The next morning, Lori gave her lord an unamused, intent look. She had come down from her room to have breakfast to find something so odd she hadn't been able to ignore it: several people peeling, cutting and mashing fruit into bowls before adding the resulting mash into one of the large stone-and-metal-reinforced pots that they used to make stew, all while breakfast was seemingly in progress. Weren't people supposed to be eating to prepare for the day's work, like she was about to?

"Why are we wasting precious food resources we should be holding in reserve for winter?" she demanded after pulling him next to the stairs leading to her room.

"You don't want us celebrating the fact you're not dead?" Rian said. "Besides, it's not precious food. Those fruits are just starting to go overripe since they fell from the trees. I'm having them mashed up and we'll put in the cold room to chill. Later, they'll be a sweet, fruity desert made of food we otherwise wouldn't have been able to eat. We'll break it out at lunch when we have whole roast beast and seel, which doesn't take from our stores because they're freshly hunted—I had some men go out this morning to get a beast, and I talked to Karina, she's sure she can get a big one—then at dinner, more of the same."

"I fail to see how any of that celebrates my survival," Lori said.

"All right, I admit, it's an excuse, but what holiday is really about what it's about? Everyone knows it's an excuse for taking a break," Rian said. "People have been working hard, and they do need a break. One day won't hurt, and it will be good for morale. The food that they normally don't get to eat and not needing to work much are all part of it. And if it's all linked to the idea that you not being dead is a good thing, then they'll be even more glad you're not dead."

That… all seemed needlessly convoluted.

"That all seems needlessly convoluted," Lori said.

Rian shrugged. "It'll work. People were worried they'd have to move to River's Fork or at least ask Shana to be the new Binder when you got sick, especially those who were from there. They know what's it's like to lose their Binder. All that worry built up and even though you survived, we need to get its effects out of them, and this is the way to do it. Don't tell me they didn't have holidays in… wherever demesne you came from?"

"I know what a holiday is," Lori said, rolling her eyes. Did he think she was ignorant? "I usually stayed at home and read." Holidays should be used to do advanced reading for school after all, according to her mothers. Not that she did it much. The biographies of ancient Binders were more interesting. Thankfully they always assumed the ones she'd been reading were for school.

"That explains so much about you," Rian sighed. What was that supposed to mean? "Well, I don't have any books for you. And neither does anyone else, so they can't celebrate holidays that way either. Come on. You're the Binder now. Haven't you ever wished there were more holidays in a year? Trust me, as your lord in charge of dealing with people. Everyone needs this. I'd actually string it out for two days, but we'd run out of things to do, unless we made the second day just a day of rest." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Which actually wouldn't be so bad, but people might get rowdy since we'd be out of food for them to eat when we're not resting. Maybe just make tomorrow a half-day where people rest in the afternoon before going back to work the day after… "

Her look continued to be unamused.

"They really do need the break Lori," he said quietly. "If you, who's much more stable and well-balanced than they are, have been working so hard you decided riding on a rock moving at high speed was a good idea, what about them? I mean, without this, they might start doing something stupid. Or they might start making mistakes and hurting themselves. The children especially need this. I mean, they've been the ones working the hardest, doing the same thing day after day, every day… I can still cancel it if you like? I haven't made an official announcement yet…"

She groaned, waving him away. "Fine, fine, they can eat gluttonously today and laze around doing nothing tomorrow," she said. She well remembered the seething hatred within her when holidays were essentially cancelled for school activities. "But I expect my laws to be followed! No music at night, they use the latrines, and no public indecency."

"I'll see to it they behave," Rian said brightly. "But we're allowed music during the day, right?"

"Fine, fine," she said. "But it stops after sunset!"

"We'll probably be too busy eating by then," Rian said, "so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Yes, yes, fine, whatever," Lori said dismissively. "Now, do we have breakfast or is everyone too busy having a holiday to cook anything?"

