Demesne

Once Lori had gotten used to the placement of her bead-making table—with both the table and her chair slotted into place she couldn't just push off from the work surface—it wasn't all that different from when she'd made beads in her ice shed.

…

No, that was a lie, there were significant differences. Thanks to the open sides of the boat, she had significantly more air circulation, such that she didn't have to really place any airwisps to keep herself cool. The sunshade and the firewisps deleting heat anchored to it were quite sufficient for cooling.

However, it was also noisier. There was the sound of the river splashing against the sides of the boat, the occasional cries of beasts, bugsong coming from either shore of the river—the two of which were no longer muffled by a thick layer of bound ice—and most annoying of all… Riz and her friends talking. Previously, there had also been a thicker layer of bound ice between herself and their chatter, but no more. And since her chair was in the relative center of the boat, it didn't matter where they sat, they physically couldn't be any further from her.

To their credit, the bugsong was actually louder than they were, so it wasn't worth it to tell them to be quiet. Lori just made a binding of airwisps over her ears to muffle the noise, then moved on to work. Bead-making itself wasn't any different, although she had to be careful of where she placed the jar of Iridescence. She couldn't put it on the floor or the water would get at it, and she'd overlooked putting some kind of side table. Fortunately, the boat was stable enough that Lori was able to place the jar on the lateral plank that her chair was slotted into, which did the job for now. Still, she'd need to have Rian inform the carpenters she needed something to keep her material out of the water. even just a box would do.

However, once she accounted for that, making beads was simply a familiar, repetitive process. Remove a piece of the imbued binding from the bone tablet she'd anchored it to, anchor it to the bone inlaid into the side of one of the trenches in her bead-making table, start imbuing the binding through the metal contact under her foot that was connected the metal plate on the table, add a piece of Iridescence from the jar—held in her copper tweezers because why touch the colors directly—directly to the binding, and as the crystal started trapping the wisps, start the process that would amalgamate the Iridescence and binding together into a wispbead.

Repeat until the tray was full of growing beads. Once they had all grown enough that their own shape lifted them up and off the contact plate on the table, Lori poured the finished beads into the catch trough, and had Riz and her friends start scooping up the beads into the large leather sacks they'd also brought along when while she made more beads. It wasn't like they were doing anything else, after all. Despite sighs and groaning, they all worked quickly and efficiently and managed not to bump the table as Lori went back to work making more beads.

When the shards of Iridescence in the jar were depleted, it was time to head back. All of her sacks were full, ready to run all of her bound tools. The next time she did this she'd have to make some large beads as well, but those take up far more preparation, and she'd been busy expanding the demesne yesterday. Actually, she wouldn't even need to retrieve the thing herself. After all, if Rian was already going to be heading to the edge of the demesne…

She might as well add an errand to that trip.

When they returned, lunch had apparently just started, since there was still a fairly long line of people getting food from the kitchen and only a few people were already eating. Even taking a brief moment to have Riz and her friends carry the beads up to her room along with her bead-making table, and then having a quick bath in her room once Lori had dismissed them and shut the door—despite the sunshade, it had been warm enough make Lori sweat, and she didn't want to be smelling herself as she ate—the food was still wonderfully hot when she came down.

It seemed that Riz had forgone taking a bath, which was why she was seated a full space away from Mikon, who was sitting next to Rian. Apparently the woman's affections drew the line at Riz still being absolutely damp with sweat.

"So!" Rian said cheerfully, "how was the boat shed?"

"It's adequate for its purposes, although I'm will be needing further equipment," Lori said. "A means of keeping the Iridescence above the water at the bottom of the boat, for one thing."

"Should you really be saying that?" Rian pointed at… uh, Tac-something, crazy Deadspeaker who named plants—seated on the other side of Umu. "Taeclas is smart, aren't you worried she'll be able to reason out how you make beads?" Ah, yes, that was her name.

Lori considered that, then turned towards the Deadspeaker. "Taeclas."

"Good morning, your Bindership!"

She nodded. "I'm not greeting you back, because if I did, Rian would sulk."

"Aw… Rian, why do you have to be sulky?-!"

"She never greets me back when I wish her good morning, and I've been doing it for a year! It's a perfectly good reason to be sulky!"

"Well, I suppose that's fair… oh! What if we both start greeting her good morning at the same time?"

"No, that wouldn't work, she'd need to talk to you, and that doesn't happen every day."

"Oh, right…"

"Taeclas," Lori repeated.

"Good morning, your Bindership!"

"You said that already."

"Ah, right. Sorry, force of habit. What is it, your Bindership?"

"Don't try to figure out how I make beads. That's an order."

Rian, why are you laughing like that?

"Rian, why are you laughing like that?" she said, giving her lord a flat look.

She had to wait a few moments for his laughter to die down. "Y-you know," he finally managed to say, "most people would assume they were being mocked i-if someone suddenly breaks into laughter."

"You've made it clear that you'd be pointing at me while laughing if you were mocking me," Lori reminded him.

