"We're home!" Rian declared from the bench he was on standing where everyone in the space in front of her Dungeon could see him, raising a wooden cup in the air. This banal statement was followed by cheers. "We've finally had a hot bath!" This time the cheers were mainly from the men who'd left with him, but they cheered very loudly. "With soap!" More cheers of agreement. "Now let's eat and just stay in bed tomorrow! No having to go get up and get wet just to keep those stupid glittering colors from getting into our brains!"

The sudden unexpected vulgarities earned a laugh, and then Rian was getting down from the bench and sitting down on it properly, sighing, then drinking the cold water from his cup like it was something stronger. He leaned against the stone wall next to Lori, his eyes closed, looking like he intended to just fall asleep. "Ah," he sighed in a more normal volume. "That's the stuff. Cold, clean, not-distilled water…"

Lori nodded in agreement. Heat distilled water tasted horrible.

There probably hadn't been a lot of organizing to do, but there was something about knowing that Rian was taking care of it that made the circumstances… better. At least, Lori thought so, and hers was the only opinion that mattered in her demesne. There was a festive, happy mood to everything that she didn't think would have been possible if Riz had handled things. People were actually dancing, but since it was getting dark, there was no music. Instead, people clapped to keep rhythm and sang together, which was still loud but at least didn't bring back horrible recollections of dragon shelter parties. Usually the confines had been too tight for that, so music had been the irritant of choice, and had mostly drowned out the singing. If anyone had danced to it, it hadn't been scarred into Lori's mind.

Riz came, bearing Lori's stone plate in one hand and a pair of wooden plates in the other, both of which contained cuts of roasted beast meat. The stone plate clearly had cuts of tail meat, as well as smaller cuts that Lori identified as choker tails. Lori took her plate and started eating as Riz sat down next to Rian, putting him between her and Lori.

"Hmm?" Rian 'hmm'-ed, opening his eyes and blinking as he saw the plate Riz was holding out to him. "You didn't have to do that…"

"I have been doing your duties for weeks," Riz said. "Take the plate, you deserve to not have to go and get it."

"That still means you had to go and get it," Rian pointed out, but accepted the plate.

"Yes, but the Great Binder promised this was a temporary position," Riz said. "You, however, are lord for life."

"Then… thank you," Rian said. He gave her a thankful smile, then started to eat.

The three of them ate quietly to the sounds of singing and dancing and absolutely no music.

"So… anything you want to say to me, your Bindership?" Rian said. "Anything you want to tell me to do?"

Lori finished chewing a succulently soft, fatty and absolutely delicious bite and swallowed. "Be quiet and let me eat."

"Aaand that's my due diligence done," Rian said cheerfully, turning towards Riz. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"We had the harvest," Riz said. "And the Great Binder found a way to dry the stalks so we could thresh everything after only a day."

"Of course she did," Rian nodded. "And here I was thinking the part of the almanac I brought explaining how a Whisperer can do just that would have been important information to get here as soon as possible."

Lori looked up from her food. "That's in the almanac?"

"Maybe," Rian said, drawing out the word in an annoying way that reminded Lori of one of her mothers and crushing disappointment. The answer was never 'yes'. "I don't want to spoil the experience of reading the book and making amazing discoveries for you."

"Your almanac is probably useless and you got scammed," Lori predicted darkly.

"No, I kept asking random wizards if the book was legitimate and showing them the insides," Rian said. "So it's the real thing and you'll probably like it, so I'm not spoiling it for you. And what happened to 'be quiet and let me eat'?"

Lori considered it and agreed eating was more important right then. She focused back on her food.

"And that's us being ignored again…" Rian said dryly. "So, harvest… not enough to feed everyone?"

"Not even close, even if we don't take any seed vigas for the winter crop," Riz said. "We have tubers, and some wild roots that seem to be growing regardless of the season, but… well, we'll mostly be eating meat this winter."

Lori made a happy sound

"That is apparently not an unpleasant fate," Rian said dryly. "Well, if worse comes to worse, we can find a way to negotiate for vigas from River's Fork, unless people are willing to part with the grain they secretly have hidden."

"No," Lori said, wondering how he knew about the little bag of grain.

"You know about that?" Riz said, sounding surprised and guilty.

"This is the part where I'd say something like 'you just told me', but practically there was no way people would have left all the grain in River's Fork," Rian said easily.

Lori blinked as she realized what Rian was saying, and leveled a glare at Riz.

"Oh, don't blame her, you're the one who didn't think of what should have been really obvious," Rian said. "As if they'd leave all the food behind while they didn't know how far away our demesne was upriver."

"My demesne," Lori corrected. "There's more vigas?"

"It can only last for so long," Rian said. "Eventually they'll either have to plant it or eat it, especially since preparing food with it is pretty hard."

"Every house in the demesne has a fireplace now," Lori pointed out.

Rian blinked and looked around in the fading light. "Huh? Where?"

"In the back."

