Demesne Patron EX SS 34 – Happy With My Wife In Our New Demesne (Patreon)

Rybelle woke up to another wonderful morning with her wife in her arms.

She stayed right where she was, just looking at her dearest Tae. Even asleep, Tae’s face seemed set in a happy smile, her lips slightly parted as if she was about to grin.

As much as she loved her wife though, Rybelle still checked to see if Tae had drooled in her sleep, patting the bed sheet beneath them. Mostly dry, although it smell of their sweat and lovemaking. She'd have to wash it properly soon… but not today. 

Over a year of needing to wake up well before dawn so she could set out for her job at the local greengrocer was hard to wash off. Fortunately, it was easily remedied. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to doze, simply enjoying the feeling of being held.

The only sounds in their house was their breathing, and no noise penetrated the thin paper screens of their windows save bugsong and the occasional muted cries of the small beasts scurrying about in the woods around the village. There were no wooden impacts from Mentalists running along rooftops, no rolling of wheels as laden wagons hurried though the night-cloaked streets, no cries of still-living lakimay provoked by inexperienced handlers or answering mating challenges of their kind, and no sounds of distant gangs fighting. No surreptitious knocks in the middle of the night from Malon or one of his men asking Taeclas to heal someone who'd been injured too to wait until morning.

It was all blissfully quiet.

Eventually, Rybelle was pulled from the dark depths of her doze as she felt Tae begin to stir, her wife's arms adjusting their grip around her, Tae's face burrowing into her hair and breathing deeply. Hands roamed and Tae shifted as she pulled Rybelle against her. Rybelle began feeling lips against her neck…

"I'm awake Tae, I'm awake," she said, sighing. It wasn't that the feeling was unwelcome—it was very, very welcome—but if they started making love, they'd never stop.

She could feel the lips against her neck curving into a smile. "Good morning, moonlight!"

Shifting in her wife's grip, Rybelle turned and kissed her wife on the shoulder. "Good morning, petal."

The two of them just lay there, enjoying each other's presence and the lack of urgency. While they still had jobs—were they really considered jobs if they didn't get paid?—there were no quotas, no fines, no one Iridescence growing on their backs to get things done. They simply had their agreement with Binder Lori: work for the betterment of the demesne and they would have a house, food, use of things like the bath houses and laundry area, clothes when theirs wore out…

Rian—Lord Rian, she supposed, although the rumor that he was affiliated a lordly family was clearly just that—had made clear this wasn't generosity and more an effect of Binder Lori not wanting to have to figure out a currency and economy for her demesne. Rybelle supposed there was some irony in the only woman who could make beads in the whole continent—not even Dungeon Binder Bedinali of Covehold Demesne had rumors claiming they were capable of it—not wanting to use beads for what they were commonly utilized for—

Rybelle shook her head slightly to try and clear those thoughts from her mind. She was just a weaver and unofficial assistant of the local Deadspeaker now, she didn't have to think about such things. They were simply idle thoughts that were the result of a terrible childhood.

Through the paper screen over the windows, Rybelle distantly heard doors opening and closing as other people woke up early to get some work done while the sun was still down.

Eventually, Tae had to untangle herself and leave, or else Shana and Karina would be working on the fields without her. While they would hardly be alone—the farmers watered the crops before the sun rose, and again just before it set, so that the heat wouldn’t just evaporate the water—her wife felt a special concern for those two. Karina's enthusiasm for helping in producing food for the demesne made her a kindred soul to Tae, and Shana…

…

That child, Dungeon Binder or not, clearly needed help that no one in this demesne could really provide. They were craftsmen and craftswomen, skilled laborers, unskilled laborers, runaway noble scions and wizards. While some of the the doctors and medics they had with them used to be militia and knew how to tend to minds scarred by violence… well, despite Shana being the one child in the demesne that Binder Lori clearly didn't treat like a child, introducing Shana to drinking and worse would probably have terrible consequences for anyone who dared.

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After a quick bell ring—more like some wind chiming, really—when Tae woke her up again and bathing, it was on to breakfast. Shana was at the other table behind Binder Lori, taking care of her younger cousin and occasionally glancing up to check on the other children.

The meat-heavy stew was delicious as always, especially since they had started using more of the vegetables that Rybelle and Tae had brought with them from Covehold Demesne. The vegetables had been minced finely, which made them easier to eat and made them more palatable to the younger children… and Binder Lori. The meat was also of a better quality than what they'd previously been able to buy in Covehold, not they'd been able to buy much in their circumstances. Their stomachs had actually been upset for their first few days in the demesne as they got used to eating meet again, but neither of them had regretted it, and everyone had been very understanding.

