The Kindreds, Volume 1

The Eleventh, Pt. 3

She found a thick chunk of moss growing nearby and used it to scrub herself down. She paid careful attention to her shoulders, rinsing them as best as she could. The flesh around the punctures was red and tender, but not yet infected. She thought it would be ok if she could find something to make a poultice out of, or if she found King Caprius within the next few days. The rest of the dried blood was concentrated on her stomach and sides. When she washed it, the miracle of the filly's healing was undeniable. Where yesterday there had been deep, potentially mortal wounds, now there were only twin scars. Overnight they had lightened, and now she had four pale lines on each side of her ribs, as though she'd had them for years. She had to force herself to look away or she thought she might go crazy trying to figure out the healing properties the filly somehow possessed.

"Magick is what it is," she relented. "Simple magick, don't you know that, Sada?" Shaking her head, she forced herself to move on to washing the rest of herself.

Her hair was greasy and heavy with oil from days without having it shampooed, and she looked for any herbs Jezi had told her that soaps were made of. There were no soap nuts growing at this spring, though she hadn't expected there to be; that would have been yet another miracle of this world, and too many were just not possible. Yet she did discover a pile of blue flowers beside a comb of crystal. The petals produced suds when crushed and mixed with water. Sada knew they probably both belonged to the Nymph, but she reasoned that the least she could do was share her soap flowers with Sada after scaring her so badly. So she gathered a few handfuls of petals and took them to a shallow rock, on which she ground them up with a bit of water. When a nice lather had been produced, she scooped the suds onto her head and scrubbed. When she finished her long hair was squeaky from the soaping and tangled from far too many days without brushing it, and now she had no honey to condition it with. She settled for combing through it with the pear comb that had been left on the bank. When she pulled the loose hair out of the comb's teeth, a huge, colorful bird immediately snatched it up off the bank and disappeared into the trees with it.

Once her hair was detangled to the best of her ability, she braided it as tightly as she could. It was the only way long hair could be kept relatively manageable without a softener, or someone to put it into updos daily. Fortunately, a simple braid was something Sada could do—Jezebel had taught her, so Sada could braid her hair for her when they worked in the apothecary together. Though it was much easier to do on a friend than it was to do on herself.

Once she had finished her own grooming, she called Lady Blue over, who had been splashing in one of the shallower ponds. At Sada's call, the caelicorn cantered over to her, still squealing happily as she kicked up the warm water. Sada smiled at the little animal. Despite her fierceness, she was still a baby.

A baby that can kill foxes the size of wolves, Sada thought as the caelicorn neared and the blood on her horn became visible. And who eats the flesh off your wounds...

When Lady Blue stopped beside her in the shallow end of the pond, Sada kneeled in the water to the filly's hooves. She shied away uncertainly, eyeing Sada, but she crooned to the little horse and sang in soothing tones until she stilled. Then she set to work untangling the long, golden hair feathering her equally golden hooves. Sada thought they might truly be made from gold itself. She tried to use some of the flower soap on the feathers as well, but that was when Lady Blue's cooperation ended. She stamped her hoof indignantly—and childishly—whenever Sada neared with the suds, and so she gave up and instead lifted handfuls of water onto her back, running it through her coat. It was fairly clean, and of course free from dust, which did not exist in Elt. Sada wondered if the filly could even become dirty in such a world, but then remembered how greasy her own hair had become, and she had no dirt to roll in either. So she rinsed the filly's glorious blue coat and tried to detangle those glorious sunny curls. This didn't happen as easily as she'd hoped it would, and Lady Blue would not allow Sada to braid her mane or tail, and so they were left a tangled yet beautiful mess.