Making an oven was relatively simple. The stone used needed to have bubbles squeezed out of it so that no sections suddenly exploded due to trapped gasses expanding, but her awareness of wisps made that simpler for her than it would have been for an ordinary Whisperer. Really, the greatest difficulty was not getting in anyone's way—or having anyone get in her way—in the kitchen, since she had to build it while people were in the middle of cleaning up and preparing the food for lunch. She had to navigate around them, which was simple enough since the best place to put in the new oven was in its own little section off to the side, thereby expanding the kitchen.

And while many respected her position enough to not bother her, some of the older women, about her mothers' age or older, for some reason felt the need to comment on what she was doing, saying the oven was too small, no it's too low they'll hurt their back, it should be wider and deeper so they could fit more bread in, are you really going to be marrying people in two days, some of those people are far too young, is that really such a good idea, maybe you shouldn't—

At which point someone finally seemed to remember who they were talking to, because the sounds of talking abruptly stopped. Lori studiously didn't look behind her as there were sounds of a scuffle, focusing on making the oven, which now had a lower section to put in firewood, and an upper section for the actual baking. The stone partition between the two had to be carefully shaped to be load bearing, and she had to poke careful holes to let hot air come up from below. The carpenters would have to make doors for the two halves, and likely in a hurry…

She linked the oven to the exhaust pipe and stepped back, examining the oven for any flaws. Now that it was completed, it seemed a bit too small to make enough bread for the entire demesne, but then, the small bakeries that she had bought warm bread from on the way to school when she was younger couldn't have had facilities bigger than this, so perhaps it was enough? She'd have prepared to put in firewisps to heat it, but she wasn't really sure how hot bread needed to be to bake properly, and this way the people cooking could control the heat in the way they were familiar with.

Lori shrugged and took her excess stone with her as she continued to studiously not look towards where the kitchen staff were now being very quiet. She didn't want to know. if there was one thing she remembered about all the biographies about Dungeon Binder's she'd read—besides the potential danger they were all in from every side—it was that one should never antagonize the people making your food, at least if you couldn't have them replaced with anyone just as good and trustworthy.

Lunch was slightly delayed, but when it arrived it seemed to be the same quality it usually was, so whatever it was that Lori had studiously ignored didn’t seem to have been too much of a problem.

"Rian, have the carpenters make a door for the oven," she said as she ate, waiting for Mikon to make her move. The weaver was a bit distracted, however, glancing sideways at Rian, Umu and Riz every so often. "Something that they can finish before the day after tomorrow. The oven needs something to keep the heat in."

"I'll tell them," her lord assured her. Around them, the dining hall was filled with a liveliness and excitement that usually came when a holiday was announced well in advance. Which, considering the food they were preparing, might as well be the case. "The miller has already started on making the flour, and we've got plenty of firewood."

"How is our firewood supply holding?"

"Pretty good," Rian said. "It's still not so cold that we can't go out to gather wood, and the snow's been manageable, so not much time has to be spent opening paths through the snow. The shovels we currently have aren't really suited for it, but they're doing the job. Though—"

"You want to ask me to make some sort of special shovel, aren't you?"

"Please?" Rian begged. "Your bone shovels are lighter than wood, and you can shape them without loss of material, as opposed if the carpenters make it."

Lori sighed and waved a hand dismissively. "I'll find the time. Probably not tomorrow, since I have to draft those laws, or the day after. Expansion takes priority. Mikon, make a move already."

"Oh! S-sorry, your Bindership!" the weaver moved her Deadspeaker, no doubt getting it ready to bring back any militia Lori managed to take out.

"Anything else, Rian?" Lori said as she moved her Horotract.

"It's been bought to my attention that the Um is freezing cold, your Bindership," Rian said.

Lori blinked. Come to think of it… Huh. She was surprised it had taken this long for the matter to be raised. "I'm surprised it took this long for the matter to be raised."

"So am I, really," Rian said. "But since snow started to fall, most people have been staying at home when they could and huddling up for warmth when they haven't been here in the Dungeon or working. After announcing you'd be doing marriages soon, however, apparently some people wanted to… ah, 'celebrate', and found they couldn't. In retrospect, I should have realized because the water clocks weren't in use."

"Yes, you should have," Riz said flatly. "We've stopped watching the place. Anyone who wants to have a tumble in there is welcome to it until spring arrives."

Lori hummed thoughtfully. "I'll get to it eventually. If people have been able to wait this long, then it's clearly not a priority."

"Uh…" Riz began, before stopping herself and glancing at Rian.

"What is it Riz?" he prompted.

"Um, I don't know how to put this… but in winter, with the whole family in the house to stay warm, everyone under the blankets together…" Riz said awkwardly, "men and women still have needs… and sometimes it can't wait until the little ones are asleep… or sometimes it wakes up the little ones but you can't actually stop… most just think it's Tyatya and Tota hugging, until they get older… and at that point they ignore you while you ignore them and pass the time by yourself… and you have to keep it down so the little ones don't catch on… Ah, but everyone is all covered up and under blankets, of course! It's too cold not to be…"

Lori stared. Rian stared.

