Neil 

 

The pot was large enough to have been an oversized witch’s cauldron, and while it should have been both heavy and unwieldly, it was fortunately just unwieldly. 

 

Made of what I thought might have been aluminum, it was light enough that I could carry it without too much trouble, but its immense size meant that it was still awkward. 

 

I had tried to get Yallia to help out but she complained she was too tired from using her Dark Affinity, so I was left to do it myself. 

 

With Yallia looking on incredulously I carried it through the wheat field, around the small pillar that stretched upwards to the ceiling of the cavern, through the streets of the city, and up the center building. 

 

By the time I dropped it on the roof top near the spiral staircase to the surface I was exhausted. 

 

The combination of magic use, fighting, and then carrying my spoils back left me so exhausted I barely had the energy to actually set up my new bathtub. 

 

Eating a rousing fruit I found enough energy to keep going. Using my mana I was able to get a small amount of water in the bottom of the pot and use that with a small amount of my bar of soap to scrub out the bottom of the pot as best as I could. It took me almost a half an hour before I actually managed to clean the damn thing well enough to use it, but I did manage it. After that I used my mana and my water affinity to fill it half full with water. 

 

So long as I was just using my water affinity to make water and allow it to fall into the pot it wasn’t too tiring and I didn’t need much mana so I wasn’t in any more danger of getting mana shock. When the pot was finally half full, I started a small fire under the pot and let the water slowly heat. Using my small pot to heat another smaller amount of water I closed the double doors to the building and stripped out of my now blood and sweat soaked clothes, throwing them in a pile on the ground. Using the warm water from my small pot and my soap I cleaned off as much of the dirt and grime as I could until I finally started to feel clean. 

 

“You're actually doing this then?” A voice called from the doorway.  

 

Looking over my shoulder I saw Yallia standing in the doorway holding what looked like a liquor bottle in her hand. I thought about calling her out on watching me clean off but I was too tired to bother. Rinsing off the soap and last of the grime on my skin I answered her as I stepped into the pot and knelt down until I was submerged in the water up to my chest. 

 

“Hell yes I am.” I said with a sigh. The water was lukewarm at the bottom and still cool at the surface, but it was still nice to sit in.  

 

“When you said you were bringing this back with you, I thought you must have taken a blow to the head during the fighting.” She said walking towards me while looking at fire I had lit at the base of the pot. “Isn’t that burning your feet?” 

 

“The fire is only on one side so I just avoid sitting on that and it’s not too bad.” I said. 

 

“Once you're done, I can use it then?” She asked sounding hopeful. 

 

Looking up at her I asked, “I’m sorry? What makes you think you get to use my bathtub after you didn’t help me carry it up here?” 

 

“Oh, come on don’t be like that.” Yallia said walking towards me with an extra sway in her hips, the bottle held in her hands. Reaching me she leaned on the edge of the pot her face close enough to mine that I could smell alcohol on her breath. “If you share with me I’ll share my Kallaz with you.” At that Yallia swished the bottle back and forth in front of me. 

 

“Pass, I don’t drink alcohol.” 

 

Undeterred Yallia continued, “I’m sorry that I let you do all the work in bringing it here, but I was exhausted from using that mana, and your much stronger than me anyways. I would have just gotten in your way. When you passed out, I looked after you didn’t I?” 

 

In the low light of the glow stones I had set up her pupils were silted like a cats, her hair framed her face and her ears were facing towards me like she was trying to listen to my heart beat. I really didn’t like that she seemed to be flirting with me just to get what she wanted, but she did have a point, she had looked after me when I passed out, and now that it was here there was no reason to not let her use it. Still I might as well get something out of this. 

 

“Tell you what, while I was setting this up, I didn’t get a chance to eat anything. You make me some dinner and you can use my bath.” 

 

Head cocked to the side Yallia responded. “You actually want me to cook for you? Sure, that sounds fair.” 

 

Walking into the building and then into the office I heard her rummaging around before she returned a few minutes later carrying a frying pan filled with fruits, vegetables, and a few strips of salted meat. 

 

Carrying it over she placed the frying pan on the fire I was using to heat the water in the pot. 

 

“You know I really didn’t intend for you to cook this right there.” I said feeling a little uncomfortable. 

