Demesne

The dragon did not arrive that day, which was fortunate because it had taken all day for the three adult seels Lori had been able to drag out of the water to be skinned and butchered. At the rate the dragon was approaching, there was a very really possibility this would be one that lingered, and they might be stuck inside the dragon shelter for a week or more.

At lunch, Lori checked on her demesne. Rian had still not given the signal, although all the voids of wisps that denoted people were inside her dungeon now, and the waterwisps that made up the Lori's Ice Boat had been beached and the boat was lacking its driver and… its outriggers? Ah, right. She needed to remove the ice from that, didn't she?

Lori carefully liquefied the solidified water wrapped around the Lori's Ice Boat's wooden frame, doing it one section at a time. Normally this would require her to use firewisps to carefully add heat to the water, but… well, it was a very hot day, as usual. Each small section drew in the heat from the air around it, momentarily causing the air to liquefy or even solidify, but it was so hot that she only had to wait a few moments for the cold air to disperse and then there was enough heat in the air again for the water to absorb and use to liquefy.

To prepare for the possibility that this slow-to-arrive dragon would also be slow to leave, Lori spent the afternoon making head-sized blocks of ice—each with a binding to keep the water solidified—that were hauled up to the dragon shelter by everyone who wasn't busy butchering the seels. The ice blocks were stacked in the room that was intended to be a bathing area, atop a layer of straw from the last harvest to keep them from sliding on the ground. It was either that or trying to enlarge the water reservoir, and doing the latter would have been complicated given the present situation. Moving the excavated stone out, putting the water in… yes, keeping the blocks of ice perpetually solid would require her active intervention at times, but once she'd fused all the small blocks into one massive block, it was easier to keep imbued, and blocks didn't need buckets to be carried.

She had needed to make clear that the ice blocks were not for holding against themselves to keep cool, but was their future water supply. It had been necessary to have Yllian put someone to guard the ice block so that none of the idiots tried to chip off a piece to rub all over themselves.

Lori just hoped this would be enough to keep them supplied with water for more than a week, if the dragon lasted that long. Intellectually, she knew that she must have drunk reclaimed goldwater during the times she and her mothers had sheltered in Taniar Demesne's dragon shelters, and that it had been common practice for millennia in dragon shelters and dungeons, but… no, no, it was far too early to be considering making her idiots drink their own goldwater.

…

Although…

No, no making anyone drink their own goldwater, no matter how annoying Shanalorre's uncle was.

Dinner was served in the late afternoon so that there would be time to carry all the benches and tables back to the dragon shelter. The bits of meat had been fire roasted instead of stewed, probably because it was faster. Lori had seen—and smelled—several large chunks of seel meat being roasted over open fire, the people tending to them sweating profusely. The food that had resulted had been delicious, though.

After dinner, everything was carried back to the dragon shelter, and Lori finally reactivated the ventilation bound tool by placing the large wisp-bead back into its bead receptacle. Air began to audibly flow through the wooden tubes that served as the mine's ventilation system. Lori stood and held her hand up towards the vent that released into her alcove, smiling widely at the cold air that blew over her hand. She would seal off the air vent actually closest to her alcove—there was still the possibility of the dragon producing poisonous gasses—but only when she was sure that dragon had arrived. Right now however, there was no reason to be hotter than she had to be.

With that done, Lori moved on to the next matter, which she regarded with bemusement. "Erzebed," she said, "why is there a pile of straw in my sleeping niche? All the straw is supposed to be under the ice block."

"You looked sore this morning, Great Binder, so I had Mekari put some clean straw down for you," Riz said. "If you don't like it, you can give it to me Great Binder. I'm always glad to have something between me and rock."

Lori poked at that admittedly thick pile of straw, then patted it with her open hand. The material was surprisingly springy, though not very soft. The straw was clearly much softer than the bare rock, however. While it would probably be like sleeping on wood… that was much preferable to sleeping on rock.

"Thank you," Lori said, absently. "Have someone keeping watch for the dragon outside of the shelter tonight, and tell them to wake me immediately if they see something." She paused. "Be sure they take a moment to make sure it's not just a cloud with strange colors from the moons."

"Yes, Great Binder. I'll take the first watch."

Lori checked on her demesne again, but Rian still hadn't given the signal. She checked the level of the water reservoir, and found it barely depleted. Did Rian have people taking drinking water from the river too?

