Demesne 172 - Traveling In Winter (Patreon)

"Aren't you going to put on your winter robe?" Rian asked as he put the carefully wrapped bundle of Lori's bed roll into the special cargo box in the hold of the Coldhold. The bedroll had been wrapped up and secured by a pair of cords that Umu and Mikon had hurriedly stitched to the bedroll itself at Rian's suggestion, 'to keep them from being misplaced when they're needed'. Since it was on the nominal underside of the bed roll, Lori had just shrugged and left them to it. The bedroll was followed by her blanket and her pillow.

Lori frowned at him. "Why?" she said, handing him the winter robe in question, which had been secured with the sash that came with it so it wouldn't get loose and unfold. She'd gotten used to using the garment as a second blanket, but beyond that…

Rian shrugged, sniffed, and disgustingly wiped the drip from his nose with the towel near his face and argh! "All right, as you please," he said, putting the winter robe on top of her bedroll in one of the cargo boxes. They were new, simple boxes whose corners were covered in blocks of bound ice that were inserted into recesses between the planks of the floor to keep them from sliding around that they were using as a test. After all, while glass was impervious to darkwisps, ice was not. Inside the boxes were Rian's own bedroll, blanket, pillow and a change of clothes, as well as the bedrolls of those accompanying them: one of the blacksmiths, three other people to help carry the hopefully to be refined metals that they would be bringing back, and the men who had become the regular crew of the Coldhold and took it down to the ocean to collect salt. Most of the hold was empty for exactly that purpose, save for a store of firewood that would be burned on the new, very carefully secured braziers to keep them warm, not that Lori needed it.

It was unlikely that Lori would actually need to stay overnight at River's Fork, but Rian had advised her to bring her sleeping equipment 'just in case'… and Rian readily admitted that 'just in case' was to avoid her taking his bedroll, pillow and blanket, which he had also packed 'just in case'. While Lori had learned that refined metal was left to cool overnight, possibly over several days if it was very hot, she had no desire to stay for that, which was why they were bringing people that they could leave behind to watch the metal so that River's Fork wouldn't be tempted to abscond or be creative with the recordkeeping of the metal.

"All right," Rian declared as straightened. "Food's on board, lots of space for cargo, we all have room to sleep, I've had what used to be the brig refurbished into a private room for you so you can have privacy, and the latrine seats have been cleaned. You'll need to put in a light yourself since there aren't any windows, though. We're ready to go. Are you sure you don't want to put on the winter robe?"

Lori waved dismissively. "I don't need it."

Rian shrugged. "All right then. Well, all the cargo's in. We can start the experiment now." He said it eagerly, and Lori had to wonder if he followed the Mysteries of Alknowledge. Rian never said it, but she wouldn't be surprised, and it would certainly explain why he was knowledgeable about so many disparate things.

Lori deactivated the bindings of lightwisps that supplemented the illumination in the space inside the Coldhold before she reached out to the small room at the front of the boat and bound the darkwisps that lingered there. They streamed out of the small space, darkening the hold as she carefully began to bind them around the boxes. It was trickier that it would have normally have been. The containers were made of wood, and treated to keep out water, so she had not earthwisps to bind the darkwisps to. So she had to bind the darkwisps to the blocks of water beneath to anchor them to the containers. After that, she covered the side of the containers and made the darkwisps close over the top, doing so for each container. When Lori was finished, each of the experimental containers had the appearance of a square of night-like, opaque blackness that were laid out in an orderly line along one wall.

"We'll have to remember to check it before we River Fork's demesne," Rian mused as Lori opened her mouth to allow darkwisps from within her lung emerge, combining them with each boxes binding so that she could imbue them once they were out of her demesne.

"Yes Rian," Lori said in withering tones as she applied the darkwisps and made sure they were fully imbued before she reactivated the lightwisps, raising the illumination back to reasonable levels. "As I was the one who formulated the parameters of the test, I remember this."

"I'm simply reminding myself, your Bindership," Rian said, switching to a cheerful tone. "After all, I wouldn't want to forget and have to do this experiment all over again. Best to do it all right the first time."

Well… she couldn't fault that kind of thinking. It kept them from wasting time, after all. "I can't fault your reasoning. Best not to waste time. Tell them we can begin to move."

"Yes, your Bindership!" Rian said, his cheerfulness seeming to change, becoming… well, more cheerful, somehow. "You heard her, everyone! Cottsy, get the driver ready! Multaw, get ready to back us out! Everyone else, sit down and hold on so you don't fall off!" Rian looked back towards Lori. "You might want to sit down in your room, your Bindership. All the swaying takes some getting used to, and you usually sit when we travel, right?"

