"This is a laundry area?" Mikon said, looking around and seeming nervous and a bit confused. Her pink hair whipped about in the wind, longer than Lolilyuri thought was sensible, but then not everyone was as reasonable and intelligent as she was. And as soon as she could borrow some scissors again, her hair will reflect her reason and intelligence.

"That is the intention," Lori said. "As among those intended to use it, I need your assessment on whether it can be used conveniently as is."

Umu straightened at this, her chest protruding even more against her blouse and showing the lines of her wrappings. Her face was set in an indignant expression for some reason. "What, did you just assume we're laundresses even though you don't know us?" she said. Mikon kicked her in the ankle. "Er, your Bindership?"

"No, I know you're laundresses because you keep stealing Rian's laundry to wash it," Lori said.

They started in surprise, suddenly looking fearful. Why… oh, they must think she intended to flog them for theft.

"We put it back!" Umu said, confirming her suspicions.

"She did it! It was her idea!" Mikon cried, hiding behind the smaller blonde.

"Why, you treacherous–!"

"Yes, yes, which is why you're not being flogged for theft," Lori said, and the two of them relaxed slightly. "But that's irrelevant to this discussion." She pointed. "The laundry facilities. What is your assessment? Pretend you're going to use it to wash stolen clothes."

Hesitantly, they looked at what she had made. The water catch, the cisterns, the basins…They walked around them, put their hands on surfaces, watched the way the water was flowing to subsequently lower levels…

"If you say there's nothing wrong, I will be ignoring any future complaints," Lori said. "This is your only chance to point out anything you see as problematic." She wouldn't, but this would prompt them to actually say something if there was anything wrong. She was inclined to think there would be.

"Uh, your Bindership," Mikon said, "how did you expect this place to be used?"

Lori frowned. Shouldn't that be obvious?

"You kneel here to soak the clothes in those basins for scrubbing," she said. "And you can fill up buckets there."

"So… we're supposed to kneel?" Umu said, frowning. "Well, I suppose we can have a table here in the middle later…"

"Why would you want a table?" Lori said.

"Um, so we don't need to kneel while scrubbing, your Bindership," Mikon said. "It's easier if we stand. Hurts less."

Lori twitched as she remembered her most recent day of kneeling in her bathroom with her laundry. "I see," she said, keeping her face neutral. She glanced towards the pile of rock she'd left off to the side as excess building material and imbued the earthwisps in it through her core, binding them to move.

"You mean like—what are the two of you doing there?" she demanded irritably once she looked back at the two woman and saw there were now standing next to the pottery kiln. "Get back over here!"

She built a stone table not unlike the one in her room, and which she had to repeatedly stress to the two idiots with her was not a sacrificial altar. The drainage was strictly for water and not blood!

"I'm not going to sacrifice you," she said in exasperation. "So come here already! Is this table high enough or do you need it higher? Wider? Come on, be useful!"

The two reluctantly stepped closer to the table. "Um, a bit higher, maybe?" Mikon said, laying her hand on its surface briefly, flinching back as if she expected it to burn her. "We'd still have to bend to reach it properly otherwise."

Impassively, Lori raised up the level of the tabletop to about belly height.

"That's… better, I think, your Bindership," Umu said.

Lori looked at the table, then at the two women. "All right. You two stay there while I do this."

"Um, we really need to go back to our looms…" Mikon said, stepping backwards, back towards the kiln and the other houses.

"Stay," Lori ordered, then got to work.

The second cistern was dismantled for raw materials, the water that had filled it flowing out over the ground before she caught it with waterwisps and remembered to sculpt away the second outlet on the aqueduct above. That done, she raised the level of the remaining cistern again, and gave it extended sides to make it into a table with water in the middle. She added a raised lip to try and keep the water from going over the side, and had the water drain down one end and towards the river.

"That… looks more convenient, your Bindership," Mikon ventured, stepping towards the table and putting her hands on it. she mimed some motions with her hands. "Yes, I can see myself washing here, no problem. Though we'd need somewhere to put the clothes we're not washing and the ones that are done. At the very least, someplace convenient to put the laundry on until it's time to wash it?"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Maybe a bench?" Umu suggested. "A stone bench people can put things on?"

Lori looked to where she was pointing, at the space off to the side of the washing table/cistern, behind where someone doing laundry would be. It all sudden fell into place in her head. A long table with a cistern of wash water in the middle, the cisterns lightly higher than the level of the table. A drainage gutter between the cistern on the tabletop to channel waste water away. People on either side dipping clothes into the water, then scrubbing them on the tabletop, with a lip to prevent the water overflowing and getting their socks wet…

"Er, your Bindership?" Mikon said, pulling Lori out of her thoughts.

"What?" she said.

Mikon jerked back, but seemed to rally. "Er, if it's not too much trouble, perhaps you can turn the table into a washboard as well? To, ah, help with laundry?"

A what?

"A what?" she asked, confused.

"A washboard, your Bindership," Mikon repeated, as if that would help. "It's… for washing clothes."

"Yes, so I gathered from the blatantly obvious name," Lori said. "What is it that I can make the table one and how can it help with the laundry?"

"It’s a wooden board with ridges on it, your Bindership," Umu said. "It helps with scrubbing. You rub it back and forth on the ridges, and it helps get dirt out."

