Sword and Snow

After Leon had been dealt with, the rest of the night progressed rather neatly, all things considered.

The Elders didn’t send any word regarding what was happening on their end that night, which was fine. Emery and Avuri trusted them to do what they had to do. The Elders had also promised to deliver them at least the three leaders of the enemy party, and the Elders weren’t the type to go back on a promise like that.

At Avuri’s request, Leon’s body was disposed of as neutrally as possible. His fire Qi would be the least likely to cause issues on the Blazing Dragon Peak to the south, so that’s where he was brought. No one felt the need to bury him, so they simply left him in a random spot on the mountain, a little ways away from the Basin. The animals and beasts that lived on the Peak would do the lion’s share of the work to dispose of the body.

By the time that was settled, it was solidly after dark. It wasn’t incredibly late, though, and when Cierra, Stena, and their team returned to the center of the Basin where the houses were with their mothers in tow, things got loud quickly. After the few initial teens snuck glimpses and tentatively poked their heads out of the doors, everyone else followed. Even Talya and Gray came out of the main house with Arek and Astra trailing behind them.

After everyone had a moment to throw themselves at Emery and Avuri for big hugs and reassurances that everything was alright for now at least, there was a flurry of introductions and greetings. None of the kids - outside of Cierra and Stena - had ever met Avuri’s cousins, and only a few had heard of them in passing. It had been so long since their initial visit that only the older kids had known about them.

That left Glenn, Mica, and Cove a little overwhelmed by the sudden surge of kids greeting them and asking questions. It was an absolute avalanche of attention, with all kinds of questions, covering everything from where they were from to favorite foods and activities. The excitement was enough to keep smiles on faces for a few hours before it really was time for bed.

Eventually everyone started to move toward their own beds. Avuri offered the two guest rooms on the second floor of their house to her cousins, which they gratefully accepted.

However, for everyone that had been involved in the fighting that night, what really called for them was a bath. Cierra, Stena, Kord, Fia, Elise, and Enrik were the first to go bathe as they snuck off while everyone else was still saying goodnight. When the adults passed the bathhouse on the way to the main house, they could hear shouting and splashing from the baths as Fia doused the other girls with water attacks as a joke.

Emery and Avuri both smiled at the chaos. Despite everything that had transpired, relief had followed, and everyone seemed to be in relatively good spirits. For now, that would be enough.

The group of adults decided it was best that they wait outside for their turn. Talya and Gray, who were planning to join everyone, went into the house to collect a change of clothes for everyone, because they would all desperately need new clothing after a bath. And it wasn’t until they made it near the house that they realized how dirty they all really were.

Everyone except for Ieji were completely covered from head to toe in dirt. In fact, Ieji looked remarkably clean in comparison to the other five, although there were plenty of green plant stains on their black clothing if you looked hard enough. Ieji also had the least amount of blood on them by far.

Emery was sporting a few deep cuts and a fair bit of blood - a good portion of which was her own - but Mica put her to shame. The woman was absolutely covered in superficial wounds. There was so much dried blood on her that it was impossible to tell if it was all hers or not. There were also a few deeper wounds, but nothing life threatening. They would need to be cleaned, especially given how much dirt and dust also coated her.

Cove was covered in dirt from all of the earth techniques that were used in their fight. It was caked on in several places, though not as badly as Mica’s, which had mixed with all the blood. He was pretty sure that a light scrub would take care of him. Glenn looked mostly alright; he had a layer of sweat and grime on him, but that was about it.

Avuri was also in a mild state. She was covered in sweat and grime, which was expected after a fight, but also had ended up with ash over most of her exposed flesh after her brief duel with Leon.

The whole group had to laugh after they saw their state, thinking back to how easily the kids had simply ignored how messy they all were. While Avuri’s cousins and Ieji didn’t get the same hugs that Emery and Avuri received, the fact that no one seemed to mind the dirt and blood was enough to let the whole group laugh and relieve some tension.

Everyone’s clothes, though, were destined for disposal. They all showed cuts and holes from attacks that had landed or barely missed, and that was ignoring the stains from everything else. Even Avuri’s clothing, which hadn’t really taken hits, showed some wear - mostly in the form of singed and fraying ends thanks to the flames.

