The Shining Wyrm

1.2

The walk to the bathing room after ‘exercise’ always made Jewel uncomfortable. Alexander had a tangy animal scent and Muriel shed a soft oiled wood ambience in her sweat whenever it was particularly hot or she’d been working Alex over in sword practice.

But after a heavy stint at flight Jewel always reeked of rain on dry soil and the sharp sting of lightning. The same smell that clung to whatever unfortunate targets were being used for her ‘practice’ in the archery field.

As such Jewel felt like she stank like how they say a scorched bog down in the terrible southlands did.

It did not help that she was always too worn out to do anything but walk afterwards either.

Jewel hated walking. Actual walking, that is, instead of the mock-stride she usually affected when her flame was not a guttering, overworked thing.

Not because it was difficult. But because there was almost no way for her to actually do it without looking like an ‘ermine with a distressed chicken tied to its back’ as she heard one of the stablehands that worked with Smithson say.

She never told Smithson, of course, not after she got a stablehand in trouble with him when she was five.

Because for one, she didn't like knowing they were punished, but more importantly, it really was true.

Without the breath of her wyrmflame to hold them aloft, her wings were really imbalancing and wanted to droop down and act as a third pair of awkwardly splayed legs. Her other limbs by contrast were absurdly short for her body length, and on a charitable day the best she could describe her gait was to repeat to herself she had “the curving grace of a serpent”.

Today Jewel could not muster up niceties for herself. She stank like a soggy forest in a thunderstorm and her flame was too sparse to lift even her wings!

So she was wobbling and waggling from side to side with her wing-knuckles dragging against the stone and hunched up in the middle to keep her fore and hind legs closer together. Her tail twisting and lashing around behind her in short little snaps instead of languid loops.

She was also failing to keep a slight buzzy whine out of her voice as she galumphed towards her bath.

The sooner she got into the big wooden tub the better. With the hot water and the cleansing soap and masking lavender oils and wire scrubbing brush and her favorite copper pail.

Really as soon as possible would be best!

“Jorge!”

The bath man nodded a bit to her as she turned a corner in the hallway toward the bathing room (it used to be one of the Armories!).

“Yes, Lady Jewel? It was a vigorous day in the courtyard today?”

“Yes, Jorge. Please tell me the water is ready and hot? yes?!”

“Started bringing up the boil soon as I heard you were leaving for the yard, Lady Jewel”

“Superb! I’ll be as long as I’m able! Can you hold back any inquiries until it’s time for supper?”

“I hear from the cook we may be having guests this evening, Lady Jewel”

“What?! No one told me!”

“Perhaps it was to be a surprise?”

“I guess? Um, do you think I can get by without a scale polish today?”

Jewel momentarily un-hunched herself, sparing a huff of flame through her wings to raise herself up to a more regal posture as befitted her family’s standing. Showing as much of her flanks as she could to the bathman.

Jorge gave a quick evaluation of her nearly brass scales before shaking his head confidently “You’re plenty shined already, Lady Jewel, just make sure to scrub the mud and dust off good and tend your mane and you should be fine.”

“Splendid, now please let me through, and make sure the door is watched? I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m indecent!”

Jorge nodded firmly before opening the door which she slipped through with something almost resembling the grace her mother always attributed to her.

The air in the bathing room was heavy with moisture and heat. Steam billowed throughout it. And there before her was one of her favorite pieces of furniture.

Her bed was a bit too soft and clingy despite her parent’s best efforts. But the bath?

It was perfect.

Finally alone and most importantly in private, Jewel could finally relax a bit, breathing full and deep with her wings flopped flat over the flagstones. On the floor she could feel the subtle indents and signs of shelving and weapons racks long since removed.

Telling her a story she could finally appreciate thanks to her lessons.

Jewel indulged in a secret buzzing rumble of contentment, stretching herself fully across the room before grabbing up her copper pail from its place on a hook on the tub. Cradling her childhood treasure in her fore claws.

It was much too small for her now but bathtime just would not be complete without it.

Normally what came next would be easy, but with her wyrmflame so taxed she could not muster the effort to simply glide smoothly into the water.

Instead she had to actually work her heft and bulk with her muscles which sapped as they were quivered in protest at the thought.

After several false starts, Jewel tried hunching herself up over the lip by using her wing fingers to push her middle high enough. Then tilting her ponderous abundance of forebody, neck and face she let gravity carry her limp landslide of scales over the lip and slowly poured her coils face first under the steaming hot water.

Blessed hot water all over!

She took a heavy breath all the way into her lungs and let the hot, thick, toasty fluid burst through her insides herself.

