Weekly Digest 26 - (#78 - #80) (Patreon)

Something To Do Tomorrow

By the time Rian finally woke up, still surrounded by his three minders, the air was filled with the smell of seel meat sizzling from its own fat as she sun gently began to dip to the horizon, the first of the moons beginning to tint the demesne with its colors. Pans had been placed under the meat to catch the fat dripping down, for frying mushrooms, vegetables, and the more dry beast meat. They'd cut out a lot of the fat for the chandlers, but some had deliberately been left to flavor the meat.

Lori was halfway through a dish of sizzling seel meat, a smaller cut of beast thing, some fried fungs and plant stuff, and a nice, cold drink when Rian had planted himself on the bench opposite her.

"I don't remember us having dishes like that," he remarked.

Lori looked down at the square stone dish she was eating from. "I made it," she said, ignoring the three who'd sat down on either side of him. "Bowls are not the best way to eat large hunks of meat. Insufficient preparation was made to avert the No-Plate Crisis of Eventually. Fortunately, many people had plates and appropriate dishes stored away, so it is not impacting morale as terribly as fear. Still, this was an obvious failure on the part of the one responsible for planning for this."

"So, translated: this is my fault," Rian said dryly.

"These were part of your lordly duties," Lori nodded. "You said so yourself. I didn't even assign it to you. You should have done better at a task you chose to set out to do."

"I should have stayed in bed," Rian sighed.

"We should have," Umu said.

"We should have," Mikon nodded.

"We should have," Riz repeated.

Rian blushed as all three women nodded. "You know, I've rested," he said. "You don't need to keep following me anymore."

"Keep following him," Lori said. "Make sure he gets a good night's sleep tonight."

"Yes, your Bindership/Great Binder!" they chorused.

Rian looked up at the sky for some reason, muttering to himself. Eventually, he looked back down. "Why?" he asked.

"I don't trust you to not stay up late planning something for tomorrow again," Lori said.

"When did this lack of trust start to happen? You've always trusted me before."

Absurd! She'd never trusted him, that was why she closed off her rooms at night.

"When you started thinking it was a good idea to go beast hunting while sleep-deprived," Lori said.

"Says the woman who tried to ride a rock," Rian said flatly.

"I didn't want to walk. What's your excuse?" Lori said.

"I…! Uh…"

"See," Lori said triumphantly. "You don't even have an excuse. Shows how much thought you gave the matter."

"Oh, come on! It's not nearly the same thing!" Rian protested.

"Yes, I stopped you from doing something stupid," Lori said. "Be thankful."

Rian sighed, rubbing his eyes. "All right, fine, fine, I'm too tired to argue."

Lori frowned. "I thought he slept?" she asked the nearest of his minders.

"He did, your Bindership!" Umu said.

"We were there to make sure," Mikon confirmed.

"You didn't need to hold me down," Rian said.

It was times like this Lori had to wonder if her lord was truly ignorant or just pretending. Or, as the rumors suggested, into men.

"Go get something to eat while there's still something left," Lori ordered. "I worked hard catching those seels and I'm not having them go to waste. Also, get me another cut," she said, holding her plate out to him.

"It's a holiday, why do I have to work?" Rian said. Nevertheless, he took the plate before she had to stare him down and headed to where someone was tending to a fire and making sure meat didn't burn.

The three immediately got up and followed after him, likely to get their own food, or make sure Rian got some for himself.

Almost immediately, she regretted telling Rian to just get her meat. The mushrooms had been good too, and she felt like having more. A pity all they had was water. A sweet drink would have been wonderful with the meat. Well, she had golden buds. She could put slices of it in water, give herself a little sweetness and flavor…

Rian came back, a bowl stacked awkwardly with too-big pieces of meat and other things in one hand, her plate in the other, carried like it was a tray. Besides meat, it also had a little of everything else on it, something that actually made Lori smile eagerly.

For some reason, Rian slowed down, staring. So did his minders.

"What?" Lori asked.

"Were you… smiling?" Rian asked. "I wasn't imagining, that right? It wasn't a trick of the light? She was actually smiling."

"I saw it too," Riz said.

Umu and Mikon both nodded, their bowls of food in hand.

