The air started to get a little bit warmer as the days passed.

The next time they went to River's Fork, the brat and Shanalorre accompanied them, the former carrying three sharpened sticks as seeling rods along with her bedroll, blanket, and a small pack with a change of clothes. The children who now resided in Shanalorre's house, most especially her cousin, had been left in the care of two of Mikon's cousins, who had also started sitting at the table with the children during meals.

Neither of the brat's parents had come to accompany her, though they had spoken a lot to Rian. At least, Lori assumed that's who the man and woman with the four children who had accompanied the brat up to the dock were. Rian had spoken to them for some time while Shanalorre had spoken to her cousin, then the two Mikon-cousins, then all the children who had come to see her off. Lori distinctly saw the rock she'd given to Shanalorre solemnly being passed to the younger girl, who gripped the rock tightly and nodding several times as the children all tried to get a look at it.

Lori had invited the brat to spend the trip with her in her little private room, but for some reason the girl declined, deciding to spend the journey outside. Perhaps she wanted to get an idea of the concentration of seels outside Lori's demesne? That was likely it.

Once they were at River's Fork, she didn't see the brat much. The most she saw was during meals, and a little bit after breakfast near the river, while she was making ice for the food storage. Lori would sometimes see the brat, accompanied by Shanalorre and someone she didn't recognize except as someone she might have seen with them on the Coldhold, walking along the river with a seeling rod and a spare in hand. As the days passed, the brat started to be accompanied by some of the children who still lived in River's Fork, who also started carrying crudely sharpened seeling rods.

While Lori didn't actually see her seeling, the results soon became visible. Wooden frames made from branches started to appear, on which were secured seel hides laid out to dry in the sun when it was out. The addition of what she recognized as seel meat in the food. A seel waiting for her with an amused Riz, which was taken to be added to the next morning's pot.

It took five more shifts for the dragon shelter in River's Fork to be ready to Lori's standards. The dragon shelter was mostly a large space interrupted only by stone pillars that supported the ceiling. There was a line of latrines near the ramp that could be accessed from the mine tunnel to be cleaned. Without her connection to her core, it was useless to put any bindings on it, and she desperately wanted to. Airwisps to keep the smell inside, waterwisps and firewisps to desiccate and dry the waste for easier cleaning, lightwisps so that she could add full doors in front of the latrines for privacy…

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite up to Lori's standards, but until she claimed the core, there was no practical way to maintain the bindings she wanted to anchor there. At best, she could place some lightwisps from her eyes for illumination, but the rest… she'd need some kind of container to place blood from her veins if she wanted to put in a binding of waterwisps she could maintain from outside. In the end, since the dragon shelter was meant to be used only in the event of a dragon—or at worst, a powerful storm—it was probably best not to put in any bindings—save for the lightwisps—that would encourage people to occupy the dragon shelter when there wasn't a dragon passing over.

After that, they then had to bring in the carpenters and stone masons to add the things she couldn't. The stone masons added steps to make the ramp into stairs, helped her even out the floors, walls and pillars, and pointed out places that might need more stone for support. The carpenters measured and made the wooden doors to seal off access to the latrine's contents to mostly keep the smell of the latrine out of the mine tunnel, bench seats with a hole in the center for people to sit on while using the latrines, the doors to give privacy in the latrine, and even wooden lids to cover up the hole in the latrine bench to try and keep the smell in when people weren't using it.

The lids didn't seal in perfectly, but the carpenters were confident the lids would work to try to limit the smell. Apparently most latrines would have these, but because of the bindings she put on the ones in her demesne to trap the air and desiccate the waste, it wasn't needed. The carpenters also built fittings for a cold room for the meat and ice that Lori fitted into a corner of the cold room. The idea, apparently, was to put the ice in a separate chamber over where the meat is actually stored, to prevent contact with the melt water.