Lori frowned. "Show me."

"Um, I can run back home and get ours…?" Mikon offered.

Lori gave her a long look. "Come back quickly," she said.

Mikon ran, hiking up her skirts to do so.

"You," Lori said, pointing at Umu as she stared after the other young woman. She jumped and turned to face Lori. "What else does a laundry area need?"

"Uh…" the blonde said, looking around frantically. "Washing lines! Where are the washing lines?"

What?

"What?" Lori said.

"The washing lines, where you hang clothes on lines to dry in the sun," Umu said, giving Lori a strange look.

Ah. So that's how other people dried their clothes. She just used waterwisps to draw the water out of them.

"I'll have Rian handle that, that's going to need line," Lori said, dismissive. She looked around. She might as well build the bench…

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By the time Mikon returned, there was a stone bench on either side of the long washing table/cistern.

"I'm sorry it took so long your Bindership," Mikon said hurriedly, "I had to tell my aunt you called for me. Here's the washboard, your Bindership!"

Lori accepted the proffered piece of wood. It was surprisingly small, only a little bigger than the plank of wood Rian used to write things on. It had a simple frame, with the majority of it consisting of lengths of wood packed together so as to present their edges, forming a wavy, bumpy surface not unlike those wooden shutters they'd had back in the apartment she'd shared with her mothers.

"And… this helps with washing, how?" she asked.

Mikon hesitantly reached for the board, and Lori gave it to her. "You run the clothes across it like this, your Bindership," she said, miming passing something over the bumpy surface, "and that helps get dirt and stains off easier."

"Why not just beat it with a rock?" Lori asked.

"Rocks are heavy," Umu said. "Washing is tiring enough as it is without using rocks too."

Lori twitched slightly at that. "Ah. Of course." She looked at the washboard, then at the table, contemplating how to… "All right," she said, handing the washboard back to Mikon. "You're dismissed. I have work to do." She put them out of her mind as she grabbed some stone and began to shape it into a long, narrow stone slab.

It took some working, but she was eventually able to cut more or less regular wavy teeth into the stone, forming a kind of comb. Carefully, she softened just the top surface of the tabletop around the cistern and swept the teeth of the comb across it. When she was done, there was a pattern of raised lines on the tabletop, the points carefully dulled and curved to prevent injury and breakage.

Lori nodded in satisfaction. Now, she just had to do all the tabletop surfaces… and build a second wash table/cistern… and more benches… and pack down the ground to keep it from being muddy and prevent undergrowth…

She really should have just grabbed the map and verified its accuracy.

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She lay face-down on the table and groaned.

"I thought that may be the case," Rian said, "so I came prepared!"

She heard a bowl being set down in front of her, and reluctantly raised her head. Then she blinked and stared.

"A little tax payer was kind enough to help me get some happy fruit," Rian said, sounding smug and self-satisfied for some reason. "I peeled, mashed it, then put it in a bowl and put that bowl in the cold room for storing meat."

"So… you made frozen happyfruit mush," Lori said blandly.

"Cold food is sweeter than warm food, everyone knows that," Rian said. He pushed the bowl towards her. "Come on. You've had a busy day. Indulge yourself. Have the sweet stuff before dinner." He theatrically leaned closer. "It's not like your parents are around to tell you that you can't."

That was an excellent point. Lori straightened up on her bench, grabbing the bowl and spoon that had been stuck to it, and after poking and mixing around the cold mush took a tentative bite.

She let out a moan.

"I'll take that to mean you like it," Rian said, leaning back with a sigh. "So, saw the laundry area again. It's completely different from what it looked like before lunch. Did you really rebuild the thing in one afternoon?"

"There were usability issues. I fixed them," Lori said, taking another spoonful and chewing with enjoyment before swallowing. "Make a note. In addition to a roof for shade, it's also going to need washing lines for drying the clothes in the sun."

"I think we can get some poles cut for that," Rian said, nodding. "Though it would help if you used magic to put them in rock to make them secure. I'll schedule it and tell you when."

Lori gave him a level look, not breaking her gaze as she had another spoonful of delicious, cold happyfruit mush.

"I mean, I'll get people ready and talk to you to find a time that's convenient for you," Rian amended. "Sorry, slip of the tongue."

Lori nodded sharply. "Which won't be tomorrow," she said. "I'll be verifying the map tomorrow."

"Do you want me to tell off some people to accompany you?" Rian said. "It's never a good idea to be wandering into the woods alone, in case you get injured."

Lori scowled, but couldn't deny the logic. "Fine. But make sure they know I don't want to talk to them."

"I'm sure Deil and Tackir already know that," Rian said.

Lori titled her head then nodded in approval. "They'll do," she said. "But no Landoor!"

"Your contempt is noted," Rian said. "I'll go get dinner, you finish dessert before it gets warm."

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She forwent playing sunk with Rian after dinner, opting to retire early. Her lord had looked relieved, no doubt because he realized that today was the day she would defeat him three games in a row and wanted to delay his utter humiliation at her hands.

In her room she entered her private bath, and picked a wall. Then she pulled stone from the outermost layer of the wall and formed a table surface at about belly height, just the ideal elevation so she didn't have to bend down. Taking the toothy stone comb she'd brought to her room, she softened the table surface and began to sweep a long pattern of raised lines on it…