Dawning Skye

227 Spa Day

“Just to be clear I do NOT like this idea! How do you know that the damn thing even works?! It’s thousands of years old! And why do I need to wash hair that’s getting cut off?!” Shasta practically yelled in dismay.

Peggy placed her balled fists on her hips as she used her no-nonsense tone; “Oh, quit yer caterwauling and get in the bloody tub! The water won’t stay warm forever!”

“Was that supposed to be funny? Because it wasn’t! I told you: I don’t like getting wet! Are you sure there isn’t another way to do this?!” Shasta’s voice was slightly shrill as she stared at the full bathtub with a fuzzed-up tail and bent-back ears.

“Oh, don’t be such a bairn about it! It’s just a wee soak and trimmin’! Tis not like we’re drownin’ ye! Or shavin’ ye bald! And we Have to clean ye before and after we cut yer fur. Now stop wastin’ our time, and get in the bloody water!” Peggy hollered back.

“I never agreed to this!” Shasta protested.

Skye rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation; “Actually, ye did.. I told ye what we were gonna do, and You Said Yes. If ye don’t want to, that’s fine.. But I will Not listen to ye two bitchin’ back and forth anymore! Are we clear?!”

Peggy and Shasta shrank back at Skye’s reprimand. She’d been listening to them going at it for forty minutes now, and was fed up with it. Skye had explained every step for the past week to her. She would soak in a bath, get scrubbed, dried, then have her body fur trimmed down. Afterwards, she would have a quick shower, then the conditioner would be applied. With shorter fur, it’d be easier for her to keep herself clean and dry.

Skye had specifically made Shasta a kind of bath time care set. It contained moisturizing soap for her bath, a special shampoo, and a special leave-in conditioner. The shampoo was designed to break up the dirt and oil that built up on the under layer of her coat without stripping her skin. While the conditioner was designed to make her fur soft and manageable; easy to brush through.

Shasta couldn’t believe that Skye had gone through so much trouble to help her.. ‘And look as me now; acting like an ungrateful asshole.’ The thought made her suck in a deep breath and lift a foot to step into the tub.

.....

“Hang on a minute! I need to reheat the water now. Ye took too long,” Skye stated as she stuck her hand into the water.

Peggy’s face went stark; “Oh dear gods.. Ye got ANOTHER TRAIT?!”

Skye held up her free hand defensively; “No! No, no, no! Just the four ye know of, I don’t have Fire magic, I swear.. Tis a trick I learned from an ancient tome. I just make the tiny bits that make up water called molecules bounce off of each other rapidly, and it’ll make the water warm.”

After a couple minutes, a light steam started to come off of the surface of the water. Both Shasta and Peggy were amazed at Skye’s intelligence, and her ability to apply various things she’d learned to every situation. Like how she’d helped Dr. Lyberth with cataloging the newest batch of tomes and artifacts delivered to the library, and remembered the shaving tool.

Frode had deemed it’s potential better spent at the R&D Department than on display at the museum section or hidden away. That is, after some persuasion from Skye. She had agreed to help him with whatever unreadable tomes he came across. In return, she could ‘field test’ the shaving device, and he wouldn’t yell at her for taking off with the actual copy of the legend before... Which Skye had kinda forgotten about.

As Shasta slipped into the oversized tub, she did her best to relax. The smell from the water was soothing, so it did help a bit.. However, she just couldn’t get over the feeling of her fur floating around in the water. She imagined it would kind of feel like wearing heavy, baggy clothes during a bath to a human. Oddly enough though; Shasta never minded getting her head hair washed. She actually kinda liked it.

After soaking the minimum time that Skye would let her get away with, Peggy and her came in to help Shasta scrub down. She wasn’t particularly happy to have two other people helping her wash, but the fur on her back needed a good scrubbing, and her nails needed to be cleaned and trimmed as well. Between the three, Shasta was fresh, clean, and drying by the fire with a contraption of Skye’s making thirty-five minutes later.

She’d been inspired by ancient tomes and a few artifacts to create a kind of wide, broad fan. One powered it by pumping a foot peddle, so Shasta could work it herself. As Skye was explaining, it dawned on Shasta that this was yet another thing she’d made specifically for her.. To help her with one of her biggest, constant problems.

Skye and Peggy busied themselves with their own tasks as Shasta stood naked by the fire; rotating herself in front of the fan. The gentle warmth blowing over her from the fireplace felt so nice that she had wished she could’ve curled up into a ball and fallen asleep. It was a typical cat thought, but she didn’t care at that point. She felt so nice at that moment, she didn’t care about anything..

