"Can I join you for breakfast? Bathing can wait til after that." Clara asks.
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"If you want to talk to them other things than what comes naturally to people, you'd have a hard time finding a good match here. Imagine a spirited boy with a sharp mind and many interests saying: 'I'm going to work myself to death chopping trees to see what that is like.' Not very realistic."
"See?!" Tarjun beams at Shelly and Jewel. "That's why I don't work! Don't wanna waste my sharp mind and many interests on some stupid chores!"
"Tarjun on the other hand might be lucky if a strong gal turns up to work here for a season. As we can all see he isn't the talking kind."
But when the conversation turns to him, his smile disappears.
"Ew, gross, Ma," Tarjun rolls his eyes. For some reason, his parents - and his mother especially - seemed more and more invested in their children's dating lives and marriage prospects.
Perhaps they thought it would get them rid of the kids faster. It didn't really work. It was a real mystery, he thought, that for all their talk of 'knowing better' and 'having more life experience', his parents always touted about the benefits of marriage and kids - when it hadn't worked all that well for them.
"Can I join you for breakfast? Bathing can wait til after that."[/b]
"Oh, go take a dive in the river first," Tarjun scrunches his nose. "And don't ask Jewie to do your work - she ain't your maid!"
"If the river would help, I'd smell like roses already." Clara argues Tarjun's 'suggestion' away. "And Jewel isn't your maid either, so I don't have to ask you, before I ask her."
As no one of consequence has objected to her getting breakfast here, this short conversation is enough for her to discreetly move herself from the door to a seat at the table.
Jewel giggles about Tarjun's comment on chores. She knows that he's not serious. When work has to be done he works as hard as anyone....
"Tarjun, that's mean. She can't use magic to create water, and you know the bucket is pretty heavy. Neither of us is as strong as you. But you're right about me heating the water. That isn't any easier for me than for her."
"Hey, mom told me to get a bath. She gave no specifics about the work."
"No specifics? Then you could just jump in the river.... I still say that it's a pity witches don't have magic to clean up like wizards do!"
"I could, but that water would still be cold. Also jumping into the pond yesterday hasn't done the trick." Clara objects.
"Wizards use weird chemicals and stuff for their spells. And if they aren't careful some of that stuff probably blows around and gets all over them. I think that nobleman that we dealt with on our way back here might have been a mage. He seemed like the kind of person that didn't do much of anything for himself. Like he expected everything to just happen for him."
"Magic is just a tool. An axe is unfair to a tree. The weapons we use to hunt are unfair to the animals. So magic is certainly unfair to those that can't use it."
"Did you clean yourself up before you went to bed Clara? Not a bath, but at least a clean cloth to wipe yourself down and get the pond water off of you? I cleaned the dishes that we used for that meal, and cleaned myself up after. If you don't clean after you've been in 'wild' water there might be any sort of mold or germs left on your skin. It could cause a rash or even worse like an infection. You don't want mold covering your skin do you? I don't have enough power from Erastil to cure diseases yet!" She glances at Tarjun after all this, wondering if he had cleaned himself....
"What color would that mold have?" Clara inquires with piqued interest.
"You wouldn't see the mold at first. The first indication that it is there would be a rash, pink or red skin, possibly bumps and it would itch. You're probably feeling itchy now just because I'm mentioning it...."
"The visible mold wouldn't be seen until the skin under it was starting to rot. It would be dark green or black. And the rotting skin would stink really bad, and hurt a lot. Any movement would flex the skin like normal but it wouldn't stretch like it normally does so it would hurt even more.... You'll start bleeding from the open, rotting wounds. And the infection would go deep inside you making you sick, and eventually killing you. Then maybe you'd rise again as a mold monster! But you wouldn't know it because the mold would have gotten into your brain and turned it to mushy mold!" She grins and laughs as she ends the ridiculous line or nonsense!
"Ewww. That's uncool." Clara comments.
"Less talking more cooking. Don't let the eggs burn." Shelly reminds Jewel.
Jewel snaps her attention back to the cooking. Why is Clara able to distract her so easily? "Of course Mom, and thank you for the reminder."
As the eggs get close to finish she moves the pan off of the heat to let the heat of the pan finish the cooking. She checks on some bread that she'd put on to toast. She'd positioned it in low heat so it would be almost done, and she turns it for the last bit of baking. "Breakfast is ready if anyone is hungry!" She starts moving the food to plates, assuming that Clara does plan to eat with them. "Come get it. Go easy on the butter unless you are volunteering to work the churn for more!"