Maycor and Demaeter 4
#35 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Two dragon hatchlings get a bath
4,064 words
"I'm definitely not being paid enough for all this trouble," Jarzyl decided. The young dragon strolled into the bathroom, carrying Maycor by his tail dangling from her jaws. Demaeter was trotting beside Jarzyl, and she repeatedly weaved her way between her older fledgling cousin's legs like it was an obstacle course, but this just resulted in Jarzyl almost stepping on her, and them both nearly tripping up multiple times.
Atlas followed them into the bathroom, and with his tail he gently pushed the door shut. "Believe it or not, there are people who take care of children without being paid."
Jarzyl snorted. "Pfft. Hatchlings are needy and useless. Especially the young ones. What poor fools would want to do this for free?"
Atlas looked faintly amused. "Parents? Family? A clan? You may have heard of these concepts. Maybe you should ask your parents why they chose to raise you."
"Maybe I should. Because if it were up to me, I would not have opted for this." Jarzyl dropped Maycor down into the bathtub, then she grabbed Demaeter from the floor and dropped her into the bathtub too. Maycor had immediately begun to try and climb out, but Demaeter grabbed onto him, and they both slid down the smooth, inclined sides of the tub.
Jarzyl nodded down at her cousins. Maycor nodded back, though he didn't appear to know what they were nodding about. "Right. Let's get this over with." Jarzyl grabbed the hose and turned on the tap, making water spray out from the showerhead. She tested the temperature with her paw, and found it just right--not too hot, not too cold, but just warm enough.
"Eeeiih!" Demaeter let out a squeak, and she backed away to the other side of the square-shaped bathtub as water started to spread across the tub floor. Trying to avoid the water, Demaeter attempted to climb the side of the tub, but even with her claws extended she lacked sufficient grip against the smooth surface. Instead she tried to climb onto the only remaining dry area, which was her brother.
"Hey!" Maycor didn't seem to have any issue with getting his paws wet, but he interpreted Demaeter's attempt to clamber on top of him as the first tackling move in another play fight, and he instantly dropped flat to his belly and rolled over to try and dislodge his sister.
"Aaahhhh!" Demaeter objected loudly as she was dropped into the water, which was still only deep enough to barely even cover her tiny paws. She flailed and tried to leap entirely out of the bathtub--and she would have made it out, if Jarzyl hadn't been there to flip open her own wing and block the hatchling mid-leap.
Demaeter landed back in the bathtub with a splash, which created a little wave that washed over her brother. Maycor responded by immediately shaking his head and neck frill dry, then he waved his wings to splash Demaeter back. The young female hatchling had been calculating how to escape the bathtub, but being splashed by Maycor made her turn around. Both hatchlings flailed their wings and paws, trying to splash each other. This sent waves throughout the barely filled bathtub, and Jarzyl get water sprinkled over her too, even though she was standing out of the tub.
Atlas was standing back, outside of splash range. Once again he provided some advice. "It might have been easier to wash them one by one. It also might have been easier to wash them in the sink."
"Hah. Putting them in the sink? To wash them like dishes? That's funny. Hehe," Jarzyl chuckled, then she paused. "Wait, were you serious? Is that... is that a real thing?"
Atlas nodded. "Yes? They're both so small that they would fit easily in the sink."
"Oh. Huh! I didn't think of that," Jarzyl said.
Atlas looked thoughtful. "That's how we do it back in the clanless shelter--and not only for the really young hatchlings, but even for older hatchlings too."
Jarzyl frowned. "But why?"
"Hatchlings are small, so it makes sense. There are far more sinks than showers, so we aren't allowed to use the showers until we're hitting the fledgling growth spurt. It was... not even that long ago when I finally got big enough and formally got my shower privileges," Atlas explained.
Jarzyl's neck frill perked up, then drooped, then perked up again as she contemplated this information. "Huh. Oh. That's interesting. I'm... imagining you in the sink. Hmm. Being clanless sounds like a weird adventure."
Atlas shrugged his wings. "It's a challenge. But there are many small and poor clans whose communal circumstances aren't too different from ours. It's only the big, powerful apex clans that have things easy." With a grin, Atlas nodded at her. "Like your clan. Great big house just for you and your parents."
