Far Future Snippets - The King's Bath

With 20% of the vote, Arthur once more wins the Far Future Snippet vote for January. He's probably the High King of Snippets at this point. And Camelot MC #3 is having a somewhat better time than their previous cohort here.

No yanderes in this bath... this time.

Your bare feet hardly make a whisper upon the roughened stone beneath your toes. Assuredly, you could step quieter yet, as silent as a spirit upon the breeze, but it would not do to startle him.

Never that.

Tales from wagging tongues still circled the High Court regarding what happened when someone pricked the long-dormant instincts of the former warlord king. And in the end, you had half expected to be turned away from the entrance to the lavatorium, but the guards had merely taken a single look at you, laughed, and waved you within. After you had relinquished your weapons, needless to say.

Guards at the mouth of the bathing chambers. That could only mean one thing about who awaited inside.

Deeper still you trod, already divested of your tunic and braies with linen towel in hand, as you wandered into the stony depths much like a catacomb spangled in crystal. Nothing like the more complex ancient thermae in Caer Baddon with its polished stone, mosaic floors, and Roman columns, all made by the hands of humans. The soul, bone, and marrow of Camelot had come from the fae, after all.

"▇▇▇" the High King greets you as soon as you cross the threshold into the springhead proper.

Aye, of course he had already sensed you.

Stars sparkle at the bottom of the pool, twinkling beneath the false moonlight that illuminates the area, as a faint mist cloaks the lounging figure within.

With a slight obeisance, you slip into the waters a discreet distance away. Seemingly so, although with the size of these internal warm springs, one might wonder why you still dallied so close to the king, who has leaned back against the smoothed stone siding, red-hold hair forming its own dampened crown across his forehead.

 # I slide a surreptitious sideways glance towards my current bathing companion.

 # Assiduously I concentrate on washing my own body so I may leave these chambers anon.

 # Ever on guard, I keep an eye on the abiding shadows lest some hidden ambush catch us unwares.

 # I boldly offer to wash the king's back as the devil has apparently briefly taken ahold of me and my tongue.