NOVEL NEXT Chapter 119 – Newfound Initimacy
"It's amusing how the way you view others could change so much after a while. People who were once strangers could end up being more important to you than your own life, while others might decrease in their perceived importance. In the end, often what changed was yourself, and how you perceived others." - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
In the end, Aideen decided to not bother the sleeping Artair, and went to the bathroom on trembling legs to wash herself instead. If she wanted to, she could make the trembling vanish, but she didn't want to. It just… didn't feel right to do for some reason.
The bathrooms installed in the houses of the inner district were rather newer ones, with enchanted items present to make life more convenient. For water, Tohrmutgent was situated above large underground rivers, and practically every city block had a reservoir that was enchanted to draw water straight from those rivers and stored it for people to use.
In Aideen's house, enchantments on her bathroom were mostly to control the flow of the water, and to either heat or cool said water. She walked under the faucet, which had many small holes in it, and allowed hot water to flow through and rinse the sweat and other unmentionables off her naked body.
While her body does not sweat unless she willed it to, she was quite thoroughly soaked with Artair's musky sweat. She enjoyed the relaxing feel of the hot water as it flowed over her hair and skin, and gently scrubbed the sweat away with her hands.
She must have been relaxing under the comfort of the flowing hot waters for a good while, because soon she heard footsteps entering the bathroom. She opened her eyes and turned to see Artair smiling at her, and she smiled back at him.
Without caring about how he was still very sweaty and musky while she was dripping wet from the shower, she embraced him in a hug and her lips found his as they kissed passionately. Then she dragged him under the flowing water to clean himself as well.
Aideen laughed when she saw Artair's appearance with his fur wet and sticking to his body, which received a grin from him in turn. The grin and laughter soon turned into fondling and gentle caresses, and those in turn became more intimate little by little. In the end, they ended up making love right there in the shower even as the water kept flowing and Aideen had to wash herself clean again.
Eventually, after they stopped messing around and both of them had cleaned up properly, Aideen turned the water off, but didn't step out yet. Artair shook himself until he was mostly dry, especially around his mane, and after he was done Aideen went out and fetched a pair of thick towels for them to properly dry themselves with.
They walked out of the bathroom together wrapped up in towels, with Artair yawning mightily as he did so, his yawn exposing his array of sharp teeth. Both of them looked at the disastrous condition of the bed they had slept in, then looked at each other.
"Want to get something to eat first?" Aideen asked with a questioning look towards Artair. They had removed the dirty sheets off the downy mattress by them, and had opened the windows wide to let some fresh air circulate into the room.
"Sounds good to me," replied Artair as he picked out a fresh bed sheet from the wardrobe and tossed one end of it to Aideen. Together they easily fitted the sheet to cover the bed and smoothed it out with their hands. "Anything you feel like eating in particular?"
"Old Seth's maybe? We haven't been there for a while now," answered Aideen to his question. She had already removed the towel wrapped around her body and was putting on her clothes by then. Neither felt any awkwardness at the other seeing them naked, as they had seen everything the other had anyway.
Artair on the other hand was slightly troubled as he had not brought a change of clothes when he followed Aideen to her place yesterday. In the end he went downstairs and collected his clothing from yesterday and wore them again instead. While he did so, he also picked up the clothes Aideen wore yesterday from where they were strewn and brought them to her.
"Works. Shall we then?" Artair said after he put on his clothes, offering a hand to Aideen, who took the offered hand in her own and walked alongside him as they left the house.
Old Seth was an unliving who had previously worked as a chef to a minor jarl before his death and subsequent rising. The jarldom he lived in happened to border Ptolodecca, and he had been imprisoned and tortured for a while before operatives from the Death's Hand rescued him.
In Tohrmutgent he ran an eatery together with the families of several other unliving, and his place was one of the more popular ones in the inner district. It was merely another twenty minutes or so on foot from where Aideen lived, and when they arrived it was crowded but not so crowded that there were no open seats.
As they were about to head to a table, Aideen noticed Mimia and Éirynn also entering the eatery, and waved to them. Both girls came over to where she and Artair stood, Éirynn looking at their hands holding each other's with a raised eyebrow.
In the end all four of them shared a table and chatted animatedly as they ate. Both Mimia and Éirynn seemed particularly interested in grilling Artair on how he wormed his way into their old aunt's heart, which just elicited chuckles from Aideen as she saw him sweat under their barrage of questions.
After they finished their meal and parted with Mimia and Éirynn, Aideen and Artair went back to Aideen's house. Both of them were still somewhat fatigued from the intimacy of the previous night, and soon laid down in bed together, with Aideen resting her head on Artair's chest and draping one of her arms across his torso.
Even so, she found herself not falling asleep despite the fatigue, her body somewhat craving the intimacy she had come to know just yesterday. Seeing how Artair wasn't asleep yet either, the hand she had draped over his chest slowly crept lower down…
"The sheets are new," he protested somewhat feebly, even as he grinned at her.
"So we'll get some fresh ones tomorrow," she replied, as she moved to position herself on top of him as he laid down on the bed.
They ended up sleeping only after a few hours of making love to each other, with her body sprawled on top of his sleeping form, both of them fast asleep with satisfied smiles on their faces.