This involved using some of River's Fork's copper to make metal sheets to lay the ice on that would better transfer heat from the meat to the ice. It stored a much smaller amount of meat than Lori thought would be sufficient for River's Fork, but according to Rian and Yllian, this would be better for the demesne's circumstances, since there wouldn't be so much meat that some going missing would be unnoticed.

"That sounds dangerous," Lori said when they explained it for her. "Shouldn't we be working to store a surplus for winter?"

"That's what the harvest is for," Rian said. "Besides, if there's a surplus, people are going to start trying to steal it. Or eating too much. Or both. Or start trying to ferment it to make booze."

The low, only mildly indignant mutter that had risen had indicated reluctant agreement, though Lasponin—and it almost physically hurt Lori that she managed to remember his name—started loudly saying that it was all a means of trying to control the good people of River's Fork—

"Yes, because some of them are unruly, selfish, prone to theft and violence, and selfish!" Rian yelled back. "So they can't be trusted when there's food lying around! They tried to steal food from Karina! What sort of adult does that? The kind that clearly need some controlling to keep them from doing something selfish, stupid and selfish!"

"You said selfish four times," Shanalorre noted from next to Lori.

"It needed emphasis, so I repeated it. Repeatedly."

Despite some people not learning even as they were repeatedly sent out to hunt beasts, the demesne was actually doing pretty well when it came to food. With the beast meat bring brought in, the seel meat the brat and some of the other children were bringing in, the fruit that was still growing quickly on some of the trees of the dome, what they'd been able to gather in the hills around the demesne, and the remaining vigas from the previous year's harvest, Yllian calculated that they'd be able to now last until harvest, and a little beyond… provided that the influx of meats continued.

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The hunters, the people being punished for theft, and the men who operated the Coldhold continued to hunt beasts for the demesne. While the arrangement worked—even the thieves had stopped complaining about the danger and just complained about how much the work smelled—it wasn't something that could go on indefinitely, given the plans they had. The Coldhold was needed for collecting salt and eventually heading for Covehold to trade.

"We might have to ask Clowee to move here with your ice boat to help the hunters get around and transport the game from the edge back to the center," Rian suggested during one discussion. "That one has enough space for the hunters, their assistants, and the game they bring back. It won't have as much capacity as the Coldhold, but Clowee can make multiple trips while the others are out hunting."

"While that might be workable, will it not impact the work to be done on the other side of the river in Lorian?" Shanalorre inquired.

"We have another boat, but yeah, it probably will," Rian nodded. "At this point, we might have to make a fourth boat."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "'We'?"

"Yes, because the carpenters will be needed to make the frame and driver components. Unless you want to try to make the frame out of bone? Then it'll be all you."

Lori thought back to the bones of the island shell she had buried.

When the crops were finally planted, people were directed towards clearing more land and readying it for planting. This was difficult, both because of the position of River Fork's settlement—between where two rivers met and merged into one—and because of the rather hilly and rocky terrain. What soil there was didn't go very deep before hitting solid rock, and Yllian said that during the more intense rains the water that came down from the hills around them tended to make temporary streams that would wash away any crops that were planted in the wrong place.

While there was a moderately flat stretch of ground that could have been used for planting… unfortunately, some idiot had planted a giant dome made of trees in the center of it, and then put houses all over it to keep it from being usable. The ground was a bit more workable on the other shores on either side of the dome, but unfortunately, there was no easy way to cross them for the sort of regular work setting up a new field would need. There was a rocky part of the river that didn't lead back to Lori's demesne that could be traversed over if people were careful, but that was almost a taum upriver.

And so, they had to make do.

It was Rian who suggested that, since there was no nearby flat level ground that wouldn't be awash in flooding water when it rained, they should make their own.

"No, I don't mean make it with Whispering," he said before Lori was able to progress from her flat, unamused look to saying what she thought of such a stupid idea. He started sketching on his plank. "I meant make something like the tuber planters we have on the third level, but bigger. We have a lot of rocks and some mud, and there are some spots on the slopes of the hills that don't become waterfalls. If we use the rocks to make some kind of… of terrace that we can fill with decent soil, we could plant there. With some proper drainage, even if water gets redirected into it, it shouldn't be a problem."

