Rule# 19 "Baths are important."
"No, no, no, nonononon!" He shook his head frantically, arms and legs wrapped around the only keeping him from suffering a horrible fate.
"Yes, Ezra," she growled, struggling to pry him free. "It's not going to kill you, so let go right now!"
"NO!" he wailed and tightened his grip. There was a low growl, and then suddenly she stopped trying pull him away from his savior.
"Fine, if that's how it's going to be," she said sweetly, "then you leave me no choice."
At the sound of her moving away he carefully opened one eye. He squinted, trying to see what she was doing. He didn't trust that she had just given up. No, she was up to something. His eyes widened as he saw what she was doing.
"N-no, please don't! Anything but tha –AH!" He screamed, finally letting go as he tried to avoid getting hit. She was faster and before he could make it two steps he was on the ground shivering and shaking.
"Oh, stop being such a baby," she snapped as he moaned and groaned on the ground. "It's just a little water and all I'm asking you to do is take a bath!"
"But it's soooooo cold," he whined. She rolled her eyes.
"Tough!" She hauled him up and dragged him over to the small river. He whined and tugged, but didn't try to run away again. "We spent all day crawling around the sewers. Do you have any idea how disgusting that is?"
She stopped at the bank and started undressing. He gave her a sour look but hastily started pulling off his own clothes when she gave him the evil eye. They'd both gotten undressed around each other before and in the dark it was hard to see anything anyway.
"We stink and that's not a good thing, why?" She asked tugging him into the frigid water. He squawked and squirmed, and she talked over him, answer her own question. "Nobody likes nasty smells; they try to avoid them, and don't want to be around them. We might not beg much, but when we do it's a heck of a lot easier if we don't stink like bantha droppings and make everyone want to avoid us. The cuter we are, the more sympathy, food or money in other words, we can get from people.
"Also," she continued, shoving a worn out bar of soap into his hands. "It's easier to get sick if you're dirty. If you get sick. ." She trailed off, fingers poking at the little bubbles on her arms.
He bit his lip and scrubbed himself harder. He didn't know why, but she had always been terrified of getting sick or wounds getting infected. Every time he got so much as a scratch she would panic and scrub the area until it hurt more than when he'd got the injury, and if he so much as sneezed he would be wrapped up in her jacket and forced to stay in one place until she was certain he was fine. She said it was because medicine was too expensive and too hard to steal and without it getting sick could kill him, but he'd seen her steal medicine before so he knew that wasn't the real reason.
"So new rule!" He jumped at the sudden exclamation. "Baths are important, so you're taking one at least once week! Got it?"
"Got it. Wai-What? But it's cold!" He whined, making a show of shivering. She rolled her eyes and shoved him under the water. He resurfaced spluttering and coughing and retaliated with a vicious splash that left her once dry hair dripping.
With a cry she launched herself at him, grabbing him in headlock and rubbing the bar of soap painfully hard against his head. He wiggled and squirmed unable to break free, but he was able to grab the soap and attacked her feet with it. She shrieked and laughed and it quickly became a battle of who could cover the other in soap first.