A story about a girl who tumbles unwittingly into her favourite book series. Every character is waiting for her: kooky teachers, the chairbound headmaster who speaks through a chattering skull, a bedchamber of rapturous girls, the mysterious Fae, ev...
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Fae had lead me to a room that was beyond magical.
The first thing that hit me was the smell. A smell as sweet as sugar that you could almost taste on the air, but with no discernible flavour to it: mint, coconut, mango, pomegranate, orange, all mixed together in a smell too sweet for teeth.
It was a bathhouse, a dark, columned stone room with several bathing pools pocked in large circular holes on the floor. Each bath was big enough for ten people if they didn't mind getting cosy, and filled with silky pink water. They had emerald-green taps on the side of them, shaped like dragon's heads that could barf 'hot' or 'too hot' water. Sinks lined the left of the room in a stone block, with the same sculptured taps and little marble bowls that were full of differently coloured creams and salts. Fae told me they were "hair smoothers, muscle salts, bath sweetener and creamed bubbles". It was them that wafted their delicious scents, weaving together to give the bath its nectarous fragrance.
The baths steamed, giving everything a dreamy, foggish atmosphere and leaving condensation on the wine bottle. "Do people all get in same bath... naked?" I asked stiffly.
Fae laughed at this loudly. "People can do what they want. In here, the girls don't mind though."
"Including you?"
Fae hopped up onto one of the sinks and crossed one leg over the other. "Definitely including me. There's nothing scary about a naked body."
I agreed, but still liked my privacy.
"You know," she added rougely, "I'm actually not wearing a thing under this trenchcoat."
I gasped. "Fae!"
She grinned and shrugged. "What?"
"What on earth are you doing sneaking around school in just a trenchcoat?" I cried, flabbergasted. "There are all sorts of dangerous things that could happen to you! And- what about your tights?"
"Tights?" she tilted her head, eyebrows furrowed.
"You know," I went, now a bit embarrassed. I gestured to her legs with a weak flap of my hand. "Your strange tights."
"Oh!" She threw her head back to let out another hardy laugh. "Oh, no... these are my legs!"
I could feel my mouth pulping stupidly, like a fish. "Huh?"
"They're my legs!" she repeated. She stuck one in the air and trailed her hand down it as if for exhibition. "They're scaled!"
"I-" I didn't really know what to say. "Sorry. I've never seen a- not... human before."
She tittered lightly. "Don't worry about it."
Desperately trying to break the sudden silence, I asked in a blunder, "So- is the boys' bathhouse like this too?"
Fae gave me a look. "Maybe. I wouldn't know..." She winked and then lopped from the sink. "Now- we have showers, too, just behind those walls. Whad'ya prefer?"
