Demesne

"Do not accost Lord Yllian any further," Shana said flatly. "He has things to oversee, and you're wasting his time. You have already been informed as to how things are in this demesne. I would advise you not to make further issue of your lack of comprehension, lest you wear thin your welcome. Good day, wizards and civilian." She was willing to admit a moment of petty satisfaction as she heard someone sputter indignantly.

Shana turned to go once more, making sure to walk past Lord Rian, Karina walking with her.

"Shana—!" she heard Wizard Tsad call out.

"Binder Shanalorre," she heard Lord Rian immediately correct him.

There was a pause broken only by Shana's quiet footsteps as she moved away.

"Binder Shanalorre?" Wizard Tsad's voice called hesitantly.

"Tsad, don't encou—" which was as far as Yhallisu managed to get before at least three other wizards forcefully slapped a hand over his mouth to prevent him from speaking further.

It was nice to have friends who cared about you.

Shana took one more step before halting and turning around to face them. "Yes?" she said, putting on a Binder Lolilyuri face, smooth and intent. For the first time, it actually did make someone pause and regard her carefully, the way people did when the Great Binder bestowed her attention on them. Wizard Tsad looked confused and… lost? She didn't understand the latter part of the expression, simply noting it for later. "Is there something you need, Wizard Tsad?"

"…are you all right?"

Ah. She never did answer him earlier, did she? "I am well, Wizard Tsad. Will that be all?"

For some reason, her reply seemed to… disturb him? Why? "I'd like to speak to you about your education, if you have time."

That made her pause. "My education?" She could read, write and do calculations and tabulations… although to be fair, Wizard Tsad probably didn't know that…

"Y-yes. Yllian informed us that you were a Deadspeaker, so I brought what I could of my old books from when I started learning magic. It will take some effort, since I've never tried to teach the basics before, but if given time I believe I can teach you how to Deadspeak."

Oh.

"That will not be necessary," Shana said as politely as she could. "I have no intention of learning Deadspeaking." There was a slap, and she turned to see Lord Rian with his hand on his face. "Lord Rian?"

"Yes, your Bindership?"

There was an awkward moment as she realized he wasn't planning to say anything else. "Is something the matter?"

His hand remained on his face. "No, your Bindership. Just… thinking about how pleased Lori would be if she heard you say that."

"Ah."

Wizard Tsad evidently hadn't expected her reply. "Not necce— you don't want to learn Deadspeaking?"

"No," Shana confirmed. "Now, I really must go."

"But why?" The plea was filled with a confused innocence, as if Wizard Tsad couldn't comprehend why someone wouldn't want to learn. Wizard Lidzuga had been similarly befuddled when she had politely turned down his own offer.

"It would be against my standing orders from the Great Binder," Shana said.

It was Wizard Makoi who said, "You were ordered not to learn Deadspeaking?"

"Yes," she said, now a bit impatient. "I must be going now. There's work to be done."

"Wait, what do you mean—?"

Shana ignored any further pleas, walking away. She had work to do.

I hung back for a moment, my walking stick in hand, keeping myself between Shana and our visitors—well, mostly Yhallisu—to discourage them from following her. Tsad was still shocked, staring after Shana, but the others were more considering. The younger Deadspeaker—Laf-something, I'd need to ask Yllian again to be sure—just looked concerned, but the older one was frowning. The two older wizards with beards were looking right at me, however.

I shrugged. "Dungeon Binders. What can you do?"

Yhallisu glared at me at that. The man was capable of being pleasant—he'd been smiling when he'd talked to Yllian at first—but for some reason he simply didn't like me. I had my theories as to why, I knew it definitely wasn't something I did. I'd been perfectly civil and practically subdued when we'd first met, and had waited a long time before being pointedly sarcastic at him after he'd continued his dismissive treatment. It wasn't even some prevalent attitude among the new arrivals, since Otin, Xiasam and Tsad had been quite welcoming, as had everyone else I'd met. Yes, there'd been the initial reticence, but after their friends among the residents of River's Fork had vouched for me, the others had been friendly enough.

I gave him my most deliberately annoying smile, but didn't say anything, just turning to follow Shana once I was certain they didn't intend to bother her any further. While Shana wasn't actively trying to work herself into an early grave—at least not anymore since she'd subordinated herself to Lori—it was only common sense to not leave the little girl who'd already tried to kill herself once alone. Usually it was enough to have Karina with her to make sure she didn't do anything too dangerous—Shana would never let her friend get hurt, after all—but here in River's Fork…

Well, they had big trees, and Shana was good at climbing. Very good at climbing. She climbed the way some people walked, her feet seeming to stick to the rough bark, and back before Lori had technically conquered the demesne I'd often seen Shana high up on the dome or trees picking fruits. All it would take was for her to get high enough…

Hence why I kept an eye out in case Shana accidentally—or 'accidentally'—slipped and fell. Honestly, I wasn't really sure if catching her would save her or just break my bones and kill us both, but… well, I'll try anyway. Besides, as long as I don't die immediately, Tae or Lidz should be able to heal me, or Shana could even do it herself if she was well enough.

