Ashka's back is broad and he makes soft little noises when Sataro touches him.

Are humans usually this horny all the time. Tholassi hasn't super been paying attention for the last two hundred years.

Ashka has a lovely voice. 

When he's done he turns and pulls his hair out of the way and says "Can you do mine?" 

Ashka also has lovely hands. 

They're large and strong and surprisingly gentle, and the way he rubs the soap into Sataro's back is almost a massage.

He can feel the tension draining out of him at the touch, can feel his shoulders relaxing. 

He should probably keep going and make sure that Sataro is really clean.

This is GROSS. This is GROSS and he is BORED.

Ashka's hands really are lovely. 

(Maybe he should help Sataro wash his hair, whispers some traitorous part of his mind.) 

His hands linger on Sataro's shoulders.

"Need help with anything else?"

Tholassi ponders the situation. 

Perhaps, he reflects, his believer would have less gay subtext all the time if he ever got to kiss someone. On the other hand, it might lead to his believer's mind being full of thoughts about all kinds of disgusting human reproduction things. Not worth it. Maybe if he kept Sataro busy then there would be less of this.

He curls up in his pocket and idly flips through Ashka's brain.

He hesitates for a moment before he says "My hair?" 

He's so so gentle. His fingers rub little circles in Sataro's scalp, from front to back and back to front, covering every inch of the skin. Then he presses his thumbs in little motions along Sataro's hairline, down to the base of his skull.

It's probably a good thing that most of his body is underwater.

Ashka makes sense. He's the first person Tholassi has met so far who makes sense.

Ashka snacks on fast days and keeps blasphemous books in his safe and drinks. Despite being sworn to celibacy, he has three children that he knows about and has his suspicions about several other unusually dark-skinned children running about the keep. Ashka acts every inch the believer in order to buy himself the license to behave however he likes. Ashka fits with Tholassi's understanding of humans.

But Kirasu nearly shines with the light of devotion. Kirasu self-flagellates, Kirasu tortures heretics with admirable zeal, Kirasu will never progress farther with Sataro than a brush of a hand against another hand. Kirasu has no hobbies other than kneeling before the statue of Tholassi in the temple for five hours at a time and driving himself into fits of ecstasy. Why isn't Kirasu a believer?

Tholassi had made enemies in the godworld, no doubt. It was one of the reasons he'd gone so long between visits to the human world. But he had never heard of a god being able to do this.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. 

He had nearly forgotten how nice it is to have someone touch his hair. 

Well, then, they don't have to stop.

One of his hands is massaging Sataro's neck.

He makes a soft appreciative sound, and — he should end this — doesn't end this. 

Ashka is standing very close.

He shouldn't. 

He pulls away. "Thank you," Sataro says, and his voice is even. 

Ashka smiles. It's easy, happy, without the conflict that Sataro was experiencing. 

"Welcome."

Is the bath done yet.

Not quite, but Sataro goes through the rest of it efficiently. 

He still feels vaguely dirty by the end, although his skin has been scraped pink. 

"You need to take me to Tarev."

"I can't get to Tarev on my own, and I especially can't do it in winter." People freeze even when an army crosses together; Sataro going alone would be suicide. 

(tempting, a little, but —) 

Whyyyyyyy is his believer suicidal. 

"Do not contradict your god. Can you take a boat?"

"They aren't designed to be sailed by one." And I'm in the Guard, not the Navy.