After breakfast, she, Umu and Mikon went down to the weavers' alcoves to work. Unlike the weaving manufactories that Rybelle had worked at, the pace was relaxed, with everyone taking their time as they set up the looms to continue the previous day's weaving. There were no overseers shouting at them to keep working or to work faster, no rainbowed Horotracts setting up colored vistas to shamelessly turn the seven hours they were required to work into ten, despite that being blatantly illegal…! There were only women working at their own pace—even if some of the older women could weave amazingly fasts for short lengths of time—to make fabric so that they could clothe their friends and family… and Binder Lori, she supposed.

No one called Binder Lori family, and even Rian—whom everyone agreed was the one who was closest to her—would be hard-pressed to call her a friend. She was distant to a degree that could easily be called rude and dismissive, and was clearly aware of the fact, but just didn't care. Rybelle herself had not exchanged words with her since their interview upon first meeting the woman, despite the two of them having shared every meal since then sitting at the same table.

Admittedly, there was something funny about the woman visibly consulting a rock that she carried on her person before addressing Tae by name. There had been at least one instance of Binder Lori beginning to use the wrong name before hastily grabbing a different rock and correcting herself. 

At the weaver's alcoves, she helped Umu and Mikon pull out and put together their looms, some parts of which were partially disassembled so they would fit in with the other looms stared in the alcoves. Fortunately, the looms had little wheels on one side, making it a simple matter to move them by lifting up the oppose side. There wasn't a loom available for Rybelle to use, so she was on spinning, but that was all right. She liked spinning better in any case, and everyone always needed more thread.

Spinning also left her free to talk, and she chatted with Umu as they got to work, the blonde woman's shuttle flying back and forth across the loom contributing to the rising rattle around them. There was an empty stool next to Rybelle, because being the wife of the local Deadspeaker mean she had unofficial community responsibilities.

Today, at about midmorning—Rybelle had a well-developed sense of time, as long as there wasn't a glittering vista to around her to alter its colored flow—a young woman sat down on the stool nervously. She kept one hand on her pregnant belly at all times, and her vibrant pink hair was gathered into a thick braid that looked a bit messy.

Umu glanced at the woman and nodded at Rybelle before turning her attention completely towards her loom—or at least she tried to. On the loom next to hers, Mikon immediately tried to strike up a conversation, which Umu reluctantly responded to instead of simply ignoring her. Rybelle wasn't sure of what exactly went on between Rian and the three women, but she for one had decided she didn't wish to become involved beyond her acquaintance and budding friendship with Umu, which Mikon was actually encouraging, furthering her confusion.

Rybelle turned to face the woman. "Astolp," she greeted. "How do you feel?"

With her dearest Tae unfortunately busy outside in the sun tending to the demesne's crops—and absolutely enjoying every moment of it save for the heat—it fell to her to speak to any of the women—and some of the men—who wanted to speak to her wife about delicate matters. In a community this small, there were so far no cases of anyone with painful sores in bells and on clappers, but there'd already been those who'd had some kind of rash on their feet that Shana had been able to heal but not end.

The young woman smiled tiredly. “Tired, Mistress Rybelle. And this morning I was sick again. I know that’s supposed to happen, but I thought I was past that by now. Could… could Wiz Tae check? Please?”

“I’ll tell her, Astolp. In the meantime, are you comfortable? Sitting on a stool isn’t bothering you, is it?”

Rybelle went through the series of questions that she’d learned to ask over the years of being married to Tae. Sometimes people approached the local Deadspeaker for little discomforts or mild ills, not realizing they were actually sick of something worse. And while these women no doubt trusted the demesne’s doctors and medics, they were limited in the ways the could diagnose someone. Only a Deadspeaker could tell if someone had blight growing in their guts before the pain began, after all.

There were of course the ones she had to refuse, like women asking for bigger breasts of longer earlobes or thinner fingers or whatever other fool thing they felt needed to be changed about their bodies to make themselves more beautiful. While Deadspeakers did do things like that, her dearest Tae wasn’t one of them, having limited ability in fleshworking and certainly no certifications for it.

At least no one was so thoughtless as to ask to not be able to conceive for the month.

There were other visits after Astolp Weaver. Mothers who had given birth that winter and spring came to ask for her dearest Tae to check on their children that afternoon. Every little cough and shiver could be from an illness when it came to the little ones, after all, and while they could simply just walk up to Tae, her dearest was less likely to be running around in the farm downstairs if she knew she had babes to examine. And informing them of the incoming visit was only polite.

Rybelle spun thread and waited on the stool beside her to be occupied, and happily counted the heartbeats until it was time for lunch so she could be with her dearest wife again.