Rian looked sideways at Umu and Mikon, whose faces said they had absolutely nothing to do with this conversation, their gazes averted and not looking at anything or anyone in particular.

Lori sighed. Idiots! At least from the sound of it they were being aware and circumspect, but… idiots! "Fine, fine, I'll put heating in the Um! There, happy?"

"Thank you!" someone at a different table called out.

"You're all still cleaning it if you use it!" Lori shot back, not looking at whoever it was.

"That's fair!" someone at another table said.

"Maybe we should think about expanding the houses come the spring," Rian muttered. "So that there's more than one bedroom in each house, maybe?"

Lori sighed and focused on eating her food.

After lunch, she went up to her room to continue expanding the demesne. The wall next to her bed had a special recess now where she could sit slightly reclined with her bed roll padding her legs and back. She made herself comfortable as Rian finished readying the water clocks.

"I still have some more things to do to set things up, so I'm going to have to run out," Rian said as Lori put her pillow under her head, reclining and holding it in place. "I'll be back before you finish so I can record time, though. In the meantime, I'll just close the door behind me. Do you want me to station someone on the stairs to make sure no one comes up and knifes you while you're busy? Riz, maybe?"

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then shook her head. "No, just hurry back. With the door closed, most people will probably assume it's locked."

Rian frowned. "Tell you what, why don't I put your boots in front of the door, so you'll at least hear it being opened if someone tries.

Lori rolled her eyes, but nodded. "All right. You do that. But I'm going to start now, so get ready to open the clocks."

Rian got into position as Lori leaned back, relaxed and concentrated on her awareness of her demesne's wisps.

"Begin" she said, closing her eyes as that day's expansion attempt began, deciding to increase the concentration of wisps in the one spot even further.

The next day, while waiting for Rian to come back from measuring the demesne's expansion, Lori went to install heat in the Um. She bound firewisps to the ceilings of each room and the main passageway to radiate heat. The binding itself was hot enough at the source that people were unlikely to try and stick their hand into it, but after what had happened in River's Fork with the warmth binding she had made there, she wouldn't be surprised if some idiot tried to touch the source of the heat anyway.

When she stepped out of the Um, she gave the line of people standing in the snow in pairs and carrying bedrolls and blankets a flat look. Then she sighed and walked away.

When Rian got back— "Forty-five and a half! It went up!"—Lori had him sit down to help her draft what exactly the legal terms of marriage in her demesne would be. Unlike the laws she had written before, of which she had felt were obvious, these laws were… well, she was mostly apathetic to them. Marriage wasn't something that had ever crossed her mind except in annoyance whenever her parents had brought it up, advising her how to get a girl or a boy and wasting time with them.

Fortunately, despite his initial protests—"I don't know a thing about marriage law!"—Rian once more proved himself to be useful. While he might not have had any knowledge of the legalities of marriage—or so he claimed—he apparently had strong opinions about what an ideal marriage should be, and once you removed the parts that were clearly sentimentality, some of them were surprisingly practical.

"Obviously, in a marriage the participants should be working together to support themselves and their children materially and financially. At the very least, that should be a recognized obligation on both their parts. And it has to be both. One can't just live off the work of the other and not contribute anything. That's not a marriage, that's a parasite. Of course, this doesn't mean they have to both contribute the same way, but ideally this is something they have to talk about and decide between themselves."

"… generally, the trend is to give married people a deduction when it comes to taxes… because they're actively making MORE tax payers. It doesn't matter if you get a small slice of a pie if the pie is one that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Two people paying full taxes nets overall less revenue than two parents and five children paying slightly reduced taxes… well obviously after a certain age the children have to start paying their own taxes…"

"Look, as much as I want to, I don't think it's practical that we make people take a test before they can start having children. They'll have the children regardless. I understand where you're coming from, believe me, I love my parents, but there were times…best I can suggest is they take a sort of mandatory apprenticeship or something with someone who's already had children. How to properly hold the baby, how to clean them up, that sort of thing… grandparents are usually inclined to help that way anyway, the amusement of watching someone flail around ignorantly like that only lasts so long…"

Lori wondered with some amusement if these were opinions Rian had held for a long time, or ones he had formed recently due to… being a man in his circumstances.

Still, at the end of the morning she'd put together a short, functional list of legally binding obligations associated with marriage, as well as included some simple grounds for applying for divorce. They were all general since, as Rian had pointed out, if something actually came up, she'd be the one deciding it directly anyway, and she could make up a law to cover some overly-specific situation after the fact.

When she was finished, Rian had tentatively asked if he could 'rephrase them to be more presentable and romantic'.

"After all, if you're going to be telling them these things at their marriage ceremony, it would probably be nicer if it didn't read like legal code."

"It IS legal code."

"Yes, which is why I want to dress it up and make it look pretty. It's a 'dealing with people' matter, trust me!"

Lori rolled her eyes but left him to it. She supposed that some theatricality in the presentation wouldn't be amiss.