Demesne Patron EX SS 38 – Holding Hands Forever (Patreon)

It had been a very nice day. Everyone had played in the dungeon, climbed trees to get happyfruit that was growing fast thanks to Wiz Tae and Shana, they played in the river while Karina had gotten some of the boys to help her catch some seels, and there'd been some excitement when Wiz Lori had started setting the river on fire. Or trying to, at least. Since the river was water, it didn't burn, but Wiz Lori seemed to be doing her best to make it happen anyway. Lord Rian had told all the children to get out of the water 'just in case', so maybe he was worried Wiz Lori would manage to actually set the river on fire.

She was a Dungeon Binder. Yhalta had heard they could do things like that.

Or maybe she as just playing some sort of joke? When the children had gotten close to the dock where Wiz Lori was, they'd heard her laughing a lot.

Yhalta and Matoy spent all day together, of course, holding hands when they could. After dinner, they'd joined the other children when they'd gone to the baths to wash up before going to bed. Even though it wasn't so hot anymore, taking a bath after a day of playing, helping drag seels towards one of the titos who could skin and butcher them, climbing trees, eating happyfruit, being dragged by Karina to help with the tubers and the farm in the dungeon, and watching if Wiz Lori did manage to set the river on fire—she didn't, but she seemed to have fun trying—felt really nice.

The boys were usually all done by the time the girls came out of the baths, because they didn't have as much hair to wash. However, when Yhalta stepped out of the baths with her sisters wearing the dress she'd taken to wearing to sleep, she smiled to see Matoy sitting at one of the benches in front of the men's baths with his own bath bucket next to him.

"Yhalta!" he called it happily, getting to his feet and walking towards her. Behind him, the titos and titas near him all started chuckling. She knew they were teasing him—and her too—but she and Matoy really didn't understand why. The two of them liked each other, liked to be together, so why shouldn't they be married?

"Matoy!" she greeted right back. Yhalta glanced towards her inay, but she didn't seem like she was going to stop her. At first inay had thought the two of them promising to get married—it was all official, with a little thing that Yhalta and Matoy had written their names on that Lord Rian said they promise to get married when they were old enough—was cute. Then she had started acting like they were doing something bad, telling her she could only play with Matoy when there were other people around to watch them. Since they always played with everyone else, that wasn't a problem but inay still tried to keep the two of them apart for some reason.

It was really unfair. Yhalta hadn't done anything to be punished for, but it felt like she was being punished because she couldn't play with Matoy. Matoy later told her that her itay had talked to his itay, and she'd seen his inay talking to her inay, and there'd been a week where they weren't allowed to play together at all.

She'd been really sad about that, but the two of them had been able to see each other during meals, even if they couldn't hold hands. Eventually Inay had stopped treating her like she was a bad girl and let her play with Matoy again as long as they were with other people and she promised not to let Matoy talk her into going alone with him somewhere. Yhalta didn't know why he'd do that, since there was nothing fun just the two of them could do but play a board game, and why play a board game when they could run around and play with everyone else?

Now inay just watched with a small smile on her face as Yhalta and Matoy reached out to hold hands once they two of them were close enough. Of course, that made her sisters Ateh Yhonne and Ateh Yhaltari giggle like they were laughing at her, but everyone did that. Yhalta would have leaned in for a hug with her other hand, but when she'd gotten close enough she'd smelled something sweaty. It wasn't any worse than when they'd split up to take a bath, but it made her falter a little and glance down at the shirt in Matoy's bucket. "Your shirt stinks," she said. "Why didn't you wash it?"

"I did," he said. "I rubbed soap on it and everything. It smells a lot less now, right?"

Yhalta shook her head, and Matoy sighed. "You should give it to your inay to wash," she said.

"Inay already washed all our clothes yesterday," Matoy said. "If I give her my shirt now, she'll get mad I didn't give it to her when she was washing."

"But won't she smell the shirt when you get home?"

Matoy nodded sadly. "I'll probably get scolded when she smells my shirt. I'm sleeping at Shana's tonight, so maybe I can try washing it again tomorrow so it smells better?"

"But it doesn't really smell any better after you already washed it," Yhalta said, bending down and picking up the shirt, and frowned when she found it mostly dry. "Why don't I wash it for you?"

"Really?" Matoy said.

Yhalta nodded. "Sure! I'm going to be your wife one day, so I'm going to be doing all your laundry anyway. Give me your shirt and I'll wash it for you tomorrow"

Behind her, Yhonne and Yhaltari started giggling again.

––––––––––––––––––

Yhalta hummed happily as she headed towards the laundry, her bath bucket in her hands. Instead of her towel, and a clean dress, the bucket held a dirty shirt and the dress that she'd worn to play around yesterday. They were smelly with sweat, but that was why she was washing them! Her little piece of soap was buried underneath them, and she hoped she had enough to get the clothes clean.