"Don't worry, we have breakfast," Rian assured her. "It'll be a bit smaller than usual since we're using the one pot, and hopefully they'll finish washing the other pot that's already empty so we can stick that in the cold room too—oh, which reminds me—"

"Yes, yes, I'll make the cold room colder," she said. "This is supposed to be a holiday. Why does it seem like I'm being asked to work?"

"Everyone knows holiday work isn't the same as real work, so it's not as tiring and doesn't count," Rian told her as if it was obvious.

"That makes no sense whatsoever," Lori said flatly.

"It's holiday logic," Rian said, shrugging. "Normal logic doesn't apply."

Lori… couldn't really refute that. Even she had been guilty of it in her younger days. Only her younger days, of course! She was an adult now, and thus lived much more sensibly.

"Can I get you breakfast now so I can go back to organizing preparations?" Rian said.

"No," Lori said.

That actually seemed to take her lord by surprise. "No?" he repeated.

"No," Lori said. "I need you to come upstairs and help me with something."

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For a moment, Rian was silent. "I'm almost completely certain that's not a euphemism for anything," he eventually said slowly, "but could you please clarify what you need help with? And will it take long? I haven't really told everyone that it's a holiday yet, and I want to catch them before they start working so they'll know they don't need to."

"I need help bringing things down," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, you're going to share your fruit loot with everyone?" Rian said hopefully.

"No, don't be silly. They're reparations to me, why would I share?"

"Generosity?" Rian said, even as he sounded like he was just being facetious.

"What did I tell you about being silly? Now come on, there's a lot to bring down."

Rian sighed, but obediently followed her back upstairs to her room, where he paused at the doorway.

"Are those… bowls of fruit?"

"Yes, obviously," Lori said, frowning.

"Are those names engraved on them? Is that gold inlay? Wait, did you do this last night?"

"Obviously. When else would I have done it?" Lori looked at all the bowls, each with some fruit from her loot—er, reparations—and shook her head. "Now come on, grab two bowls and bring them to our table."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Rian declared, looking strangely flustered. "Hold on, I'm still trying to understand what's going on… are these thank you gifts?"

Lori scowled. There it was. The expectations. The misguided belief she was following social conventions instead of doing what she wanted to do, which simply happened to coincide with those conventions. Now she'd have to destroy these just to make a point that she would not succumb to… it wasn't even peer pressure. No one here was a peer. She was the Binder, after all.

A pity. Some of them looked really nice. She'd put a lot of work into them…

Rian glanced at her. "Oh, wait, no, I'm obviously wrong, these are clearly something else," he said.

What?

"I don't know what they are, but they're probably not thank you gifts," Rian continued. "Maybe they look like them, but they're not." He seemed to think. "You're not building a harem or something, are you?"

Lori went from rolling her eyes at Rian's inability to understand the obvious—no matter how convenient it was for her—to annoyed. "Pick up the color-tainted bowls, Rian."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said, heading for the table and gingerly picking up a bowl. The bowls weren't very big, somewhere between a soup bowl and a serving dish, but she'd made it as thin and strong as she could. It wasn't like she didn't have a surplus of beast teeth anyway, and it gave the bowls a nice bone gloss. "So, are you handing these out yourself, or do you want me to do it for you so you don't have to talk to anyone? If you're handing these out, I mean, I could be very wrong and these are just some decorative bowls to give the dining hall a splash of color… which actually wouldn't be so bad…" Rian started to mutter.

They got some curious looks as they brought the bowls down, but everyone knew better than to interfere in her business. Still, there was a murmur of curiosity around them as they went to their usual table, which was empty. They put the bowls there carefully, and Lori pulled some darkwisps from under the table and the shadows under her clothes to cover the bowls in lieu of a sheet. No reason to let people see and give them strange ideas.

They went back upstairs to get more bowls.

"Huh, these don't have names," Rian said as he procrastinated. "Are these not finished yet?"

"Why wouldn't they not be finished?" Lori deflected.

Rian nodded. "Of course, of course," he said, lifting two of the bowls in his hands. "So, I was talking to Parndal, Konco and Daising, you know, the three medics who helped get you to the hospital?"