 

“Haven't you ever had dinner in the bath?” Yallia asked with an arch of her eyebrow, a moment later she took a drink straight from her bottle. “Oh that’s good. Genoa makes the best Kallaz and this is from one of the best distilleries, are you sure you don’t want to try some?” 

 

I was about to say no when I stopped myself. Why didn’t I drink? Because I saw what it did to my parents and everyone else, and that one bad experience I’d had with it when I was younger were the usual answers. Moving to Banff hadn’t really helped my impression of alcohol, with the town being a booze fueled orgy in the summer and a kind of depressing morass in the winter. 

 

Still I was in a new world filled with new possibilities, peoples and experiences. Maybe I should try new things and not let myself get bogged down by old hang-ups. 

 

“Sure I guess I’ll try some.” I said hesitantly reaching towards the bottle. 

 

Yallia perked up and looked at me with a beaming smile as she unsteadily picked up the bottle and handed it to me. Taking the bottle I noticed right away that it was probably missing about a third of the liquid inside.  How much had she had to drink? If this was something strong like whiskey or rum then she was probably pretty hammered. 

 

Raising the bottle to my lips I made the mistake of breathing in through my nose and the alcohol smell was enough to make my eyes water. Before I could reconsider I put the bottle to my lips and took a long drink swallowing it as quickly as I could. 

 

Gagging as I pulled the bottle away, spilling some of the liquid onto my chest and into my bath. “Oh god, this is good Kallaz? What does bad Kallaz taste like?” I asked as I seriously considered drinking my bath water to get the taste out of my mouth. 

 

Laughing Yallia took the bottle from me. Taking a small drink she put the stopper in the bottle and put it down. “I guess Kallaz isn’t for everyone.” She said depositing the food from the frying pan onto a plate. “Can you give me some water in the pot?” 

 

Taking the plate I shoveled some food into my mouth chewing it quickly to get rid of the taste of Kallaz. When the taste of alcohol was finally out of my mouth I put my hand over the small pot I used to clean myself and filled it with water. 

 

Yallia placed it on the fire letting it heat up as I more slowly ate my food, despite how simple it was it was pretty good. 

 

The water in my pot was finally starting to warm all the way through and I would probably need to put out the fire soon, but for now this was finally turning into a nice hot bath. Enjoying my food and the hot water I laid back feeling more relaxed than I had in a long while. 

 

“I think I might be a little drunk.” I said looking at Yallia who was sitting cross legged on the ground looking at the small pot of water.  

 

Looking at me she smiled. “Just from that? You really are a lightweight.” 

 

Putting her hand in the small pot she apparently judged that the water was warm enough, stood up and began unbuttoning her shirt.  

 

I had thought she was going to wait for me to finish, I should have known that she was going to kick me out. 

 

I had never really gotten too good a look at Yallia before. Shassala wore clothes that showed off her body. From what I had seen of Lamia in general their clothes were good for the heat and therefore loose and light enough that they showed off a fair amount of skin. Yallia on the other hand wore clothes that were much more practical to being in the outdoors in an unfamiliar environment.  

 

Offering much more coverage they were better for avoiding scratches from trees, or burs that she might run into, while being loose to help with the heat. The combination was a practical outfit that didn’t really show off her body at all. 

 

As she quickly stripped out of her clothes I saw that this was because of a practical concern and not because she had anything to be ashamed of. 

 

Her body was slender but fairly well muscled. Her arms and shoulders while not extremely large had obvious muscle definition on them, just enough to emphasize her femininity, while not detracting from it. Her breasts were smaller than Shassalas had been, little more than a mouthful, but extremely perky and topped with pink nipples. Undoing her belt she pushed her pants and underwear down and I noticed that her legs were likewise well defined. Her tail which had always been flitting behind her as we walked, fought or talked, was now free from clothing allowing it darted back and forth faster than before. I was trying my best to not stare at her but as she was facing me it was impossible to not to. As a cat girl I had thought that she might have more body hair on her, but this was not the case. 

 

I was trying and failing to not get too excited at the thought of watching a beautiful cat girl bathing herself in front of me, Yallia seemed completely indifferent to the idea of me watching her. It turns out I need not have worried.  

