"I do not have copies. Iridescence destroyed all my notes on the ocean voyage. I was warned that'd happen, but..." Shrug. "I can probably write them from memory and then fumble an explanation? And yeah, that's part of why dungeon binders are scary."

"Being scary is a decent consolation prize for unexpectedly becoming responsible for three hundred people. Being able to start giving myself a feminine body — I need to learn a bunch of anatomy to finish the job there — makes it actually net-positive. So will the satisfaction of keeping everyone alive if I don't fuck it up. Remind me to give you a slate to sketch out what you remember later."

"Oh, I know, I can't make these real without probably fucking myself up real bad!" She reaches up to tap the headband, and the ears wiggle a bit. "And the books at the school weren't helpful for it! I did do a little anatomy but... Like, then they started talking about student loans and service contracts..."

Sable groans. "Of all the things this world could have in common with mine, it's student debt? Awful. New wishlist item, we're going to figure out how to make education free in this demesne, even the higher levels, come hell or high water."

She frowns a bit more. "That really doesn't work in this language. Come colors or crushing storms? Come irridescence or invasion? Ugh, that'll take some work."

She shakes her head. "That's a distraction. Sorry. I may have a workaround for the anatomy thing, I think, but it runs pretty heavily on abusing binder senses. And it's slow. It will take a great deal of study and note-taking in my spare time. I'll share the notes with you if I get the chance to do it, though, and gladly help with the ears. Giving one's body the shape one's soul demands is something I believe deeply in."

"I don't know about 'soul'. I just think foxes are neat. If you have amazing powers over the life around you, why not do things that are neat?"

"I mean, you're not wrong. Foxes are neat, by the way, I quite agree. Wouldn't say no to ears and tail myself, once we get it figured out all the way. Probably do the fur in my violet, though. I have a theme and I'm sticking to it."

"I think growing vigas is probably more important in the short term though."

"Agreed, which is why I authorized so much land for Beenu's farm plot. Oh right."

She hands Hessia the slate and rockstick-stylus from earlier. "Can you try to get anything about the crop growth flowchart down on that?"

Hrmm... So if she puts down... This and that... It goes like that.

Yep, she's pretty sure that's right. The important thing is to get the vigas-specific signature right anyway.

"So... Now I have to explain what all the shorthand means don't I? Hmn..."

Yes, yes she does. Sable nods. And tilts her head.

"So this one is... Ugh."

You know what let's just add labels.

"There. So. What this meaning does, is- Always power the three triggers here." She taps the left. "If the plant is dead, kill everything in the boundary of the meaning. Like dustlife, so it doesn't start rotting." Middle. "Recognize vigas's life signature, and only activate the other two parts if we're looking at vigas and not some random other life on top of it. This is so you don't empower every insect that lands on it." Right side. "This is what actually... Does the empowering. It makes it grow, also makes it not die, also keeps the meaning sustained and restarts the whole thing. It's actually pretty simple, the hard part was learning to hold it all in your head at once and recognize what magic feeling like corresponds to.. This."

Okay, this actually makes sense. This is just more magical programming. Does her implanted deadspeaking skill contain a sense of what "empowering vigas" and "killing everything" feel like, magically?

"Is there a limit on how often Envigor can safely run, for the sake of the plant's health?"

Some of the available magic actions match up close enough in impression that it seems likely.

"Yeah, that's why homeostasis is in there. You can apparently get a lot fancier about it, to really optimize it, but this one is easy and works acceptably well. It's not even touching the genetics. That's an entirely separate field of study. Just kind of magically- 'Hey, go fast'."

"Interesting. The mental library that got crammed into my brain contains mental actions that seem to match up to the components of this chart, so it should be reasonably implementable. Is it reasonably similar for growing other crops, or trees?"

"Vines, maybe. You gotta get more complicated for trees and bushes. Different meanings on different parts of the plant- Make the leaves overproduce sugar for the rest of it, for example. I would be experimenting. I can show you how to put down meanings later? You seem to know how to do healing though."

"Healing felt like a primitive mental action, so it was fairly easy. Select injured person in mental landscape, apply healing, repeat. Okay, this makes sense. I just need to get us some trees to start experimenting with, and we can mess around until we get something workable. I assume that and custom trees are both a matter of feeling out the anatomy and biology of the plant until we have a sense of what needs to change to do what we want?"

"Well, we're in the right place to experiment. Frontier, hoy! I bet we'll end up killing some trees. But something... Omelets, eggs... Someone might have books for sale in Covehold, if we end up producing something worth selling. We stopped there for a bit before continuing along the coast by foot and boat."

"Bonus reason to get boats built quickly, and to get production up to speed as well. Maybe smooth limestone? Maybe we'll find some ore? What sorts of things are harder to come by in a city like Covehold?"

"Uh... Food was real expensive there. Which was having some. Not great effects. And is why we only stayed for three days. Also salt, paper, glass, and metal. Wood was cheap. Tools and things weren't that expensive compared to, just, raw material, most of the cost of a shirt was the cloth and not the shirtness. I think good stone bricks would do well, boats are good for moving heavy stuff."

"Okay. Get our food production high enough we can consider exports, stone bricks when we finish construction here, and work on finding salt, sand, and ore. We can probably figure something out for cloth, too. Lots of good opportunities. Just a moment while I note all those down into my to-do list."

She focuses on the list, and adds several entries.

"Mmkay."

"Oh! What's paper usually made of here? I know bits and pieces of a process using wood pulp, and I know the existence of a process using hemp, but I don't know if hemp is even available here."

"I don't know? I mostly learned deadspeaking. And not all that much of that."

"That's fine. Not your fault. We'll just reinvent anything we need to, and buy what books we can."

"Okay so, I would really appreciate it if I could mostly rest today. Maybe poke a tree later. Or heal someone if they manage to get hurt, but doing that so much is why I'm out of it in the first place."

A gentle smile crosses her face. "Absolutely. Go rest. If anyone gives you trouble about it, make 'em my problem. And don't give me any of that 'Lady Binder' crap. Let me know if you think of anything interesting or important, but otherwise just put yourself back together.."