Rian stared at the houses, but all the doors were pointed towards them, so the chimneys weren't obvious, and none of them had smoke rising from them. "Huh… all right, that admittedly makes it easier…"

"Erzebed," Lori said flatly.

"Yes, Great Binder?" Riz said, audibly cringing.

"Your people. Deal with this."

"Yes, Great Binder… uh, how?"

Lori stared at her.

"Right, my job to figure it out…" She glanced sideways at Rian next to her.

"You're learning," Rian said brightly. "I'd offer to help… but if they didn't tell me before, they probably won't tell me now."

Riz sighed. "Are we going to be forced to give it to the demesne?"

"That's not the question," Rian said.

"It's not?"

"The question is… how will people react to finding out you've been holding back food that could have helped everyone… compared to how they will react when they find out because you bring it up yourselves. While it's your private property and definitely falls under the protections of our laws and rights… will people resent you for it when they find out?"

"You're here. This was supposed to be a temporary position until you got back…" Riz sighed.

"I could," Rian said, making Lori look up with a frown, as did Riz. "After you catch me up on how the demesne's been doing, you can stop. That probably falls under the definitely of 'figuring out how'. But do you trust me to do it right?"

Riz stared at him then sighed. "I'll talk to people…"

Rian smiled for some reason and turned towards Lori. "You know, you're very good at choosing lords. Certainly better than I am."

Lori raised her eyebrow. "Of course I am," she said.

"Any chance of making her permanent?" Rian said with a toothy grin as Riz suddenly went wide-eyed..

"No," Lori said instantly, making the pink-haired woman sigh in relief and glare at Rian for a moment. "This is a temporary arrangement for the duration of you being not being here."

"What about the next time I have to leave?"

"I'm locking you up in your house," Lori said.

"I'll help," Riz added.

"I'm not leaving until at least spring," Rian said. "I like the hot water bathing and cold water drinking far too much."

Lori nodded. "Then we're all agreed, you're not leaving. I'm sure Erzebed, Mikon and Umu will be quite happy with that."

Riz coughed and looked away.

"So, I see you finally put outdoor lighting everywhere!" Rian said loudly. "That's great! Everything's starting to look civilized, plus it's probably safer at night! People can see where they're going and without the cover of night, there are less likely to be inclined towards minor mischiefs that might turn into crimes. There's a reason lit streets are a mark of civilization, after all. It makes people stay civil."

Lori blinked. That… hadn't occurred to her. "Of course. That's why I did it," she said.

"Though I have to ask… what's this thing?" Rian said, knocking on the wall they were all leaning against.

"It's the defensible air intake we discussed after the last dragon," Lori said, mildly annoyed he didn't remember, especially since it had mostly been his idea.

Rian blinked, craning his head back to look up at the wall. "Oh… Okay, now I can see it." He looked around. "We might have to make a new space for these big public gatherings, especially when we get more people. Maybe across the river? You could build a bridge… or maybe a tunnel, that might be easier. Just go under the river…"

"We'll see," Lori said flatly.

"Oh look, space to sit," and Mikon sat down next to Riz. She was holding a plank of wood that had five bowls of stew on it. "Stew, everyone? Also, Riz, you left your plank lying around."

"Did you erase anything?" Riz asked urgently.

"No, the bowls are on the side without writing, and I've been holding it all up," Mikon said.

Lori leaned towards the bowls. "Move," she said, and Riz and Rian leaned back, letting her reach past them and grab one of the bowls. She placed the stew next to her, got one of the drier-looking slices of roast meat—which wasn't really all that dry—and dipped it into the stew, getting it nice and covered before popping it into her mouth, the fatty juices mixed with the mushroom broth base to add new taste.

Riz and Rian also accepted bowls for themselves—"Thanks, Mikon. You didn't have to…"—and there was a moment's confusion as they all tried to juggle having a plate and a bowl before Riz just cleared a space on her plate and put the bowl there. Rian looked amused at that for some reason, but imitated her.

"Welcome back, Rian," Mikon said before she started eating her stew. "We missed you."

"I missed being home too," Rian said. "But I'm back now, so Riz can stop needing to do my job soon."

"It… wasn't just me," Riz admitted. "Mikon helped me a lot. I don't know how you manage to do it by yourself."

"I had some free time to be generous with," Mikon said modestly. She reached up and put a hand on Riz's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I was glad to help."

Rian eyed the hand for a moment, a bemused look on his face.

"Rian," Lori said. "Water."

Her lord blinked, glancing at her, then at his own cup. "Right, right. Hold on, I'll get you some…" He stood up and headed for a nearby table where the wooden cups and the jars of water were laid out.

"I'll reiterate, and Mikon, I'm officially warning you," Lori said. "I don't care what nonsense you get up to as long as it doesn't impede Rian from performing his duties properly."

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said with a nod.

"Of course, your Bindership," Mikon said. "I would never have assumed otherwise."

Lori nodded. "Good. Carry on."

She went back to eating.