Malza's Morning Start

Malza had been proud of her professional insistence, at least until she started hearing the sexual activities go on for more than twenty minutes. Once Inoshana and her partner started making the walls pound, Malza suddenly realized the purpose of the little pips she had been handed, the material was firm and slightly soft with the look of being some kind of wood; Malza put the pips in her ears and suddenly everything went quiet, and she decided to give this moment to get a few hours of sleep. Her sleep was dreamless, which was a rarity among her people. She would be worrying about that, if she were not distracted by everything else going on around her the past few days. She at least remembered to take the plugs out of her ears as soon as she was up.

Malza was up with the sun, she got out of bed just as the sunrise made its way into her room, and went through her wake-up exercise routine, which often took over an hour. Just as she was finishing her routine, Malza heard Inoshana and Yuri getting up and having a conversation; the comment about getting washed up made Malza decide to do just that. After the sound of Yuri leaving the room was heard, Malza made her way into the bathroom. To be honest, she had never really looked at the chamber before now, she just chose the closest room to Inoshana’s choice. What Malza saw made the fanciest washrooms she had seen before now look lacking by comparison. The tub had a system for providing water right there above it in the wall, handy for those with practically no access to water magic themselves, it looked like there were two knobs, one for cold water and one for hot water, that was something nowhere else she was aware of had access to. She knew the sinks had it from earlier that day, but it looked like the tub had similar indicators regarding water temperature as well.

Although, to be fair, Malza probably should have seen this sort of thing coming from the tour, especially the laundry room setup he had going on. She took a quick a look at her armor; she was fortunate the contrast between her natural coloration and the basic steel armor she wore was so complimentary, but now that she got a better look at her attire before going into the restroom proper, her attire was in need of a good cleaning, and she doubted the laundry room was designed to handle metal armor, she could probably get lucky with leather or cloth armor, but metal armor and laundry usually didn’t play nice together. She would be giving it all a good thorough wash later that day, the last time she did that was a few days prior.

She turned her attention back to the water closet, slipping out of the translucent silver nightgown she had found in the wardrobe closet, likely part of some sort of blessing bestowed on the goddess Nocturia; sometimes the gods were pretty flagrant in their displays of power, but for situations like this, Malza at least had some level of understanding. Before Yuri was confirmed, Alpharians were basically a legend within a myth, basically a story that was within another story; at best, most folks thought were just some sort of allegory, and then word about Yuri came in earlier that year and blew all that theory out of the water, and evaporated the water with the heat it generated, the crater it left behind meant the foundation of an entire theory needed to be built all over again. And her charge had just had an intimate encounter with him the night before, and chances were that same priestess would insist Malza, as the only matured female in who know how far, did not have that kind of experience with him; truth be told, she was total virgin; then again, so Inoshana had been a virgin before she had a naked personal encounter with Yuri.

Malza liked to think of herself as more dignified than that, until she realized Inoshana would likely try to get her in a similar situation in the foreseeable future. To be honest, Malza wasn’t entirely opposed to the situation, she just didn’t want the image of her in the public consciousness to be similar to the common depiction of her people in the public consciousness. That all said, Inoshana had alluded to possibly knowing one of her secrets, but which one, some would be pretty embarrassing if they got out. To matters more complicated, Alpharians could apparently home in on hidden truths about their partner's sexual desires and preferences, even that partner was ignorant or unaware of.

Malza looked around for the plug control for the drain for a moment before finding it and getting the hot and cold water to run until it was the temperature she liked and pulling the control for the drain plug to fill up the tub to a reasonable level before stopping the flow. She then noticed the options lining shelves on the tub, her eyes immediately homed in on a bottle that said, in the common tongue, it would put bubbles in the bath, this intrigued her enough to grab the bottle and open it up to waft it a bit, the scent was a bit more acrid than she was used to regarding bathing soaps. She shrugged and poured a dollop into the tub, a moment later the tub was filled with bubbles of an unfamiliar pink color and an unfamiliar sweet scent filled the room as she closed the door. As she returned the cap to its proper placement and tightness, Malza noted the labeling, it appeared to be in some sort of text imitating bubbles saying, “Bubblegum Scented,” and for whatever reason, despite every other calming scent known to her not working, this new scent was surprisingly relaxing.

Malza slipped her naked form into the bath, the water was at the temperature she liked and there was a calming scent in the air that relaxed her; for once, she might actually overstay her recommended bathing time without meaning to, as opposed her usual countdown to minimum bathing time to optimize her cleaning period. If she wasn’t careful, she might actually slip back into sleeping or slip into a daydream while in the bath. Malza was sure it was fine, every part of this place she had seen was designed to work with only one person living here unassisted, there were likely safeguards in place within the bathrooms to minimize issues or need for rescue.