Page 30 of Horns & Heart
“Really, I’m fine showering,” I said.
“You wash, then we soak” was the response he gave me with his back turned, and because that meant I got to look at his pretty blue ass all over again, I didn’t argue.That was just how gay I was, shut up by a nice set of cheeks.Ah, these things I was discovering about myself.
I found a generous selection of soaps and shower gels in one of the baskets lined up by the wall and went about scrubbing myself clean.The rain showerhead was really nice, and it steamed up the room.Inkiri filled a bucket in the sink and soaped himself with a sponge he kept soaking in the bucket.Once he was all lathered, he dumped his bucket back out and walked over to me.
I looked up at him.“Uhm…”
He smiled at me before stepping under the stream to wash the suds off.He had to be careful with his horns and the showerhead, even though the shower was really spacious.
“Done, sweet thing?”he asked after lowering his head to my neck and licking my wet skin.
I trembled and felt my blood change course—which would be very obvious—but cupping that budding erection to hide it would make him think I was on the road to pleasuring myself, which wouldn’t help at all.I decided to be a man and deal with what my body was doing all casually when the time came.
Despite not knowing what he thought bathing entailed, I said, “Sure,” trying to sound more confident than I felt.
He nodded.“Let’s get in, then.I’ll hold you, make sure you don’t slip and hurt yourself.”
I almost objected to that, but then…I was frail.They all thought so, and being frail among these guys was much nicer than anything I’d been before.So I took Inkiri’s hand when he offered it, and didn’t complain when he helped me into the tub.
As it turned out, that bath water was just plain water, nothing else added.It was pretty warm for summer, but not uncomfortably so.Inkiri had cracked a window before we got in, and the magpies were cawing outside while we had a view over the rooftops of the rest of the town.
It was pleasant, and I hadn’t had pleasant for a very long time.If I hadn’t been sitting in a tub with a being whose monstrous feet were tangling with mine, I could almost have imagined that the apocalypse had never happened in the first place.
I thought about what Inkiri had said as I trailed my hand through the water in front of me, then asked, “So, basically, you went to boarding school pretty early?”
“Raiken might seem like a school, so it would be similar for you, but the purpose is different.”He took my right foot and started massaging it.“You see, bagua used to fight each other.Over borders, over taxes, over any little thing you could imagine.It used to be that conflicts were settled in blood, and quite often, whole family lines were eradicated.
“That was when single houses ruled their territories, much like your royalty during the Middle Ages.The schools in those times were more like your schools, but unlike your schools, they were not centralized, even if they did exchange knowledge and writings among each other.
“About four hundred of our years ago, a group of students who also happened to be the sons of influential houses came together, and they proposed a different kind of government.It took them some time, but eventually, they instituted the Raiken.
“The children of the influential and less influential houses go there, though generally, no more than eighty percent of a generation are required to attend.Four brothers out of five, so to speak.All Raikenga are provided the same education, but of course we grow up with those who might have become our enemies otherwise.After a certain time spent there, we may choose to go back to our houses or remain in the Raiken to fill public positions within its structure.”
“You mean, you all become teachers after going to school?”
He shook his head.“No.The Raiken isn’t just a school.I explained badly.The Raiken does many things that the houses used to do.Street maintenance and governing cities.Taxes.Defense too.We don’t have a military, we only have the Raiken.”
My jaw dropped.“Wow.That’s a different way to do government.”
He tilted his head.“Yes.It would be better if all bagua followed the Raiken system.Some do not.Lissir’s house won’t, but his father sent him and his brother anyway, hoping to open a new future for the entire house.In Anga, they do it differently still, but they are far away.And the Koa Esher hold with the old ways.”He made a disgusted, hissing noise.“The very old ways.”
“Oh, the cola ash people Fellisse mentioned?What’s their deal?”
Inkiri switched from one of my feet to the other.“Not for you to worry about, sweet thing.Just relax.”He grinned at me.“I didn’t know humans change color in the water.You look like a billet bean in the cooking pot.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be some sort of insult, so to be on the safe side, I tried to give him a withering look.With a pang, I remembered Cat had said my withering looks only made me appear badly constipated.In order to get over that involuntary memory, I tried pulling my foot free, but Inkiri wouldn’t let me.
I groaned.“Fine.You can keep my foot if you tell me why you all hate the cola ash people so much.”
“Koa Esher.Everyone dislikes them because they chose a…questionable way to keep what magic they had in their house’s bloodline intact.”
What Vergis had said fell into place.“You mean the cola ash are those inbred mages Vergis mentioned.”
Inkiri inclined his head.“In essence.”
“Wait, is a house, like, a family?”If so, that was really unfortunate for the cola ash folks.VeryHills Have Eyesand all that.
Inkiri shook his head, and the way the moisture clung to his ibex horns made me stare.They looked almost bedazzled.Pretty.I ached to touch them.
