“Now we just need to roast the meat in the oven, and wait for the stew to finish boiling,” Kanata’s mother said as she stirred the lightly boiling pot. “Thank you for all your help, everyone!” she added, patting Kanata on the head.
“Hee hee!” Kanata giggled happily.
Zag’giel found himself struck by the sight of Kanata’s innocent smile. Kanata’s mother brought out a side of her that Zag’giel hadn’t seen before. Kanata was paying careful attention to Aleksia’s every movement. No doubt she wanted her mother to think highly of her.
“I can handle the rest, so why don’t you go ahead and take the first bath?” Aleksia offered.
“Kay-kay!” sang Kanata. “Zaggy, Fen-fen, Elizabat, it’s time for a bath!”
“Very well,” said Zag’giel.
“As you command!” barked Fenrir.
“’Twill be my first time seeing Mistress’s body naked,” Elizavett considered. “I hope I don’t get too—wait...” Suddenly, she seemed to realize something. She called for Kanata, who was carrying all three of them in her arms, to stop. “Wait, wait, wait! Mistress... Surely you don’t intend to take these two beasts in the bath with us as well?!”
“I do?” said Kanata, blinking in perfect confusion at the question.
“Th-Th-Think about what you propose!” begged an astonished Elizavett. “Those two are men, are they not?! And you spoke of entering the bath with them as if it were no great thing at all. C-Could it be?! M-Mistress, have you been in the bath with those two before?!”
“I have?” Kanata answered.
“I-Indecency!” Elizavett spat, turning on the other two and battering them furiously with her wings. It was a desperately weak assault, but it was enough to send them tumbling from Kanata’s arms.
Fenrir landed with a bounce and glared up at Elizavett. “Wh-What do you think you’re doing?! It’s my duty as Lady Kanata’s servant to wash her back! What right do you have to object?!”
Zag’giel, on the other hand, seemed oddly dispirited. He just lay there on the floor, not moving to take to his feet. “We... We have refused her many times for precisely this reason,” he said. “Alas, as you are no doubt about to learn, Kanata will not be defied on this point...”
“Come on, Elizabat! Don’t be greedy!” Kanata scolded the pink fluff. “Don’t you wanna have a bath with everyone?”
“No, I don’t!” Elizavett protested. “No man may leer at my Mistress’s naked body! To say nothing of my own!”
“Who’s going to leer at your naked body?” said Fenrir. “Don’t forget—you’ve been walking around naked and on four legs this whole time!”
“We swear to you, we have never even once looked at Kanata with lecherous eyes...” Far from lecherous, Zag’giel looked utterly humiliated.
Unlike Fenrir, who had been a wolf from the start, Zag’giel was originally a demon, with a form resembling that of a human. He, for one, had a sense of shame. Kanata, however, seemed to pay his feelings no mind in the slightest as she fluffed him to her heart’s content. There was no place on his body that Kanata’s hands hadn’t touched.
“The Demon King Zag’giel is no more...” Zag’giel lamented, lying on his side, his eyes gazing off somewhere far away. “I am just Zaggy the furball cat...”
It looked as though he was on the verge of giving up.
Suddenly, who should appear but Boldow, back from training, his fingers spread wide in a dramatic pose. “Zaggy, take heart! I have heard your pleas!”
“Dad, you stink!” said Kanata, squeezing her nose tight.
Boldow frowned theatrically. “What? Really? I thought I smelled like flowers!”
“You don’t,” said Kanata. “You stink.”
“You should at least wipe the sweat from your body before coming in the house, father,” agreed Alus, who had returned together with his father after seeing him off to the training grounds. Unlike his father, he had taken the time to properly towel off before stepping inside. Between the two, he came a lot closer to smelling like flowers.
“Ah, but never mind that!” said Boldow. “A mixed bath, hm? I must say, I envy you...”
“Dear?” said Aleksia, shooting him a cold glare that spoke volumes.