Jarzyl nodded agreeably. "Yes indeed. Mintaka is a great clan--a great clan with elite privileges like letting hatchlings use the bathtub instead of having to be washed in the sink."
Atlas laughed softly. "Hahaha. No but seriously, it would be easier to clean these two in the sink, instead of in the bathtub. And they aren't that dirty either, so you could just have given them a tongue bath."
Atlas licked the back of his paw to demonstrate his point--some dragons preferred to lick their scales as a gentler, more natural method of cleanliness compared to soaps and water spray. But Jarzyl had little patience to meticulously lick clean every scale on her body, and she couldn't be bothered to do the same for her cousins, even if they were much smaller than her.
"Too late now. They're in the bathtub, so we'll wash them here." Jarzyl aimed the showerhead to spray water right at her cousins. Demaeter tried unsuccessfully to dodge the stream by hiding behind Maycor, but she wasn't fast enough to avoid getting wet. In contrast, Maycor just let the water spray all over him and he even opened up his jaws to snap at the incoming stream and lap it down.
Jarzyl put the showerhead down into the bathtub, where the force of spraying water made it jump around to create a small impromptu water fountain that sprayed around the inside of the tub. Maycor gleefully leapt in and out of the spray of water, whereas Demaeter was standing up on her tiptoes and still trying to keep herself dry--though this was an increasingly futile task as she was already wet from the shower spray, and by now the water level in the tub had reached halfway up the young hatchling's sides.
"Now for soap." Jarzyl grabbed a wash cloth that was dangling from a nearby towel rack, and she dipped it into the water before adding a dash of liquid scale-cleaning soap from a bottle. Then she tried to grab at the hatchlings--Demaeter still looked reluctant about the bath, while Maycor was treating it as a game, and both hatchlings ducked away from Jarzyl's outstretched paw. Facing resistance, she turned to her friend for assistance. "Atlas! You know how to do this much better than I do. Help, please. Uh, how about you take one hatchling and I'll take the other?"
Stepping forward, Atlas closed the tap. The bathtub was now about half full of water, and Maycor was cheerfully floating on the water and paddling his way around with all four paws, whereas Demaeter was standing up on her hindlimbs and using her forepaws to cling to the side of the tub. Atlas climbed into the bathtub one paw at a time, joining them. Maycor playfully flicked his wings to splash water onto the dark-scaled, far larger fledgling's side, but Atlas's response was to reach out and grab the hatchling. Atlas curled his tail forward and wrapped the tip around Maycor's midriff to hold him loosely in place, then he took the soaped up cloth from Jarzyl and started cleaning Maycor's scales.
Jarzyl was watching from the outside the bathtub, leaning over the side. "I thought you didn't like getting wet?" she asked, recalling her past experience with her friend.
Atlas shrugged. "I don't like swimming or the ocean. But I do take showers, obviously. And if you've got uncooperative young hatchlings, it's hard to give them a bath and stay dry yourself." With gentle but thorough motions Atlas wiped down Maycor, soaping up his legs, body, neck, wings, and even his tail and his neck frill. Maycor kept trying to paddle even as Atlas held him stationary, which created a small current in the water.
"At what age do they learn to do this by themselves?" Jarzyl wondered. "I can barely remember my parents bathing me. Though admittedly my memory of early childhood is rather blank."
"A few years old, usually. It depends on their maturity." Atlas kept soaping Maycor up. The brown-scaled male hatchling squeaked as his ticklish sides were run over by the soapy wet wash cloth.
Idly, Jarzyl realized that Atlas wasn't wearing his flight harness. He had removed it back in the kitchen, already anticipating that trying to bathe two young hatchlings would be a wet affair. In comparison, Jarzyl hadn't thought to take off her own flight harness and now the straps and pouches had gotten splashed with water and would need to be left out in the sun to dry. With a quick motion, she pulled the quick release clasps and shrugged out of the harness, leaving it by the doorway.
