The trip back to Lori's Demesne, Lorian, was slowed by the fact they were traveling upriver, against the current. Lori had to carefully increase the output of the waterjet, and then imbue it since the greater speed and increased load on the boat was using up magic faster. Thankfully, with the early start compared to their previous journey, they were able to reach the borders of her demesne by late afternoon.
There was nothing dramatic when Lolilyuri crossed the border back into her demesne. There was no sudden rush of strength, no more increased feeling of power than usual. She merely felt… complete. Like a woman who'd been limited to one finger suddenly being able to use her whole arm. She breathed in deeply, feeling their airwisps all around her, the waterwisps beneath her, the earthwisps beyond that.
She felt the earthwisps in the bone of the water jet, and imbued them, binding them to her will. There were small fractures in the material, places where it was starting to crack. She bound the bone, reinforcing its structure. Then she imbued the waterwisps she'd bound to the jet.
Lori's Boat roared forward, the water jet pushed beyond the limits it had previously had.
"While I'm as glad to get home as you are," Rian said, voice slightly raised as he gripped the rudder in both hand, "I'm not so happy I could die! Can you slow down a little? I don't think I can make turns going this fast! "
Lori frowned, but reluctantly reduced the speed of Lori's Boat. "Better?" she asked.
"Barely," Rian said. "If you want to go this fast, you have to keep an eye ahead so you know if you have to slow us down." Still, he relaxed his grip on the rudder. "Well, we're home, at least. Ugh, I'm really looking forward to a hot bath and a change of clothes."
Ah, hot baths. Lori was looking forward to that as well.
The trip seemed so much faster with no one yelling in fear about how they were going too fast. It seemed almost no time at all before they rounded a bend and ahead was the familiar cliff-face and buildings of home. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the dining hall's kitchens, and from bonfires that burned in front of bath houses. The air was rich in the smells of cooking meat and stew.
Rian frowned. "Wait, why is everyone cooking outside?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Lori said, keeping her smirk on the inside.
As Lori's Boat drew closer, people spotted them, and soon people were coming from… wherever they'd been previously to wave and cheer their coming. The crowd drew close as the boat moved to beach itself as Lori deactivated the water jet.
"Get back!" Rian cried. "Get back or you'll break your legs!"
Fortunately, they seemed to hear, because they stopped crowding in at the last moment, and they coasted on momentum as the boat slid up onto the riverbank. The bottom of the boat scrapped on the ground beneath, and they ground to a halt.
Lori gave the mob crowding around her boat a bland look and turned to Rian pointedly.
He rolled his eyes. "All right all of you, get back, get back, we need room to step down!" he called. "If you want to help, help us gets Missus Elina's things down and someone call her husband!" He stepped to the side of the boat with the assurance of someone that knew people would step out of his way, and they did. Then he turned and helped the shaky mother– presumably Elina– and her son find their feet and step over the side of the boat to the ground.
Rian then started pointing at the nearest people in the crowd and directing them to unload Lori's Boat as Lori stepped off the boat herself. The side she was on still had a little water on it, but it took only a moment to bind the earthwisps directly underneath her to raise up the dirt, mud and stone, and compress themselves into step for her to walk on. When people moved to crowd around her, she gave them a level look and crossed her arms over her chest, making her impatience clear.
"If I find any signs of shit or piss in my dungeon, all of you will be held responsible," she said levelly. Then she walked forward.
People parted before her as, with a spring in her step, she walked the last few steps home.
The gaping maw of the dungeon was cold and very, very dark as she walked towards it. Humming to herself, she reached into the sky and began gathering lightwisps in the fading afternoon, binding them to her will and making them glow brightly. The clusters of lightwisps drifted down to her as she entered her dungeon, and she scrunched her nose slightly as she smelled unaired woodsmoke, and a whiff of latrine. Many tables and benches near the entrance were missing, and there were small piles of char and ash, as if the remains of bonfires irresponsibly lit inside an enclosed cave with a low ceiling and not much natural circulation.
When she went to check, the bound lightwisps trailing after her, the latrine still had days-old human waste in it, but from the looks of it no one had used it in the last two days. She sealed the smell as best as she could behind a barrier of airwisps. The baths also held a mild stink of human waste, as if people had been pissing all over the floor. From what she could feel through the wisps of the demesne, the drain was clogged with… well, it wasn't liquid, so she could guess.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Really, she left for a little while and people started treating her dungeon like some kind of tavern…
Well, she supposed she didn't actually find signs of shit or piss outside of the latrine, so she wouldn't need to have everyone in the demesne flogged. Still, this couldn't continue…
She heard footsteps in her dungeon.
"Ah, there you are," Rian said as he walked towards her, one arm raised to shield his eyes from the lightwisps behind her. "So, I was sent here to petition you to bring back the hot water for bathing, the lights, and to make more ice for the food stores, the ice that's left is nearly melted all the way."
"Have they at least been putting food in the food stores, rather than just taking it out?" Lori said.
"Does the seel meat the children catch count?" Rian said.
She gave him a look.