“Not! I envy you not!” Boldow hastily added, before translating what Kanata’s mother had said with her eyes. “The boys should bathe with the boys, and the girls should bathe with the girls. So... Zaggy! Fen-fen! I suppose that means the three of us are getting naked together!”
And so it was decided.
† † †
Behind the Aldezia family’s humble abode stood an incongruously lavish open-air bath, decorated with curiously outlandish sensibilities, as if it were designed by someone from a foreign land.
“Well! It has been some time since last we enjoyed an outdoor bath!” exclaimed Zag’giel, nodding with appreciation atop Fenrir’s head.
The Spirit Wolf had rejoined his two parts, and was soaking happily in the large bath himself.
“With a bath this big, there’s plenty of room for my combined form!” Fenrir rejoiced.
“Kanata barely ever wanted anything for herself growing up, but for some reason she’s always been very particular about her baths,” Boldow explained. “She excavated this hot spring herself, believe it or not!”
“Everyone was quite astonished when hot water came spouting out of the ground behind our house, I assure you,” added Alus, stepping over the stones surrounding the hot spring and into the water.
“Kanata designed the space as well,” Boldow said. “Although I’m not sure why she divided it into male and female baths... We’re all family, after all!”
“The villagers use the hot springs as well from time to time, so it’s just as well, I suppose,” remarked Alus.
Neither of them had any knowledge of Japanese culture, of course. They had no idea what to make of some of Kanata’s peculiarities.
Boldow leaned back into the hot water, letting out a very dad-like grunt as he beckoned Zag’giel and Fenrir with his hand. “Get in, you two! Don’t let the heat get to you, it feels great!”
“I would be obliged!” answered Fenrir, leaping into the water.
“Excuse me, Sir Alus, but would you perhaps lend us your lap?” asked Zag’giel. His body was too small to reach the bottom of the bath, but with the addition of Alus’s lap the water was the perfect depth.
“Now, now, Zaggy, my boy,” said Boldow. “Kanata isn’t looking, you know? You can do whatever you like...”
Zag’giel’s eyes shot open. “C-Could you mean...?!”
“I most certainly do.”
Zag’giel could return to his original form without incurring one of Kanata’s stern glares.
“I-In that case, we shall not hold back!” he said, dispelling the curse and sinking into the hot water. “Lord Boldow! You have our gratitude for your kind consideration!” Zag’giel had vowed to remain in the black furball form in order to gain strength, but he couldn’t help longing to return to his original body from time to time. Boldow had seen straight through him.
“No problem!” Boldow declared, flashing Zag’giel a thumbs-up. “Still... I can’t believe we missed out on getting to bathe with that busty blonde babe! I could just about cry! If only there wasn’t this wall in the way...”
“Such vulgar thoughts do not befit one of your station,” Alus chided him, shooting his father a glare rather reminiscent of his mother. “I will tell mother.”
“A-Alus?!” Boldow groveled. “I’m sorry! Please forgive me! I’ll raise your allowance!”
Across from the men’s bath, on the other side of a partition, Kanata and Elizavett were soaking in the women’s section.
“Hee hee!” The vampire laughed coquettishly. “We are all alone now, Mistress, are we not?”
“Uh-huh,” came Kanata’s half-hearted reply.
Elizavett was back in her original form, as a gorgeous woman with long blonde hair. She was doing her best to act seductive and alluring, but Kanata was having none of it. Kanata had been expecting to wash her fluffy pets thoroughly before relaxing into the bath to gaze upon the resplendent fluff, but Elizavett firmly believed that bathing naked together simply wouldn’t be the same if one of them had fur, and returned to her humanoid form before entering the bath.
“Ahh...” Elizavett sighed happily. “Such bliss...”
“I want some bliss too...” Kanata moped, leaning back and resting on her elbows. She reached out for the moon with one arm, making grabby gestures at imaginary fluff.
† † †
The next day, Kanata and her friends went out under the bright rays of the morning sun to help out with the local farms.