He turned the plank around to show Lori as Yllian and Shanalorre—she was visiting this shift, alternating between staying with the children and reminding the people of her demesne she was still alive—both peered at it as well.

"Is this supposed to be the hill?" Yllian said, pointing.

"No, that's the edge of the terrace, which we'll have to build up with rocks, but it's not like we don't have a lot of that lying around. We build it one the side of the hill, and now we have level ground to plant on."

"I don't see how this is any different from simply using soil to create an area that can be farmed in already level ground, Rian," Lori said.

"A lot of that level ground tends to get very runny when it rains, remember? If it were possible for plants to grow there, they'd already be growing there. If it's bare, it's because the soil tends to get washed away. If we do it like this, while it might still get flooded with water, this will actually trap soil, at least until it fills to the brim."

Lori considered that, even as she peered at the drawing.

Then she shook her head. "No, I still don't understand."

It took Rian building a little model using mud and river rocks to finally properly convey the idea he had. Once he did, however…

"That would actually be a workable idea," Yllian mused as he looked at the little model that Rian had built up against the side of one of the Deadspoken houses, which acted as the hill. Little rocks had been stuck into the ground in a curve, the open end towards the 'hill', and then the space inside the curve had been filled with mud, which had been flattened to make Rian's 'terrace'. "If we choose the right location, it could actually be made fairly large."

"I see what he meant about drainage as well," Shanalorre said. "Properly made, this shouldn't flood. The water would just pass through the rocks and towards lower ground, taking relatively little of the soil with it. I remember my mother—" Shanalorre trailed off, staring blankly at nothing. Then she twitched, and her left arm rose and slapped herself on the cheek. She blinked, then shook her head. "Apologies. My direct predecessor told me they used such structures for farming in mountainous regions such as Open Hand Demesne, when the ground isn't secure enough for a large vista."

Lori examined the structure as Rian and Yllian looked at each other for some reason. Eventually, she said, "Do we have enough people to construct this?"

"Moving all the rocks shouldn't be a problem," Rian said, looking like he was resisting the urge to wipe his muddy hands on the front of his trousers. "There's still plenty of rocks along the river. If needed, we still have the mining tools, so if you designate one for us to use as raw material, we can break up one of the piles of stone you excavated from the mine. The biggest difficult will be to build this in such a way that it can support weight, especially when there's soil behind it."

"Consult with the stone masons about this. Though you probably already considered that."

Rian nodded. "I'll talk to Kolinh about it too. He or someone he knows might know how to build something like this."

Lori frowned at him. "Who?"

"Captain Kolinh, retired, formerly of Lomabuyar Demesne's militia engineering banner," Shanalorre said.

"Engineer Kolinh," Rian said. "He's the one who led the work on the first and second row of houses after you go done putting up the walls."

Lori titled her head. "I'll take your word for it," she said, shaking her head. "How long will this take?"

"A storm month, at the very least," Yllian said thoughtfully.

"Possibly longer, since I wouldn't be surprised if it collapsed on us a few times as we try to figure out what we're doing," Rian nodded. "Then we'd need to fill it with soil and plant it. Best to see this as a long term project. Something for people to do over the next few years to increase the usable farmland."

Lori nodded. "All right," she said. "Find a spot and build one." No doubt Rian already had a location in mind. "Once the stone has been placed, I will consider securing it to the ground. And let's see about building one of these back home, as well."

The dragon shelter was done. And it had only taken… a pale month and a half? There were probably a few more days there somewhere she wasn't counting. The days had blended together while she was underground after all, and she hadn't really bothered to keep count. Still, as far as she concerned, a major part of her responsibility to her new demesne had been fulfilled. She was going home and staying there for a week. Let Rian take care of going back and forth between demesnes for a while. She wanted her rest and she was going to have it!