"So, good news, we have volunteers," Rian said as he sat down opposite her for dinner. "They'll be ready to go with us tomorrow. Though it took some negotiating, since they don't want to be away from their families until winter. How do you feel about different batches of volunteers, each batch doing week-long shifts? We only have ten people in the first batch, but since it looks like the houses will be done soon, we can expect more people in subsequent batches."

Lori considered that thoughtfully. "So, I have to keep going back there every week?" she said blandly.

"Haven't you learned enough from your tests to build something so that you don't need to?" Rian said as Umu casually sat down next to him, massaging her fingers tiredly.

Lori brightened at that reminder. Yes, he was right, wasn't he? She'd have to go this time to convey people, see what she had to work with in regards to an air circulation system, and set up her final test, but after that would be her last time once she'd put some sort of air circulation device in. She'd be able to modify the water jet with her blood so that Rian didn't need her to keep it imbued, and from then on he or someone else could do it, even the ice delivery! "Yes, I suppose you have a point," she murmured. A thought occurred to her. "When the houses are complete… will we be able to move everyone else to only one shelter?"

"I was sort of hoping we could still use both so that people would have more space to themselves," Rian said as Riz sat down on his other side, smelling of sun, sweat and sawdust.

"Answer me Rian," Lori said sternly. "Will the remaining people be able to fit in a single shelter?"

Rian sighed as Mikon sat down next to Umu, also massaging her fingers. "I suppose they can. It'll even be a little roomier… but I still think people would like it more if they had more space."

"Inform people that as soon as people have moved out, the second shelter will be converted to private rooms," Lori said.

"Oh. Well, that's nice—"

"For the purposes of private intimacy. Inform the carpenters that I will need doors. Many, many doors. Unless people are fine with others being able to look in…?"

Rian stared at her. So did the three women. Then they glanced at Rian.

"What?" she said. "This will solve the issue you brought up, won't it? Inform people this will commence as soon as the second shelter is no longer occupied. The sooner the houses are done, the sooner I can get to the modifications. Perhaps that will encourage them to work faster. People will have to bring their own bedroll, but perhaps we can see about laying out some planks to keep them off the cold floor." She paused a moment. "Children will, of course, be strictly forbidden entry. For ANY reason."

"I want to say that should be obvious from what you're describing, but I can already hear the mothers saying 'Go get your uncle', or aunt or brother or whoever," Rian sighed. Umu, Mikon and Riz all nodded.

Yes, that's exactly the kind of thoughtlessly traumatizing things mothers would do, in addition to not locking doors, not having younger siblings until years later, and giving unasked for advice about how to get girls to sleep with you.

"Assign someone to guard the door," Lori said. "Perhaps one of the medics, in case someone hurts themselves."

"I… want to say that's unlikely, but yeah, people are likely to end up hurting themselves from overexcitement." The three stared at him again. So did Lori, for that matter.

"How could you possibly know that?" Lori said.

"It's an energetic physical activity," Rian said blandly. "That's really all the prerequisite you need for someone to get hurt by accident."

"I defer to your no doubt superior understanding of the subject," Lori replied in the same tone. "Going back to the previous topic, after the houses are finished, we must begin preparations for winter."

Rian frowned. "In what way?" he said.

"Have you considered how the cold and snow are going to affect latrine use and maintenance?" Lori said.

"WAIT!" Rian said. "I can vaguely see what you're getting at, but can we NOT discuss latrine-related stuff while we're about to get ready to eat? Pick something else. Pick ANYTHING else, please, I beg you! We can talk about it on the way to River's Fork tomorrow."

Lori frowned, about to reprimand him for such silly behavior… and then remembered they were going to eat stew.

"All right," she said, making Rian and the three sitting next to him sigh. "When the houses are finished, you'll be able to begin work on the boat we will bring to Covehold, correct?"

"Hopefully," Rian said, sighing. "But as things stand, I'm not very optimistic. Any boat we build before winter would be relatively small, maybe just a bigger barge with outriggers. We wouldn't be able to bring a lot of cargo, just the seel skins. In hindsight, I'm not sure we're be able to sell those for as much as we'd want." He gave her a sideways look. "Really, off the top of my head, the dragonscales are the best thing we have to trade, and given that other demesne might have had a lot of those drop on them too, I'm still skeptical about it being worth the trip. But we NEED medicines, tools, and materials…"

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Then don’t expect much," Lori said. "The boat will be untested, the route will be untested, the crew manning the boat will be untested. Don't think of this as primarily a trading mission. This is an attempt to see if we can even reach Covehold. If that is successful, we can take the opportunity to find out what goods are in demand and available, and then come back with them after winter, preferably in a better boat."

Rian frowned. "We'll still need medicine, though," he said. "Especially nine months from now, at the latest."

Lori blinked. "What happens nine months from now?"

"Well Lori, when a man and a woman love each other very much…"

"Oh, that," Lori interrupted. Right. She'd forgotten.

"Yes, that," Rian said, not seeming to notice the intent stares coming from either side of him. "Traditionally the way to increase your demesne's population. We might need to make more houses again."

"Not before we've prepared the ones we have for winter," Lori said. "They have roofs and doors right now, but no windows and the walls are all bare stone."

"Yes, whose idea was that?" Rian said blandly.

