"You need an office," Rian said as Lori paced back and forth. "You know, a dedicated room for discussing matters about the demesne's well-being in private, maybe with chairs for both of us, shelves to put all the notes and records on, maybe speak with people in it, that sort of thing."

"I don't need an office," Lori said dismissively. Step, step, turn, step, step, step, step, turn, step, step—

"If you keep pacing like that, you'll wear out the soles of your boots, and we can't replace those."

Lori paused mid-step, but eventually remembered to put her foot down. She looked down at her boots. Agh, were those cracks? How long had it been since she had oiled her boots? No, no no no no… she had a spare pair, but she had only the one! What would she do if she needed new boots again?-!

She shook her head to clear it, and deliberately turned around to sit on the stool in front of Rian's table, taking care to take long, careful steps to minimize wear.

"So…" Rian said, tucking his feet under him as he sat on his bed. He was no longer wearing the bloodstained clothes from earlier that day, and had on a clean shirt and a pair of loose trousers of the sort that Lori usually saw worn by Mentalists, both on the theater stage and in day to day life. "You wanted to talk about something? Otherwise I was going to go to sleep."

Lori grunted. "Do we have enough resources to sustain… however many more people there are in River's Fork?"

"We should," Rian said, "We're planning to expand our agricultural fields here, and once we harvest the winter vigas, we'll have refilled our stores. With some hunting, the fruits that their own demesne produces, as well as their own reserves, they should be able to last that long, even if food might be a little lean." He sighed. "Of course if it were as simple as tightening belts, Shana probably wouldn't be so desperate she was willing to kill herself to get your help."

She frowned. "How do you know that?"

"I spoke to Yllian and the other people with her when we were moving their stuff to the shelter, how else?" Rian said. "You of all people should know that the Binder doesn't necessarily know everything going on in her demesne. That's the lord's job."

Well, that was true. "What did you find out, then?" Lori asked.

"That you might be looking at civil unrest," Rian said, then frowned. "Wait, that's misleading. You're looking at uncivil unrest. The violent kind of incivility, where they don't know when to stop being uncivil."

"Rian, stop with the wordplay and get to the point."

Rian sighed. "Fine, fine. Right now, there are two kinds of people who live in River's Fork. The first kind are either members of the Golden Sweetwood Company and their families who think the place can be revived when the company sends more people and resources, Shana's family, or friends of her family who feel that she needs their assistance. The second kind are people who originally lived in our demesne and managed to survive traveling to River's Fork when they, for one reason or another, decided they didn't want to live here anymore."

At the other end of the bed, Riz snorted. "Civilians," she said, her tone heavily derogatory. She, Umu, and Mikon were all sitting near the head of the bed, and only the latter looked comfortable.

"Everyone in this room but you is a civilian, Riz," Rian said, and the woman reddened at the realization. "But if you change the word, I'd agree with the sentiment." He sighed. "So, I'm not sure if you noticed, but despite their size compared to us, River's Fork doesn't do centralized communal meals. Shanalorre tried implementing it, but many people kept cooking at home, so people stopped attending. Because of this, they continued using a system of rationing where a central quartermaster gave people a rationed weekly amount of raw ingredients, originally instituted back when the demesne was first founded and were capable of growing more resources. Now, however, it's resulted in hoarding, and Shanalorre was unable to curb people getting more than their share of the supplies."

Lori frowned. "Wait… so this is all because people have been hoarding supplies?"

"Partially," Rian sighed again. "From the impression I've gotten, some people have also not been sticking to the rationing, using up the supply they were given early and demanding more, which they were given to help sustain them until the next time they were supposed to be supplied. However, this led to people complaining about other getting more than everyone else. The first time, Shanalorre issued the same amount to everyone else as additional supplies, but it happened again and kept happening because some people figured out that if they claimed they'd used up all their rations, they'd be given more. This resulted in them going through reserves faster than expected, which led to people hoarding food while at the same time demanding larger rations because they were afraid the supply would be depleted faster from people demanding larger rations—"

"I understand the circular illogic," Lori groaned, rubbing her head.

Rian nodded. "When Shana tried to instill discipline by refusing repeat offenders, it resulted in them trying to obtain food from other people, which if they'd been following the rationing meant they didn't have enough food, which just meant who needed to ask for food was getting passed around. So little irregularities like that kept perpetuating itself over the winter, since people assumed that they had enough supplies to sustain the behavior."

"Didn't you just say that people were demanding more rations because they thought the supply would be depleted?"

"Yes. Amazing how people can think two completely opposite things at the same time, isn't it?" Rian said dryly. "And they did have enough stored supplies… over the winter. However, if that behavior continues into this spring, and there's no reason to think it won't—"

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"They will soon deplete their own stores and be effectively in a famine situation, while some people will be sitting on a hoard of food that they selfishly acquired," Lori nodded. "And while the situation could be resolved by releasing the hoarded food to everyone, you mentioned people consuming more than the amount that was rationed to them."

Rian nodded. "According to their calculations, they should have had food for three more months or so after winter, but when they last did an inventory check, food had gone missing from the stores, which they suspect happened while River's Fork's flood barriers were being built and most strong able bodies had to be on hand to help with the work. Given how little was taken, they suspect someone sent their children to steal from the stores. With how long Shanalorre has been away, and how busy the place must be if they're working to get ready for spring…" he shrugged. "Their stores could be half empty, or they might be in the middle of starving to death as we speak because some idiot tried to turn all their grain into booze or something."