Lori rolled her eyes and held out her hands for the stone plate. "Food," she demanded.

"Maybe I imagined it?" Rian said as he put the plate in her hands.

"If you did, Lord Rian, it was a shared delusion," Umu said, before chirping happily, "Something we have in common!"

Then she let out a more distressed sound as she realized Riz and Mikon had managed sit on either side of him, the former even giving her a smug look. Lori ignored them. There was food to be had. Back home, most of her meals had been padded out with bread and boiled dough—which was delicious of course, especially since she hadn't had any in literally months—but meat…! Now that her body had adjusted to all this meat, it was absolutely delicious and she couldn't get enough of it.

Everyone seemed to agree, given how she had noticed people were going for more than one serving. She'd though they'd have to preserve the seel meet in the cold room since it would be too much for everyone, especially with the beasts the hunting party caught, but now it looked like they'd have nothing left but bones.

Had everyone been secretly starving? She'd thought getting a bowl of stew three times a say had been enough. She'd certainly felt full afterwards. Lori looked down at her plate full of warm, juicy meat that she wanted inside of her, and intended to enjoy every moment of the process of it doing so.

Well, she supposed there not being any leftover meat would be understandable.

Soon, her plate was empty again. While she definitely wanted more… she could wait, maybe let her stomach settle a while. Licking her lips, Lori wished she had something to lean back against.

Argh, she missed the old couch from ho—from the apartment she'd shared with her mothers! She was probably not going to see it's like any time soon. Probably not in the next decade, at least. She didn't even have a proper mattress for her bed, hoping for a nice, stuffed couch was probably impossible.

Why had she come all the way out here again?

Oh, right, absolute power and supremacy as a Dungeon Binder. Well, she could put up with a lack of amenities for that. WEll worth it.

"So," Rian said abruptly as he put his utensils down on his bowl. "About tomorrow…"

"I'm on holiday. Talk to me the day after," Lori said.

"Oh, all right. I suppose I can wait until after the degeneracy and violence happens to talk to you about how to avert it," Rian said, nodding. He made to stand up. "I should go get some more steak while—"

"Sit down," Lori said coldly. "Explain."

"After today, it's going to be clear to people that there's not a lot to do around here but work," Rian said. "Tomorrow, if something isn't done, all people will have to do for the holiday is eat, sleep, splash around in the river, that thing you made illegal to do in public, or get into fights because they have too much time on their hands. And since we all seem to have had our share of eating and sleeping today… well, people would be bored of that tomorrow, so it's probably violence's turn."

Umu and Mikon blinked, staring at him. Surprisingly, Riz was nodding in agreement. Perhaps she was just being sycophantic.

"He's right," she said. "Anyone in the militia will tell you that people get in trouble when they've got time on their hands. Er, according to what I've heard, Great Binder."

Lori rolled her eyes. "So what do you suggest?" she said blandly. "You always have a suggestion."

"Nothing onerous," Rian said. "We just need to have a few activities planned. Maybe a chatrang tournament, have someone officially declared the demesne's chatrang champion. Some competitions, something with rules that people can play for fun. Really, they just need an activity they can either be part of or will enjoy watching. That will keep most people out of trouble until we eat, than another activity until dinner, then we all go to sleep because there's work the next day."

Lori twitched. "Are these 'play with other people' things?"

Rian paused and stared at her. So did his minders.

"Ah, of course," Rian said, nodding. "I should have realized. Right… all right, leave the games to me. You don't have to play if you don’t want to."

That was a lie. It was always a lie…

Lori resolved to sink anyone who tried to make her play games into the ground and leave them there.

"Well, that should take care of the violence by giving people a semi-violent outlet for their energy…" Rian said. "Mostly. I'll ask around, see how many people are interested in what, and what we can play with what we have now…"

"So, you want to make people do things," Lori said.

"I want to present something they can do so that if they were inclined to do something, they'd choose to do that instead of letting them come up with their own ideas, which might get messy," Rian said. "Someone dead set on doing something stupid will probably still do it, but this way they can't drag as many bored people with them to it."

Lori gave him a bland look.

"It's a 'dealing with people' matter," Rian said tiredly.

