Caelestis

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Drych Lake Spa: Hot Springs

Quentin's straight face morphed into a smirk of mischievous delight at Marcus's discomfort. Up until this moment, the wind mage had seemed unflappable.

Ha ha, unflappable. Like flapping in the wind. Wait, speaking of...

Quentin reached over and snagged his towel, still drifting along in the water. He wrung it out, feeling the steaming water squelch between his fingers.

"Me? A ladies man? No, not at all," Marcus assured him.

"Oh, come on," Quentin snickered, giving him an exaggerated, good-natured elbowing in the arm. "The girls must want to eat you up."

Marcus appeared thoughtful for a moment. At length, he said, "Besides, I'm sure most women would prefer a man with a bit more of a...manly physique?"

Quentin tossed his head back and shook it. "There's a whole market for dudes like you. Beautiful, slim, and--"

"You'd better not be a ladies man, Marcus!"

Quentin stopped. For a moment, he wondered if Marcus could use his wind mage to amplify Estelle's decibel levels. It could be as loud as a thunderclap. Something to consider later, the water mage reflected. Then, he smiled archly. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back over the partition, "If we can't peek, you can't eavesdrop!"

Cap squawked. "Ladies man!"

Quentin was instantly transfixed by the talking bird, who was now whistling. "Yo, what other songs you know?"

Cap turned his eyes on Quentin. The parrot let out another squawk before calling, "Are ya ready, kids?"

"Aye-aye, Captain."

"I can't hear you!" Cap chirped.

"Aye-aye, Captain!" Quentin shouted.

Bird and mage broke out into song. Quentin playfully made water stream about in arcs as he sang, unintentionally squirting water in Tobi's face.

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Drych Lake Spa - Hot Springs

SPLAT! Quentin lost his concentration when Aria pitched a loofah at him. Here, he had been one step away from literally flushing out the peeping tom who had fled into the main building of the spa, and instead he was greeted with a loofah to the face. With his concentration broken, the water around him rained down into the steaming pool. Quentin tumbled in head over arse as well with a resounding splash. Even underwater, he could vaguely hear a shout.

"Hey! Quentin!" shouted Estelle from the other side of the partition. "What are you doing peeping on us too?!"

The water mage released a bubble of bafflement from his mouth. Last time he had checked, she was the one who screamed, and his Guilder instincts had kicked in, modesty be damned. He slouched in mild dismay at the thought of his noble intent being misconstrued. To his surprise, Quentin found a pair of legs approaching him.

"Q.T? You alive?" asked Marcus. Quentin emerged from below, spraying water out of his nose. After rubbing some water away from his eyes, Quentin smiled up at the wind mage.

"Sure 'nuff," he assured Marcus. He didn't say that part of the reason for that was the smug satisfaction of peeking in on the girls' side before he was knocked down into the water again.

"Hey, Marcus, question."

Marcus waited. Quentin hesitated. Sure, he could ask about what brought the Pride together or what rank all of them were, but in a quick sizing up, a completely different question trotted out of his mouth instead.

"You must be quite the ladies' man, huh? I bet they love the slender physique you got goin' on."

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Haha, Aria's awfully blasé about seeing a naked Quentin, isn't she?

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Drych Lake Spa Hot Springs - Where Boys Are Doing Boy Things To With Other Boys

Compared to rubbing his face all over a towel, Lute's wolf whistle at the other lads seemed pretty normal to Quentin. The water mage saw Tobi run off to the hot spring, probably in clear defiance of some sign saying not to run around the slippery deck, and got into the spirit himself. Quentin dashed away, his towel flapping at his waist (had Lute been looking in his direction, Delilah likely would have been pleased) and, with a gleeful shout of, "Cowabunga!" cannon-balled into the hot spring. Ordinarily, this would have been a hare-brained idea, but Quentin was far from ordinary. He instead basked in the joy of water. Maybe, he thought, he was actually a fish in human form. Stranger things had happened, right? Like a pack of poser varrens, for instance.

Quentin resurfaced and heaved a sigh of relief and delight. He leaned back against the edge of the spring, thoroughly indifferent to the fact that his towel was now floating just below the water's surface. The heat soothed some of the ache in his tired muscles. A dude could get used to this kind of posh treatment. Quentin closed his eyes, content for the moment. He cracked his knuckles and his back, the latter eliciting a deep groan. He was really getting into this feeling when a scream pierced the air, and it was alarmingly close. Quentin's eyes snapped open. Lute was already on his feet. There was no time for hesitation; that was not the way of the water. The black-haired mage gestured with sweeping motions of his arms and hands. All around him, water bubbled and frothed until he was at the centre of a rising vortex, one that soon became tall enough for him to look over the partition dividing the ladies from the gents.

A quick scan of the situation made Quentin narrow his eyes. Estelle and Aria were in the spring and, already fleeing, was undoubtedly some ne'er-do-well voyeur. Quentin pointed at Harvey's figure retreating to reception accusatively and raised his other hand; a tall column of hot, swirling water rose at his side.