Mother often told jovial stories about when they had discovered that Jewel did not need to breathe air.

Jewel herself remembered a lot more panic, crying, and being quite terrified she had done something terribly wrong for how frightened her parents had been.

But now no one screamed or cried or pulled her out of her baths. Jewel simply spent a luxuriantly long moment simply cradling the smooth sweetness of delectable copper from her pail against its special place in the small of her belly. Her scales just below her seventy-third rib tingling in a way distinct from the seeping heat of the water coming from within and without.

After just a moment more lingering below the surface Jewel popped her head out of the bath and gave out a soft bubbling croon of satisfaction, letting the water burble out of the squeeze of her lungs and her growing Wyrmfire scalded them dry. Releasing the electric-scented mist to billow from her nose and spark along her teeth and tongue.

Wings unfurled in the warmth of the water to touch nearly every familiar line and whorl of varnished wood grain.

This was just a perfect moment she always treasured.

The sound of her emergence prompted the usual ritual.

“Everything to your liking Lady Jewel?” the bathman called, muffled from behind the door.

Her reply resonated through the room with a throaty buzzing burr she tried to restrain everywhere but here. “Delightful as always, Jorge! If you don’t hear me scrubbing in a bit, a gentle reminder if you please?”

A muffle of affirmative noise answered her and she turned her attention back to bathing.

She could happily luxuriate and stoke her inner flame in just the heat of the water until it went tepid. But they had guests and Mother always said she needed to be presentable for guests.

Refined and civil to prove she was nothing like what they feared.

First the mane, it always seemed to get chock full of dust and detritus even when the rest of her rarely ever seemed to catch more than a slight dulling unless she literally rolled in manure and mud.

Jewel reached over to grab the soap with her left hind claw and a comb with her right fore, twisting her head around so she could scrub it into the mane at the top of her head before passing the comb to its hind-partner to help draw out tangles, burs and the occasional bug.

She had once reminisced with father after he had returned on Griphonback how flying involved far more dirt, grime and bugs than most people appreciated.

One time that she even joked with Smithson over the time she’d gotten distracted and flew into a goose! The beast had hounded her for half an hour afterwards!

Truly knights should study the bravery of geese!

Which reminded her, the manor had some potentially unexpected guests?

Jewel softly murmured to herself as she worked her soap and combed her mane to between her foreshoulders. Getting the hairs clear before she scooped up a pail full of more water and poured it over her head was somewhat ineffectual but it gave her the excuse to use the copper pail for longer.

“I didn't think anyone was scheduled to visit this season. Well at least it can’t be the Countess or anyone of that import, no one’s shown up to open up the guest wing.”

Swapping her left hind limb for her right so she can get the soap scrubbed into the dusty roots of mane between her wing shoulders she scooted and curved herself up out of the bath water.

Luxuriating a moment with her head submerged before she surfaced.

“Maybe it's a knight ? Or a traveling bard troup?”

A thought suddenly struck her and excited her voice.

“Oh what if it's elves!” Her voice had a slight squeal at the possibility.

“Yes, Lady Jewel?”

Helpful as ever her bathman had his ear out if she needed anything.

“Nothing, Jorge!” she huffed and hummed, mulling the idea over a few different ways.

She continued to work through her mane, down to past her wings, shifting and slipping the portion needing a scrub out of the water so it did not get overly diluted by the rest of the water.

Jewel liked keeping the fresh suds from rinsing before twisting the already lathered portions of it around in the water.

On reflection she discarded the earlier spark of hope muttering as she worked suds into her mid-back.

“Meh, as if elves would visit a barony in the middle of nowhere like us.”

A huff of admonishment at her own childishness and she switched the soap and comb from her hind claws to her foreclaws. Working the soap into the roots of mane over her hindquarters and then up and down the line atop her tail.

She grumbled to herself just to drive home her own stupidity.

“It’s probably just some merchant or mayor or something. No one important or interesting would be showing up on such short notice”

She considered her tail mane with a critical eye and a pursed lip, it was likely it would be presentable and the rest of her bath water was ever so slightly starting to cool in spite of the heat that was now toastily burning inside her.

“Well I wouldn't say that. After all, it could always be a wizard,” said the deeply rich and unmistakably male voice.

A male voice here in the room.

A voice that apparently came from the black cat wearing a tiny red floppy cap.

The cat who conspicuously sat on the edge of the bathtub.

Jewel blinked at the cat momentarily. Then finally shrieked in a proper and very ladylike manner that she would later insist did not at all resemble a cockerel screeching from inside the throat of a moose.