For some reason he stared at her, then sighed. "You can't remember a single carpenter's name that corresponds to a face, but that thing I said last year you remember."

"I don't see how that is relevant to this conversation. And you still haven't answered my question."

"Right, the question. I wasn't mocking you, I was simply expressing my delight at what a wonderful demesne I live in."

"This is a wonderful demesne?" Lori said flatly.

"Of course. Every day, I wonder what's going to happen. That's a lot of wondering. Clearly the demesne is full of wonder."

Lori rolled her eyes. Useless thespian. She turned back to Taeclas. "Taeclas, I gave you an order."

Taeclas was still staring at her. "Uh…"

Rian leaned towards her. "Psst. She's waiting for you to acknowledge you've received and understood the order."

"Ah! Uh, understood, your Bindership. I… promise not to try to figure out how you make beads."

Lori nodded. "Good. If you disobey and try to make your own beads, it will be immediately obvious, and I will kill you for treason."

Both Taeclas and her wife straightened up at that, the latter clutching the Deadspeaker's arm tightly.

"In her defense," Rian said, "she's basically protecting her secrets by trusting you. You really can't blame her for being very annoyed if you betray her trust."

"I am not trusting them, I am ordering them," Lori said, turning a glare at her lord. Really, how was that hard to understand?

"Ah, sorry your Bindership. My mistake." He turned towards Taeclas but with a hand gesturing towards Lori for some reason.

Taeclas looked thoughtful, nodding slowly, one hand patting her wife's own gently. "All right… all right, I understand that." She looked towards Binder Lori again. "Don't worry, Binder Lori. I won't disappoint you."

Lori gave her a flat look. "We'll see."

Taeclas smiled, bright and confident. "Don't worry, you will! Just you watch, I'll be the best at not trying to figure out how you make beads!"

"How would you even measure that?" Rian said, sounding thoughtful. "Because if we're going by there being anything to figure out at all, you've already made progress in figuring out how to make beads compared to someone who doesn't know there's anything to figure out…"

"Rian."

"Yes your Bindership?"

"Stop with that line of reasoning. It's pointless and very silly."

Rian sighed. "Fine. But I'm not wrong! What were we…? Oh, right! You were saying you needed something for Lori's Shed Boat?"

"I need something to keep the Iridescence out of the water at the bottom of the boat." Lori paused. Then she sighed. "Rian."

"Yes, your Bindership?"

"Why are you calling the boat that?"

"Because at this point the boat is distinct enough to deserve a unique name, not just a number."

"What happened to you liking numbers that go up?"

"That has nothing to do with this."

Lori sighed. "Rian, stop bringing up this matter. It has grown tedious and is pointless."

Rian opened his mouth, looking stubborn, but sighed. "Yes, your Bindership."

"Good. Now, see to it that the carpenters build some sort of receptacle that I can place the Iridescence in to keep it elevated above the water." She made a vague gesture to her right at about stomach level. "Something that I can easily access from the chair. It need not be too large. Simply large enough to fit the Iridescence jar, a bone tablet and my tweezers without any of them to being put on top of each other." She realized too late Rian couldn't see where her hand was.

Rian hummed thoughtfully. "That might be a little difficult. Something that tall would be moving a lot from the motions of the boat, and the jar at least is likely to fall over and into the water. Putting up side around it like a box would prevent that, but they'd be too high for you to be comfortable. How about something lower down, a box at about knee level? If it's right next to your chair, it should be accessible without having to move and we can enclose it so nothing falls out when the boat is rocking."

Lori waved her hand to the side a knee-level, considering the alternative. "Slightly higher. Lap level. Something immobile."

He nodded. "It shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to make something that suits your needs. Maybe some kind of box with legs that fit between the planks so it locks in place."

Taeclas sighed. "More woodworking in my future…"

"Sorry, Tae."

"It's fine, its fine. At least you're not telling me to hurry. Ugh, if they want it done right, they shouldn't rush me…"

Rian reached out to pat her on the shoulder. "There, there. You're in a safe place now. No free market pushing competition on you to do better, and you have a monopoly on Deadspeaking for the entire demesne."

"Don't tell her that, she'll get lazy," Taeclas's wife said, sounding fond as she did so.

"It's not my fault I like growing vegetables more than playing with tree corpses!"

Well… that was a way of referring to woodworking that Lori had never heard before. "By the way Rian, I need you to go to the edge of the demesne tomorrow morning."

Rian blinked. "Uh, sure. What for?"

"I need you to retrieve some beads for me."

"Retrie—oh. Yes. I guess you wouldn't have been able to make those on the boat. All right. Where should I look?"

"Along the river at the edge of the demesne." Lori paused to consider. "Well, near there. I'll make a pit or some other containment and mark it with lightwisps."

"That would be very helpful, thank you"

Lori nodded. "Now, anything I should be aware of this afternoon?"

"Well, the smiths need your assistance to provide heat for metalworking since it's still a bit too hot to fire the forge in the smithy safely, they have some tools they need to repair…"