Lori ignored that. "At the very least, some sort of fireplace will need to be added in, or a central hearth," she said. "Otherwise I'll have to heat and light everything. Food's ready."

Rian blinked. "What?"

Lori pointed. "The food's ready. Go get some."

"Oh! Right, right," he said, getting ready to stand up, before pausing. "Uh, Umu, Riz, could one of you move a little?"

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By the time Rian came back with the food, Lori had come back from her room with her sunk board.

"Ah, I thought something was missing," Rian said when he saw it, putting down two bowls. She picked one and pulled it towards herself, then reached over and made her first move, dropping stones into shallow bowls on the game board. The others all sat back down, though not in the same places as before.

As Rian made his own move, Lori said, "About winter preparation, how ready are we?"

"We're… progressing…" Rian said slowly. "But to be honest, I'm worried we won't be able to stockpile enough food stores before the seels migrate away."

Lori blinked. "Why would the seels go anywhere?" She made her next move.

"For the same reason as the beasts," Rian said. "Winter is coming and they're be more comfortable somewhere warm. So they'll swim off and go live somewhere else."

Lori stared. "They do that?"

"Didn't you ever learn about this?" Rian sighed, reaching over to do his turn.

"No, we learned Whispering at school, why would we need to learn what beasts and fursh do in winter?" Lori said. "Maybe Deadspeakers would know, but I doubt it."

"Right, well, lack of knowledge on the subject on your part or not, I'm worried about it happening before we have enough to last us the winter, plus some buffer in case of emergency," Rian said. "The children can't catch the biggest seels—though Karina keeps trying— and those are the ones worth catching for how useful they are."

"So, you want people to start helping the children catch seels when the houses are done?" Lori said, making her next move.

"That too," Rian said, "but actually, I was thinking we catch a bunch of seels and keep them penned up so we'd have live meat in the winter. Why kill it and worry about storing it in the cold room when it'll stay fresh by keeping it alive?"

"You want to domesticate wild seels?" Lori said.

"Domesticate implies we actually know what we're doing," Rian said. "No, I was thinking we get a few of the biggest ones, gather them up together, you raise big pillars of rock they can't pass through around them, then just leave them to feed themselves, then come winter we make sure they don't starve to death until we're ready to eat them."

"Why don't I just raise bars across the whole river then, and trap them here?" Lori said dryly.

Rian paused. He tilted his head thoughtfully.

His silence went on for some time.

"Lord Rian?" Umu said, glancing at him.

"Hmm?" he said, glancing at her.

"It's your move, and her Bindership is waiting for you to say something."

"Whu…? Oh, right!" He reached over, picked up the stones from a bowl, and began dropping them one at a time as he progressed. "So, you raising bars to block them from going down the river sounds very tempting, but wouldn't they just go around it by wiggling on land?"

"Killing them now and storing their meat seems less insane," Lori said, voice flat. She made her move.

Rian shrugged. "It was just an idea. I agree having people concentrate on hunting the big ones and storing their meat now is the most sensible course of action. Maybe we can try it next year, when we have more people."

"Hmm…" Lori said. "Well, I'll leave it to you to tell the children that you're devaluing the worth of their contribution to the demesne."

"I'm… what?" Rian said, blinking in confusion.

"Well, if you're going to ask people to start hunting seels—I assume with catching the large ones in mind?—that that would naturally make the children's efforts after that point near-worthless," Lori said. "After all, it's not like they can learn to hunt beasts instead."

"I'm… sure they'll understand?" Rian said.

"They'll probably get all the cleaning and latrine duties forced on them afterwards," Lori continued. "After all, it's not like they can do anything else."

"Are you… trying to make me feel guilty about putting other people on seeling duty so we'll have enough food for winter?" Rian said.

"Of course not. Why would you think a silly thing like that?"

"The way you were speaking before?" Rian said.

Mikon coughed delicately. "Ah, Lord Rian?" Rian glanced at her as Lori had another spoonful of stew. "With the new retting tank that her Bindership made now available for use, we would very much appreciate it if people could be assigned to cutting, gathering and retting more ropeweed. It would give us more material to spin and weave with, which would allow us to provide everyone with more blankets for winter, and perhaps new other things as well? I'm sure the children can do that…?"

"It would go faster if we had other people to spin thread for us as well, Lord Rian," Umu said. "Then we could concentrate on weaving… all… day…" Umu had the look of someone hearing what she was saying and regretting it.

Rian glanced at Lori. "Does that sound like a good idea?"

"Why are you asking me?" Lori said. "How would I know?"

"Well, you might have some strong opinion you wanted to express," Rian said.

Lori shrugged. "I never worked in textiles. There's no work there for Whisperers. They mostly employ Mentalists and Horotracts."

Rian blinked in surprise. "Really? Why?"

Lori shrugged. "Fast reflexes for working the looms, fitting more workers into a workshop and dragging out the day so they need only pay workers for a day's work after making them work a day and a quarter."

"That sounds unethical," Rian said disapprovingly. "And illegal." From the faces Umu and Mikon were making, they probably agreed.

Lori shrugged. "Those were only rumors I heard. As I said, I never worked in textiles."

Rian sighed. "Well, we have time. I'll… talk to the children. Who knows, they might be agreeable."

Lori shrugged. "Your move."

As Rian did just that, reaching for one of the bowls, Mikon watched him intently. Finally, she said, "Lord Rian… how do you play this game?"