Demesne Patron EX SS 19 – Cause And Consequence (Patreon)

As Shana sat in the warm pool of bathwater that had admittedly become something of an overindulgence, she tried to take what comfort she could from the heat. She and her guide Karina sat alone in the pool they had chosen, the other women in the baths seemingly reluctant to intrude on the place she had claimed. Sometimes other girls would join them, but never any adults.

The isolation was one familiar to her now, after all these months of being her demesne's Dungeon Binder. Men and women she had known growing up, whom she had traveled with, treated her with a distant respect that almost but did not quite conceal pity for her circumstances. Others, strangers newly come to the demesne that was now hers, regarded her warily, not knowing what to make of a child as Dungeon Binder, a thing found only in stories that even children didn't really believe was possible. However, their wariness slowly turned to resentment from unpleasant but necessary orders.

The bath occupied her thoughts now. Made from what was clearly whispered stone since it lacked the strata and organization that untouched natural stone possessed, it was an understated sign of Lorian Demesne's prosperity, one of many that filled the settlement. There were the many stone structures, the new stone walls intended to hold back the river when it overflowed its banks, the tunnels of ice—now gone—that had allowed people to move around without being obstructed by the snow or chilled by the wind…

The Dungeon itself, while much smaller than the shelter in the little edge fortress town she had grown up in, was extravagantly spacious for the number of people it sheltered. Instead of tight, packed confines that smelled of mud and sweat and the faint traces of blood from Iridescence pocks from those whose wounds never closed completely anymore, it had been wide and open. Light filled every level, and the air was fresh and clean.

Lorian Demesne was prospering, and looked to continue to prosper. Tomorrow they were even going to have a holiday, not to commemorate any particular event but to simply to rest and celebrate. And from the way they spoke of it, it wasn't their first one. According to what she had heard, and her guide had clarified, the only reason that the demesne hadn't had one during winter was because Binder Lolilyuri had forbidden it, likely to try and conserve their food supplies.

It was all a sharp contrast to her own demesne, and the things that her fa—

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Her left arm rose and slapped her cheek hard, distracting her from the pain within. She blinked, then shook her head, pushing down all the irrelevancies. Next to her, Karina was staring at her intently. It wasn't the first time her guide had seen this happen to her, but every time it had, her guide would stare at her. Soon, Karina would—

"Are you all right?" Karina asked.

"I am well," Shana said, scooping up some of the warm water and flicking it over her shoulder to warm the back of her neck. She picked up her flow of thought where it had fallen. This demesne was a sharp contrast to her own, and the things that her predecessor had shaped with Deadspeaking. Many of the houses in her demesne now stood abandoned, or used as storage for the firewood they had gathered, if it hadn't been turned into firewood from damage inflicted by the passing dragons. "As I always am."

Karina made a face expressing her skepticism. "It's not normal for people to just slap themselves in the face. Maybe a Menty put a formy on you?"

Shana recognized the childish terms. "That's not how Mentalism works," she explained. "They can only do that to themselves, not other people. With other people, they can at best tell how other people are feeling, and only if they're touching them."

"How do you know?" her guide asked.

"My—"

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Her left arm rose and slapped her cheek hard. She picked up her flow of thought where it had fallen. "—mother—"

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Her left arm rose and slapped her cheek hard. She picked up her flow of thought where it had fallen. "—was one. I learned from her—"

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Her left arm rose and slapped her cheek hard. She suspected her cheek was starting to redden from the multiple impacts. She picked up her flow of thought where it had fallen. "That is how I know."

"Your inay was a Menty?"

"Yes."

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Her left arm rose. Before it reached her cheek, however, she found it being held gently in two hands.

"You shouldn't do that," Karina said, gently pulling her hand down. "Wiz Lori has funny ideas about young’uns like us getting smacked. If you keep doing it, she'll have Lord Rian smack you. He smacks everyone who smacks us young’uns like that."

Shana blinked. "I'm a young’un."

Karina nodded. "Well, it just means that after he's done smacking you for smacking you, he'll have to smack himself."

"Ah. I wouldn't want that. Thank you for stopping me."

Her guided nodded again. "Are you ready to get out now? We've been here all morning."