A loud, high-pitched buzzing noise shocked her out of her blissful daze. Shasta whipped around to see Skye futzing with there trimmer. She could literally feel her tail fur fuzzing up as her anxiety came back in full force. She bent her ears back as she took an instinctive step back. Skye saw her movement, but paid her no mind. At least until she’d gotten the damn thing working properly.

Jakub and Skye had to take most of the outer cover off to more or less hotwire the thing to accept their version of electricity. Jakub had to also design a kind of power converter to put over the outlet they would use. The amount of electricity that flowed throughout the palace circuits wasn’t as powerful as what the ancients had used. They needed a special cover that could draw power out from both outlets, and converge it into one without affecting the original circuit.

“That thing’s kinda loud. I thought the ancients were smart; why would they invent such a noisy contraption?” Peggy asked as she prepared the leave-in conditioner for when they finished the cutting bit.

Skye chuckled lightly; “I think they cared more about the functionality of it than the noise, but who knows? Maybe it didn’t make a peep thousands of years ago?”

Peggy finished her task to walk over and examine the buzzer. It was a tiny thing that fit in the hand comfortably. Skye had to put a make-shift cover over it due to al the alterations she and Jakub had made. The original cover was too small for it now. It didn’t look the best, but it’s functionality was what counted. As Skye futzed with it one final time, she declared it ready for use, then turned to Shasta as she asked if she was mostly dry yet.

Shasta was fuzzed up all over; especially her tail. She looked like a beautiful female human wearing the best pissed-off cat costume ever made. As Skye walked towards her, Shasta took a hesitant step towards the fan. The sound that had come from the buzzer thing made her skin prickle, and her hairs stand on end.

Skye felt sympathetic towards her friend’s fears, but Peggy’d just about had enough of the cat woman’s attitude. She marched straight over to her and grabbed her by the point of her ear, and begun dragging Shasta over by force. It took every ounce of restraint Shasta had not to slice the old woman to bits with her claws, but the look on Skye’s face made her rein it in.

Peggy had her standing in the middle of a bed sheet as Skye approached with the buzzer. Shasta could feel her pulse quicken as she battled her fight or flight instinct. Skye was saying something encouraging, but the words didn’t register with her. The sound of her own heartbeat blotted out any other one until Skye clicked on the contraption.

“Just get it over with!” Shasta screamed with utter terror in her voice.

Right as she braced herself for the trimmer, Skye placed one finger on her forehead. After three or four seconds, a flood of unabashed happiness overtook Shasta. She’d instantly lost her tension even though the trimmer was still on. Not being one to waste an opportunity, Skye began to trim away a good three inches of fur from Shasta’s back.

They’d gotten her back, arms, and shoulders finished before Shasta had asked; “What the Hell was that?!”

Skye chuckled low; “That was me messin’ with yer serotonin levels. It’s the chemical that our brain needs for us to be happy. I noticed yers wasn’t producing the average amount, so I fixed it and gave ye a bit of a booster as well.. Hope yer not mad.”

As worry creased Skye’s brow, Shasta replied; “Hell no! That was awesome! Can you do that again?”

Skye chortled openly before replying; “No, but since I fixed yer imbalance ye should start feelin’ better in general now.. Apparently it was a common health problem for the ancients to suffer from emotional and chemical imbalances. There’s quite a few medical tomes dedicated to mental health.. I can show ye one in a minute; we’re almost done anyway.”

“Why were you looking into stuff like that?” Shasta inquired, curious.

Skye sighed sadly; “I can’t even tell ye how many I’ve healed that suffer So much because of somethin’ so ‘small’. We don’t consider checking our emotional state as part of our standard health, and it really bothers me.. I want to know as much as I can about humans and Fae alike. Our brains control everything from our memories, to our emotions, to how we physically function.. Ye would think that the brain would be our most important organ to take care of but we generally do the exact opposite.”

Shasta looked down as Skye in confusion; “What does my brain-you know what? Never mind: I don’t care! This feels fantastic!”

Skye was just finishing up around her ankles when she held up the buzzer to Shasta and said; “I love you like a sister, but there’s some places you’ll need to take care of on your own..”

Right as understanding dawned on Shasta, a knock came from the door. Peggy quickly ran over to see who it was while Skye blocked any possible view of her naked friend, but it turned out to be pointless. Marie strode into the room with multiple bright-colored dresses in her arms.

Walking over to Skye’s bed, she set the dresses down with a huff and she said; “I hear someone here needs my expertise!”