"I'll leave that to you, then," Lori said. She frowned. Was she forgetting something…?

"I'll get to work on it after dinner," Rian said with a nod.

Lori pushed her plate forward.

"Seriously? You were able to get the first one before I got here!"

"But you're here now, so I don't have to," Lori said.

Rian sighed and picked up the plate. "After this I'm done. I'm going to go and talk to people about tomorrow."

Lori tilted her head thoughtfully. "Get me double what you did last time, then."

Rian rolled his eyes as he walked away, his minders going after him, grabbing their own bowls, and his as well.

Once more, Lori wished she wasn't sitting on a bench. She really wanted to just lean back and relax.

Even the amateurish music wasn't as irritating as it usually was…

She was still going to get them to stop it after sunset so she could go to sleep though.

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Breakfast Swimming Prizes

Come the morning, Lori found out what her lord had deemed an appropriate semi-violent outlets for people's energy.

"Tournaments?" Lori said. She was sitting at her usual table out of habit, with Rian across from her. His side of the table was more crowded than usual this morning, but Lori ignored that. There were fewer people about, as many seemed to be sleeping in, and those present seemed to be waiting for something.

"Technically, a tournament is more organized," Rian said brightly, though his brightness was emitting from a flickering source this morning. Perhaps it had something to do with the women sitting on either side of him. "This is basically to be a bunch of friends messing around with a bet on the line. These are competitions at best. We're holding the board game competitions in the morning and the physical competitions in the afternoon."

"When it's the hottest," Lori pointed out.

"Makes people tired faster and saps their ability to make trouble," Rian said cheerfully.

Lori blinked. "Oh… how cunning of you. And the physical competitions are…?"

"Quarter staff fighting, stick fighting—technically sword fighting, but we're using sticks so no one gets horribly gutted—wrestling, and I figure a short footrace," Rian said. "But even a competition has prizes. We have nothing we can give out that people can't get for themselves much easier by going into the woods, which is where you come in."

"I am not giving up more fruit from my reparation loot," Lori said, annoyed. "I haven't even had any yet!" She'd thought to indulge in one or two or three last night, but had returned to her room so full that she hadn't had any room in her.

"You realize fruit only stays good for two to three day before it starts to go bad and—you have a cold room in your rooms," Rian finished blandly.

"I have a cold room in my rooms," Lori confirmed.

She wasn't sure what to do with the little sack of grain that had been in one of the sacks of fruit. She hadn't asked for that, and technically it was taking up space that could have been fruit instead, but grain made flour made bread, right?

"Which reminds me," she said, pulling up a bowl she'd had with her. It was made of stone since she hadn't had enough teeth, with a name inlaid in gold, and filled with fruit. "Yours."

"Oh, I get one too!" Rian said. "I wondered about that."

She'd had to get the forgettable names written down first, and had maybe forgotten to make one for him.

"Yes, yes, thank you for helping save my life," Lori said.

"Is this your subtle hint I use my own fruits as the prizes?" Rian said.

"It's yours. Do what you want with it," Lori said.

Rian looked down intently at his bowl as if considering doing exactly that.

"If you need it, I can give you some of my fruits, Lord Rian," Mikon said to his left.

"I can give you all of my fruits, Lord Rian," Umu said to his right.

Lori was treated to the sight of Rian looking uncomfortable. "T-there's no need for that, you two! Lori gave that to you, you deserve to keep it! This is my problem."

"But we want to help," Umu said.

"That's right, Lord Rian," Riz said, once more on the other side of Umu from Rian. She seemed to be trying to lean over the slightly smaller woman to be closer to Rian. "So please, take all the fruits you need!"

"Don't just casually give away my hard-earned reward from her Bindership," Umu said flatly, glaring at the northerner woman.

"Speaking of which… why do I still need minders?" Rian said. "I've had a good night's sleep. They held me down again to make sure I slept. Why am I still being followed?"

Lori gave him a level look. "If you don't know, I see no need to inform you."

Rian gave her a horrified look. "Why are you telling me that. I didn't DO anything! I've been a good person! I don't deserve to be told that!"

Lori rolled her eyes. Useless thespian.