 

Until now I was under the impression that watching a beautiful woman bathe would be somewhat sexy. While that may be true under certain circumstances it is not the case when the woman is covered in dirt, grime and blood. What followed was a clinical, enthusiastic, and thoroughly unerotic cleaning that managed to thoroughly calm me down. 

 

Picking up the bottle of Kallaz from where Yallia had left it I pulled out the stopper and had a small pull. Making a face at the taste I managed to avoid gagging, but barely. My head dizzy I put the stopper back in the bottle and stood up in the pot just as Yallia upended the pot of warm water over her cleaning off most of the soap from her body. 

 

“Can you give me a refill?” 

 

After I filled the pot once more she put it over her head washing the last of the soap off of her skin as she complained at the temperature of the water. 

 

“Watch out.” she said stepping into the pot before I had a chance to get out. 

 

I was a little too surprised and drunk to say anything otherwise I probably would have moved. As it was our bodies were extremely close to each other as we faced each other. 

 

“You're getting out already?” Yallia asked standing face to face with me. 

 

“I don’t think there’s room in here for two.” 

 

“Only one way to find out.” She said as she put her hands on my shoulder and gently pushed me down. 

 

When I was sitting Yallia turned around giving me an excellent view of her incredibly toned ass and her tail covered in short dark fur. I suddenly felt an incredible urge to touch her tail and examine it, fortunately I wasn’t drunk enough to actually do it.  

 

Sitting down the water sloshed over the side and I heard a hiss as the fire under the pot was put out. Sitting in my lap, Yallias tail was now twitching back and forth, the soft appendage running back and forth over my stomach and crotch. Still holding the bottle of Kallaz I helped myself to another small drink, and was it my imagination of was the Kallaz actually tasting pretty good now?  

 

Making herself comfortable in my lap Yallia sighed in contentment and leaned back reclining on my chest. Taking the bottle of Kallaz from my hands she took a small drink before passing it back to me. 

 

I thought about waving her off but it’s a bit hard to say no to a beautiful naked woman who's already in your lap, the fact that I was pretty drunk right now didn’t help. Taking the bottle I took another small drink. 

 

“I’m glad you brought this back here.” Yallia said her words slurring slightly. “I was certain you would have given up before we even got out of the field, then I thought you’d give up when we got to the stairs.” 

 

“When I set my mind to something I usually do it, even if I probably shouldn’t.” 

 

“Just the fact that you’ve been surviving here is impressive. I can’t imagine being thrown into a jungle like this. No warning, no clue where you are or what's going on.” 

 

“I’m sure you must have been in some dangerous situations yourself.” I said trying to focus on the conversation. Handing the bottle of alcohol to Yallia I told her I was done drinking. She took the bottle from me, had a small drink and put it on the ground. By now the bottle was less than half full. 

 

“I guess I have been. My parents were both archeologists and I grew up going on digs with them. For the most part the dig sites were large, safe, and close to cities. But sometimes we were hundreds of miles from civilization, in mountains, deserts or even jungles. Just us and maybe a few local guides and workers. It was an incredible experience.” Yallia said as she leaned into my chest. 

 

I really had no idea what Yallia was playing at here. She had never seemed interested in sleeping with or even flirting with me until now. I wasn’t even sure if we’d really had a casual conversation before now. Was it just the alcohol? Or something else? Should I make a pass at her? I mean she joined me in the bath that was a pretty strong signal that she was interested in me. But did I even want to? She was beautiful certainly but I was still moping about Shassala.  

 

Shassala who was on her way to her husband now, unless she was there and already married. I really enjoyed our time together and I would have loved to spend more time with her, but I couldn’t keep pining after someone who I would probably never see again.  

 

I was starting to really wish that I hadn’t drank any of the Kallaz, alcohol really made it difficult to decide what was a good idea or not. 

 

The big question was what did I want to do? Since I came here I had promised myself I wouldn’t let myself get hung up on small things and would instead try to live life to the fullest. What I wanted right now was to hear about Yallia and stop worrying about things that didn’t matter, also if the bathtub would stop spinning that would be pretty great. Once I remembered that my course of action was pretty clear. 

 

“Can you tell me about it? Growing up with two archeologists studying ancient ruins sounds amazing.” 

 

Yallia took a moment before she spoke and she looked back at me before she did.  