"In their defense, our population sort of doubled," Rian said. "And most people have been busy clearing land for the new crops people brought from River's Fork."
Lori sighed. "We've been gone only a few days and everyone falls into chaos." She smiled. "How much of the cured wood meant for building was cut up for firewood so people could have light?"
"We're down one curing shed's worth," Rian reported, tilting his head. "But you knew that, I suppose."
"Not really," Lori said, "but I guessed." She nodded towards the charred remains of a bonfire.
Rian rolled his eyes. "Well, you've made your point, you do a lot to make this place livable and people should love and worship you. Can we have the hot water back now? Or are you going to keep the hot bath all to yourself?"
"I suppose…" Lori said. She looked around. "Tomorrow, start formulating a schedule. If people are going to be using this place as a dining and communal area, then it will be communally maintained. The latrines will be physically emptied according to a schedule, the floors swept... that sort of thing. I'm sure not everyone is actually cutting trees or looking for wild vegetables or other needful things. Put them to work. They need to deserve the food they eat, after all." And she'd best drain the reservoir and start again fresh instead of trusting people didn't act foolishly while they had been out of her sight for that long.
"Yes, your bindership," he said wryly.
They both took a deep breath and sighed.
"It's good to be home," Lori said, smiling.
"Home," Rian agreed.
Closing her eyes, Lori restored the hot, running water in the baths.
––––––––––––––––––
After the most crowded bath since she'd first built the things– people had apparently not misused it like the facilities in the dungeon, but had instead been manually carrying in water to bathe with from the river, so it was in a usable state– Lori found herself eating outdoors, on the tables and benches that had been dragged outside from the dungeon after the lightwisps she'd left had run out of imbued magic and the bonfires people had made for light had made the place too smoky to stay in. It seemed people had decided to make do until she returned, and there were a lot of temporary benches made from planks and rocks, which people were sitting on as they ate and chatted. Most of the newcomers from River's Fork didn't seem to mind the lack of tables, just holding their bowls in their hands and eating as they stood or sat, chatting with the people near them.
Rian appeared, two bowls of food in his hands. He sat across from her, putting down both bowls, and Lori picked one at random. The two of them began to eat.
They didn't say anything, didn't make plans for tomorrow, didn't talk about any of the work that would inevitably need to be done. They just ate, enjoying the stewed meat, wild vegetables, mushrooms, and other things that the late and lamented Binder of River's Fork had apparently identified as edible.
Behind Rian over at the next table, Umu, Mikon, and some vaguely familiar young woman all sat together– well, at the same table, anyway– staring at Rian's back with satisfied smiles.
As they finished their food, setting aside their bowls and leaning back, one of the children– the brat, Lori recognized– came by, holding two more bowls of full of some sort of yellow-orange vegetable mush, with new spoons in them. It took a moment for Lori to recognize it. It was that fruit the children had been keeping secret, the one that was sweet and mushy and runny.
"Lord Rian," the brat said. She made a jerky bow to Lori, as if she'd heard of it but didn't know how they were done. "Wiz Lori. Welcome back. Please have some happyfruit." Happyfruit? Seriously? Is that what the children were calling it? Well, she supposed the name fit. She'd certainly be happy to eat it.
"Thank you Karina," Rian said, smiling with charisma and sincerity and charismatic sincerity. "This… looks like a lot. Did you pick this yourself?"
A nod. "I went to find some as soon as I found out you'd come back," she said, her little chest puffing out proudly. "I climbed the trees and picked them for you myself. Then I peeled them and cut them up and put them in a bowl for you, so you'd only have to eat it."
Lori took the bowl in front of her and took a small spoonful of the mashed– no, 'cut up'– fruit. It was as she remembered. Yes, happyfruit was certainly a fitting name. "Thank you, Karina," she said. "It's delicious."
The brat beamed. Turning, she headed for the stew bowl, and started getting herself some dinner.
"Did you actually remember her name?" Rian said, staring at Lori.
"Why wouldn't I?" she said. "She's the only one who pays her taxes. Karina's been leaving me a fresh seel in front of my door as tribute practically every day since she learned how to catch seels. It's made good eating over breakfast."
Rian blinked, then turned and stared after the brat.
Lori took another spoonful of the mushed happyfruit. Later, she'd have to open up her bedroom again, get some air circulating so she wouldn't asphyxiate in her sleep. Tomorrow, she'd have work to do, getting her dungeon's facilities cleaned, reconfiguring them to be maintainable by manual labor, draining and replacing the water in the reservoir, expanding the dungeon so she'd finally have a more properly private area to herself, restoring all the bindings she'd allowed to lapse so people would feel her absence from the demesne…
Right then and there, however, Lori listened to the vague and non-specific sounds of her demesne having dinner, the distant sounds of bugs in the dark, and ate her happyfruit.
…
"You tell everyone what happened to Grem," she told Rian.
Rian rolled his eyes. "Yes, your bindership," he said.
"But tomorrow," she said. "You can put that off until tomorrow."
"Joy," Rian said blandly, and ate his happyfruit.