The hot spring water was called up from beneath Mulsantir's barrows to fill enchanted ice pools. The interweaving of natural phenomena and magical assistance was fascinating. The water would be used for a ritual cleansing ceremony for all practitioners of magic, be it from the divine or arcane spheres; and as such the bathing would be primarily for witches and unproven.
Only a very small handful of men called to serve their gods as clerics were permitted to join; and those who did had little to no place in the social hierarchy. It was strictly the role of Wychlaran to mediate all interactions between the mundane and the supernatural in Rasheman, gods included.
So, for a seventeen year old boy trapped in a young girl's body, Nadezdha/Homen was understandably awkward upon being placed with the other unproven as the mass bathing began. Being surrounded by frolicking, naked women was certainly an... experience.
The air was filled with singing, and the smell of herbs and bath salts. The women played with one another with splashing or in swimming; they hummed or chanted through hymns, and they helped one another bathe. A great deal of attention was paid to everyone's hair. Clothing was shed by everyone; only some of the Hathran still wore their masks.
Ho-Nadezdha knew none of the other unproven, but he doubted he would have been any more comfortable bathing near his witch. He had a feeling he'd have spent the entire ritual blushing furiously and trying not to stare at her. As it was, he tried to keep to himself (herself, Nadezdha, herself, you are a she right now!) as she lathered and she rinsed herself.
Staring down at her own naked, female body was certainly awkward, though. Would she have been considered attractive by Mulan standards? It was hard to see himself. A Mulan beauty was tall, slender, bronze, and flawless; with a sloping neck, an angular faces and long, curvaceous eyes that never opened past half-mast; whose long fingers sported no callouses, but instead well-manicured nails. Leonlai, for instance, had not been particularly well-endowed, but most people had called her a beauty.
Nadezdha sighed and wondered why she was thinking about these questions at all. It was a little odd to be self conscious when one wasn't even in one's own skin. Though perhaps that was why she kept thinking about the topic: It made senses that the urge to remain camouflaged had come with an awareness of all her many differences.
"Her hair is so thin," a young woman was remarking. "And so short! Do they really shave their heads in Thay?"
"You think that's odd? She hasn't hair anywhere else. No, not anywhere. It's just- bare. Really, it's unnaturally looking."
"Hsst! She can hear you, be nice." By the heat on her own cheeks, Nadezdha became aware she must have turned a funny shade of magenta. Rashemi were definitely not a... a modest people. She sank deeper into the water, and and was grateful for its murkiness.
"Nice about a Thayan?"
"She's not a Thayan anymore."
"She'll always be a Thayan."
"She's unproven, same as us. One day she might be a Wychlaran."
Nadezdha thought that was incredibly unlikely. So did half a dozen sputtering Rashemi unproven (albeit for different reasons), who all immediately voiced their disagreement.
Then a voice popped up to add: "I hear she likes women."
Nadezdha turned entirely new shades of scarlet.