"What's taking breakfast so long?" Lori asked pointedly.

"Oh, no one's cooking," Rian said. "We ate the beast and seels last night, so there's nothing to cook except the stew stuff in the cold room. And no one wants to make that right now, though if people haven't eaten by lunch, we might be desperate enough to do it. So everyone's sort of waiting for food. I did see Karina going seeling though, so maybe we'll have some meat soon."

"Alone?" Lori said sharply.

Rian blinked. "Um, I didn't see anyone with her."

Lori checked her awareness of the demesne's wisps, and found only a single void above water where she had found the brat the day before. She sighed and got up.

"Lori? Where are you going?" Rian called as she stomped out of the Dungeon.

"To keep someone from drowning," she said.

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When she came back, it was with four more large seels trapped in ice and the brat.

"Oh, finally, breakfast," Rian said brightly. "Should we expect more of the same for lunch?"

Lori considered it. "Fine, fine," she said. She DID feel like eating more meat. "But first, I need you to deal with this brat."

"I thought you knew her name?"

"Stay on the topic at hand, Rian," she said. "Teach her how to swim."

Rian blinked at the order. "Excuse me?"

"You can swim, correct? You showed me," Lori said impatiently.

"Y-yes…" Rian said.

"Teach this one how to do it too," Lori said, pointing at the brat. "She insists on going alone, without anyone to help should she fall into the water. If she's going to do that, she might as well know how to survive it. So, teach her how to swim. You have until sunset."

"Wait, you want me to teach her to swim in one day?" Rian said, alarmed.

"Well, she'll be busy tomorrow," Lori said. "So it has to be today."

Rian looked at the brat uncertainly. "I can… see what I can do…?"

Lori nodded and went over to decapitate the seels she'd caught.

"Can you really swim, Lord Rian?" she heard the brat say behind her. "That doesn't sound like something people can do…"

Fortunately, there were people who were willing to take over the butchering and cooking once they saw there was meat. Soon the air of the demesne was full of the smell of roasting seel and bubbling fat again. She'd even authorized the mashed fruit that Rian had been thinking of using as some kind of desert treat to be put to the flame and made into a sauce, since she had thought it would have made a good accompaniment to the seel meat the night before.

There was something different about this morning though. While people still moved leisurely, relaxing in the shade or disappearing out of sight into the trees, some people were using sticks and rocks to mark out a square in a relatively flat patch of ground in front of the Dungeon, talking and laughing as they did it. A few others were using knives to peel the bark and protrusions from long branches while talking casually, occasionally handing off what they were doing to someone else so they could eat. Unlike yesterday's air of lethargic indulgence, today felt like there was… direction.

In the Dungeon, she could hear more people playing, and even a quick glance inside showed someone had written something new on the wall, next to the other usual game win-lose counts. Apparently, the chatrang competition, lima competition, and pincer competition were being played in the Dungeon, with people paired off and playing against each other in a tournament bracket format. There were even some people playing sunk, using the rules Rian had demonstrated that involved moving at the same time, which looked nightmarish, though they did not seem to be taking part in any sort of competition. Apparently there wasn’t enough interest in playing sunk to form a proper competition.

Speaking of her lord…

Lori took her stone plate and filled it up with more meat, the person tending the fire smiling and nodding to her, which she returned. There was no speaking, and she was glad of it. They only had meat, no tubers and mushrooms, since no one had gone looking in the woods yet for any that morning, and they weren't touching the stores. Plate refilled, Lori headed over to where she could get a good view of the river.

It was strangely amusing, in an incongruous way. Rian was standing waist-deep in the river, fully clothed, surrounded by the brat, Umu, Mikon, Riz, several over children who'd thought it looked fun, and a few curious adults. All were fully clothed because, as Rian had said, this was meant to be preparation in case someone fell into the river, which would probably happen while they were dressed. The girls had all girded their loins, tying their skirts in front of them as they were wont to do while seeling.

"—ly float," Rian was saying as he had the brat lying face-up in the water in front of him. "Even in mildly turbulent water like the river on a windy day, you'll float as long as you don't panic, splash around or try to keep your arms above water. If you do that, your arms become a heavy weight that will push your head down, and you don't want that. Make sure your arms are lower than your head, since this makes it easy to keep your head up. You all right there, Karina?"

