it were not for Binder Lolilyuri, the demesne would have starved before summer, and been destroyed by the arrival of a dragon soon afterwards. She is the one who ultimately rules over this demesne. I take it you do not approve."

The man's expressions had started to transform into a scowl before he visibly forced his expression smooth, or at least moderated it. "It's not what we intended when we formed the company and set out to found a demesne."

"So I heard. Will you be speaking to the wizards you have available about establishing a new demesne then?"

"Why would we do that?"

"You clearly disapprove of my decision to surrender to Binder Lolilyuri's authority. Obviously you would wish to live in a demesne where you did not have to do so. That would of course require you to establish your own."

"We're not going to. People from the company built this demesne, bled for this demesne and died for this demesne. We're not going to give it up."

"I am well aware, Captain Yhallisu. I was there. I had to watch them die."

Her voice didn't rise, though her tone did become flat and sharp, and the man had the good grace to flinch.

She remembered it well. The unnatural howling wind that fell over the demesne as the dragon had begun to pass overhead. The strained breathing, the sounds as abominations died from the very life in their bodies being turned against them, the undead ones falling like strings severed from a puppet as the meanings animating them were simply deactivated. The things that weren't made from Deadspeaking, the ill-bound wisps, the twisted vistas and insane thoughts…

The dome, its life heavily imbued, was supposed to turn them aside the way a barrier of darkwisps would, with the added benefit of having a physical substrate to divert solid matter. It was supposed to keep them safe. That had been the theory.

Theory had been insufficient in the face of reality and the dome hadn't. Twisted vistas had cut wood. Ill-bound wisps had burned and broken. Insane thoughts had torn through, and the wood could neither be reinforced enough to defeat these attacks nor grow quickly enough to not be overwhelmed.

Deadspeaking hadn't work, and so blood had been spilled for a magic that would.

Mentalism had worked. Thoughts, immaterial and imbued, had blocked and shielded them from the malign magic… up until the point its wielder had collapsed, completely exhausted and spent from days of actively protecting the demesne.

And so, the way was opened for Shana to become the third Dungeon Binder of River's Fork Demesne.

…