It was right after breakfast, and there weren't a lot of people at the laundry area yet. Yhalta had done laundry before, but it had mostly been fetching water to rinse the clothes and then rinsing them off after inay and her older sisters, then helping carry all the laundry so that they could be pinned up on the washing lines. However, she'd also tried actually scrubbing the clothes. It had been hard, rubbing the fabric together or against the bumpy ridges of the laundry area's washing tables, and eventually her mother had taken away the towel she'd been trying to wash and told her they'd try again when she was bigger, but she had done it. And the towel had looked cleaner afterwards too. Well, soapier.

The laundry area had been made for grown-ups, so the tables came up to Yhalta's chest. It was low enough for her to use, but it wouldn't be very comfortable, since what she'd be washing would be about level with her face. However, that wasn't going to stop her! She'd told Matoy she was going to wash his shirt, so she was going to wash his shirt. She was going to be his wife, so she needed too know how to do this once they were married.

Maybe they'd be able to get married this winter? They'd both be a year older by then, so maybe Wiz Lori will finally let them…

Shaking her head—she couldn't get distracted—Yhalta went to do the part she knew how to do, which was to get water. Emptying her bath bucket of the shirt, dress and soap, she filled it with water and carefully started with soaking in the smelly, dirty shirt. Water spilled over the side of the bucket, splashing on the table and dripping, and Yhalta barely managed to step back in time to keep her dress from getting soaked. Even so, her skirt got wet, and there were a few wet places on her front.

Ah, she forgot!

Letting the shirt soak for the moment, Yhalta bent down to gather up her skirt. Raising it up past her knees, she carefully girded her skirt, tying it up in front of her with the ease of long practice. While it wouldn't keep her dress from getting wet, it would make it easier to step out of the way and the skirt would be less likely to get splashed.

That done, she carefully pulled the now-wet shirt out of her bath bucket. It was soaked all the way now, and already bubbling from what she guessed was soap that Matoy hadn't washed out the night before. She was pretty sure her boy—inay said the itay was her man, and since Matoy wasn't a man yet, he was her boy—had just rubbed soap on it without actually getting it wet, since it had been too dry when she had touched it last night to have been wrung out. Well, that was why she was here!

Laying it out on the table, Yhalta began rubbing her soap on the more obvious stains.

––––––––––––––––––

Washing clothes was hard! Really hard!

It had taken Yhalta all morning to get all the stains out of Matoy's shirt. By the end of it, the front of her dress was all wet, and her soap was a little nub that's she'd almost lost twice. Still, she'd done it all herself, rubbing the shirt against the bumps on the table like she'd seen inay and the other tita do when washing, rinsing so she could see the stained parts, then soaping again when she saw the stains were all gone.

Washing was really, really hard, especially on her hands! No wonder inay was always telling them not to get their clothes dirty!

Still, she'd done it! Matoy's shirt was now clean! And Yhalta had done it all by herself! Well, the washing, at least. She was to small to reach the drying lines, and after how hard she'd worked, she didn't want to drop the shirt onto the wet dirt trying to pin it up herself. If that had happened, Yhalta knew she would have cried!

Thankfully, Tita Milcarra had been nearby and had been willing to help her pin up the shirt so that it wouldn't fall. Since it wasn't hot anymore, there were a lot more clothes waiting on the washing lines to dry, but there'd been enough space for the shirt next to Tita Milcarras own laundry. Even after it had been pinned up, Yhalta stayed behind to watch the shirt in case it came loose and fell, but it stayed on the lines, slowly dripping and drying.

Then she'd gotten bored and wandered off, the other dress in her bucket still unwashed because she didn't have enough soap. Yhalta went back home and put her bucket, soap and dress away, ungirding her dress to let the skirt fall. While the front was wet, it wasn't unwearable. She'd gotten wetter when seeling.

Leaving her house, she looked around, wondering where Matoy was. She didn't see where everyone was, so they could be anywhere from inside the dungeon to playing near the mushroom farm, but as it was nearing noon, they'd probably end up in the dungeon to eat sooner or later. Yhalta decided to head down that way, since she'd been standing all morning and wanted a nice place to sit down.

"Yhalta!"

Yhalta slowed, looking around for the familiar voice, and smiled when she saw Matoy walking towards her. He was carrying his bath bucket in both hands, and it was full of happyfruit! "Matoy!" she called out, waving towards him. Ah, wait, they couldn't be alone! She looked around, and thankfully there were a lot of titos and titas around, so they weren't alone. She headed to meet him, but unfortunately they could hold hands since he was supporting the bucket.

"Here," he said, holding the bucket out towards her. "You can have all these. Itay told me that since you were doing something nice for me I should do something nice for you too, so I picked these. They're all for you."

Oh! Yay! She really liked happy fruit, and while they had to give most of the fruit they picked to the kitchen to feed everyone else, it was all right to eat anything they picked as long as they didn't just hoard it away. That was what giving the fruit to the kitchen was for. "Thank you!" she said. "Do you want to help me eat it?"

They spent the rest of the morning until lunch sitting together on one of the benches in front of the baths and eating happyfruit. Yhalta was very careful not to get any on her dress, and made sure Matoy was the same.

After all, even though she was his girl and would take care of all her boy's laundry… it was better if the clothes didn't get stained!

After they finished eating, the two of them just sat there, holding hands.

Yhalta wished they could just hold hands forever.