The brat's hair was spreading around her in the water, but to Lori's surprise he voice was perfectly audible as she said, "I… think I'm doing it, Lord Rian."

"Good," Rian said as everyone craned their heads to see. "Now, for those people who can't see, I have my hand on her back holding her up, but this is the sort of relaxed posture you need to float. Really, just relax, just let your arms and legs flop and concentrate on keeping your head above water by not letting anything floor higher than your head. Now, Karina, close your eyes, take a deep breath and hold it in."

The brat exaggeratedly took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks.

Rian pulled back his hands, holding them above the water and everyone cried out as Karina stared to sink. "Stay calm everyone, this is perfectly normal, Karina just has to find her balance again, and… see, there we go," he said as the brat's head bobbed up again, her mouth opening wide to take a deep, audible breath. "Karina blink if you can hear me."

Presumably, the brat blinked.

"Okay, blink once for no and twice for yes. Do you feel all right?" A pause. "Do you feel like you can keep floating for however long you need to?" Another pause. "Do you still feel scared?" Pause. "What, really?" Pause. "And you're still doing this? Wow, you're being very brave right now, Karina. All right, get your feet under you and—"

Whatever else he said was drowned out as the brat sank down, only to shoot back up out of the water, now obviously standing on the riverbed, panting and wiping water from her face. Several people applauded, even as she shivered.

Lori considered it and started pulling firewisps out of the air.

There was a stir in the water, people looking down in surprise. Rian, however, looked around, spotted her and waved. "Thank you, your Bindership!" he called.

Lori replied with a dismissive wave and went back to her food.

"All right," Rian said. "Let's all practice floating…"

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By noon, most of the people who'd gone to learn from Rian could at least manage to float on their back, and a few, the brat among them, could swim. Others just watched and cheered them on, or went into the water themselves for a refreshing dip. This time, most people seemed to have decided to go in clothed, possibly moved by the fact so many people were already doing in, and possibly out of a desire to keep from having to do more laundry.

The few that had managed to learn how to swim didn’t wiggle through the water like seels, but they floated, they could breath, and they moved in the water about as fast as someone walking, only without needing to have their feet touch the riverbed. A few had dared try moving deeper towards the middle of the river, only to stop when they hit the cold water and turn back around, necessitating a quick lesson in how to change direction.

Lori had lost interest near the end and had gone to catch more seels for food. The big ones were clearly well above the size of what the children could catch, but made the best eating. She even got cheers when she walked back to the area in front of the Dungeon with them being pushed in front of her. She usually never got cheers. It sounded so good…

She looked up as Rian sat across from her with a bowl of food, still dripping slightly from his morning in the river.

"Enjoy your dip?" she said.

Rian actually seemed to take a moment to think about it as Umu, Mikon, and Riz sat to either side of him. "I did, actually," he said. "It was nice, teaching people something I know that they don't. Thanks for heating the water, by the way. I wouldn't want anyone getting sick because of the cold."

Lori just grunted, making a dismissive wave of her hand as she speared another piece of meat and brought it up to her mouth to chew. She reached under the table and pulled out a stack of seven bowls one at a time, stacking them on top of each other. Each was made of stone, with a glossy surface. A differently colored stone had been used to inlay the word 'Winner' into the rim of each bowl.

"Here," she said. "Something for people to win."

"Oh." Rian stared at the bowls and smiled slightly. "Well, it's… very generous of you, your Bindership," he said.

"I was bored and between meals," Lori said, looking aside. "Besides, we have plenty of rocks."

Rian nodded. "I think I might have enough to put one fruit in each of the bowls," he mused.

"You can use the fruits in my bowl too, Lord Rian," Umu said.

"If you don't like the fruit, just say so," Lori said.

Umu and Mikon, who had her mouth open and was likely about to say the same thing, both froze.

"Stop scaring them," Rian said. "You said it yourself. It's their fruit, they can do what they want with it." He turned to the two. "Though really, you don't have to do that. This is my problem. Enjoy your fruit, I'm sure it's delicious."

