Demesne

Lori woke up to the sound of someone knocking on her door, her cheek pressed against the hard stone of her table. The knocking persisted as she raised her head, wincing at the pain in her neck and back from the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in. What? Who would be bothering her in the middle of the night? Grumbling, Lori pushed herself up from her chair, stumbling slightly as she swayed before catching herself. Ugh, someone had better be dead if they were going to bother her before she was ready to wake up.

Raising a hand to her eyes to rub away the sleep sand, Lori walked to the door, the stone comfortably cool on her bare feet. She unlatched and opened it to find Rian on the other side. "Who died?" she demanded.

"Ah, it's been a while since you asked me that," he said. "No one died, but I was worried you had. Breakfast is almost over, and your food's gone cold." He frowned slightly. "You're not feeling sick, are you? Headache? Dizziness? Fever? Toothache?"

Lori had to blink at that last one. "Toothache?"

He shrugged. "I don't know how well you take care of your teeth. For all I know they're cracked and rotting. But seriously, are you feeling well? You don't usually sleep in this late."

"I was making something…" Lori muttered, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to become a bit more awake.

"… was it something that could set the air on fire in this enclosed room?" Rian suddenly said, going from pleasant to motherly in an instant.

"They're not activated," she said, using a yawn as an excuse to not meet his eyes—wait, why was she doing this, she was his Dungeon Binder. She blinked and shook her head, drawing herself up with sleepy dignity. "I'll be done momentarily."

Rian gave her a long look, and sighed heavily. "All right, then. We'll get the Coldhold ready while you eat and do whatever else you need to be able to put the fear of you into them, and on the way downriver you can probably take a nap on the ship." He pointed vaguely above her head. "Even you might find it a little hard to terrify people with your hair like that."

Lori blinked, raising a hand to her hair. It felt… fuller than usual. Ugh, lightning. Sighing in annoyance, she patted down her hair, feeling the lightning and lightningwisps arcing and sparking from her. They no longer carried the sting they normally would, or at least not to her as long as she was in her demesne. "Noted," she said cooly, waving her hand dismissively "Get going, then."

Closing her door, Lori went to her private bath to refresh herself. It wasn't much, just a small room off from her bedroom with a drain in the floor and a spout from which she could draw water from her Dungeon's reservoir—

Colors, with all the new settlers, the dragon shelter was going to need an actual reservoir now instead of just whatever barrels and distilled water they could manage like before. Rainbows.

After quickly washing herself—thankfully she was able to skip washing her hair since she'd done that the day before, just moisten it a little so she could use her fingers to get it off her face—Lori put on a new set of clothes. One of the new trousers Rian had gotten from Covehold Demesne, her second-to-last clean shirt, her hat—which was also looking in a sorry state, she'd have to get that fixed with her boots—new socks and new boots—only until she could get her old pair fixed up—and her rain coat—

Lori stared at her raincoat. Her left armpit had been worn through, and there was hole in the leather. There were more visibly worn patches and another hole in progress at the elbow. The black stain had grown very worn in a lot of places, such as the inner parts of the biceps and sides, making some of the cracks more obvious. With a sigh, she set the rain coat on her bed. Lori should not have been surprised to find her belt and belt pouch similarly worn, but she was anyway. After a moment's consideration, she put the belt on. While the surface was cracked, the belt was thick enough that it could take a little more use, which meant she'd be able to keep her trousers up without trying to look for cord.

She felt underdressed without her familiar heavy raincoat, but at least she was presentable. Lori grabbed her staff from where it was leaning against the wall next to her bed—there was a little notch on the floor to fit the butt of it into and a depression in the wall for it to lean against—and was about to go when she hesitated and turned to grab her wand as well. It was a pace long, as thick as her finger, and blue because it was made of anatass. She carefully slipped it into her belt at her waist like it was a sword, and immediately regretted it. No, it was too hard and long, definitely not meant to be carried like that. Ugh, maybe she should have a proper carrying sheath made for this.

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The wand stayed in her room as she finally went downstairs, finding the dining hall half-empty. Those remaining were simply lingering at their tables and talking, but several people suddenly decided it was time to get up and go to work as she passed by, the sound of the butt of her staff striking the ground a familiar third footstep.

Her usual table was mostly empty. Umu and Mikon were absent, and even as she arrived Riz stood to leave, bowing briefly in Lori's direction, which she nodded her head in acknowledgement. Only Rian and whatshername were still there, the latter in the middle of tying a headcloth on. Taeclas! That was her name!

