Demesne Patron EX SS 36 – More Learning With Kutago! (Patreon)

Compared to the daily hustle and bustle she'd experienced in the weeks they'd been living in River's Fork, Kutago's time in Lorian was positively sedentary. Practically a holiday that just kept on going and going, and Kutago didn't have to do a thing! She wasn't one of the farmers or Deadspeakers who did the work of maintain the dungeon's farm, although she did come by every so often to check and make sure her brother wasn't being distracted and trying to write notes on something. Beyond that, she had nothing to do. There was no ropeweed to be broken down to fibers, no stacks of drying paper she had to make sure weren't sticking together, no hanging lines full of sheets that had to be firmly pinned, no bugs trying to nibble on her work, no stained fingers from the charcoal she used make ink—not even soot, charcoal!—no having to collect gall-nuts from trees, no having to find trees that produced galls,  no needing to tap every tree to see if their sap could be used as a gum…

She'd been finding some viable candidates for her to focus on to serve as a steady source of in—no, no, stop thinking about work! If she thought about work, she'd get depressed about how all the still-wet sheets of paper she'd been making had probably stuck together into a block because someone had decide to take the separator cloths to wipe their faces or something! Ugh, and it would probably be made out to be her fault because she hadn't been there to keep it from happening since she'd been sent to Lorian. So no, she wasn't going to think about it. That was a problem for the future that she wouldn't be able to do anything about now.

So Kutago leaned back, relaxed, and found ways to occupy herself. One such occupation was introducing herself to people—or more often than not, having people introduce themselves to her. After all, she was a new arrival, and while she had met some people from here in passing—apparently the people who worked the mine that was also River's Fork's dragon shelter were from here—to most she was still someone they hadn't met before. Most were perfectly polite and curious and concerned, asking her how she was dealing with living in River's Fork, how comfortable she was sleeping in those hollowed-out Deadspoken trees, and giving her suggestions of how to insulate it for winter—which had been firmly filed in the 'nothing I can do about it right now' shelves as she remembered how terribly cold the winters could be.

And then there were those trying to get into her trousers.

"Hello. I'm Landoor, the heir to this demesne."

Kutago was skeptical of that claim. For one thing, the young man who just walked up to where she was sitting eating a mican she'd saved for later, and introduced himself looked nothing like Binder Lori. Where her hair was dark, his was blue, and his round face bore not even the slightest resemblance to the Dungeon Binder's own sharp features.

"Funny, you don't look anything like Binder Lori," Kutago said. "How are you related?"

"Oh, we're not," he readily declared. "But Binder Lori handed me her staff and declared to Lord Rian, Tackir and Deil that I was to become the Dungeon Binder after her." He stood up straight, hands on his hips in what he seemed to think was an impressive pose. "It was just like the story of how Tiku was chosen to be the Dungeon Binder. He was just an ordinary man, but the Dungeon Binder handed him his staff and told everyone Tiku would be his heir."

"That's… not how it happened at all," Kutago said, confused. "Tikurias had popular support, but he'd already been a strong contender to succeed Dungeon Binder. And he was hardly ordinary. Sure, he wasn't a lord, but he was rich and had spent a lot of beads to secure his popularity…" Had someone taught this idiot wrong for fun? Even the popular, simplified version that she knew passed around by most people had included that fact, as well as the fact Tikurias had been one of the worst Dungeon Binders that the Vanromfi Demesne had ever produced.

"Who's Tikurias? We're talking about Tiku, you know, from the story?" Landoor said as Kutago started grabbing her mican slices to make her escape from this strange person. "If you want, I can tell you about it so that you can understand what it means—"

"Lan, stop bothering her! No one wants to hear about your delusions. Shoo, go away!"

Kutago let out a relieved breath as someone intervened. Wearing a skirt and blouse of undyed fabric, the woman looked like Mikon, who Kutago had shared a side of a table with before, but there where subtle differences in the shape of the face and… dimensions of the vistas that told Kutago this wasn't Mikon, or Kayan and Kayas from the table across from her.

"I'm just talking to her, Amo! She should know who the next—"

"First off, don't call me that, my name is Amokat! Get it right! And you are not going to be the next Dungeon Binder! You're not even a wizard!"

"I will be once I put my blood on the co—"

"That's not how it works, you glittering idiot!" The pink-haired woman—Amokat—shook her head and turned towards Kutago. "Hello. I'm Amokat. Would you like to join me in a little game of lima?"

"I'd love to," Kutago said immediately, getting up. She liked lima. It's simple ruleset was utterly straightforward, with no exceptions or conditionals, but it resulted in great complexity. "I'm Kutago. Mican?"

"Why, thank you." The pink-haired woman accepted the two wedges of fruit as two of them walked away, leaving the indignant idiot behind. "Sorry about that. Landoor's fine as long as he's not going on about his delusion that he's going to be the Dungeon Binder someday. It will be safe to talk to him in a few days, when he doesn't feel like he has to tell you about it."

