It appears my bath has arrived.
The sudden presence of clean water has me slowly becoming aware of how disgusting I am. I look down at the tunic someone has put me in. It’s crusted in blood and stiff with wrinkles embedded so deeply in the fabric that I doubt they will ever come out.
The bath carriers and fillers disappear back out of the tent just as fast as they came, and I don’t hesitate to strip out of someone’s dirty shirt and practically cannonball my stinky ass into the tub.
Ryn chuckles and then gets awkwardly quiet. He clears his throat, and I have to stop myself from smiling and teasing him for being weird. “I can go if you want some privacy,” he tells me, making no effort to actually go anywhere.
I shrug as I start to remove the layers of filth and death from my skin and hair. “There’s not room for two in here, otherwise I’d invite you in, but you can just hang out and watch if you want,” I offer, meaning it totally innocently even though it didn’t exactly sound that way.
The words room for two ping around in my mind for a second, and then it hits me like a kick to the face...Pigeon!
“Fucking shit!” I face palm and then dive into my center. I’m the worst body sharer in the world. I’m always forgetting about poor Pigeon. “Pidge! Pidge, are you here? Are you okay?” I shout at the top of my lungs, my voice frenzied as I look for her.
She holds up a wing and winces like I just flipped on the lights and she was trying to sleep. Only she flashes me an image of exactly that. Shit. “Sorry, Pidge, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” She waves me off and curls back up in my chest. She’s better, but I can tell she’s still healing. I back away quietly as she flashes me an image of a child banging on a bathroom door, chanting mommy over and over again.
I snort. “If anyone is the annoying kid in this scenario, it’s you, you’re way needier than I am.” She rolls her eyes but makes that chuffing sound she does when she’s laughing. “Love you, Pidge,” I lob at her, and she rolls her eyes again and flashes me a meme that says thirsty on it in bright neon yellow lights. “Thirsty for your love, Pidge!” I agree, and she chuffs again and then shoos me away.
I come back to the bath and the tent, elation pumping through me, and discover Ryn is practically in my face, his eyes filled with worry. “Are you unwell, what happened?”
“I’m an ass and completely forgot to check on Pigeon when I first woke up. She’s good. Tired, but good.”
Ryn visibly relaxes. “The healers spent hours working to help her. They left completely drained. She was in bad shape.”
I send another little pulse of love to Pigeon as that information sinks in. We’ve had too many close calls. It will be nice to just take it easy and live that lazy gryphon life we’ve decided to live. Well, mostly I just decided that, but I feel confident that Pidge will be on board when she wakes up.
“So you’re not mad?” Ryn asks as he settles on the ground next to the kiddie pool bath. I turn to him, and water tries to slosh over the side.
“What? Mad that you and Zeph thought about killing me?” I consider it a moment. “I’ve thought about killing the two of you a lot, so I think we’re probably pretty even on that front,” I admit. “I mean, much groveling will be expected about the whole secret keeping thing,” I tease, trailing off.
“I did try to tell you in my own clever way,” he defends. “It’s not my fault you didn’t read it.”
I splash water at him and drop my mouth open in faux outrage. “Oh please, blame the victim, why don’t you. It’s not my fault the book you chose looked all boring and factual. I prefer a different form of book porn, thank you very much.”
“I have no idea what porn is, but if you can’t follow the clues that are laid out, you really only have yourself to blame,” he teases back.
I go to splash him again, but he grabs my hand. I try it with my other hand, but he grabs that too. I get my legs involved, but he moves behind me so if I want to get him, I have to get myself. I huff in outrage, and Ryn cracks up from behind me, thinking he’s safe.
Think again, buddy.
I call on my wings and start splashing him with those. This isn’t my first splash battle, and I take no mercy. Ryn does this man-squeal that almost weakens my attack because I’m laughing so hard, but I persevere. He releases my hands and tries to retreat, but he slips instead and goes down like a fucking mountain.
Oh shit.
Hurriedly, I jump out of the tub to check on him, but I hit the same slippery patch that he just did, and instead of making sure that he’s okay, my feet go right out from under me, and I land hard on top of him. Ryn grunts, and I yelp, and then we both moan in pain when his hip bone tries to break my ass.
We both roll around for a second in pain, and then I start cracking up. “I can fight gryphons with practically my bare hands, but a bath and an asshole mate are what’s going to do me in?” I observe, completely lost to the slaphappy attack.
There’s been so much shit going on, so much never-ending bad news and attacks and doom. I
