Demesne 224 - One More Day (Patreon)

It soon became clear that trying to build a flood barrier in front of the passageway into her Dungeon would not be practical. The entrance, while wide enough to deal with the daily traffic of everyone in her demesne walking through it every day, would be hard pressed to continue to function if there was a three pace high barrier in the way. The only way to navigate such a thing would be to build in ramps—which would be unreasonably steep or unreasonably long—or some kind of stairs. The length of such stairs would make them as problematic as the ramps, while creating a wall and then adding stairs to the faces of each side would drastically limit the traffic in the passageway. That wasn't even getting into how dangerous such stairs would be in the snow, or how the snow melter would be in the way.

Another option that she considered was clearing the whole area in front of her Dungeon of snow, and then building the flood barrier outside the passage. While that would still have the problem of also obstructing entry in and out of her Dungeon, she'd have more space to build a solution, such as different stairs for those coming in and going out. The problem was a flood barrier that took up that much space would be right in front of the other structures in front of her Dungeon's, creating a narrow avenue of traffic that was sure to limit access to them…

…

Lori wished she didn't have to be the one to do this. She wished that there was someone she could just order to construct such a thing, to have to deal with all the considerations and needing to second guess and having to consider and reconsider options. Someone she could just leave this to while she did something else.

But there was no one. She was the only wizard her demesne had, and it was too dangerous to allow anyone more experienced than Shanalorre into her demesne…

…

For a moment, Lori just stood there, leaning against the stone wall of the passage to her Dungeon, ignoring everyone passing by as they ignored her in turn. Next to her was the pile of stone she'd been using to start building the flood barrier, which she'd torn down when people had started crowding around he as they had tried to go in and out of her Dungeon. Then she took a deep breath, turned, and got back to work.

She reached out and claimed all the waterwisps in the snow outside of the entrance to her Dungeon. After all, she'd need a clear space to work…

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Lori was sitting in quiet frustration at her usual table, glaring at the tabletop as she waited for lunch, when Rian sat down opposite her.

"All right, we should be good for bread for dinner, and a little less bread in all subsequent meals, with slightly more tubers and water," he said.

Lori looked up. "What?" she asked tiredly. Most of the morning had been a waste, from her perspective. She hadn't really managed to build anything, and all she'd done was clear some snow that would likely start being replaced that evening.

Rian sighed. "The flour is being milled, so we'll have bread for dinner. We'll smaller servings of bread in subsequent meals that will have less meat and a little bit more water in the soup to draw out the meat we have. We're also increasing the amount of tubers a little bit because we can afford to. That should let us have meals with a little less meat that are just as filling."

Oh, right, the food thing.

"As long as we have enough to eat," Lori said, once more wishing her bench had a back so she could lean on it and get comfortable. Instead she went back to resting her elbows on the table and closed her eyes again.

"Um, are you all right? You seem tired."

"I'm fine," Lori said, not opening her eyes.

For a moment, there was only the usual din of the dining hall.

"You know, if you're tired, maybe you should just rest this afternoon?" Rian suggested. "Take a nap instead of expanding the demesne to—"

He cut off as Lori let out a groan of frustration. Yes, she had to expand the demesne this afternoon, didn't she? She'd forgotten about that! She'd been thinking of going back to work this afternoon for the flood barriers, but…

Her forehead met the tabletop, and she just leaned on it as she shook in frustration.

"Lori," Rian said, and she opened one eye to glare at him, "you're making me worried. What's the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter," she snapped. "I just have a flood barrier I need to build that I haven't managed to start yet, and which I won't be able to start today since I have to expand my demesne this afternoon, so everything I did this morning has just been a waste of time!"

Rian nodded, even as Umu—when had she gotten there?—leaned away and tried not to be noticed. "If it's so important, why not skip the expansion for today and get to work then?"

"Because I need to expand the demesne," Lori said. "It's not like I can leave that to anyone else!"