"But Lord Rian, what about the prizes?" Mikon said.

"If I run and get lucky, maybe I can find some happyfruit that's edible," Rian said. "Though I think we might be starting to leave fruit season for those trees… "

"Why do you still need fruit?" Lori said, exasperated. She resisted the urge to jiggle the bowls, since they were heavy. "You already have something to give."

"It just seems… sad to give an empty bowl as a prize, when a bowl is supposed to contain something," Rian said. "Comes across like a very pointed and depressing metaphor. I mean, would you like to win an empty bowl as a prize for something?"

"You're sounding like my parents again," Lori said flatly. The only difference was at this point her parents would have stopped trying to pressure her and would have just seized her property for use according to them. Those had been HER snacks! She'd gotten them from the snack table herself! Why had she needed to give them up to people too slow to do the same?

"One day, I hope to meet them and give them what they deserve," Rian said.

They had it: less one daughter.

Lori buried the memories in the taste of meat.

For some reason, Rian sighed. "Well, thanks for the bowls, your Bindership. You didn't have to and it was very generous of you."

"Yes, it was," Lori agreed. "So stop asking for more. It's greedy."

Rian nodded. "Yes, I suppose after a certain point it is," he said. "The game competitions are nearing the final stages, so I'd better go and put some fruit in this for the winners."

He stood up.

"Seize him," Lori said, pointing.

Anywhere else, she'd have been unsure people would have reacted fast enough to that order to keep Rian from leaving.

Umu, Mikon and Riz, however, reacted instantly, grabbing Rian where convenient as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "I've already slept!" he said nonsensically.

Lori pointed at his bowl. "Finish your food," she said flatly. "It's wasteful just leaving it half-eaten. I worked hard to catch those seels. Don't waste it." Really, given his strange quirk about feeling like he needed to deserve to eat, leaving food uneaten was just hypocritical on his part.

"Now who sounds like a parent?" Rian said, rolling his eyes.

But he did sit back down and finished his bowl.

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Competitions

Rian left after finishing his food. He was followed, of course, but they'd finished their food as well, so that was fine.

Lori ate her fill, then stopped so she wouldn't get a headache from all the fat. After washing her plate, ignoring people looking at her strangely as she did so, she decided to go up to her room for something sweet to chase all the meat with.

She came back down with the bag she usually used to carry lengths of firewood tied over her shoulder instead of at her hip, filled with some of her loot fruit. She'd found it sort of pushed around the edge of the stone she used to obstruct the way to her rooms. Rian's work, probably, or something he'd had done. Her hat had been there too, as well as the map. She was relieved she hadn't lost anything in that debacle. Lori had been afraid her things had just been left there where they had fallen.

A rather cold pink lady in hand, she came down to the dungeon's main level to find the game competitions had been whittled down to the last matches. She'd honestly expected the ones playing pincer to finish first, but apparently the players were taking as much time as the others in considering their moves.

Pincer was a simple game, in essence. A board divided into a hundred square spaces, enough flat pieces to occupy every space on the board with each piece painted or decorated an opposing mark or color on either side—in this case, each piece had a line carved on one side and a circle on the other, since they were made of wood chips cut from a branch—and two players. The goal was to have as many pieces on the board in your colors—or in this case, mark—by the end of the game. Players moved by putting down their pieces on unoccupied spaces on the board and bracketing or pincering your opponents pieces between your own, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Any number of opposing pieces caught in that was flipped over and considered yours, and every move must flip over at least one opposing piece to be considered a legal move. The game continued until there were no more legal moves for either player, at which point the winner was the one who had claimed the most pieces on the board.

It was a stupid game, and Lori didn't think that because she had too many memories of staring at boards with maybe five or six pieces in her colors by midgame.

Two children were the finalists. She did not know if they had managed to defeat every adult they had encountered—which seemed highly unlikely, as adults who played pincer were cheating cheaters who cheated, in Lori's opinion, and the years since she had formed that opinion had given her no cause to change it—or, more likely, only children had been part of the pincer contest. Certainly it was mainly children who surrounded the two, giving unsolicited advice or playing their own games. Most of the adult spectators were gathered around those playing chatrang and lima, of which two games each were still being played. Likely the winner of their respective game would challenge each other.