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"What were you thinking?" Lord Yllian—and he was definitely LordYllian and not Uncle Yllian right then—said in a low, terse voice as Aunt Daising examined her wrist where she had cut it open in her bid to Binder Lolilyuri. Despite the fact that the skin had healed unblemished and the muscles had knit together properly, the medic held her forearm in a tight grip as she carefully ran her fingers back and forth over where the wound had been, trying to detect internal injury. It was a meaningless gesture, as Shana had moved her muscles into place before healing herself, but redundancy was a traditional feature of the healing arts.

"That I am an insufficient Dungeon Binder, and the stores of food we have been relying on are dwindling," Shana said calmly. She was always calm now. No one would take her seriously if she wasn't. "We required assistance, and the only one who could provide that assistance was Binder Lolilyuri and her demesne. I secured that assistance."

"There must have been another way," Yllian said.

"If there was, they are no longer available," Shana said, waving her hand in dismissal of the idea as she had seen Binder Lolilyuri do.

"Do not dismiss this lightly, Great Binder," Yllian said the title in the tones of someone saying 'you idiot'. Shana had heard him use the same tone on her uncle and aunt when he particularly disagreed with something they said, usually on the grounds that it was a foolish idea. This was the first time she had heard the tone directed at her however. "You could have died."

"Yes, that was the point of cutting my wrist," Shana said. "Binder Lolilyuri needed to have the option of letting me die so that she could claim my core afterwards without having to break her word."

"She glittering did not," Yllian snapped. "Surely there were other options! We could have made another deal. We have before."

"And what would we have bargained with?" If he was going to ignore the fact the Aunt Daising could hear them, then she saw no reason not to do so as well. "I had already put forward healing as payment before. The only assets we have left to bargain with are the mining rights to the copper mine, and the fruits available to harvest. Anything else we have to offer, they already possess."

"And so you sold everything we have worked for?"

"Yes," she said bluntly. "Otherwise we might not have lasted until summer. Binder Lolilyuri is transactional in her dealings. By that count, we only have two transactions left that she might possibly be interested in unless by some random chance her demesne becomes desperate for firewood or latrine waste. By giving her the demesne, on the condition she treats its residents as she already treats her own, it puts her in a position where she is required to improve its infrastructure and keep its residents alive."

"She regards her people as expendable."

"No, that's just Landoor."

Yllian and Shana both looked towards the door of the hospital, which was just closing behind Lord Rian. Like the two of them, his clothes were stained with her blood, and for the first time in her long dealings with the man, he was not smiling. Indeed, his expression could even be described as dour. In one hand, he held a plate full of some cooked meat, a fork on the plate held down by his thumb. "He managed to engender Lori's contempt with his gullibility, so now he has the unenviable position of being the person whose name she remembers that she has the lowest personal regard for. In fact, I'm pretty sure her regard is in the negative values. And given how I can talk usually her out of it, she's not really all that serious about it."

His face remained unchanged as he spoke. He didn't smile even as he said what might have been a joke or offer any sort of comfort. In fact, his gaze was piercing and clearly displeased as he approached the bed she had been seated on for the examination of her wrist.

"Lord Rian," she acknowledged.

"Binder Shanalorre," he said, voice utterly flat. Not 'Shana', as was his habit when speaking to her. "I'm not going to waste anyone's time asking questions like 'how are you', though an answer to 'are you insane' would be nice." Despite the words, he was clearly unamused. He put the place down on the bed next to her. "Here. Eat this. It's beast liver. It tastes awful since there's no sauce or spices, but it'll help with replenishing your blood. I'm having more liver and marrow cooked too while we're at it, but this was finished first. You're going to eat it and get better. That is not a request. Is it understood?"

Standing next to the bed, Yllian looked torn between agreeing and anger at the apparent disrespect for her as a Dungeon Binder. While he had disapproved of her uncle's idea of trying to get her to bond with the demesne's core and had been utterly horrified to learn she had managed it, Yllian was a firm believer in showing respect for rank despite his opinions of the person holding it. Tellingly, he chose to remain silent.

"I understand, Lord Rian," Shana said.

"Good." For a moment, he left it at that, looking down at Shana in disapproval. "Were the results of your little stunt to your satisfaction?"

