How did we end up here.
Rudra sat stiffly in the hot water. To his right dozed the Benevian Prince, hands spread wide, almost brushing Rudra's shoulder, and it took every ounce of Rudra's patience not to tear that hand off and shove it down his throat. He looked up as the wooden door swung open and Percival Leonhart stepped inside with a towel fastened around his waist.
He was wearing a shirt. In a bathhouse.
"Not a word," Percival warned Rudra as he circled around the great wooden tub, clutching the front of his own shirt like a blushing maid, as if Rudra were a lustful old man who couldn't keep his hands to himself.
"Oh, come on!" Rudra barked, which made Mamon jolt out of his nap. "I won't judge you for the lack of chest hair!" He slapped the surface of the water. "What is it? What are you hiding? You let Saroth touch you, didn't you? You sick, twisted man!"
Percival paled in anger. "You foul-spewing garbage mouth—"
"Stop it! Both of you!" Mamon stood up. He wore nothing but a pair of white shorts that rode up his thigh. The sight of them was even more grotesque than Percival Leonhart wearing a full shirt in a bathhouse. "It is because of your bickering that I was coerced into this... this..." He gestured at everything: at Rudra, at Percival, at the soap bar and at his shorts. "...this indignity."
"Cut the crap," Rudra said dryly. "Nobody forced you into shorts that look like they were made for teenage girls."
"These are silk!"
"Yes, very demure, Your Highness."
Rudra closed his eyes and threw his head back, trying to pretend he was somewhere else. But all he could think of was the sheer embarrassment the Saintess had forced upon him.
(Thirty minutes earlier)
"What have you let him do to you? What have you done to yourself?" Rudra had asked Percival Leonhart.
"What do you mean?" Tish asked sharply. Then she turned to her friend and cupped his face with a gentleness that made Rudra gag. Nayan coughed like she was trying to hide a laugh.
"Percy," she said. "Look at me, please." She was actually begging. "Did you do something? Did you..." Her eyes widened. "That time... Saroth mentioned..."
"What did he mention?"
"What did he mention!"
Rudra and Nayan cut in together, one more aggressive than the other. Tish stopped. Just stopped.
A second passed. Then another. Then she said stubbornly, "Why should we tell you?" She lifted her chin, looking like she was holding a trump card, which she most definitely was not.
"Because," Rudra stepped closer, "whatever he told you was not for your benefit. It was for his own." He searched her eyes. They were wide, somewhat dazed.
Afraid.
She knew. Or at least she could sense that Saroth was not a man anyone should associate with. "He promised you something, let me guess," he said, looking at Percival. "That you could kill a dragon if you listened to him? That you could kill me?"
Tish looked away. Aha.
"You think that comes without a cost?" He laughed, mirthless. "You think you can walk away spotless and unharmed after shaking hands with hell to kill a monster?"
Suddenly Percival was there. He shoved. Strangely enough, Rudra actually stumbled back a foot before he caught himself.
"Do you think we don't know that?" Percival demanded. "Do you think we're not ready to make sacrifices?" He stepped forward, pulling Tish behind him. "To slay a monster, I don't mind becoming one."
Rudra opened his mouth and closed it. He looked down at his feet. The mere human had managed to push him back.
He felt something cold and uncomfortable crawling down his spine, something twisting in the pit of his stomach. He stared at Percival Leonhart, the man of this timeline, and saw only the Percival of the last: the one who had crossed Alaka, where nothing could live except Tish and Rudra himself, and killed him there.
Rudra had always told himself it was luck. Maybe Tish had found Percival first and healed him before the fight. Maybe the curse had simply been slow.
Perhaps it hadn't been luck at all. Perhaps Percival had been immune to Alaka, more immune than Rudra or Tish, and that was why he had won.
That would mean Saroth had reached Benevia in that life too, while Rudra sat ignorant in Ashkavar. He must have struck a deal, changing Percival's body to withstand the curse and stand toe to toe with a Parthan dragon.
Rudra hid his shaking hands. He should have killed Saroth. Percival noticed, of course. His eyes dropped to Rudra's hands, and they lit up with a dark, triumphant thrill. His pupils shone like a pair of black pearls.
"You think you are so smart and brave," Rudra growled, his draconic core throbbing in sync with his heart, his human form barely holding. "You think you can win against me? All you'll win is a rotting body."
"What?" Tish asked, her voice quiet and fragile.
Rudra turned his head to look at her. "He smells like rotten meat. He won't be able to save you from me. He'll kill himself instead."
Tish didn't miss a beat. She grabbed Percival's collar. "Percy," she croaked, "what have you done to yourself? Please tell me you're not destroying yourself for this. For me."
For the first time, Percival looked nervous. "I'm not doing anything dangerous," he lied through his teeth.
"Then why is he saying those things?" Tish demanded. "Why is he saying you smell like rot?"
Percival opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Probably because... I haven't bathed in two days," he blurted out. "And I was running around all night looking for you."
Tish didn't even blink. She stared with such intensity that it made Rudra anxious even though he wasn't the target. Still, he took a good three feet back in case Her Holiness decided to burst into holy flames. Nayan wisely followed his example.
"Very well," Tish said. "Then you will take a bath. You," she pointed at Rudra, "and you," she pointed at Mamon, "you too."
"Why me? I don't smell, and I don't do smelling!" protested the Benevian Prince.
"I don't care," Tish said. "Everyone will take a bath, and then Rudra will smell Percival again. And we will decide what to do from there."
Behind them, Nayan squeaked, "I am... allergic to water."
Rudra turned around, shocked and betrayed. "You just hate bathing, you unhygienic Pundāku—!"
"She can come with me," Tish cut in. "I need her advice. Come." She started walking toward the town's medic station, confident that the Parthan General would not dare defy her.
And damn, she was right. Nayan took off, quickly catching up with the Saintess.
Halfway across the square, Tish glanced back over her shoulder. "Make sure you three clean up thoroughly," she called. Her eyes found Rudra and held there, a beat too long. "Even if it means scrubbing each other's backs."
It was peak pettiness. Back in the Benevian capital, Rudra had been used as many humiliating things: a temporary dam, an unpaid appliance for drying clothes and goats. But a back-scrubber? That topped the list.
Beside him, Percival's jaw went tight, and Mamon made a sound like a kettle about to boil. Rudra turned to the two men, both staring at the ground with comically similar martyred expressions.
"Fuck off," said Percival.
"Fuck off," said Mamon.
"I didn't say anything," said Rudra.