A bowl of stew, a plate with some bread—a bun today, round and puffy rather than flatbread—and some pink ladies and micans sat in front of her chair on the table, along with a condensation-covered clay jug and a wooden cup. The stew was clearly cold, and some fat was starting to congeal on top. Leaning her staff against the table, Lori sat down and rubbed her hands together to create firewisps from the friction, then claimed and bound those firewisps into a binding that she dropped into her stew. The stew began to warm to an ideal temperature and not one bit more, and she added the same binding to the bread. Hot enough to be nicely warm, not hot enough to make it go dry.

"Taeclas," Lori said, making the Deadspeaker pause, "how are you at working on leather?"

"Uh, what kind of work do you mean?" she said in the tones of someone wary that they'll be asked to do something they don't actually know how to do.

"Can you fuse a patch in place?" Lori said. "Fix cracks?"

"Just that?" Taeclas said, still sounding wary. "You're not asking if I can make whole shoes, are you?"

"If you could do that, I doubt Rian would have found you no longer doing carpentry." Lori dipped a piece of the bread into her stew, letting it soak in before she brought it up to her mouth and ate it. Ah, very flavorful.

A strange look came over both Taeclas and Rian's faces, and they both nodded, acknowledging the point. "All right… I can do patches and cracks in the leather, although I'll need more leather to act as a patch."

"Rian, tell her where she can find some," Lori said, waving a hand dismissively.

"I feel like she should know what you're asking her to fix," Rian said.

She rolled her eyes. "My rain coat. It wore through at a joint, and given how cracked the leather is I don't think I can just sew it shut."

Taeclas frowned. "When was the last time you oiled it?"

"I've been busy," Lori said, looking at her food intently.

"She actually has been," Rian said with a sigh. "Sorry, Tae, but she wears that thing everywhere, and if she doesn't have it when she goes to River's Fork in the winter—"

"Why would I be going to River's Fork in the winter?" Lori interrupted.

"Dragons, most likely. And as the season progresses it's going to get colder and colder, and you'll need something to keep you warm."

Lori grunted, scowling at the idea, but went back to her food. Ah, right. She kept forgetting that it was always too cold or too warm whenever she left her demesne. Why did she ever leave again? Stupid responsibilities. "I'll bring down the coat as soon as I'm done eating," she said.

"You should bring out all the leather things you have," Taeclas said. "If you haven't been oiling your rain coat properly, you might have forgotten to oil the rest."

Lori didn't meet her gaze. "… I'll do that."

She finished her breakfast soon after that, and avoided looking at Rian as she brought out her coat, hat, boots, and belt pouch.

"…these are in terrible condition," Taeclas said, her voice just the slightest bit motherly. In this case, it was when one of her mothers was sweeping a room Lori had already swept, and found dust in places only a mother would care about but was choosing not to bring it up.

"Can you still fix it, though?" Rian asked, his tone also motherly. This was the 'she made a mess but she was trying to do something nice' tone.

"I think so…" Taeclas said. "It will take some time, though… I might need to just soak everything in hot tallow. It might help get rid of the dirt and dustlife."

Lori was suddenly very aware she'd couldn't remember having ever washed her raincoat. Or her hat. Or her belt pouch. Or her boots…

"Why don't you round up the hunters and Orris, and… uh, I'm not sure who else, but get the word out and organize doing maintenance on everyone's leather? That way we can use the tallow on as many things as possible." Rian said, completely oblivious to Lori's thoughts. "It will probably be mostly the children's stuff, since they might need to be reminded to oil their boots, but the reminder will probably do everyone good. That way you don't have to do it all yourself, just the parts that are best done with Deadspeaking and the rest can be sewn on."

Taeclas looked relieved at the notion she could get other people to help her with the work. "Ah, that's a good idea. And we can use the leftover tallow that's too dirty for soap to oil tools."

Rian nodded and patted Taeclas on the shoulder. "Well, I'll leave everything to you. I need to go take her Bindership to River's Fork to let the new arrivals meet her. Your Bindership, are you ready to go?"

"As ready as I will be," Lori said.

"You're not going to bring your wand? You know, in case you need it for poking or anything?"

Lori shook her head. "It will be too awkward for me to carry."

"Why are you carrying it? You're a Dungeon Binder, carrying things is something you have your minions do."

…

"Wait here," Lori said, turning to head back to her room.

"I'll meet you up there, I think we have a spare bead purse you can carry your rocks and other belt pouch stuff in."

"…get it." A bead purse might be a bit awkward to carry on her belt, but it was better than not having her belt pouch. She needed the things in there. And she also needed to retrieve all the bindings she'd made last night. There was no point to having made so many lightning ball bindings if she was just going to leave them behind, after all.