Jarzyl then jumped into the tub as well, creating a wave in the water. Atlas was largely unmoved, whereas Maycor bobbed up and down as he rode the wave, and Demaeter let out an upset chirp as she was splashed. "Eeek!" Jarzyl moved towards Demaeter and grabbed the young hatchling with her left forepaw, and with her right forepaw she took the cloth from Atlas and started soaping up Demaeter's scales. "Jarrrrrz!" Demaeter complained, and she shook herself all over, trying to dry herself off even though she was still partially submerged in the water.
Atlas turned the shower back on and used the hose to gently rinse Maycor clean of soap suds. "All done. See? That wasn't that bad, was it?" Now properly clean, he released the hatchling and let him resume swimming around the bathtub.
"Attas, Atlas, tatas," Maycor babbled, and then he starting singing the same tune Atlas had been playing on his wing harp earlier. "Fly, to, the tai. I fly, thy, trooo-de doo..." The young hatchling completely garbled up all the lyrics, but he did manage to recreate the melody with decent tonal accuracy.
Meanwhile Demaeter was still trying to struggle out of Jarzyl's grip even as Jarzyl tried to soap her up with the wash cloth, and both of them looked unhappy. "So... I know I said we'd do one hatchling each, but... help?" Jarzyl asked.
Atlas waded through the water which partially filled the tub. Without complaint or hesitation he took over handling Demaeter. To Jarzyl's perspective, it was really quite impressive to see how much better he was compared to her.
"It's ok. You're ok, just relax..." The first thing Atlas did was to fold forward his wing and lay it flat atop the water, presenting his flight surfaces for Demaeter to lie on--without having to constantly paddle, this significantly calmed her down as she clutched onto his wing. "That's better, isn't it?" Atlas then scooped some water with his paw to gently pour it over Demaeter, and the young hatchling shook her head and blinked her eyes, but she made no complaint. "She had some soap in her eyes. And you just need to be gentle with the cloth," Atlas said to Jarzyl.
Jarzyl let out a long sigh, and she slumped forward in the bathtub, raising the water level slightly, but not enough to cover her back. This created a sloshing movement and a wave which Maycor floated atop of. He briefly spread his wings for stability, then he furled them back up and resumed paddling with all four paws. Jarzyl ignored her cousin as Maycor slowly swam around her much larger body. She rested her chin against the edge of the tub, and Maycor had to briefly dive underwater to make it past her neck and continue his laps around her. He kept happily singing even while diving, which made bubbling noises. "Flllyyy, too the nai! I fly, why--blublublubdlubdlub--ahk. Fly wai. Lah de dah."
"How would I have made it through this whole afternoon, taking care of these two if I didn't have you here to help?" Jarzyl wondered aloud, gazing at Atlas.
"You'd have figured things out on your own. Or you could have asked Caden or some other friend to come over and help you if I wasn't free to assist," Atlas calmly replied. He was still gently cleaning Demaeter's scales with the wash cloth, and the hatchling seemed content enough to just lie on his upturned wing, letting him clean her.
"But you're good at this," Jarzyl noted, as she watched Atlas work.
"Not especially so. I explained it before--back at the clanless home, there are young dragons of all age. Everyone has to take care of each other, so I know a few things about taking care of young hatchlings and even eggs. Clans with shared communal homes do the same thing." The sooty-scaled fledgling had finished soaping Demaeter, and now he used the showerhead to rinse her scales clean. Then he closed the tap again and let her go. "You're all clean now. Good job, Demmy. You've been very brave."
Demaeter peered up at Atlas, then she put down her head and closed her eyes as she continued resting on his wing. Atlas leaned down and started gently licking at the hatchling, giving her a tongue bath over her already clean scales. A soft, satisfied, barely audible purr started rolling out from Demaeter's throat at the affectionate gesture. "Rrrrr..."
Jarzyl felt an odd, faint, and distinctly uncommon emotion--envy? She felt faintly envious, but yet she wasn't sure why. Was she envious at Atlas's knowledge and skill with taking care of children, far more so than she possessed? Or perhaps she was just envious of his attention and affection. As Atlas gave Demaeter a tongue bath, her purr got slightly louder whenever he was licking her. "RrrrRRRrrrrrrRRrrrrrrRRrrrr..."