By the time the kids vacated the bath, the adults were more than ready to take their turn. At least for the moment, they decided to split into separate baths for now, with Emery, Avuri, Mica, and Talya heading to the women’s side, while Glenn, Cove, and Gray moved to the men’s side. Ieji elected to bathe alone in the mixed bath to begin with, leaving Emery, Avuri, and Talya to try to explain that that was a very normal decision for Ieji, despite being told they would be welcome with either group.

Once they were split into their respective baths, it was like a new battle began. No one wanted to soak until all of the dirt and grime was removed - which Emery and Avuri both appreciated. But while scrubbing away dirt and sweat was easy enough, the dried blood was less so. And it took even more time and effort to address the actual wounds that Emery and Mica carried.

Thankfully, with the four of them in the bath, the numbers were in their favor. Avuri helped clean up Emery’s wounds, including the two holes that Quarris’ hidden attacks had made. Emery’s left shoulder had a hole that traveled straight through it cleanly, about the size of a grape. It had already begun to heal a little, just by virtue of Cultivation and Qi, but Avuri took her time cleaning up the wound. With so much dirt and grime everywhere, they didn’t want to risk it turning septic.

The wound on Emery’s left flank was a little less of a concern. The shot had been more like a grazing blow, and had removed a chunk of her side. It wasn’t really that deep, though, so washing it was easy enough. Avuri even pushed a little of their Qi into it with a very basic healing technique that would help it along.

In contrast, once Emery was cleaned and patched up, Mica was still in the thick of it. Talya had helped her get cleaned up, which was already a challenge. She had taken so many smaller blows, that her body was absolutely covered in small superficial cuts as well as a few larger wounds. Altogether, it left practically wearing a body suit of dried blood; and it took Mica and Talya basically the whole time that Avuri was working on Emery to just barely scrub all the blood off.

Avuri and Emery immediately slid over to help finish cleaning Mica up. Avuri took care of the worst cuts, using a simple Qi technique to essentially glue the wounds closed. Emery focused more on the actual wounds, not that there were many. But Mica did have a few open gashes that were in need of deeper cleaning that couldn’t simply be cleaned and shut. They were big enough that they would need covers instead of a suture.

The woman barely complained as the three others fussed over her for a while, making sure she was as clean as possible. The chatter was light-hearted and low stress, as they all tried their best to decompress. The day had been a long one, and they were all looking for whatever relief they could manage. Even Talya was happy for it, despite not being directly in the line of fire. The day had been rough on all their nerves.

It took about half an hour before the group was comfortable actually going into the bath water itself, but once they all settled into the warm water each of them could feel the tension in their shoulders finally begin to wash away. Even the light banter that had been going until that point seemed to fade as each of them leaned against the wall of the bath and simply breathed.

“You know,” Mica said, eventually breaking the silence, “I feel like we prepared for so much worse than it turned out to be.”

“Better safe than sorry.” Emery said, her voice quiet with relaxation.

“I don’t think we actually expected the dragon gambit to pay off like it did.” Avuri said.

“Or for the rest of everything to go down so fast.” Mica added.

“We definitely all left this morning expecting a standoff that lasted a couple days at least.” Emery agreed. “And yet, here we are. A little more than twelve hours later, a decent fight under our belts, and relaxing in a bath.”

“I won’t complain anymore.” Mica said with a laugh. “Things went about as well as we could’ve hoped. So long as the dragon side of this isn’t some kind of massive threat.”

“It almost certainly is.” Talya said with a sigh. “We’ve seen Vale have to deal with dragon politics before. It’s never clean, and it’s rarely pretty.”

Emery nodded along. “It’s almost certain to blow up on us. Eventually.” She stretched her arms up and out. The left one still wouldn’t raise as high as she wanted it to. “Thankfully at least, they tend to operate more slowly. It’s very possible that we have a year or more before Aysol makes any solid moves against us.”

“But more than that,” Avuri said as she slid down the wall, further into the water, “we’re almost guaranteed to see nothing from him for at least a few weeks, minimum.”

Mica let out a huge sigh. “That’s a relief I suppose.”

Silence reigned over the group for a solid few minutes after that as they decompressed. They could hear a bit of commotion coming from the men’s bath, and each of them visually strained to hear, despite not really needing to. It sounded like they were having a good time.

“We should go bother Ieji.” Talya said with a grin. “I’m sure they’re just sitting there alone, all lonely.”

“I almost guarantee that they are not, in fact, lonely. Even a little bit.” Emery said, then broke into a grin of her own. “But we should absolutely go bother them.”