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“I think this one has dried seaweed in it,” Jaskier said, dumping the contents of the jar into the water, “so it should be extra – ocean-y.”
“Delightful,” said Yennefer dryly.
He emptied out the jar, smacking hard upon the bottom to get the last few flakes out. Then standing back he put his hands on his hips and surveyed the misty bathwater. “Do you think that’s enough?”
Yennefer wriggled in the bath, letting the water swirl around her. “It’ll do.”
This wasn’t her first choice of locale. But she hadn’t transformed in so long that her skin had begun to itch horribly, and she hadn’t had many options. A public bathhouse was out of the question. She was too tired to conjure a portal. She could go to an inn, but inn bathtubs were never big enough to let her stretch out her fins properly.
The poet’s bathtub was generously sized and he had a decently impressive selection of bath salts and oils. The scent of the water was a pleasant, if slightly discordant, mix of lavender and mint and seaweed. All in all it could be worse.
He was in his shirt sleeves, flushed and sprinkled with salt. He’d got a bit damp and the already flimsy cloth of his shirt was translucent here and there with water. “Do you want me to – leave?” he said. “Or shall I stay and keep you company?”
“I don’t really care,” she said.
He hesitated for a moment. Then he knelt beside the bathtub, resting his elbows upon its curving rim. His gaze rolled over her as if letting himself look at her properly for the first time; at her dark and glistening scales, her trailing fins, her gills. His eyes fell upon her hand, sitting on the rim of the bathtub, studying the filmy webbing between her fingers.
She put her hands under the water.
It must have been quite a shock to him, all things considered – it wasn’t every day you had one of your worst enemies arrive at your door and ask to use your bathtub to transform into a mermaid – but he was taking it gracefully. Whether or not he’d known that she wasn’t entirely human she didn’t know and had never really cared; either way, knowing it wasn’t quite the same as seeing for himself.
He cleared his throat. “Can I,” he said, “touch it?”
Yennefer rolled her head around to face him. “Can you touch my lower regions?”
“Well when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like the most appropriate –” She splashed him generously with her tail. “Hey, now!”
“You may absolutely not touch it,” she said. “Honestly.”
His fingers twitched, as if itching. “Is it smooth?” he said. “Or is it more – bumpy?”
She sighed in exasperation.
“Huh,” he said.
“What now,” she said to the ceiling.
“When you do that, your, um,” he motioned at his neck. “They do a thing.”
“Fascinating.”
She didn’t respond further. But as ever, he abhorred silence. “Do you normally do this in the ocean, then?”
“Yes.”
“Do you meet up with other mermaids?”
“I do not.”
“Why –”
“None of your business.”
“I see.” He drummed his fingers against the edge of the bathtub. “Can I get you anything? Some fish to eat, or –”
Yennefer put her head under the water and at once the world was a muffled, hazy place, his voice far away. She heard him squawk in indignation, and in spite of herself her lips quirked into a smile.
She lay with her eyes closed, listening to the steady thudding of her own heart, feeling the familiar weight of her tail. She blew bubbles up to the surface.
When she surfaced, long minutes later, she was surprised to find him still there, towelling himself dry by the mirror. “Oh, you’re back with us, are you?” she said moodily. “I was starting to think you’d gone to sleep.”
“You didn’t have to wait around,” she pointed out.
“I was worried you might drown.”
“I can’t drown, bard,” she said. “It’s literally impossible for me to drown. You ignoramus. You cretin.”
“One can never be sure.” He draped the towel over his shoulder, as if hoping it would give him a dapper air. To her irritation, it worked. “Do you want to wash up or anything while you’re in there?”
“Why not,” she said.
He fetched the soap – or rather selected a soap, from his assortment, taking a little time over it. “Here,” he said, putting it into her extended hand.
Their fingers brushed, and he froze, captivated once again by her alien qualities.
Yennefer rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, putting aside the soap and thrusting her hand at him. “You can look.”
“I don’t want to –”
“You can look!”
Kneeling once again by the bath, he took her hand – and with a gentleness that surprised her, cradled it in both of his own. He studied the webbing with open fascination, turning her hand over, running his thumb along the fold of skin between her fore and middle fingers.
He didn’t know – would never know – that she had been born with it. Her fingers had been webbed, once upon a time, in both her forms.
“How does he feel?” he said. “Doing it in the sea?”
She shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “You can do better than that.”
“I can but I shan’t,” she said. “If you put any of this in a song, bard, I will hunt you down and skin you like a fish.”
“Ha.”
She smirked and slipped her hand out of his grip. “It’s sweet that you think I’m joking.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was looking at her mouth, suddenly troubled. “Do you have fangs?”
“Naturally,” she said, and bared them. “I bite.”
“Oh my,” he said, a pink blush spreading across his cheekbones. “Do you, now.”
She splashed him again, and as he sat there sputtering said, “actually, I changed my mind. You can get out.”
“Aww, but –”
“Out!” she said.
“Fine,” he said, straightening up. “I shall be upstairs, having a wonderful time by myself.”
“Of course you will,” she said, settling into the water.
“I will!” he said on his way out the door.
“I don’t care!” she said.
The door slammed. “Horrible little man,” she remarked to herself.