"Yeah, I'm not immune to grime either. Let's bathe and reconvene in a few minutes."

The inn offers hot baths for 1c 6cp, with a sign that loudly says NO WEAPONS IN THE BATHS. Abyssia is laying down in her room in a light shirt and shorts, hair in a towel, when Thorn returns.

Thorn smiles and lays down next to her and kisses her again and shifts in a bit to press up against her side.

She was looking pensive and wistful, but Abyssia smiles too. And kisses back, tentative but hungry. She puts one arm around Thorn's shoulders.

"...You look pretty."

She laughs. "Some people say the silver hair makes me look old." She kisses back.

"Fischers turn up with hair like yours sometimes." She smiles wryly. "So I really can't see it that way."

She smiles. "Yeah. Something on your mind there before I barged in?"

"...Same stuff as before really. Worried."

She sighs.

"Life is short. All you can do is get the most out of each day you can." 

Kiss. 

"Today's a pretty good one."

"Your world sells lifespan. It's not, there, is it? If I die at some point, I die, but- Losing forever feels heavier than losing a hundred years."

"Forever is possible, yes. But forever is a long, long time. People still die from accident or... I'm a scout, yes? I expected to die permanently in this profession eventually, it's one of the few ones still dangerous enough to matter. And I died, to get here. Who knows what might be waiting next time?" 

She smiles softly. "I have faith I'll meet you again." And she lifts Abyssia's hand to her lips and kisses it.

She flushes. The glowy dots nearest the kiss glow brighter for a bit, in a wave travelling up her arm.

"I don't... Deal well with uncertainty, I think. Sorry to ruin the mood. I like being close to you."

"It's fine. I want this part of you too. If you weren't scared I'd be worried you were reckless."

She kisses the nearest glowy dot, then starts to kiss at Bys' tattoo of the anchor-chain.

"...That feels nice." She runs a hand through Thorn's hair.

"One... Friend isn't enough. In the stories, the hero's friends were mostly just people they met along the way, so we should just wait and keep an eye out, I guess? But if we don't make a friend who'll be a good damage sponge, I'm going to need to do that."

"Let's look for a foreguard, then. I don't want you to have to suffer the brunt of things. Maybe I'm just a bit sentimental." She kisses the sloop tattoo. "You were brave with your harpoon, though..."

She shivers.

"Yeah. Someone with heavy plate and a tower shield. I could see it in my mind, things were going to fall apart and I had - two seconds to stop it, to keep control."

"You did the right thing." She looks up over Bys' hand. "You put your party first and acted decisively to protect them. Any other instinct gets people killed. It's just you have to be willing to accept others might save you, too."

Nod, nod.

"Dad said the same thing. Well, more or less."

"Oh, really?" She cracks a smile. "Sorry to remind you of your parents."

"...Heh."

Abyssia kisses her shoulder and shifts on the bed to snuggle closer. But her shirt is uncomfortable, so she straightens it, first.

"I want to kiss you more places, but I'm also kind of tired. Not just physically. Emotionally. Tired in the heart."

"Yeah. It can be like that, life. I find snuggles often help."

She hugs Abyssia.

Hugs are nice.

"...Want to hear a Fischer bedtime story? Or, well, not a bedtime story exactly, but they get told in the evenings, on holidays."

"I'd love to."

"Long before the last coming of the Summoned Hero, there was a small village at the foot of a mountain..."

Abyssia has a good storytelling voice. Steady and sonorous. 

The tale is about how the village kept having more and more problems to deal with. Bad harvests. Bandits. Infighting. A fire in the village storehouses. All of these problems could have been solved easily if people just worked together and listened, but the mayor was bad at leading and her underlings were only interested in their privileges. But then, a young man committed an act of kindness - spending days fixing someone else's well asking for nothing in return, and people were willing to listen to him. They listened to him when he asked them to be kind. They listened to him when he said the village had to work together.

They listened to him when he said that the mayor should no longer lead. And all ended well for that village.

She yawns.

She smiles and yawns back. 

"Same bed or separate? I don't mind either way."