As Maycor was still paddling around, he spotted Jarzyl's tail resting at the bottom of the tub. He tried to dive down through the water to grab it, but he kept floating back up before he could reach the bottom. As creatures of the air, dragons had lightweight bodies with porous honeycombed bones, which made them naturally very buoyant in water. After trying several times to dive down and grab Jarzyl's tail, Maycor changed strategy. He clambered up onto his cousin's back, then he climbed up her neck and leapt off her head and into the water again. This gave him some extra downwards speed, and coupled with desperate underwater flapping of his wings, he managed to get his tiny jaws around Jarzyl's tail before his own buoyancy dragged him back to the water's surface.
Floating atop the water with the tip of Jarzyl's tail in his jaws, the young hatchling looked extremely pleased with himself. Jarzyl could have easily pulled her tail out of Maycor's bite hold, but she let him play. Instead she dragged her tail across the water, pulling Maycor across the surface of the bathtub as he insistently kept his jaws latched around her tail tip.
"Are we done now?" Jarzyl asked.
Atlas stopped licking Demaeter's scales, and he patted her on the back with his paw. "Sure. Both Maycor and Demmy are clean, so bath time objectives have been met."
Demaeter kept purring softly. "Rrrrrrrr..."
Maycor was still biting onto Jarzyl's tail tip, but then he held her tail with his forepaws instead so he could open his jaws. "Nssscchhh?" He made a weird hissing noise, staring at Jarzyl.
"What?" Jarzyl asked, staring back at her cousin.
Maycor frowned for a few seconds, then he visibly relaxed. "Ahhhh..."
Atlas raised an eye ridge. "I think he just relieved himself into the water."
"Right." In a sharp motion, Jarzyl straightened her forelegs and sat up, then she stood entirely up and pulled her tail out of Maycor's grip. "Right. We are done here. Bath time is over. Let's go." Jarzyl hopped out of the tub and shook herself all over to dry her body, which made Atlas glance away as water droplets went flying off her scales and all around the bathroom.
Jarzyl then picked Maycor out of the tub and put him down onto the floor. The young hatchling copied her and shook himself from nose to tail before flapping his wings, which similarly sent water flying everywhere.
"Hey! You got me all wet again." Jarzyl's immediate instinct was to vigorously shake her scales dry a second time, but that would have gotten Maycor wet once more, and then who knew when the cycle of hatchling and fledgling getting each other wet would have stopped. Instead Jarzyl grit her teeth and grabbed a bath towel off the rack mounted in the side of the bathroom. "I could have shaken myself dry again and gotten you all wet, just so you know," she said to Maycor. "I am so much more mature and _responsible_than you."
Atlas was grinning. "Well done, Jarz, well done," her friend drily muttered.
"Thank you." Jarzyl dried herself off with the towel, then she grabbed Maycor and smothered him all over with the towel to dry him too.
Atlas used his jaws to carry Demaeter by her scruff, and then he carefully stepped out of the bathtub and put her down on the floor. Sitting back on his haunches, he took a towel from the rack, and he dried Demaeter off before drying his own scales.
Jarzyl pulled the lever that would open the stopper and start draining the bath tub. Then she picked Maycor up by his tail and waited for Atlas to finish. When he was done with drying, she pushed the door open with her wing, and then they all headed back to her bedroom.
Once Atlas had shut her bedroom door, Jarzyl put Maycor down--she had been expecting him to start running around, but instead the hatchling rolled onto his belly but remained lying down. "Are you finally tired out? That's good. Time for a rest."
Atlas put Demaeter down on Jarzyl's bed, and the hatchling yawned widely. "I think they're both sleepy. That's good."
Jarzyl slid the balcony window doors until they were almost closed, just enough to allow in a light breeze. She reached for the curtains. "Should I close the curtains? Are these two more likely to sleep if the room is dark?"
Demaeter slid off Jarzyl's bed, and she strolled over towards the balcony to lie down in the warm beam of sunlight streaming in through the window glass. "Sunny. Epp baddeeep."
"I'll leave the curtains open then." Jarzyl pulled over the large floor cushion from her desk and put it down beside the window. Sitting down on all fours, Jarzyl patted the cushion. "Here you go, Demmy. This is for you to sleep on."
