Two days after the platform landed, Loccy carried Olan's folded wagon table up the longhouse path on one sore shoulder. Her arms still throbbed from wrist to collarbone, and the new Wing on her back did nothing about the ache.
'Three steps carrying a whole fort, and now a folding table makes my elbows whine.'
She knelt inside the longhouse door, pulled the pegs and let the legs drop into their grooves one by one.
"That end's yours," a freed carter announced, slapping a cushion onto the bench, "and nobody else sits there."
"The loud end?"
"Guests of honour sit where the noise is," Olan chuckled, lowering himself onto the quiet far bench.
Children were already crowding that end, three to a seat, with a bowl and a spoon waiting at her place. Loccy plopped down between them, and her nose twitched hard at the warm steam drifting off the fresh barley bread.
"I saw her lift the whole fort," a boy declared, standing on his bench, "with one hand, like a cup."