"I'll take your word for it," Kutago said. "So, are we really playing lima?"

"Well, we can play chatrang if you want, but I'm not very good at it. There's also sunk, but I don't think any of those boards are free."

"What's sunk?" Was it a new game? That seemed to be the implication, but why was it called sunk?

"I can show you some other time. I'm not very good at it, but I know how to play. Mikon's better at it, even if she keeps losing to Binder Lori."  

As it turned out, Amokat was a lot better at lima than she had implied. It was simply that she took her time making her moves, which many often considered a mark of inability at the game. It wasn't, but try telling them that when grandfathers and grandmothers always seemed ready with a quick reply to whatever move you'd made. Still, Kutago didn't mind having to wait. It gave her a chance to sit back—well, lean forward on her elbows, since there was only one seat with a back in the dungeon's dining hall, and no one was allowed to sit on it—and also study the board for her eventual reply. And if that meant that Amokat's vistas were in her field of view, well, that was of course merely a coincidence!

"You're a papermaker?" Amokat said as they played. It was early yet, and there were few stones—well, marked chips of wood—on the board.

It was a question that had gone from annoying to answer to merely rote over the past few days. "Yes," Kutago said absently, as she studied the board, even if her gaze was inclined slightly higher than that. She'd already decided on what move she'd make, but giving her move due thought was merely being respectful to her opponent. Really, that's what she was doing. "I make the sheets out of ropeweed, since there's not a lot of people who need to use it in River's Fork. We only have two weavers and a few spinners, so they can't use a lot of it. I have to go and cut it myself though, since it's not like there's a surplus of it being kept around." Kutago made a show of coming to a decision and set down her piece, making sure the correct side was facing up.

"That sounds difficult. Here some other people cut and gather the ropeweed for us, and we have a retting tank to help render it down to fibers. Perhaps we can petition Rian to send some of our excess ropeweed to you?" Amokat frowned down at the board, crossing her arms thoughtfully and in so doing compressing the dimensions of her vistas. They were quite wonderful vistas really, the kind that could fit large tracts of land for city farming.

"I thought your sister was close to Rian?" That was an understatement, since they slept side-by-side in the same alcove. Kutago still wasn't sure how Umu fit into it.

The reply sounded like it had gone beyond rote and into something that Amokat was just used to saying without direct thoughts from her brain. "Oh, Mikon isn't my sister, she's my cousin. My parents and Auntie Taji took her in when Auntie Amamo and Uncle Gutaw died when she was little. She's as annoying as a sister though." That last was spoken with a fondness that seemed unconscious.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Eh, don't worry about it. Happens all the time. "

They lapsed into silence for a moment, simply making moves and counter moves—with long periods of study and due consideration in between, of course—as what was Kutago supposed to say to that?

Of course, a several moves later, she finally had a reply. "You're pretty good at this," Kutago said as she tried to find a way to block a substantial encirclement. There was a way, but even if she took it, Amokat would still be able to close part of what she'd made in three moves, and that's if Kutago was actively moving against her. If the papermaker pulled back and counted the whole thing as lost after blocking the larger encirclement, Amokat's victory would be far larger, but at least Kutago would be able to start setting up her own attack.

In the end, it was Kutago's victory, but just barely. She'd thought she'd lost until they'd counted up all the pieces and realized she'd won by a slim margin.

"I suppose I still have a lot to learn," Amokat sighed. "If you want, we could play another game later?"

Kutago smiled back. "I'd like that. Though there's no reason we can't play again now."

"Actually, there is," Amokat said, nodding at something behind Kutago. "The baths are finally not crowded."

The papermaker blinked and turned around. While she couldn't actually see into the baths, it was possible to get a sense of how many people were inside by the number of reed tsinelas—wonderful footwear, so open and cool in this hot summer weather, much better than boots—outside of the bath's entrance. At the moment, there were very few.

"Do you want to join me?" Amokat asked as Kutago turned back to look at her. "I could use someone to scrub my back."

Kutago had a stick that her brother had reshaped into a scraper for her in her pack. "Only if you do the same for me," she said. "I used to be able to reach back there when I was younger, but now…"

"Ugh, I know. I'll meet you there, then?"

"I'll get my stuff," Kutago assured her.

Amokat smiled and started putting the board back in order, to be returned to whoever owned it, or more likely so that the next person who used it wouldn't have to. "And while we're there, you can stare at my chest some more."

Kutago paused in the act of reaching out to help with the pieces and glanced up to meet the other woman's gaze, only to see her looking down, as if… studying the… board…

Eyes the color of crops ready to harvest looked up to meet Kutago's gaze with a smirk. "Don't linger," she said. "If you take too long getting your soap, the bath might fill up again."

With a wink, the pink-haired woman finished putting away the game board, her legs flipping over the bench with easy grace as she stood up and walked away, a sway in her steps.

The vista there was quite nice as well.

…

…

…

And because of her brother, she couldn't live here!

…

Kutago turned and hurriedly headed towards the stairs down to the second level. She needed to get her bath bucket.