"Then why don't you do that and leave building the flood barrier to someone else?" Rian said.

Oh, how she wished. "Oh, how I wish." Her tone was bitter.

"All right then, it's settled. You take care of expanding the demesne, and I'll see about getting a start on the flood barrier," Rian said.

Lori stared at him. "What?"

"I don't think we'll actually be able to build much, but I can have the stonemasons and anyone else who feels they can help survey the area that needs to be protected from flood and we can at least submit a proposal to you," he said. "We can do that this afternoon while you're expanding and tomorrow you can decide if what we come up with is feasible or to your taste. Tomorrow we might be able to dig out the dirt and clear it to the bedrock for you too, depending on how hard the ground is. Would be faster if we could melt the ground a little, but we can light some fires for that… well, it will depend on what you want us to do."

Lori continued to stare at him.

"What?"

"Can you actually do all that?" she said.

"I don't know," Rian said. "I'll have to ask. Maybe people will have experience at this, or at least have some ideas. Maybe they'll be completely ignorant and the best we can do is grab shovels and keep the area clear for you so you don't have to waste your time keeping the snow off where you're working. All I know is we have a lot more men and woman with no work they really need to do, and our Dungeon Binder looks like she's about to cry from how tired she is."

"I am notabout to cry!" she snapped.

"Noted. Are you tired though?"

Loir did not dignify that with a response, sitting straighter on her bench. Ugh, she wished she had a backrest!

"I've been keeping track," Rian said quietly. It was just quiet enough that people in other tables probably couldn't hear, but she had to lean forward to make it out. "There's maybe four days I can maybe say you didn't work all day this winter: the three days Shana was here, and that one day you had me play chatrang with you. No holidays either, so you didn't even have any excuses to stop for a day. Of course you're tired."

"I'm fine," Lori said irritably.

Rian nodded. "You're fine, yes. But you're also tired. So why don't you rest? Just this afternoon. After lunch, go up to your room, lie down and take a nap. I'll call you for dinner, or have some food set aside for you when you wake up. You can go back to working tomorrow, and maybe we'll have gotten something done that can help you by then."

The suggestion was tempting… so, so tempting…

"Fine, do this survey you want to do," Lori said brusquely. "We'll discuss it tomorrow. But I'm not resting. I have a demesne to expand while I can."

Rian sighed, but nodded. "Then if you'll excuse me, your Bindership, I have people I need to talk to." He rose and left, walking quickly. Lori didn't bother to see where he went. Instead, she just leaned her elbows onto the table again, rested her head in her hands, and closed her eyes. The food wasn't ready yet, so she had a few moments to rest…

Lori didn't fall asleep at the table, though it did take her a few moments to open her eyes when Mikon hesitantly said, "Your Bindership? The food is ready?"

She blearily opened one eye, then straightened and grabbed one of the bowls of food. No bread yet. It still wasn't ready. Lori ate quickly and methodically, waiting for Rian to come back.

He didn't.

When she finally finished the contents of her bowl—it didn't take long, with no Rian distracting her with his reports—Lori stood up, looking around. She saw Rian standing several tables away, seemingly talking to someone there. He didn't look up as she turned away and headed for her room.

It was routine by then. Laying out her bedroll into the corner next to her bed where she could sit upright, then getting into position, closing her eyes, and creating the binding that she'd use to expand her demesne. Ignoring how heavy she felt, she leaned back and began expanding her demesne…

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Lori jerked awake. What…?

There was another knock on her door and she tried to sit up, only to find she was already sitting up and her neck was annoyed with her because her head had been lolling to one side. Wincing, she blearily stumbled over her bed, her bedroll sliding out from under her, and made for her door. Her feet shuffled unsteadily on the cold floor as she rubbed her eyes of sleep sand.

She unlatched her door as she muttered darkly about going back to sealing off the passage to her room, then tiredly opened the door. "Who died?" she muttered in annoyance at, of course, Rian.

