Tylendel is staring around in amazing. "It is!" 

Eeeeeeeee. 

"Have you managed to find a use for the basilisk bones?"

Moondance catches up. "They were difficult to work with, but we have made some of them into weapons and tools for our scouts. Thank you, again." 

"You're welcome! If there's anything else that's big and hard to kill but less ecologically important let me know. Especially if it tastes better than that." 

A chuckle. "We will do that. Anyway. Starwind and I do not have space to host this many, so we will need to figure out where all of you are staying, but fortunately it is still early. In the meantime, I would invite you to come soak in our pool?" 

She glances at Staven and Mardic, considers asking if that involves being naked, considers exactly how much she cares and how apparently they are already being something of a burden hospitality-wise and maybe she shouldn't make a fuss about silly things like nudity, which objectively doesn't actually matter that much, especially given that Mardic is super taken and she's already kissing Staven. 

"Sounds good." 

The Tayledras don't seem to be fussed about nudity at all; Starwind is naked even before they reach the courtyard with their pools. 

:You'll get used to it: Vanyel assures Lucy in Mindspeech. :I think it took me a few weeks to stop feeling like it was weird: 

:It's not objectively a big deal--oh:

It is, regardless, some amount of a big deal for Wilbur. He's half-frozen, having taken off nothing but his coat, hands trembling.

"Wilbur, you don't have to," Lucy says quietly to her brother in English. 

"It's stupid to be afraid. They won't hurt me. They've--they know what you're shaped like and they don't mind you. It's stupid." 

"It's not stupid, Wilbur, you're allowed to not do things that are scary." 

"But I don't want to be scared." 

He practically tears his remaining clothes off. 

From the waist up, his shape is mostly human. His coloring isn't; yellow-and-black markings cover his back. From the waist down, he is covered in shaggy black fur that covers his dinosaur-like legs and the dozens of slender tentacles that rise, swaying, from his hips (if there is anything else attached to his hips that serves a more recognizable biological function, the hair must be obscuring it). 

His right hip and leg have several patches of scarring, bare of hair and tendrils, that reveal dark greenish-brown skin that warps in the shape of more than half a dozen savage dog bites. 

Neither of the Tayledras make any comment. 

Donni tries so, so hard, and also manages not to make any comments. 

Staven slips into the pool, and offers his hand to Lucy. "Wild dogs?" he asks Wilbur, sympathetically. "Oof. We had some nasty ones around my parents' landholding – one of them got me on the arm once..." He shows them the scar. 

"Not wild ones." 

"Wilbur had to break into a library because he needed a book there and the librarian decided he didn't like his face. The library had guard dogs." She hugs her brother very very tightly. "He almost died," her voice cracks, "he needed the book to take care of me and he almost died."

"It was years ago. I'm alright, we're alright," he says, more to his sister than anyone else, gently stroking her hair. 

"Wow. That librarian was a buttface. That's pretty heroic, though, doing that for Lucy. She's lucky you're her brother." 

"I am the absolute luckiest," she agrees, releasing him and accepting Staven's hand. "The librarian is terrible. I hate him. I don't like hating people but it's kind of hard to stop so I just don't think about him much." 

"I know, right? Mardic can decide to not hate people even when they were awful to him or 'Lendel but I don't get it at all." 

"I don't hate the people from our hometown who said nasty things about us. Just the man responsible for the fact that Wilbur got really badly hurt," she sighs. "And I'd like to be able to let go of that, too, but--the scars are still there."

"I get that." Mardic nods solemnly, then slips into the pool as well.