The bathroom was fascinating.
Scindri didn't really pay much attention to how the bathroom looked, the night before, too ripped up to really notice the décor. Honestly, she was still feeling ripped up now, but she was able to appreciate the large clam shell shape of the tub as it slowly filled with water, reflecting off the iridescent pink of the sides, just like the inside of a shell.
She had to give it to this inn for their dedication to staying on brand. Even the bit of blood left behind from the Drow woman's head wound didn't throw it all off.
As the water rose, Scindri mechanically stripped her nightclothes off, kicking them to the corner, and bundled her braids atop her head, making sure they stayed put so they wouldn't get wet.
She determinedly did not look at the mirror, eyes turned away from her reflection.
Once the tub was full enough for her liking, Scindri slipped beneath the water, and it was hot, hotter than she could usually stand, but she grits her teeth and sinks until the scalding water covered her shoulders. If she could've, she would've dunked her whole head beneath the water, let the heat sink in from head to toe until she was clean all over, burnt through – a real baptism. But it would take ages for the braids to dry, and she doesn't have the time for it.
And then – she sits. The only sound in the bathroom being the occasional gentle splash of water from her movements and the forced steadiness of her breathing. Scindri leans back against the rim of the tub and lifts her hand out of the water, staring. It looks the same as it always did – nut brown skin, slender hands, long fingers. Callouses and scars from hard falls and battles. Her hand, same as always. Nothing different.
She brings her hand to her face, drifting across her forehead, lightly beaded with sweat, before lightly dragging her fingers down her neck and dancing over to the scar on her right breast. A jagged, ugly thing that nearly killed her, the skin around her breast and collarbone and the curve of her waist scarred from the necrotic magic of the blade.
That sword should've killed her; when she shattered it, she truly thought it did. But here she is, alive in this strange and different world. And now she was different, too.
Scindri tried not to look too hard at her hands; sometimes she still sees them, dark and shiny red with blood, holding them away from her body as to not get anything on her dress. She bites her lip, and still feels the flesh of that elf girl's heart split between her teeth.
Snatching her hand away from her chest, Scindri dunks it back in the water and sinks until her chin touches the surface of the water, as if that would hide the wobbling. Shame, thick and vicious, rises in her like bile, and for a moment, Scindri thinks she's going to vomit.
She vomited plenty last night after her bath, after healing her bruises and washing the last of Tahir's blood out of her mouth. At the mere thought of his name, Scindri feels her stomach heave, and she jerks back up, covering her face with her too-warm hands.
What a fucking idiot she was. What a goddamn fool, to fall for a stupid dream. All those meetings, the talks, the- a trick. All of it. Scindri really thought she had everything together, all the control in the palm of her hands as she smiled and called Tahir a fool of a man, but turns out she was the fool all along.
Scindri lets her hands fall from her face and sink back into the water as big, fat tears slipped down her face and dripped off her chin, quietly dropping into the tub. Already she was sick of crying, hasn't cried this much since the fire, all those years ago; but still, somehow, the tears keep welling out of her like blood from a wound.
She was just so humiliated, that she trusted someone like Tahir so easily; she should've known better than to trust a fiend, has known better in the past. But the relief at having a man on the inside, the hope of having someone who could help them try and stop such a horrible, world shaking thing...
Scindri quietly sniffled and continued to cry, not even bothering with stopping it.
And now because of her slipping up, like a true soft-hearted imbecile, she was changed; her face, her skin and body might look the same, but she feels off, she feels wrong. She feels like a passenger in her own skin, like she took a step aside and there was something else in her body, now, something different.
Even though the water was so hot, Scindri was starting to shiver. Tahir's missing presence felt like a hole in the back of her head, and she knew he was gone, killed him with her own hands to make sure of it. But his presence hovered like a ghost, his impact on her covering her skin like a film of slime. He changed her, irrevocably, and it made her sick.
Scindri blindly reached out and snatched up the rag she used last night, hanging over the rim of the tub. Picking up the bar of soap, she quickly dunked it into the water and rubbed it into a later with the rag, and then put it to the side as she pushed up onto her knees and began to scrub. She rubbed furiously at her hands, scraping under her nails, hoping to get the feeling of caked blood off them if she scrubbed hard enough.
She scoured the washcloth across her arms, her breasts, down her waist and across the curve of her hips. She cupped water in a shaky hand and brought it to her lips, wondering if the faintly soapy water could wash the taste of blood sticking to the back of her teeth. Scindri scrubbed furiously between her legs, hoping that the water and the soap and the fervor of her movements would clean off every part of her that Tahir touched.
But it was just a dream, wasn't it? She thought wildly as she scrubbed. Does it really count if it was just in dreams? If he didn't really touch me, isn't it fine?
No. No, no, it wasn't fine; even if they only touched in dreams, it would never be fine, because even then, in those weird dream spaces, his hands on her felt like a brand and lit her up like a fireball.
Her soapy rag slipped from her limp fingers and into the bath with a wet 'plop', and Scindri sank back into the water, holding back a long keen of despair between clenched teeth.
How could he do this to me? She wailed silently. How could he make me into this and not even give me the choice? How could I be such a fool and let him in?
She felt like she was going to split apart, like she was one of her sister's old dolls, ragged and faded and every bit of pain she'd been holding back about to burst out of her from the seams. Scindri hiccupped quietly, tears still pouring down her face, and listened to the quiet murmur of voices beyond the door.
There was no time for this. She never has any time – no time to process, no time to think, no time to grieve. Just pushing, pushing, pushing all of it away, all of it into a box until she can finally get time to deal with it.
Scindri leaned against the lip of the tub, suddenly exhausted. She has never felt more alone than she does now, sitting in too-hot water, sitting in her same-but-different body. Reaching up to her collarbones, Scindri began to search for the chain of her key to fiddle between her fingers when she was anxious, and only remembered what became of it when she touched bare damp skin instead of warmed metal.
Suddenly the loss of it truly hit her; the one thing that could've given them the upper hand at stopping this, and she gets tricked into giving it away. The tool she was trusted to guard for literal millennia.
She felt like an utter failure.
Scindri poked at the loss of her key like a child who just lost a tooth, jamming their tongue into the space where something once was. Wondered how something that was bound to her with such strong magic could just get taken away from her so easily.
She was such a fool.
Absently, she scooped up handfuls of water to wash away the remaining suds stubbornly clinging to her neck and shoulders. Curled forward and pressed her forehead into her knees, closing her eyes against the steam that rose from the water to brush against her face. Rubbed a hand across her cheeks to futilely clear away the constant stream of tears.
She would have to get out of the tub eventually and rejoin the rest of her group. Try and help plan a little more.
But for now, she sat; they could wait a while longer.