The Post Killing Bath

I thought I might clean up yesterday’s work but I’ve decided to move forward instead. Knowing my enthusiasm for writing about sublimating snow, I doubt I’ll forget to add that bit in when I finally do get back to that scene. I’m halfway afraid of locking in a sensibility to that scene that I wouldn’t return to later and would do well at the moment.

“I have a theory,” Jessica said.

“You have a theory? You have a theory? I have a th…” Jessica splashed water on Prince Carta.

“I’ve just slain a dragon and I’d like to be the only one talking. You can shit on me later.” Jessica Matthews pushed back from the edge of the bath because the stone wall cooled the water too well and she wanted to be surrounded by warmth. She suspected that even though Carta would continue staring out to the sparkling white mountains that hearing her swim to the center of the bath would put a woman’s body to mind—she wondered whose. “What was her name?”

“What? Whose name? What do you mean? Who?”

Jessica didn’t really want to tease Carta right now, but she also doubted she’d ever get the chance again. She sighed. “What was the dragon’s name? That wasn’t ulubenu’unedulu.” She watched his frame relax.

“No. No, that wasn’t Ulubenu’unedulu. It was probably Opuondo or Millowollim maybe. She was a cousin not a sister. I’ll ask Tandi for you; he should know.”

“That’s OK. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Aren’t you cold?”

Carta’s hands rose on both sides. His fingers splayed tensely then fisted then open wide again before they sagged back to his side. “I’m chilly. Dame Matthews, you said you had a theory.”

Jessica slowed her treading and let her head slip under the surface with the rest of her body. She thrust backward till her feet brushed the sandy slope of the shallows. When she came up she shook out her short red hair and cleared the water from her eyes.

“Come over here and sit on the bench by the fire. I don’t want to yell.”

Some of this is how I’d right it up, but some of it’s stalling because I’m not sure how to have the ‘theory’conversation yet.

378 words on day 693