Normally, just standing there doing nothing but watch while other people worked would have made me feel really guilty, especially since it was children… not 'working'. 'Enthusiastically volunteering', because actually putting children to work would make Lori angry. Fortunately, these children were familiar with having to do chores, so even if they weren't being specifically asked to do anything anymore it was an ingrained habits for them. And with Karina here, there was someone to switch with, so I could appease my conscience by helping carry the larger baskets of fruit when they were full and getting an empty one, lest the girls' skirts get too full.

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Beyond that, however… I simply watched over the children. Around us, under the dome and among the fields and in the tree line beyond the dome—a tree line that was further away than it had been last year—people moved around. Many were wandering around and looking at everything, or simply talking to their friends who already lived here. I could understand how people didn't feel like working, and if it hadn't been for how ripe the fruits were they would probably still be on the branch, but Lori was going to be very displeased at this lack of productivity. Perhaps I could explain it as everyone being busy keeping things from getting stolen, if it comes up. Regardless, the children were even more unsupervised than usual, so as someone who was going to be in the area anyway I took on the job of keeping an eye on them.

I was watching Shana carefully plucking some hairy blueballs and pink ladies that had grown entangled together because their branches had wrapped around each other—honestly, I was surprised the dome was still alive at this point—when I heard someone approaching. Glancing sideways, I saw Otin the Whisperer turning to lean against the house I had my back to as I watched the children, his staff held in one hand and hooked on the crook of one elbow. The spearhead appeared to have been removed, possibly unscrewed, so instead of a long, heavy stabbing weapon he had a long, heavy bludgeoning weapon.

"Lord Rian," he greeted me politely, his visible eye flicking towards me before giving me a nod, which I returned.

"Wizard Otin," I said, turning back to watch Shana. He was just in my peripheral vision enough that that I could probably react to some sort of physical move at me… which probably meant his positioning was for my benefit. The wizard was close enough that he could probably use the crude lightning Lori knew—before she'd started experimenting—even without resorting to whatever lightning bindings the militia had. Not that I thought he was going to attack me, but it was the sort of thing I'd learned to notice and consider, and I doubted that it was the sort of thing the man wouldn't consider. "What brings you my way?"

Unlike Lori, I didn't think that any of the wizards of the Golden Sweetwood Company's second wave of settlers were out to kill her or Shana just to nominally conquer their demesnes. Yllian had been familiar with all of the wizards in this group, having worked with them when they'd all been in the militia. Besides, if all they wanted was to control their own demesne, there had been plenty of time on the way upriver for them to found their own.

However, I had also been wrong before. Shana had nearly died from it.

"I wanted to apologize for how Yhallisu conducted himself," Otin said. "He's… not usually like this."

I shrugged. "He's a grown man. He can apologize for his own behavior. Unless you tell me that you're the one who made him do it, his actions reflect badly on no one but himself. Besides, it's not me you should be apologizing to. I was just standing there." I waved a hand upwards.

"Yes, but she appears to be otherwise occupied at the moment, and I did not wish to be rude and interrupt." There was a moment's pause. "Does she do this often, picking fruit?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "Binder Shanalorre believes that a Dungeon Binder has a responsibility to keep the people in her demesne alive, and this is one of the few things she can actually physically do that benefits the people of the demesne. When she's done she's probably going to find some other chore to do."

"Would it not be better then if she knew proper Deadspeaking? She said she was ordered to not do so, so I presume this was from… ah…"

"Binder Lori is the name you're looking for," I offered. "She's the one that Binder Shanalorre surrendered her demesne to."

"Ah, thank you. It seems very strange this Binder Lori would give such an order."

"Not really," I said. I was probably going to have to get comfortable giving this sort of exposition to the newcomers. Whether they settled in the demesne or not, if they chose to live in the area Lori was something they were going to have to deal with. "Her reasoning is if Binder Shanalorre doesn't know how to Deadspeak, then she has no means of threatening her Bindership and therefore can be allowed to live and work near her… unlike the rest of you who know how to use your magic and are therefore a deadly threat."