Demaeter stared blankly for a moment, then she stood up and trotted over--but instead of lying down on the floor cushion, she hopped up onto Jarzyl's back to lie there instead.
"No, I brought the cushion over for you." Jarzyl gently picked up Demaeter and placed her down on the cushion, but the young hatchling stood up again. Demaeter nudged the cushion over until it was right beside Jarzyl, then she finally lay down on top of it, but still close enough to lean again her cousin. She was a warm, small spot of contact against Jarzyl's side.
Meanwhile Maycor scampered over to Atlas and batted at the fledgling's tail, but even his movements were slower and less energetic than before. An afternoon of play had worn out the young hatchlings. Atlas wrapped his tail around Maycor's midriff and carried him over, then he put him down on the floor cushion beside Demaeter.
Demaeter was looking very contented and she yawned again, then she put her head down and covered her eyes with her wing to sleep. Maycor wasn't energetic enough to run around anymore, and he stretched herself out to bask in the sunlight, lying in the middle of the large floor cushion. Then he curled up and wrapped his wings around his body, but he still wasn't quite ready to nap--his eyes were wide open and he gazed out of the window, watching dragons fly through the sky in the distance.
"Let's just hope he goes to sleep soon." Jarzyl started to stand, but Demaeter was still leaning again Jarzyl's side and she took her head out from under her wing and made a complaining squeak.
"Neek."
Atlas nodded towards Jarzyl. "Demaeter wants you to stay. If you go, these two might assume you're off doing exciting things and get up to follow you." Atlas sat down on all fours. "Wait a while in here. Let them both fall asleep."
"Psst. Really?" Jarzyl hissed softly, but she dropped back down to lie on all fours. Demaeter leaned against her side again, and she again put her tiny head under her own wing to sleep. "You want us to just sit around and do nothing? That sounds boring," Jarzyl muttered.
Atlas gestured in t h e direction of Jarzyl's bookshelf. "You don't have to do nothing. You can get a book and read or do something else. I'm not going to be doing nothing either." He reached over to where his wing harp was resting on the ground, where he had left it a while back. The sooty-black scaled fledgling strapped the musical instrument onto his wings.
Lying still so as not to disturb Demaeter, Jarzyl watched as Atlas spent some time adjusting the tuning knobs of his wing harp. Maycor watched him too, lying down on the floor cushion with his sister. When Atlas was finally done about a minute later, a flap of his wings demonstrated the altered configuration of the wing harp--the resonating tubes and wires were dampened, which made the instrument sounded muted and much quieter than before.
Atlas flipped through his musical book again, then with slow, steady movements he played. The tune he played was simple and soft, calm and light--it was a lullaby, comprised of predictable, pleasing tones.
Still wrapped up in his own wings, Maycor tilted his head as he watched Atlas play. After the first repetition of the tune, Maycor started singing along. Jarzyl didn't know if there were any proper lyrics to this music, but her cousin just babbled cheerfully without any concern. "Doo dee nahhh, ahh, dahhh deeee yarrrhhh!"
His singing voice was enthusiastic and surprisingly in tune, but Demaeter briefly lifted her wing from over her head to squint at him. She yawned and closed her eyes to continue sleeping, but not before she used her other wing to cover Maycor's head. His singing continued still, muffled but cheery. "Fly sky wai, ye yeah..."
It took several more minutes, but Maycor singing eventually trailed off until he was just softly humming. He pushed Demaeter's wing off his head, though he instead used it to cover his back like a blanket. Maycor continued to try and resist slumber, but eventually he also closed his eyes and he dozed off--his humming faded away to silence, lost beneath the smooth, gentle notes of Atlas's playing.
Jarzyl remained motionless--Maycor would surely take a few minutes more to fall fully asleep, and Demaeter was still lying against her side. She didn't want to wake her cousins up by rushing to leave her bedroom. Instead she continued resting her head on her paws, and she watched Atlas as he played his wing harp. Her eyes tracked the slow sweeps of his wings as they moved in repeated patterns.
Jarzyl was tired out from the effort of taking care of her cousins. Her thoughts grew meandering and incoherent as the music rolled through her mind, and soon enough she had drifted off into sleep too.
END