Shana contemplated staying silent. However, a lie of omission would gain her nothing at this point. His knowing the truth and passing it on to Binder Lolilyuri didn't matter. "It was," she said. "I am thankful that Binder Lolilyuri chose to allow me to live. I look forward to my future as her subject."

"Given her stated reasons for keeping you alive, you're more of an object than a subject," Rian said, face still disapproving. What did that… oh. Language component humor. "Well, I'm glad utterly ruining everyone's holiday by scarring their minds was worth it for you." That was probably sarcasm on his part.

Shana blinked. She tilted her head in thought as she contextualized his statement, belatedly linking it to her actions. "Ah. I hadn't considered that."

"Of course you didn't. Why would you?" Rian said through gritted teeth. "See, it's because of shit like this that I once suggested you don't try and use Lori as a role model for acting like a Dungeon Binder! It's hard enough having to try to compensate for the antics of one person with only sporadic self-awareness of the consequences of her actions, much less two! Fucking shit!"

Ah. "I apologize for the difficulty this puts you in, Lord Rian," Shana said. "However, it had to be done." Her demesne needed competent leadership, and despite her best efforts, despite delegating and taking advice, despite careful thought and planning, she was not enough. She had barely managed to keep the demesne stagnant at the best of times, and now it was clear that things had slowly been degenerating. While things were not yet irreparable, it was unlikely she had the ability to repair it. Ironic, given the only meaning she was capable of healing.

Her demesne needed the guiding hand of a Dungeon Binder. A real Dungeon Binder, one who knew what they were doing.

"Probably," Rian said, to Shana's surprise. "But even so, you picked an absolutely stupid way of going about it. Do better next time."

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Next time?

"Next time?"

For the first time since this conversation began, Rian smiled. It wasn't a comforting smile. It was, in fact, one that could be construed as a malicious one. "Of course next time, Binder Shanalorre. Did you think your part in this was over, now that you've essentially begged Lori to conquer you?."

Shana frowned. "I had thought I would be assigned to the hospital so I could best utilize my healing."

Rian smiled vanished as he gave her a flat look. "Shana, now that you've surrendered yourself to Lori, as the only other wizard in two demesnes, you're our spare. If anything happens to Lori, you're our only hope of surviving… again."

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…no… she couldn't, not again… She wasn't good enough, she—…

"You weren't ready the first time," Rian said as if he were reading her thoughts and interpreting them. "Fine. That's fair. Expected, even. Only an idiot would think otherwise. After all, you never expected to have to learn how to do it. Well, you don't have that excuse this time. because while you've managed to remove yourself from leadership…" He shrugged. "There's no telling what life brings. But the day might come, hopefully not any day soon, that you might once more be the only one there to bond with a core. Do you want things to turn out the same way? Or do you want to do better next time?"

Shana stared at him.

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Her left arm tried to rise and slap her cheek, but it was still in Aunt Daising's grip. All it could do was twitch abortively.

Rian sighed. "Eat your liver," he said. "I'm having your things moved to the shelter. Yllian… take care of her. Please?"

Yllian pursed his lips, but nodded. Rian left.

Next to her, Aunt Daising nodded in satisfaction. "Your muscles are in good order," she said. "All are properly connected, and you have full use of your hand. Though if you feel any numbness or pains that you didn't before, inform me or one of the others at once. Surgery might be required to correct any ill connections."

"Understood. Thank you, Aunt Daising," Shana said.

Her expression never changing, Aunt Daising reached out and pinched Shana's ear hard, twisting it just enough to get her attention. "If you were one of mine," the medic said, "I'd smack you for that stunt, Binder Lori's laws or not. What were you thinking, child? This is not what Koshay and Lavin would have wanted for you."

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Her left arm rose and came to rest on the arm holding her ear. "I was Dungeon Binder of River's Fork Demesne. I did what I had to do to keep as many of the people under my care alive. Just as my predecessors did." She gripped Aunt Daising's wrist and pressed her thumb on a particular spot. The grip on her ear suddenly weakened, and she gently pulled away the woman's hand. "It is not what is wanted, but it is what was taught."

She picked up the plate of cooked liver and began to eat. It tasted as terrible as implied. Shana continued eating unperturbed.