 

Turning herself forwards again she grabbed my arms and pulled them around herself so that I was holding her in my arms, my hands on her shoulders. Sitting like this for a moment I was just starting to worry that I had made a mistake in not just kissing her when she started speaking. 

 

“It was always different, every single day. Sometimes we would slowly excavating ruins that had just been discovered, or map out large sections if they were in one piece. Other times we would spend weeks or months in old libraries looking for clues on where the next set of ruins would be found, and then there was the time we spent on boats just travelling to the next dig site.”  

 

As I started rubbing her shoulders Yallia stopped telling her story for a moment to sigh, a few seconds later she continued. 

 

“Those were my actually my favorite times. Whenever we were on a dig my parents always had to supervise the workers, take care of problems, keep everything running. Even when we were at my parents estate they had to worry about financing their expeditions or talking to governments. But when we were on a ship in the ocean, there was usually nothing to do so they could spend all of their time with me. They would read me stories, teach my lessons, or we would just spend hours talking.” 

 

Yallias voice began to trail off sleepily, and I found that the day was catching up with me too as I yawned. 

 

“That sounds nice, did you ever, did you help out with the digs?” I said almost forgetting what I was asking as I asked it. 

 

Yallias head perked up a little at that and I got the impression that I had just woken her. 

 

“Sometimes, I mean they usually just gave me busy work at the edges of the digs, just enough to keep me out of trouble. But as I got older, they gave me more and more to do. On the last dig we ever went on I was actually in charge of a small team. We found a number of pots and other small artifacts. For a sixteen-year-old it was quite the find. What about you? Why did you stay at the ruins? Why not move into the jungle looking for people?” 

 

“I was trying to get my feet under me when a person met me.” 

 

“Oh?” 

 

At Yallias prompting I told her the story of how Shassala and I met. She actually started laughing when I got to the part where she shot me in the stomach with an arrow. 

 

“And she’s your friend?” Yallia said after calming down. 

 

“Hey it was an accident, and besides you almost stabbed me when we met.” 

 

“Yeah fair enough” Yallia said wiggling back and forth trying to get comfortable. All this did was start to excite me which probably just made her less comfortable in the long run. 

 

Yallia started looking back at me and I took the opportunity to kiss her. It wasn’t a very deep kiss, but as our lips touched Yallia bent back further and leaned into me deepening the kiss a little. I would have continued it myself but the combination of exhaustion, alcohol, and the room spinning caused me to start to get dizzy. 

 

Breaking the kiss I said. “I think we need to get out of the bath, I’m starting to feel dizzy.” 

 

She opened her eyes a little and looked at me her face flushed and then stood up. I stood up myself and the two of us had to steady ourselves on the other. I started laughing which got Yallia laughing, looking at each other we said at the same time. 

 

“You’re drunk.” 

 

“You’re drunk.” 

 

Looking at each other for a second we started laughing even harder. Helping each other out of the pot we were both unsteady as we used my towel to dry off as best we could. 

 

I had wanted to wash my clothes but I didn’t think I could manage that now so I instead just put them in the bath water to soak overnight. 

 

The two of us stumbled back into the office hands all over each other kissing. As the door to the office closed behind us I used a fence post to lock it shut, then I held Yallias naked body against mine and lifted her up. Despite how tall she was she was still surprisingly light. Kissing her against the door she wrapped her legs around me and I used one hand to hold her up which allowed my other hand to lightly touch her tail.  

 

Just as my fingers brushed it her body tensed, she broke the kiss with a moan and pulled me closer to her. Touching her tail a little more caused her legs wrapped around me even tighter and I lost my balance, the room suddenly spinning around me I fell to the ground and landed hard on my back with her on top of me. 

 

“Are you ok?” Yallia said over me. 

 

It was strange how the room kept spinning despite me laying down, pretty soon my stomach was spinning the opposite direction. My face must have showed a little of how I felt because before I knew it Yallia was putting a bucket beside my head just in time for me to make it onto my hands and knees and get my mouth over it before my stomach emptied itself. 

 

The next memories I have are of me waking up shivering on the cold ground. My head pounding, my mouth full of cotton, and my stomach was still upset. 

 

Oh right, now I remember the other reason why I don’t drink.