"And as a savant, Shanalorre didn't have the necessary knowledge of punitive measures to just force people to comply," Lori mused.

"She had her militia for that kind of thing," Rian pointed out. "It's just that they couldn't be everywhere, and as some of her most able-bodied people, they'd usually be more busy working than doing guard duty. And that's not even counting the fact that she couldn't exactly sustain having a quarter of her population constantly monitoring and disciplining another quarter."

"Hmm…" Lori mused. "Well, unlike Shanalorre, I have no problem with instilling discipline."

"What do you mean 'I'? I'm the one who takes care of discipline around here. And speaking of discipline, there's still the second problem we now have to deal with."

Lori frowned. What second problem? "What second problem?"

"Is Shanalorre still a Dungeon Binder? Officially, I mean, even though she's subordinated herself to you."

What kind of stupid question was that? "What kind of stupid question is that? Of course she's still a Dungeon Binder."

Rian nodded. "Ah, good to know. Because when you had her get on her knees to clean blood off the floor earlier today, in full view of everyone else in the demesne, after she'd already publically begged you to basically conquer her… well, if you weren't planning to utterly humiliate her as if she was no longer a Dungeon Binder and just some random little girl, then you couldn't have managed it better if you'd actually tried."

Lori stared at him.

"Of course, I'm sure you already knew all of that when you did it, but continued anyway because of some cunning plan on your part I'm not privy to—"

"No, I didn't," Lori said, still staring at him. "I didn't realize at the time."

He blinked. "Wait, you're… you're actually admitting…" Rian shook his head. "So why did you do it?"

"She made a mess! I made her clean it up in order to discipline her into not making such a mess in the future!"

"Absolutely no mention of how she gave herself a life-threatening injury that severely drained her off blood, such that she's going to need bed rest for the next few days to recover?"

"The source of the mess didn't matter!"

"Of course it doesn't," Rian groaned. "Not to you, I see… well, regardless, in the eyes of everyone in the demesne, you completely humiliated her, and now they're probably wondering how they're supposed to treat her. Do they go as they have before, being respectful? Is she just another random girl they ignore? Because given how you treated her, the latter seems to be the precedent."

"Well, we don't care about things like precedent in this demesne, remember?" Lori snapped. "Tomorrow, announce that Shanalorre is still a Dungeon Binder and is to be treated with the respect she deserves."

Rian nodded. "And now she's a part of this demesne, right? I mean, she's bent knee to you and literally shed blood to be under your authority, so…"

"Yes, we've established that. What are you getting at, Rian?"

"Can Shana give me orders now, then?"

Lori blinked. "What?"

"She's a Dungeon Binder, an exalted position far above a mere lord such as myself," Rian stated the obvious. "And now that she's under your authority, she's obviously no longer an outsider. Does that mean she has authority over me now? Does she have authority over everyone else?"

"Of course not! You're my lord!"

"So despite being a Dungeon Binder, she has no authority over me. Does she have authority over anyone else?"

Lori opened her mouth to snap the first answer that came to her mind and paused as the second answer arrived. Her eyes widened again.

"Ah, there we go, the horrified light of realization. Let's continue seeing how big this problem is, then. Is Lord Yllian still counted as a lord? Does he have authority over other people? Are he and I equals? Is he actually trusted to make and implement any decisions? Is he no longer a lord because you very publically essentially made him Shana's jailer and suicide watch?" Rian leaned forward slightly. "Do they still sit to eat at your table?"

Lori twitched at that last question.

"It's pretty fortunate that both of our demesne have fairly simply hierarchies," Rian said, "but nevertheless, we—and by 'we' I mean you, because these aren't things I can decide—have to decide how we're integrating the established authorities of their demesne. Are you completely dismantling their organization? Integrating it fully? What authority will they have?" He shrugged. "In my opinion, it's a far, far more immediate concern for you than the one Shana nearly killed herself to ask us to solve, and one will have to be answered soon, before something unfortunate happens."

Lori groaned, clenching her fist in frustration. After taking a few deep, calming breaths, she looked up to give Rian an annoyed look. "And you have a solution, I presume?" Lori said. "You usually do."

At her words, Rian smiled brightly. This smile had some sincerity to it, but she was fairly sure it was mostly to be annoying. "Well… this situation counts as a mess, doesn't it?"

"You know it does." Lori knew only Shanalorre's lord, but given he was here with her, she likely had more people with some kind of authority back in her demesne. The person in charge of those food stores, for one thing…

The smile became a grin. "Didn't you just say that the person who made the mess should clean it up?"

It took her a moment to understand what he meant. When she did, Lori blinked, staring at him. "You can't be serious."

"Yes, I can't. I'm Rian," he said with annoying cheer. "Look, with how drained of blood she is, you can't really assign her any demanding work, and anyway, she technically counts as a child. So you might as well talk to her and have her explain how her demesne is organized so you know how much of the structure to keep and how much to get rid of." Rian coughed. "Personally, I'd recommend keeping Yllian on as a lord on a probationary basis. I've been waiting months for you to assign another lord, and we have someone who has experience at the job and dealing with the people of River's Fork. In fact, with the influx of new people, you can even use it as a pretext to finally raise someone else up to be a lord or lady to help with all the work."

Behind him, Riz jumped up to her feet, startling Mikon who'd been partially leaning against her. In seemingly the blink of an eye, she'd run to the door and swung it open, running out into the dark, fortunately not rainy, night.

Everyone stared at the door as it swung partway shut.

"I think that was Riz's way of politely asking she not be considered for such a position," Rian said.