Lori blinked. "Who?" she said.

"Parndal, Konco and Daising, the three medics who helped you get to the hospital after you had your accident," Rian said, ignorant of the fact he was telling Lori what she needed to know. "Well, Koe, Deil, Vom, Drelyn and Baroshota Sawyer were there too, but they just helped carry you, the other three were the ones who helped treat your wounds…"

"The contents of these bowls are wrong," Lori said abruptly. "You go back to the table, I'll fix it." She turned away, muttering the new names over and over under her breath, voice barely making the sounds as she repeated them in her head. Parndal, Konco, Daising, Koe, Vom, Drelyn, Baroshota Sawyer…

"Well, all right then, I'll just bring these bowls downstairs and come back," Rian said brightly. Lori waved him off, and felt him leave. As soon as he was gone, she quickly wrote down all the names on the wall next to her bed with her finger after softening the stone. Only then did she realize that Daising was on both lists, and scowled, erasing the name so there wouldn't be any repetition. Then she quickly got to work on the bowls that were still blank. She had one bowl too many, but that was all right, she could keep that in her room, it would be nicely decorative… no, she could put the stones she used to play sunk there, even better…

Rian took a slothfully long time to put the bowls on the table and come back up. By the time he did return, Lori had managed to write the names on the rest of the bowls and inlaid the writing with some gold. Just a little. She needed it for wire, after all.

"Sorry it took so long, I was trying to get the bowls under that darkness you left without letting them be too near the edge of the table," he said brightly. "But I'm here now." He picked up two bowls, holding them carefully and taking the lead as Lori followed after him.

Together, the two of them were able to bring down all the bowls to their table, where the cover of darkwisps grew with every trip, covering the bowls under their opaque shadow. People kept glancing their way, but Lori ignored them as usual, and while Rian nodded and smiled at them in acknowledgement, at least he didn't deviate to waste time by talking to them. Soon, all the bowls were down and on their table, and Lori finally let herself sit with a sigh.

"I'll go get food," Rian said. "I'll be right back."

Lori nodded, waving a hand dismissively, and he left to do just that. In the table across from her, the three turned their gazes to follow him. Idiots.

Shaking her head, Lori moved the darkwisps a little, trying to find… ah! There they were. Two bowls, one with a clean folded blouse on top, the other with a clean folded skirt. To be honest, she wasn't sure which belonged to whom, but they could just deal with it among themselves. She picked up the bowls and navigated around the table.

Riz saw her coming this time, eyes widening before she subtly tried to move away. Unfortunately, there was someone sitting next to her, and all she managed to do was to squirm right up against them as Lori finished rounding the table and reached the empty space across from where the three sat.

Umu and Mikon saw her just as she put the bowls down on the table. "Y-your Bindership!" they both exclaimed in surprised.

Lori spoke before they managed to start speaking again. "Thank you for the clothes," she said, pushing the bowls towards the two of them. Everyone at the table blinked, staring at the two bowls with the clothes—blouse, skirt and chest wrappings—on top. "Yours." With one last slow nod—Binders did not bow, peopled bowed to Binders—Lori turned and went back to her usual seat.

She did not raise the darkwisps a little so she wouldn't have to look directly at the two as they kept looking between the bowls of fruit with their names on them and then at her sitting directly opposite them. The opaque shadow cast by the darkwisps was already that high to begin with!

Not even Rian coming back and sitting in front of them stopped the two women from their ogling. They actually leaned to the side to look around Rian as he lay the bowls of breakfast in front of her. Lori picked one of them and started to eat.

"So…" Rian said brightly. "I have absolutely no idea what those bowls are about, but do you need help with them?"

Lori frowned at him. "Why would I need help? With anything?"

"Ah, so you can match people's faces to the names on the bowl?"

Lori paused.

She sighed.

She glared at Rian. "You will do exactly as I say," she said evenly.

"As my Binder says," Rian said brightly.

This was why she hated remembering people's names. It wasn't actually just the names that you had to remember!