"What's all this, then?"

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Drych Lake Spa - Hot Springs

When Estelle asked if Quentin was a water mage, he had only nodded in response before she had turned her attention to Lute. He did not mind; the lass had spunk, if nothing else. It took some kind of vigor to shrug off getting clawed in the shoulder by a varren. Along with the others, Quentin proceeded to the hot springs.

The boys and the girls separated. With swift, fluid motion, Quentin snatched a towel and pulled off his top robes and undershirt with lightning quick efficiency. It was all he could do not to go running like a maniac into the hot springs. Finally, water! The battle on the trail had been much too long of an encounter away from a body of water and it had been a right nuisance, especially considering the type of enemy they had faced. However, that was in the past. The present held the anticipation, the oh-so glorious anticipation, of diving into a hot spring for a well-deserved and desperately needed soak. The dark-haired mage was grinning with glee when he noticed the virtuoso nearby sighing wistfully as he rubbed a towel on his face. Behind his sunglasses, Quentin felt his eyebrow arching. That was kind of different. He took off his sunglasses and polished the steam off them with his towel.

"So..." Lute said abruptly, turning to the water mage and totally trying to downplay how awkward that scene looked, "uh, not to make too fine a point on it, but...we take off our clothes before jumping into the water, right? I mean...really? I haven't been to one of these things before."

Quentin was positively puzzled. "Never been to a hot spring before, dude? You gotta be joking with me!"

Before Lute could answer - and truthfully, his look of abject embarrassment seemed to be enough of an answer anyway - Quentin sat down to yank off his own boots. "It's fine, man. Yeah, strip. It's like taking a bath, and I'm sure you haven't made it this far in life having a bath with underclothes on all the time. Quentin, by the way. I don't think I caught your name."

Sensing some hesitation on Lute's part, he added, "Chill, man. Once you dip into the hot springs, you're gonna be cool."

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

I'll probably post later today. I'm taking someone out to dinner for his birthday.

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Drych Lake Spa - Reception

When Penelope came hustling toward the Pride, Quentin hardly processed it at first. He would have been content to flop over in the dirt of the trail to the spa and awaken six hours later. However, that was not in the cards and the Guilders proceeded the last few yards to the relaxation establishment that was their destination.

Absolutely everything on the young man ached. He wondered if it was possible for it was possible for eyebrows to ache. If it was possible, Quentin was experiencing that, too. At least there was a reward for all that risk and the team was getting to use the spa gratis. Nothing could beat that, in Quentin's eyes, and he rolled with it. When the Pride entered the spa, Quentin, like most of the others, was struck by how immaculate and fragrant it was. He rubbed his sore shoulder and groaned a little. Everyone else seemed so animated and energetic. The water mage smiled; there was something admirable to him about their vitality. Constant motion, just like water.

Jett, well, jetted almost immediately and Nani and her talking pigeon split too. Quentin was disappointed about that last part; he was actually a bit interested in talking to the bird. In any case, the other Pride members were already taking advantage of the services being offered. Stroking his chin, Quentin looked around, wondering where to start. Moira seemed to have her itinerary all planned out and Syed and Amy were going along for the ride. Trixie trundled off in a different direction. Quentin gave an audible, "Hm." On the one hand, he wanted to be where the party was, and there was no question that there was a great deal of appeal in a shower, a drink, and a hot spring. On the other hand, he had not yet acquainted himself fully with everyone else in the Pride, like Estelle and Aria. But hey, why make things hard? Alert to Aria's offer to the swordswoman, he strode over to Estelle and put on a bright smile.

"Sorry. I don't think we've been introduced yet. Crazy, considering we were just struggling against varrens together, right? Quentin T. Hobart, but my mates call me Q.T. Your name, Miss?"

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

This calls for celebration. I brought the Nutella!

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Cuttersbury: Trail towards Drych Lake

Maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him, but Quentin was pretty certain that Moira had cut off the spike on the varren's head, and that - not the coordinated attack of distraction and destruction that had tested the Pride's endurance and compatibility - was what defeated it. That. Like, whoa. Was that for real? Still, the beast was gone. Excellent!

The water mage clambered down the trunk of the tree with unsteady limbs. He almost fell the last few feet. His hands were shaking. Woozily, he staggered onto the trail and toward the large hole through which the gaudy Big Bro Varren had escaped. He nearly stumbled on the way over and dropped his sunglasses. Quentin bent down to pick them up and wagged an admonitory finger at the hole in the ground.

"It looks like that varren..." he began, before donning his sunglasses, "...got cut down to size."

A momentary lapse of silence reigned before he pumped an exultant fist in the air and shouted, "YEAAAAAAH!" It was at that moment that the rest of his body cashed the cheque his spirit had written and he sagged to his knees in exhaustion. Through unseeing eyes, his mind barely registered how battered everyone looked, including Estelle's open wound. With a look and a thumbs-up in Marcus's direction, he said, "We're a pretty awesome combination, man."

The Legend of Heroes: Tales of the World

Posting, for great justice!