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Gentle warm steam rose from the hot spring as Zenos stared at the night sky, reflecting upon the incident a few days ago.
The Conductor
The memory of their work's consequences was fresh, the sheer strain he put his body through trying to save both the citizens of the slums and Aston.
Survivable odds given that he’s dealt much worse.
Thanks to the gang leaders, the golem was taken care of with almost little to no casualties and Aston was escorted away by Krishna the Iron Rose.
Loewe, Lynga, Zophia spent the day working together to mend the damages as best as they could.
Another day was spent on locating the culprit, and they all turned up with no leads.
In the face of a fruitless endeavor, there was nothing he could do.
Zenos leaned his head back on the wayside of the springs with a sigh. "What a pain."
"Ku... Ku... Ku... And so, the evil Conductor escapes from our hapless heroes' grasp."
"Will you stop narrating my life, Carmilla?” Zenos called out, immediately sitting up and all that exhaustion that came with it vanishing. He quickly scanned the empty hot spring until the sounds of nearby gurgling led him to look down at the source of the noise.
The pool began to bubble and from it a clump of black strands of hair spread out like a stain. Within this stain, Carmilla emerged, rising from the water with an unsettling smile and a trailing cackle wearing her clearly visually dry black kimono with bright teal highlights.
An eerie grin meets him.
Zenos was already done with her antics and is completely unfazed by her entrance, immediately casting Heal, to which she skitters away with an almost pathetic hiss. He waited for the wraith to recompose themselves before he began talking.
“Can wraiths even bathe? What are you doing here?” He stared at this intruder, quickly relaxing himself back in the hot spring.
“I’m just here to chat,” Carmilla compensated with a small giggle-fit, “Is that so wrong?” She continues to float up and around him.
Zeno stopped mid-readjustment and parted his lips, eager to shoo her presence away, only to sigh and dip down to his neck deep in the hot spring.
“It’s fine, you can stay.”
“Hm?” Carmilla turned to face Zenos in faux disinterest, seeing her companion moping by the wayside temporarily made her scheming smirk falter. “What changed your mind,” she asked, covering her mouth with her long sleeves as she made her creeping approach.
“These three days have been… A lot.” Zenos flexed his hands altogether underwater, feeling the muscle strain against it. His eyes caught the wraith’s hair lightly draping itself around him like a looming shadow.
He looks up to find Carmilla watching over him as she floats from above, his blank eyes show a glimmer courtesy to the wraith's ethereal light.
For a man so bleak in his diversity of expressions, a subtle change in one clutched on her heart with a vice grip. She cracked a smirk, quickly erasing any sign of being caught off guard.
“What are you staring at?”
Zenos fell silent, still wide-eyed. And she patiently waits for an answer.
“Well?”
“... Your forehead is really wide under those bangs.”
“Excuse you!?” Carmilla pulled back, using her sleeve to cover her forehead. The outline of her corporeal form flickered like the flame whilst Zenos bursted with small laughter at her expense.
Carmilla pouts, she was here to cause mischief and she was already on a head start with Zenos at a seemingly vulnerable position and yet here she is being a subject of mockery and a simple healing magic.
Seeing the smile on his face, perhaps a bit of humiliation is worth it.
She slowly dipped her incorporeal form back into the water across from him. Zenos’ laughter eventually died down and his eyes landed back to her upon leaning over, the water going lukewarm by her mere presence. Her face turned to the side, wearing an expression still red from her blunder.
“Sorry,” Zenos looked away and rubbed his nape in faux guilt, taking a deep breath to recover, “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Sure you are.” Carmilla huffed, head turned to the side and still not looking Zenos in the eye. Her eyes slowly land back at Zenos wearing a softer gaze. “Are you ready to talk now?”
The healer didn’t even realize the tension he lost from just laughing alone, his shoulders, his brow, even his jaw grew lax. He didn’t even know he was clenching hard on those muscles until she arrived.
“... Yeah. I am.”
Got you.
“That’s more like it.” Carmilla leaned close, her eyes delicate in scanning his expression. “Now, tell me, what’s on your mind?”
Zenos sat there in quiet reflection. The waves of the water ebbing the fresh memories of these three days.
“... My body hurts.” He dipped down neck deep into the water and Carmilla slowly schooched closer. “Everything hurts.”
Carmilla continued to sit there in silence, listening.
“You’d think I’d feel better now that the person who used me and mistreated me is behind bars.
I did the right thing,
I didn’t give in and beat him within an inch of his life–
I saved him!”
“... But I don’t.”
Zenos looked away from the wraith, and she only stared in turn.
“I know what he went through,
and yet I can’t help but still be angry at him.”
“It’s normal to have complicated feelings, good memories, bad memories,” Carmilla floats up to hover around Zenos, “Those who hurt others tend to dissuade the people they hurt into staying due to the presence of the former.”
“At the end of the day, you were suffering by his side and it’s not going to be healthy to stay in the long run,” She stops to dip back down, landing right back to where she left off, “A healer like you would know something like that.”
Zenos continues to stare off, out of the spring and to the high walls connected to the ladies’ hot spring.
“I know that.”
Carmilla held out her hand towards him, before quickly pulling it back, remembering the consequences of doing so.
He turns to face Carmilla, a solemn smile on his face. “But I appreciate the reminder, sometimes it's easy to forget that.”
They both sat in the hot spring in comfortable silence.
Then Carmilla speaks up again, “Does your body still hurt?”
Zenos sat up. “It’s numbing down, but it’s nothing herbal medicine can fix.”
“Ku ku ku,” The wraith starts to float off the waters of the hot spring and towards a nearby wall. “Leaving so soon?”
“Yeah,” Zenos watched as she did. “You’re getting the water cold.”
“Aw how unfortunate,”- She begins phasing through the wall -“I’ll see you on the other side.”
He silently watched her leave before he got up and headed off to the dressing area.
To know he’s not alone,
He couldn’t help but smile at the thought.