Lori glanced towards the foremost room of the boat as Rian made his way up. While the original plan had been to demolish the walls after it was no longer needed to contain anyone, letting them expand the rest of the space in the hull of the boat, they'd never really gotten around to it. Doing so would have required them to remove the ice of the internal wall, then the carpenters would have needed to carefully remove the wooden beams. Rian had mentioned the men were using it to store their sleeping paraphernalia, food and supplies so that they'd be away from the salt, and that was probably the best use for it so they wouldn't have to rebuild the boat again. Now, however, it was her own personal room, in case they had to stay overnight in River's Fork for some reason. Lori hadn't suggested it, hadn't even thought of it until Rian had informed her so.

She recalled the cramped, crowded conditions of the boat she had taken to travel across the ocean, shuddered and entered headed for room, her staff beating a familiar rhythm on the floor panels and ice as she walked. Entering the little room, Lori looked around. On the wall opposite the door were three beds that folded into the wall, the middle one already folded down as a sort of bench. Lori sat down, making herself comfortable and she claimed and bound what few lightwisps were streaming in through the open door and imbued them, anchoring them to some ice between some planks to illuminate her new temporary quarters. It was very cramped, and was more an oversized closet than an actual bedroom. The beds ran down the whole width of the room, and with the bed down it seemed three fifths of the available floor space was occupied.

Really, it was all wonderfully comfortable and cozy. She felt sorry for Rian, needing to sleep crowded outside while the three prisoners had enjoyed such wonderful accommodations.

The movement of the boat changed. It was slightly disorienting, feeling the shifts in balance when her eyes told her she was standing perfectly still in a room where nothing moved, but she supposed she'd get used to it. Sighing, Lori set down her staff on the bench against the wall and lay down next to it, stretching out as she closed her eyes and began running through the bindings she had to maintain, checking her connections to all of them and imbuing them…

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Lori was in the middle of a light doze when her eyes suddenly snapped open and she let out a scream.

COLD! Cold, cold, cold, COLD… WHY WAS IT SO COLD?-!

She tried to get up, and nearly fell off the bed—bench, whatever!—as the boat swayed. Lori fumbled at the door, managing to turn the latch, wrenching it open—

Rian stood on the other side, holding her winter robe in his arms out to her. "This what you're looking for?"

Lori grabbed it from his hand, snapped it in the air to unfold it open, and hastily tried to get her arms through the sleeves.

"I'll go and tell Cottsy to put the driver in reverse so we go back into the demesne, shall I?" Rian said, sounding so cheerful Loi wanted to punch him in the face.

"Do it," she managed to growl out through gritted teeth as she finally managed to get an arm into one sleeve, only to nearly stumble and fall as she stepped on her own hem.

"Careful, those things are long!" Rian said, still annoyingly cheerful as he walked to the back of the boat.

When he finally came back, he found Lori holding the robe closed with her hands, only one arm through a sleave as the other one pulled at one of the robe's flaps from the inside, binding the firewisps at her fingers to very slowly, carefully warm those extremities without raising her temperature so high that she did herself an injury.

"When the ship gets back inside the demesne and you're feeling warm again," Rian said, "Do you want me to help you put that on properly? You need to use a sash to pull up the hem and double it up around your belly so it doesn't trail along the floor." He reached into the sash around his waist and drew out the sash in question.

"You… you…" Lori was barely able to articulate, never mind the thought she was trying to accuse him of. "You…!"

"Hey, I didtry to warn you to put on your winter robe," Rian said, shrugging. "You were the one who kept saying she didn't need to. I mean, I sort of suspected you might not be as warm outside of your demesne, but you were so insistent I figured you knew something I didn't."

Lori glared at him until she suddenly found herself 'moderately cool' instead of 'freezing from the very air around her' and let out a sigh of relief as her jaw stopped wanting to clench and fingers stopped wanting to be set on fire.

"Feeling better?" Rian said.

"Much," Lori said curtly, finally letting the flap of the robe got and letting it hang open. She knew the irritation at Rian was irrational but… well, it was irrational, but she didn't care. "Did you find that amusing, listening at my door and waiting for me to start freezing?" she ground out.

"At little," Rian admitted easily. "But don't worry, no one else did. Everyone else except Cottsy is outside around the brazier, and the driver makes so much noise I doubt Cottsy heard you. So your dignity is safe."

Very irritated. But… "Thank you," she muttered sullenly.

"No problem. What are lords for, if not to keep people away from you, tell you how cold it is, bring you food, make farms in your name…" Rian shrugged. "Now, raise your arms for a moment so I can get this on your shoulders properly, then I'm going to need you to hold the front so you can adjust the length… "