6
After a brief lifetime of looming threat, it's gone. Nothing remains of the Little One but the smell of sulfur and dark stain on the flooring that will rinse shining clean in a way Crona's memory of the day never will, and Medusa washes his hair.
Cross-legged in the soothing, blistering bath, he keeps his head down as she tips cup after cup over his scalp. The dragon's blood has caked on hard, forming a leaden crust that resists every soap and scrub and attempt to excise it. Every now and then she issues a mild command – stand up, close your eyes, let me see your foot, now the other one – but Crona hasn't uttered a single word since being turned loose on his opponent.
And when he finally does, his voice is all but faint enough to be lost in the slosh of water.
"Are you going to cut my hair off?"
Medusa gives an affectionate chuckle, amused, the kind that stands poised to deny the slightest accusation of wrongdoing. "No, I'm not going to cut your hair off."
"Oh."
Another cupful to rinse. The water has begun to tint with a brackish reddish-brown, like a bucket of rain left out in the autumn.
"Do I have to go back to the dark room?"
Medusa tips his chin upwards, scrubbing a faint smudge beneath his left eye. "Only weak children need to be locked out of sight. You've decided to be strong, haven't you, Crona?"
The washcloth pushes at his cheek, forcing him to squint, to see her through a world half blurred. There is approval in her words...and that, not this filthy bathwater, is what rinses him clean.
"Because red blood is weak," he whispers, "and mine is black."