Whichever was the case, the children looked much closer to finishing their game than the ones playing chatrang and lima. All the corners had been occupied, as had the edges. They were now working on taking over the few remaining empty spots in the centers of the four quadrants. At a casual glance, circle had a clear majority, though it seemed line did not wish to concede and was fighting to absolute occupation, a stance Lori was very familiar with. Some of her most memorable—only—victories in pincer had been finding that last space that allowed her to pincer large numbers of her opponents pieces at the last moment.

Three of the bowls Lori had given Rian had been placed on a table that faced where the games were being played, each rotated so that the inlaid 'Winner' was pointed at the ongoing games. While the chatrang and lima players—Lori was surprised to recognize one of the lima players as medic Daising—kept their concentration on their game, the two playing pincer occasionally glanced at the bowl oriented towards them, their desire clear.

Lori approached the bowls, looked inside and nodded. Each bowl contained exactly three fruits. Rian had clearly placed one of his fruits in each bowl, and Umu and Mikon had followed in his example. It was ungrateful of them, to not appreciate the gift they had been given, but it WAS their property, and they could do with it as they wished. Though at this rate, they wouldn't have anything left for to enjoy for themselves.

Shaking her head, Lori took a bite from the pink lady in her hand, which was still pleasantly cool. The insides were a far more vivid pink compared to the outside, almost fleshy in appearance. Its texture had changed slightly due to cold storage, but it was sweet and fibrous and wonderfully chewy. While not quite as sweet or soft as she was used to eating, since it hadn’t been preserved in syrup, it was still delicious. A worthy prize to have negotiated in reparations, indeed.

A pity about the lack of syrup. If she had syrup, it would have tasted better. Also, she'd have been able to store her fruits for a much longer period of time.

Realistically, even she wouldn't be able to consume that many fruits in the time frame that they would last even with cold storage.

Not that she'd admit that to Rian. Or anyone else for that matter. That would be showing weakness and complying with the expectations, setting future precedent.

Case in point, it was entirely for her own reasons, in this case to prevent waste by spoilage, that she placed a pink lady, a golden bud and a mican into each bowl from the bag over her shoulder. Not for any other reason. Certainly not because Rian had been asking her earlier. Quite the opposite.

It was still not enough to fill the bowl. She had made the bowl large, the way she had seen certain kinds of trophies be large. She hadn't had time to put in a base or handles, since she was mass producing, so it was just a large, wide bowl. Always useful, containers. Whoever won this would probably find a use for it.

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Not that long afterwards, the pincer game ended, to various cheers from the children spectating.

To her amusement, various small fruits, coils of crudely made line, and what looked like rocks were exchanged among the spectators. Apparently the children had bet on who would win. Predictably, a few tried to run off rather than pay their debt, which led to very loud running around as the winning party gave chase.

The players, for their part, seemed to have ended their game amicably. One, a boy she vaguely recognized, was cheering at having won, while his opponent had wilted almost dramatically once the final tally of the game had become clear.

Rian seemed to just suddenly appear as he loudly declared the boy the winner of the last match and officially the demesne's Pincer Champion, raising up the boy's for some strange reason. Riz and Umu came up, carrying one of the bowls between them, which was presented to the boy. He was unable to lift it and had to place it on the table next to the pincer board as Rian loudly congratulated him.

This was because the bowl was full, and nearing overflowing. Just on the side Lori could see, in addition to being piled high with happyfruit and hairy blueballs, there was a fist-sized candle, a dark ceramic cup that shone with glaze, a wooden plate, and various other things. Rian was surprised when he saw the bowl, and stepped aside for Mikon, who was carrying an armful of things that had apparently fallen off when the two had been carrying it to where the newly dubbed Pincer Champion was. More fruit, a hat woven from reeds, what looked like carved pieces of wood…

Even as Lori watched, one of the nearby children put a coil of crudely made line in the bowl, then patted the winner on the shoulder.

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"Huh," Rian said as the two of them stared down at the two remaining bowls for the winners of the chatrang and lima competitions. The last pair of players from each were facing off against one another now, surrounded by a rotating crowd who kept going from one game to the other to watch the progress. "I'll admit, this is unexpected. Very welcome and affirms my belief in the basic good to be found in people, but unexpected."