She sighed. While she didn't actually want a dragon to come to her demesnes, all this waiting for it to show up… it was wearing on her. They were all ready to seal themselves into the dragon shelter, but since the dragon wasn't actually here yet, they couldn't. Or at least, she wouldn't let them, lest they devour through the limited water supplies, though ironically they were unlikely to run out of food no matter how long the dragon lingered.

Lori was tempted to stay up reading. Her almanac called to her from her pack, full of entertainment and distraction… but the dragon was still to come, and she didn't want her mind to be exhausted when it came time to finally seal her dungeon and the shelter.

Not that she wanted for there to be a dragon over her demesnes, but if it was coming, then it really should be here now so she can finally close everything and just go to sleep…

She was still spinning around in her own head, these two thoughts chasing each other as she sank into the darkness behind her eyes.

The next morning dawned, and there still seemed to be no sign of the coming dragon. Lori could feel it still coming, seemingly heading straight towards them. That was mostly likely a false impression, as the dragon was probably so wide she just couldn't properly notice any change in the angle that the wisps in her body and her demesne were being pressured by the force of the dragon's presence.

Unsealing the entrance to the dragon shelter again, Lori stepped out to check the horizon once more, shivering slightly at a cold morning breeze. A cursory view revealed nothing, just more empty sky and—

"Great Binder, I think we should get back inside," Riz said.

Lori blinked, turning to her not-an-officer. "What? Why?"

Riz held up a hand, waving it vaguely through the air. "The wind is cold, Great Binder. When was the last time the wind was this cold?"

The question sounded nonsensical to Lori. Of course the wind was cold, it was early morning…

…during an absurdly hot summer.

Oh.

Lori tuned to face the direction she could feel the approaching dragon again, and found the cold wind directly in her face. She sniffed the air, but there was only the smell of the trees and leaves. At least, she assumed that was the smell of the trees and leaves, as it was what she always smelled when she was near the towering vegetation. The air was just cold, so cold she could feel her face cooling by the moment, and she could see… was that fog among the trees on the other side of the river?

Lori reached through her connection to her dungeon core, letting herself be aware of the wisps in her demesne. Waterwisps filled the air, and there were no firewisps to be found outside. The presence of lightwisps were muted, and there were a lot of darkwisps not part of the binding she had prepared close to the ground. Tellingly, there were no idiot-shaped voids of wisps outside of her dungeon, and four stones with lightwisp bindings anchored to them were stacked on the little stone shelf that Rian was supposed to use to signal her. That wasn't the procedure they had discussed, but she could see Rian doing that as a method of being emphatic.

"Erzebed?"

"Yes, Great Binder?"

"Tell Yllian we're eating in the dragon shelter this morning. I'll provide a binding for them to cook the food on. Before breakfast though, I want the latrines cleaned one last time and the drinking water replenished one last time." Lori paused, going over the instructions again. "Not in that order, I want clean hands bringing in the water. We don't eat until I seal the dragon shelter again."

"Yes, Great Binder. Uh… can we put our things in your alcove instead of in the passage while the latrine is being cleaned?"

Lori stared at her, then sighed. "Fine. Use the floor, then take it all out once the passage is clean."

"Thank you, Great Binder."

Turning, Lori headed back to the mine to get to work on sealing off her dungeon. The stone of the hill and the white Iridescence-alloyed copper over the door was covered with moisture, and it was only now that Lori realized that the excessive humidity of the previous day was gone. At the door, she glanced back over the horizon.

The sky continued to be unhelpfully empty, as if taunting Lori with the dragon's tardiness, the cold wind on her face disdainful.

As Lori stepped back through the mine entrance, her thoughts went back to that beast that she kept failing to kill. Maybe the dragon would be able to kill the typhon beast for them? So far, the plan to learn the beast's habits and try to set a trap for it… well, admittedly, it had somewhat fallen by the wayside, although at least they hadn't lost anyone over it yet. She resolved to finally put the plan into effect after the dragon, if the beast was somehow still alive afterwards.

…

No, it was still sadly more plausible that the thing would come out of this completely unscathed, ugh.

As Riz headed deeper into the mine to relay the orders to Yllian and her friends, Lori returned to her alcove. Sitting down atop her bedroll, she leaned back against the stone wall, closed her eyes, and got to work.