"Ah, yes. I was hoping to gain some clarification on that. My colleagues and I wanted to know what we can do to reassure her that we are not some sort of threat to her."

"Unfortunately, her response to that statement would be 'that's exactly what someone who's a threat to me would say'," I said, making my voice flat in my best Lori impression. "I invite you to consider how it appears to someone who thinks you want to kill her when you try to convince her that you aren't instead of complying with the stipulation she placed to protect herself. Personally, I feel that you trying would do the opposite of what you're trying to do, especially in the face of historical precedent."

"I was not aware there was any sort of precedent set."

"Well, it's probably a difficult conversation that Yllian isn't prepared to have yet. As I have no difficulties with it, I'll just tell you: one of your militia has tried to kill the Dungeon Binder before." Was my phrasing vague and misleading? Of course! Because really, did it matter which Dungeon Binder the attempt was made on?

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh. So as you can see, her Bindership was ample reason to think people would try to kill her. You can speak to Yllian if you want more details. Yhal will probably be more likely to believe it coming from him. Hopefully he won't dismiss it this time." I tilted my head. "Though you might want to wait until he's not so busy. As a lord, he has a lot of things to do."

"Yes, I can see that."

I waved a hand towards Shana again at the sarcasm. "Well, she's not allowed sharp objects anymore, so she might try other ways."

That made Otin fall silent.

I hummed thoughtfully. "A year can change people. It certainly changed Shanalorre. I would strongly advise imploring whoever you have representing you in tomorrow's negotiation keep that in mind. The people here have had things happen to them that's changed some of the ways they see the world. They still welcome you as friends… but do not assume they will be happy with you trying to change the home they'd made." I shrugged. "At least, that's my advice. What do I know?"

"How our friends have been living for the past year, from the sound of it," Otin said. I heard him shifting as he stopped leaning against the house. "Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Lord Rian. It has been very informative."

"One last thing, if you will, Wizard Otin," I said.

I heard him pause. "Yes?"

"On the question of her Bindership's restriction on all of you wizards… why would you possibly want to get close enough to our Dungeon Binder that you would actually see her? What could you possibly need to do or say that cannot be conveyed in a note? You've spent most of your life living in a demesne whose Dungeon Binder you've never met. Why would that need to change now?"

"That… is a point, I suppose," he said thoughtfully. "And if I said that it was because we wanted to get the measure of her as a person?"

"What is a more useful way to get her measure?" I retorted. "What she says when she's in front of you or what she does when you're not around?"

"Another point," he said, though his tone didn't say whether he agreed or not. "What do you think?"

"I think that your group wouldn't have left without deciding who would act as the Dungeon Binder if you got here and found River's Fork gone," I said. "Everyone would know it, and they'd be in charge or at least have a lot of influence. Instead, you're being led by Yhal, who isn't a wizard." I finally turned my head to look at him, meeting the eye that wasn't covered by an eyepatch. "However, you and wizard Xiasam have been present for most of the conversations either I or Yllian have been involved in, even if you weren't participating. Would I be wrong to suspect one or both of you are the designated Dungeon Binder candidates in case you found River's Fork destroyed? After all, who would want to have her Bindership's measure?"

Political entities might sometimes be loose with the succession of leadership, but that was because it was usually open to negotiation. In the militia, they tended to have those things decided well in advance in case of sudden cases of death, and I was willing to bet that a group with so many former militia in it would default to old habits.

"You'd be correct, although it was more a case of seniority," he said. "I was made the primary candidate because Yllian's letter expressed how much more useful a Whisperer would be over a Deadspeaker or Horotract. Xiasam is indeed next in line if anything happens to me. All of the wizards know which of them succeeds who. Though I will admit to relief at seeing that this place was still standing. When we saw that the demesne still existed… well, I'm fully prepared to step into the role, if needed."

"But not ready to take orders from a child?" I said dryly as I turned back to watching said child.

"It is admittedly difficult to take a child seriously."

"Well, think about it this way: would taking her orders really be any worse than some of the officers you've had to put up with over the years? You know the ones." I let him consider this. "Yllian considers her worth taking orders from. How well do you respect his opinion?"

"Well, when you say it like that…" the wizard mused. "You've given me a lot to consider, Lord Rian. I'll go off and do just that. Best of luck in your…" he glanced up towards Shana, "duties."

"And you, Wizard Otin. I suppose I'll be seeing you tomorrow for negotiations."

"Tomorrow, then."

I kept my eyes on Shana as his footsteps walked away, and wondered which of us had gotten more out of this exchange.

I was already missing the days where the only ones I had to do politics with were Shana and Yllian.