The Cinders of Dezu

14th: Falling (1)

Cairo dipped his foot into the dark water and cringed. It was cold. And the night air wasn't helping. He turned around to see Talia smiling at him in the light of the flame in her hand. He looked over at Julian who had removed his shoes and was trying it out for himself. He was, true to form, vocal about the discovery.

"Good LORD!" he said, jumping out quickly, "That is- I... hate that."

Talia silently chuckled.

"Hey, it was you who asked for a good clean."

She was right. The three of them had made it to Talia's safe house in the woods just as the sun was going down. The cabin looked quite a bit like their own. On the way, Talia had explained some rules of travel as they became relevant including how to tend to bathroom needs complete with which leaves were best as a tried and true biodegradable toilet paper. Julian felt gross after hours of travel without any amenities so he was excited for a bath when he reached the cabin.

"You asked at the right place. This is just the spot for a good wash," she had said with a smile.

She led them a ways through the trees until they had reached the lake. It was massive and shimmered under the light of the moon. Even in the dark a large shadow of a land mass stood looming in the middle of the water.

"Is this how you do things around here, jungle girl? Has no one invented showers here yet?" said Julian

Talia smirked.

"Not for everyone. Only the rich and sophisticated."

"So you know what a shower is and yet you put up with this."

Talia looked to Cairo.

"You gonna be, alright?"

Cairo pulled the bar of soap she had given him out of his pocket.

"Peachy keen," he said with a fake smile.

"I'll give you boys some privacy. Just keep an eye out. Lake Pawna has some nasty old secrets."

Talia shot the fireball in her hand casually onto a log sitting on the beach. She disappeared behind the trees as it smoldered and kept a bit of the night away.

Cairo and Julian looked at each other. Cairo called after her into the trees.

"You don't wanna clarify that statement or anything?"

Her voice didn't return.

"No? Okay... We'll just... get vulnerable then."

It wasn't long before they had their clothes off and were lathering their personal soaps in the chilled water with their backs to each other. Cairo soon discovered it was most helpful to get the soapy lather warm so the dip under the surface to rinse wasn't as unpleasant.

"Yeesh," said Julian, his back still to his friend, "Somehow feeling my feet sink in the mud is taking away from my clean feeling."

"You need to learn how to rough it, man. Sometimes you gotta be a man of the wild."

"Yeah well, as long as lady of the wild over there doesn't see me roughing it. I'm still not sure about her... but I'm also not in top form in this cold right now... if you know what I mean."

Julian's bar of soap slipped out of his hands and landed to his side with a plunk. His hands waded through the water as he groped for it. He felt his toes lift out of the mush of the lake floor.  He did wide sweeps with his arms but still couldn't feel the slick bump of the bar. He was laid out on the surface of the lake as he did his butterfly strokes. He suddenly felt like he couldn't reach the ground with his feet. He thought maybe he'd gone out a bit farther and the water was a little bit deeper. He tried to turn himself around. There it was. The bar. It was floating. But not on the surface. He squeezed his eyes to make sure he didn't have water in them. He blinked a few times to make sure it wasn't a trick of the light. His vision stayed the same.

The bar of soap was floating just a few inches in empty space above surface of the lake. Julians mouth was open but he couldn't speak. He stretched out his hand to touch it. His fingers came close but missed just shy of the bar. He couldn't reach it. Why couldn't he reach it? Talia's light on the shore went dark. He looked around in the pitch black but he couldn't see his friend. He couldn't see anything except the blanket on his face.