thewidewideworld | (no subject)

Sinric leaves to trouble between them to them and steps out of the bath, wrapping a towel around himself more to keep from dripping on Ragnar than any modesty.

"I'm very glad to see you." he kisses Ragnar's cheek, pressing his forehead against Ragnar's for a moment. "I've missed you both."

Ragnar puts his hands on Sinric's hips, and kisses him deeply.

"How long has it been?"

Athelstan turns away from them slightly, closing his eyes again.

He melts into the kiss. It's been all the time between since he was kisses like that by someone he loved.

"More than three years." He answers softly, making no effort to hide the longing in his voice. "But I reached the eastern edge of the world."

"The land the moderns know as Japan?" Ragnar says. "You told me about that when we met in Ribe."

[ooc: you can keep going without me for a while]

"Nippon, yes." He cocks his head at that. "Did I? Or should that be will I?"

"You, er, are going to have done so," Ragnar tries.

No grammar is complex enough for Milliways.

Sinric laughs and shakes his head, stepping back and hanging his towel again, the scarrified design on his shoulder showing as he does. "Will you join us in the bath?"

"Yes," Ragnar says, "I just need to get rid of my clothes first."

Duh. Silly Viking.

Sinric chuckles and climbs backbiting the bath, gently touching Athelstan's shoulder. He looks to Athelstan, silently asking if he's okay.

Athelstan opens his eyes and nods.

"Yes, all's well." (It isn't. But he keeps that to himself.)

Ragnar gets out of his clothes, quickly and simply, and walks over, peering at tub and wondering how best to insert himself without unsettling or flooding the others.

Sinric shimmies over a bit so there's room against one side. The joy of this tub is there's room enough for all three of them as long as they don't mind their legs touching. Which Sinric doesn't mind at all.

"Kollam is a vibrant and exciting place but it has nothing like this." He sighs, luxuriating.

"They don't have any bath houses?" Athelstan asks, not seeming to mind legs touching.

Ragnar climbs into the bath with them and threads his long legs between theirs.

"That would be terrible," he says. "Evwrybody smells."

Sinric laughs. "Oh no, men wash. Perhaps not as much as they should during the festivals but in buckets and hip-baths. Not in great bathes like this." He splashes happily.

"But the baths in Nippon! Oh beloveds, they are... amazing! Great outdoor hot-springs like small lakes. With houses built over them so one may step from indoors, into beautiful courtyard gardens and into the springs."

Athelstan nods eagerly.

"There are places like that - few and far between, but some - in England. Natural springs where the water comes warm from the ground, and though the shelters over them aren't so grand, it's the same idea. They used to be held as holy places."

"We get them, too," Ragnar says. "But mostly, we have to heat our own water."

He leans back and submerges himself as far as he can.

"The Romans held them as holy, didn't they?" He asked, resting a hand on Ragnar's thigh, guiding him into the water. "Before Christianity came."

"Some of the hot springs are considered holy too. Something the emperor uses to his advantage. The imperial family claim right to rule by birth, being descended from gods themselves. It means the emperor can claim the best springs for use solely by the imperial family and their guests."

"And the people who were in Britain before the Romans came", he says with a nod. "The Romans made the buildings over them."

Ragnar lies back in the bath, stretching into Sinric's touch, and gives a content sigh. "Of course they're a gift from the gods," he says. "Hello, hot water straight from the ground, in a handy pool ready for bathing it? What else should it be?"

"And that always flows hot and clean." He gesture to the chrome taps of their bath. "Must be the gods." He laughs warmly. "Those who tend the bathhouses, especially the imperial ones certainly carry themselves as priests. Such utter focus to service and perfection."

Athelstan nods.

"It must be hard work to keep them clean, with all those people passing through."

"It must be the gods if it just comes up from the ground," Ragnar says. "But still hard work tending to it. That can still go together."