A Heart Between Us

Chapter 4: Swimming

A Heart Between Us

Chapter 4

Swimming

The old emperor's palace was old and they no longer had servants on the grounds, so they had to do all their laundry themselves. It wasn't too bad, they did it before. They mostly kept one side of the palace to themselves while the rest of it wasn't functional at all. As a matter of fact, the laundry area wasn't even standing thanks to the Sons of Garmadon's attack. So the ninja went back to there, old chores.

Cole and Kairi walked out of the building with baskets in there arms. A wash basin clanked against Cole's hip. They moved together toward the small river on the palace grounds.

"Alright Kairi, have you washed clothes this way before?" Cole asked his charge. Kairi put her basket down next to the waters edge next to Cole's.
"No sir." She informed him. She looked at the water and then back up at Cole with a bit of concern on her face.

"Alright, what we gotta do is take the bucket and and fill it four times into the basin." He put the basin down in front of her. In front of her and Swung the bucket into the water.

Kairi looked into the bucket and then over at the water itself. Seemed simple enough, this should be easy. She did as Cole did and put the bucket into the water. Her sleeves slid from her elbow down into the water. She gasped and pulled the bucket out again. She sighed. Her sleeve was now soaked. Cole chuckled, rolling up her sleeves. She tried again with the bucket eventually pouring the last three buckets of water in.

"There we go." Cole said. She walked back over to Cole for the next instruction. Cole motioned to the clothes into the water.

"Then we pour the soap flakes in. Only a handful." He held up his hand and sprinkled some in and threw them into the water. "For how small your hands are, you'd probably need two handfuls." He chuckled at the face she made. It smelled weird.

Cole reached in and swirled the soap around to mix it around. Soon enough, there were small soap bubbles coming up from the now murky water. Kairi leaned over to look them. She jumped when there was a loud clanking noise. She glanced up to see a washboard. He picked up one of the shirts and began to rub it against the washboard.

It took a little bit to get all the clothing from the baskets washed. Both of them were freezing, but the clothing needed to be washed. Sitting around in dirty clothing wasn't an option. A bunch of smelly guys in a building all winter long? Kairi shuddered at the thought. All the clothes were placed back into the basket to dry off in a warm room in the house. Which didn't seem like a bad idea actually. Kairi stood up and stretched. She gasped when she felt Cole poke her belly.

"Come on, let's get inside where it's warm." He picked up the baskets, which were now too heavy for her since it was all wet clothing. She picked up the wash basin to empty it. Walking it toward the river, she bent over to pour out the water. With the weight of the basin and the water rushing out displacing the weight. It caused Kairi to fall forward over the basin and into the river.

The loud splash caused Cole to turn around and drop the baskets. Running forward, he saw Kairi floating down stream with the river. Poking his ear he spoke into the Earwig directly.

"Zane! Kairi fell into the river." There was a moment before Zane answered.

"I'm on my way." Zane called after. "We'll have fifteen minutes before her body goes into hypothermic shock."

As Kairi fell into the water, she it felt like she was being punched in the chest. The cold knocked the air right out of her lungs. She tried to cry out, but there wasn't any air to do so. The only thing she could do was gasp for air. When she resurfaced, she spotted Cole running along the bank after her.

"Hang on Kairi."

"Pop!" Oh there it was...she called him Pop. It was official now. She was his daughter. What should he do now?

"I'm on my way." Cole dove in right next to her. Holding her to him, she clung to his chest. Cole tried to stand up but that was impossible. It was far to deep after the snow.

"Look out!" Kairi gasped as they hit a large log floating near them. The wood scraped and cut into them. Cole let out a yell

"Cole!" Zane and Kai ran alongside the river bank.

To Zane, Kairi looked like she was too weak to do anything but drape herself over Coles arm. Zane took out his bow and an arrow with a line attached to it.

"Cole I'm going to shoot you a line." He yelled. Cole looked up at his boyfriend. His lips were so blue, he too was going to succumb to the cold too if something wasn't done soon. Zane shot the line, Cole grabbed for it. Kai cheered watching Zane pull them up.

"Kai get a fire going quickly." He tugged Cole up onto the river bank separating the two and pulling off their clothing.

"Hey!" Kai yelled, avoiding eye contact until Zane put a blanket around both of them.

"I am sorry Kai, but its the best way to get them warm is to take off the cold clothing. Please, the fire needs to be bigger."

"Sorry Zane, a lot of the wood is wet." He said and tried to use his fire element like a flame thrower.

"There we go. Let's get you both warmed up." Zane rubbed their arms to try and get the blood flowing again. It would take a little while to get them completely back to normal. It was going to be a long night.