He smiled for some reason. "Oh good, you managed to get some rest," he said with annoying cheerfulness. "It's dinner time. though if you want I can bring the food up to you and you can have it as a middle of the night snack?"

Lori stared at him. Then she groaned as she remembered.

"This is probably a very good indicator you need a lot more rest," Rian said, still annoyingly cheerful. "Why don't you sleep tomorrow, too? We have enough wood that if we set some bonfire fires in the right spots, we can dig up the ground to get at the bedrock and get it ready for you to build. If we mix the soil with some of the desiccated latrine waste, we should be able to make more tuber planters, since we'd need you for setting up the plots in the Dungeon farm."

She'd fallen asleep! Exactly what she'd said she wouldn't do! Had she even—yes, she remembered expanding the demesne once, and… Lori checked. There was a binding around her demesne, filled with some imbuement. She must have fallen asleep while imbuing it…

"This doesn't mean I'm tired," Lori snapped.

"It does, actually," Rian said, still annoyingly cheerful. "Fortunately, it's easy to fix. You just have to spend tomorrow resting."

"I don't need to rest!"

"It does, actually. That's what being tired means. Look, you've made me go to sleep plenty of times when I've been tired. Now it's your turn to rest. For the good of the demesne."

Lori gave him a flat look that was immediately ruined when the urge to yawn filled her. She managed to keep her teeth clenched together and her lips shut, but there was nothing to be done about the obvious deep breath.

Rian, color him, didn't say anything, just looked at her cheerfully.

"I don't need to rest," Lori said again once she was sure another yawn wasn't going to happen in the middle of her words.

"Everyone needs to rest eventually," Rian said. "Now is the absolute best time for it."

"How is thisthe best time?"

"There isn't a dragon coming after us, everything is running smoothly, and we have a lot of people with not much to do and plenty of energy they need to use. We can help you. Please, let us help you."

"I don't need help. It's just a simple building project. I was merely overwhelmed and frustrated this morning, so I wasn't able to make much progress on it, but I'm fine now. I can get started on it tomorrow."

With each word, the annoying cheerfulness on Rian's face became visibly strained. "Well, at least rest one more day! Just do nothing but eat and play board games with Mikon or something! One more day, that's all I ask! Just one day where you don't go out to the edge or expand the demesne before you start building things to keep floods out. Please, just one day!"

Lori stepped back as Rian leaned towards her. He paused, then deliberately took two steps back, his hands that had been wringing the air as his fingers kept flexing open and closed both moving to his back as he started leaning on the wall. "Please," he repeated, sounding more calm. "Just… rest one more day. That's all I ask. One day where you rest and relax and do nothing but eat and play games. Please?"

Her eyelids wanted to droop, but Lori stoically forced them open, and disguised the yawn that wanted to come out of her by taking a deep, deliberate breath as if she was trying to calm herself. "Fine," she said, a strange relief filling her as she waved a hand dismissively. "Fine, I'll 'rest'. Though I still think it's a waste of time."

Rian blinked "Really? You'll really rest?"

"I said I would, didn't I?" she snapped.

"You'll stay in the Dungeon all day? No expanding?"

"Yes, yes, fine!" The thought of not having to leave her demesne to brave the cold to make beads, of not having to claim the earth and sky and then wrestle it with her will alone to push beyond her demesne's borders… something in her back seemed to come loose at the very thought of it. "I'll rest tomorrow, all right?"

Rian sighed, sounding relieved. "All right… okay, then. Thank you."

"Why are you thanking me? It's just resting. It's not as if I'll be doing something difficult."

"Well, that's true," Rian said, sighing again. "So… will you be having dinner, then?"

"Of course I'll be having dinner. Why wouldn't I be having dinner?" She stomped past him, heading down to the dining hall.

Then she stomped back, because she wasn't wearing her shoes, and stomping in her socks had hurt.

The honey bread was delicious.