Demesne

"Scrub-scrub-scrub!" Karina sang as she moved her scrubbing rock up and down her left arm. It was a good rock, not too rough or too smooth, with a flat edge she could use to scrape her skin when the scrubby parts weren't getting her clean enough. "Up and down! Scrub-scrub-scrub, all around! Wash your arm, shoulder to wrist, soap it clean, then do it all over ag-een! Scrub-scrub-scrub!"

She didn't really need to sing the song anymore since she knew how to take a bath now, but it was fun! Back home, sometimes other children sang along—Yoshka was singing along now, which was making it hard for Shana to wash her—but here in River's Fork there was just her. The other children didn't really use the baths this early in the morning, but Karina and Shana had woken up early so that the two of them could go and hunt seels to add meat to River's Fork's stores.

This late in the year, there weren't anymore small seels. They'd either been eaten or had survived and grown up, getting bigger and longer, which meant they had more meat now! As much as Karina wanted to catch one of the big adults, everyone she knew up to Lord Rian told her that was too dangerous, and if she tried she'd get pulled into the water, drown and die. Or get bitten to pieces and die. Wiz Tae's story about how fursh liked to eat people's fingers had been absolutely scary and disgusting, and Karin and the other children always enjoyed hearing her tell it.

However, if Karina was going to be the very best at seeling, like no one ever was, then she had to learn how to land bigger and bigger seels! One of the ways she'd learned to do that was to get them while they were still sleeping. It was hard to do, since seels didn't just flop on the ground to sleep. They huddled together in a big pile, and those on the edge stayed awake to watch and smell for beasts that might eat them. If they saw or smelled a beast, they'd yell, and all the seels would wake up and dive into the water.

Since Karina wasn't a beast, the seels didn't start yelling when she approached. Well, they hadn't at first. Now the ones back home seemed to recognize her, and sometimes they would yell and sometimes they wouldn't. Lord Rian had suggested she feed them with waterbugs and things so they'd trust her more when she approached, and that seemed to be working, but sometimes they'd still run away.

In River's Fork, however, they still didn't run away from her, and this morning she and Shana had been able to get close enough for her to put her seeling rod through the neck of a seel that was two and half, nearly three paces long! Shana had helped her pulled it away from the water until it had died, and the two of them had dragged it back and hung it from a tree to let the blood drain out. Shana had asked someone to keep the bugs off it and bring it down when it was drained so the two of them could take a bath and wash the blood off their clothes.

Karina had wanted to do that part herself—Uncle Ralii said that a good hunter should do every step of making sure what they hunted was ready to eat, because usually they were working by themselves and if they didn't do it right the meat would go bad—but Shana had said she needed to give Yoshka her bath, and Karina had to admit that she didn't really want to deal with all that blood. Just hanging it from a tree had gotten her bloody, and she needed to wash her clothes before the blood dried. But next time she was going to do it all by herself!

With help from Shana, because Shana wouldn't let her do it by herself even if she wanted to.

Karina sang all the verses of the song, from washing her arms, to washing her face, washing her front, washing her legs, washing her feet, and having a friend wash her back. She and Shana helped each other on that last part, because while Yoshka was very enthusiastic, she still wasn't very good at it. Once they were done, they took their clothes—which they'd had soaking in cold river water—and washed out the blood as best as they could.

They got dressed, their wet clothes folded in their buckets for putting on the drying line outside of Shana's office… once they tied the line, anyway. It was lower than normal since they were the ones tying it and they needed to be able to reach it, but since they put it up near Shana's office no one would be running into it. Once that was done, they went to check on their seel. It was still bleeding, but it had dropped to trickle, and Uncle Vollis said that it was all right for them to go eat breakfast first.

Breakfast was just like back home: stew, bread and fruit. The stew and bread all tasted a little different—the stew used different leaves for flavor, and the bread just wasn't the same—but they were still delicious, and the fruits weren't cold and were very sweet because they were ripe. As Shana made sure that Yoshka ate properly and didn't make a mess, Karina just smiled, glad that her friend was happy. It was only a small smile, the barest curve of Shana's mouth, but it was a smile.

Now, if Karina could just get her to smile all the time…

Once her seel was finally drained, Uncle Fendacos had skinned it for her, because it was really big and had a lot of good fat. While Karina was starting to learn how to skin and clean the little seels and chokers, this one was still a little too big for her to deal with by herself, so she'd watched and learned while the uncle had done it. She'd gotten to try skinning it a little bit, but since her arms were really short she couldn't get in very far, so the uncle had taken over before she'd made a mess of her clothes again.

Lord Rian arrived later that morning, and Shana had gone to meet him. Since she'd washed her arms of blood, Karina had followed her friend to keep her company.

"Good morning, your Bindership," Lord Rian greeted as he stepped off the ice boat. He was caring his walking stick again, which he didn't really need to walk. He was old, but he wasn't that old. "Hey, Karina! How are you?"

She gave him a big smile, which he gave back to her. "Hi, Lord Rian! We caught a big one before breakfast today! Hi aunties!" She waved at the assembled aunties with Aunt Riz, who smiled and waved back.

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"That's great! Between that one and the seel meat we have in the ship, I hope it'll all fit in the cold room. Good job, Karina!"

Yay! She was praised!

Lord Rian and Shana stepped back from the dock to give people room to unload the meat. Karina watched avidly as the boat uncles opened the door on the floor of the boat—Lord Rian always told her it was a 'hatch' and not a 'floor-door', but she always forgot, and it didn't rhyme—and started passing up chunks of meat wrapped in cloth.

"Can I help?" Karina offered.

"Ah, that's not a good idea, Karina," Lord Rian said. "You don't have gloves, and the meat is really cold. It will stick to your skin and hurt."

