The Winds of the Past [Rune Factory 4]

Chapter 11

After breakfast was over and the campsite tidied, we suited up in our gear and prepared to head out. Avani gave Baldur some filleted raw fish and a bowl of water and put him on guard duty, and we left. We headed eastwards towards a bridge we'd spotted the day before as we searched for a campsite. We spent the day exploring the area east of the bridge, but although we saw some strange creatures, including some peculiar flatfish that lived in the sandy remains of a dried-up lake, we didn't find any sign of Sechs activity. We returned home in the late afternoon, tired and dusty from the day's trek.

Dylas decided he wanted to catch some fish for dinner, and Avani swore she needed to bathe and wash her grimy clothes before she choked herself to death on the dust. "Well, if you hadn't wasted a whole freaking hour chasing those damned sand flounders around, you wouldn't be so dusty," Dylas remarked with amusement, ducking with a laugh as she chucked her leather gloves at his head. "Anyway, go ahead and bathe all you like, but wait until I've caught dinner, will you? Otherwise you'll scare all the fish!"

"You... you horse!" she yelled after his hastily retreating figure. I laughed at her look of disgust, and she looked at me with chagrin, then laughed, too, saying, "Yeah, I know, he's right—but he might have said my splashing would scare them—not that I would!"

I laughed, "Well, I would guess that it wasn't his suave manner and brilliant social skills that attracted you to him in the first place, anyway."

"You've got that right!" she agreed with another laugh. "Come on, let's go join him. The more fishermen fishing, the sooner we'll have enough for dinner—and the sooner I can get my bath!" She gathered up bathing supplies, a washtub, and a change of clothing, then after a moment's thought, grabbed a change of clothing for Dylas as well. "If you want to bathe, too, get what you need, then we'll head on over to the lake."

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We joined Dylas as he was enthusiastically fishing from the shore. He already had a few good-sized fish on a string, so it seemed it would not be necessary for us to join him after all. He caught a couple more, then filled the washtub with water from the lake and set the string of fish in the water to keep fresh while we bathed. Dylas didn't approve of us all bathing at the same time, although Avani didn't seem to care ("It's just skin, Dylas. Who cares who sees it? It's the inside that's the important thing, not the outside."), and neither did I, as mixed bathing had been quite common in my time.

But in deference to his more delicate sensibilities, Avani proposed that Dylas and I stick to one side of the small lake while she stuck to the other, or else that we keep our backs turned while she entered and exited the water, and that she would do the same for us. Once in the water, she reasoned, you wouldn't be able to see much anyway unless you really tried, and she didn't think that would be a problem. He still seemed skeptical, though, so with a sigh, she proposed that everyone just strip to their skivvies and use them like swimsuits. Dylas protested at that, too, but Avani reminded him that her underwear was no more revealing than many swimsuits—and less so than some. So we went with that suggestion, stripping to our underwear and diving into the cool water.

Avani loved water like a duck. The lake was not large in diameter, but it was surprisingly deep towards the center, and she reveled in diving, swimming underwater, and floating happily on the surface. Dylas accused her of being a half-nymph or a mermaid, though he seemed to admire her thorough enjoyment of the water. He and I were more businesslike in our bathing, scrubbing ourselves thoroughly with soap and washing the grime from our hair and our tails. I was annoyed to find that the soft, fine fur of my bushy tail was getting a little matted. It was a pain for me to work the tangles out, as it was awkward to reach the entire length.