The bowls contained several of the things Lori had seen in the bowl for the winner of the pincer competition—a candle each, a wooden plate, a glazed cup, a folded sheet of plain undyed cloth, what looked like a whetstone. The fruit had been pushed to the side so they wouldn't be bruised by the heavier things. Left to stand, the contents just barely managed to not fall off. She fingered the undyed cloth. Was this what the weavers had managed to make using the ropeweed fibers?

"This wasn't your doing?" Lori said mildly. "You didn't pester everyone else in the demesne to contribute?"

"No! What do you take me for?" Rian said.

"You pestered me," she pointed out.

"Er… that doesn't count?"

She gave him a flat look.

"Sorry…" Rian said weakly. "I guess people found it in themselves to be generous."

"Yes," a voice behind them said brightly. "Especially after I asked them to, Lord Rian."

Both Lori and Rian turned around to find Riz looking very self-satisfied.

"Riz?" Rian said.

"I talked to my friends about how you needed help finding prizes for the winners of today's competitions," the woman said proudly. "Asked them to spread the word and maybe find something small that would be worth winning for someone. And it looks like they did!"

She looked triumphantly at the bowls like she had personally provided each and every thing there.

Behind her, Umu and Mikon glared at her murderously. Umu was making thrusting motions, as if fantasizing about stabbing her in the back with a knife.

"This is probably a good time for you to check the bowls for the winners of the other competitions," Lori told her lord.

"Yeah, the fruits might be getting bruised," Rian agreed.

"Also, the longer you leave them unwatched, the more likely some idiot decides to add shit to it," Lori said.

Rian, Umu, Mikon and Riz stared at her, Umu still making thrusting movements.

"We had people putting shit on the latrine seats, clearly there are people who think it's amusing," Lori reminded her lord.

"I want to say you're wrong, but I've seen proof you're not," Rian sighed.

"What happened to your belief in the basic good to be found in people?" Lori said.

"As is depressingly common, it was overridden in my belief that people will do stupid things, like ride on moving rocks."

"Or try to go hunting while sleep deprived?"

"Have to go check the prizes, excuse me!"

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Fortunately, no one had put shit in the prize bowls. Given they were standing out in the open on a table next to the square that had been marked off earlier, this was perhaps reasonable, since any twisted person trying to add it would be in full view of many people, including some who would probably be competing and would not want their prize befouled in such a way.

Outside, the air was still full of cooking smells, but not a lot of cooking was going on. It seemed everyone was still satisfied by breakfast, and Lori really couldn't blame them. She might have to put off catching more seels for later.

For some reason, Rian looked around and sighed. "I have to go check that someone is cleaning the latrines," he said. "All this eating, they're probably filled up, and people who usually clean them are probably taking their holiday too." He turned to Lori, wringing his hands. "Can I beg for help? We need those things functional, or else we might have a small epidemic from the unsanitary latrines, and that's NOT how I want to start using the promise of healing you managed to negotiate."

Lori frowned, but supposed her lord was right. At the least, she could desiccate the contents of the latrines, compacting them so the latrines could last longer. She had nothing better to do anyway, and with her full of food, she couldn't even eat to occupy her time. She might as well do something productive for her demesne's infrastructure. "I'm not doing all of it," she told him flatly.

"We could wait until after the chatrang and lima competitions are over so I can help you," Rian said. "I'd help you right now, but it seems wrong to award their prizes while smelling like cleaning latrines. Might turn them off the fruits in it."

"We can help her, Lord Rian!" Umu said.

Mikon nodded, patting the blonde woman on the shoulder. "That's right, I'm sure Umu will be glad to help her Bindership with this, Lord Rian. Unfortunately, I, uh, have something to do, or else I'd be there myself. I'm so sorry."

"Huh?" Umu said, blinking in surprise.

"It's a shit job, but good on you for volunteering," Riz said, nodding.

"W-wait…" Umu said as she began to realize what she'd done.

Lori gave Umu a flat look. "Rian, where are the equipment for cleaning the latrines kept?"