"Oh." Ah, right. Everyone knew to be careful when going into the cold room to get the jugs of water being chilled there. You weren't supposed to go in with bare feet, or else you'd stick to the floor. She hadn't realized that could happen with meat too.

"Why don't you find some people and go do some more seeling?" Shana suggested. "If I recall correctly, the seels will be swimming away soon. We should do as much seeling as we can right now."

Karina cheered at the thought. However, she couldn't just leave her friend to do what she wanted. "Are you sure? What if you need help with anything?"

"That won't be necessary," Shana assured her. "I will simply be speaking with Lord Rian and accompanying him when he meets with the new arrivals."

"You are?" Lord Rian's eyebrows had climbed so high his forehead had become a threehead. "And when did this happen? No offense, Shana—" he stopped, looking like he was waiting for something, and even looked over his shoulder. "Oh, right, Lori's not here. This feels so strange. Ahem. Not that I don't enjoy your company Binder Shanalorre, but I thought the reason you were here was so you can resolve any issues with your authority as the demesne's Dungeon Binder?"

"It has come to my attention that there are some elements that might not acknowledge my claim to my position," Shana said. She was being really serious, because she was doing her Wiz Lori face. "This must be corrected. I will be unable to resolve any issues with my authority if I do not have any authority. In addition, I also need to iterate that some of the behaviors that visitors to the demesne engaged in are unacceptable."

Karina looked back and forth between the two. Honestly, she didn't really understand what they were talking about since she wasn't smart like the two of them, but if she stood here and listened maybe she'd get smart too.

"That's…" Lord Rian stopped talking for a bit, frowning. "Now, I'm not trying to imply that Yllian has any authority over you, but what did he advise when you brought this up with him?"

"He simply said 'yes, Great Binder' and said he would prepare an escort."

"Ah." Lord Rian made a thinking face. "You're not going to try and take over the talks, are you?"

"No, of course not," Shana said immediately. "I'm terrible at negotiation. I will merely lend my authority and emphasize that authority as necessary."

"…all right, then. If anything happens, I'm telling Lori this was all your idea."

"Of course. Why would you say otherwise?"

"… when I'm old I'm going to look back on these times and miss the honesty in politics…"

Karina didn't understand that last part, and from the puzzled look on Shana's face she didn't either.

"Well, are you ready to go then? We need to start walking."

Shana nodded, putting out her right foot out and shaking it all about to show she was wearing her boots.

"All right. Let's tell Yllian we're going then."

The two of them started walking, and Karina followed them, walking next to Shana. "Where are you going?" she asked.

Lord Rian looked at her, and he was making one of those faces, like he was confused but still smiling. "You don't have to come with us, Karina. We're just going to where the new people are to talk to them."

Karina frowned thoughtfully. "That's where the new wizards are, right?"

"…yes…?" Lord Rian said.

Karina nodded. "Then I'll go with you to keep the wizards away from Shana."

"That won't be necessary, Karina," Shana said. "I'm sure the escort Lord Yllian has organized will be more than sufficient for the task."

"Oh, all right!"

They walked for several paces before Lord Rian said, "So… you're still coming with us?"

Karina blinked at him, and her eyes went wide. "Oh… am I being a bother?"

"No, no!" Lord Rian said. "It's just… we'll be doing a lot of boring talking, so you might have more fun doing something else."

For a moment, Karina hesitated. Boring talking sounded… boring. She glanced towards Shana, and shook her head. "Shana helped me this morning when I went seeling, so now I'll help her while she's Dungeon Bindering," she said.

"You don't need to do that Karina," Shana said again.

"But I want to! Friends help friends with their chores so they have time to play." She nodded, knowing she'd won because no one didn't want help with their chores. "Even if the chores are boring." She paused. "Especially if the chores are boring!"

For some reason, Shana and Lord Rian looked at each other, both of them making a weird face. Shana looked like she was full and needed to go to the stink room make black, and Lord Rian… well, he looked like he sometimes did when he was talking to Wiz Lori. He shrugged too, and Shana sighed for some reason before turning back towards Karina. "While we're there, please don't stand in front of me," she said. "I need people to be able to see me."

"Okay," Karina said. "Why?"

"Dungeon Binder reasons," Lord Rian said immediately.

Karina nodded. "Ah. That makes sense." After all, Shana would be doing Dungeon Binder things, so of course she'd have Dungeon Binder reasons. "It sounds weird, though." Why would it be important for Dungeon Bindering to not have someone stand in front of you?

"Well, if we could understand why Dungeon Binders do things, then anyone could be a Dungeon Binder," Lord Rian said.

Ah, that was true. Karina didn't understand a lot of what Wiz Lori did, but her itay said she was a very good Dungeon Binder, so what she did must have been very Dungeon Binder-y things.

Lord Rian and Shana started walking again, so Karina did too. "I half-expected to already find Yhal here marking his territory. Have they said anything?"

Shana shook her head. "There has been no contact since yesterday after they went back to their camp to eat."

"Ah. I hope it wasn't because they're offended. That might make things a little difficult. Any mail for me to bring back?"

"None have arrived yet. At the moment, the new arrivals seem to be staying at their camp, although their wizards seem to be conducting a meeting of some sort."

"You've been to see them?"

"No, I've been keeping track of people through my core."

"Ah… right, you Dungeon Binders can do that… sorry, it's just Lori never mentions it when she does that, so I kind of forgot…"

It was really boring talk, and while Karina knew what they were saying, she couldn't really understand what they were talking about. It was very smart people talk, which was only right since Lord Rian and Shana were very smart. She wondered if she'd ever be as smart as them.

Karina followed her friend and wondered what chores she had to do and how Karina would be able to help.