A few days had passed after we returned and Stena started living with us. She was adjusting well, and unlike Cierra had taken to Ery and myself rather quickly. She was still a little suspicious of both Vale and Talya, but was slowly warming up to Talya.
I imagined it helped that she was often sticking to Cierra's side, and Cierra was often helping Talya with normal household chores while Vale, Ery, and I stuck to more labor intensive jobs that she couldn't really help with.
Ery and I had spent the day working on the farm, planting end-of-sumr crops as the sumr was rapidly approaching its end. The climate Array kept everything pretty hot all the way through the end of the sumr months, which left us taking baths or rinsing our bodies often to wash off the sweat.
We were fresh out of a rinse when we ca inside to find Talya, Cierra, and Stena all in the kitchen baking. There were all kinds of ingredients scattered around the kitchen haphazardly, so they must have been at it for a while.
Ery wasted no ti creeping up behind Cierra and picking her up from behind. The girl yelped as she was lifted up off the ground. "What'cha making?" Ery asked as she brought Cierra in for a snuggle.
Talya looked over and answered while Cierra was giggling. "We're baking so sugar cookies. We had an abundance of sugar to use since we rarely put it in our normal dishes, so I wanted to use so of it." She explained. "I'm also making so bread dough, though I was going to let it sit for a while before I bake it yet."
Ery and I nodded in approval. "That all sounds good to ." I said, looking around the ssy kitchen. "Need any help with anything?"
Talya glanced up and around from her cookie batter then nodded toward a bowl off to the side. "If you want to get started on the last bit of bread dough, that would be helpful. The cookies are almost ready to bake, but if you want to get a head start on it, that would be nice."
"Sure." I said with a nod as I walked over to the empty bowl and started prepping the ingredients for the bread dough.
Everything went well for a few more minutes. Stena hopped over to help and together we got the bread dough prepped and were in the process of beating the dough before putting it away to sit and prove. Talya had gotten the batch of cookies in the heat Array, and they were baking nicely.
The problem ca from Ery and Cierra, who were cleaning up so of the ss that had been moved on from.
Ery had walked away to throw sothing out and left Cierra trying to gather and clean up so of the flour from the prep area. She decided to sneak her way back quietly and with a sudden, loud 'Boo!' she grabbed Cierra from behind to scare her.
The girl, in turn, spun with a loud yelp and hit Ery square in the face with a handful of flour. There was a mont of silence, as Ery stood straight, blinked a few tis, and coughed twice. Each cough sent a plu of flour into the air.
Cierra stood, staring dumbfounded at Ery and started to stamr an apology. But Ery just grinned deviously.
"Oh, you're gonna get it now." She said, and Cierra went almost as pale as the flour. She turned to dash toward , but Ery's arm shot out and caught the girl. She quickly pivoted toward the counter, picked up a handful of flour, and made a sizable cloud as she flung it at Cierra's front. She avoided directly going for her face, which I thought was admirable.
Then she took a second handful and sared it throughout Cierra's hair. Talya stood and watched, a bit of amusent showing on her face, while Stena hid behind .
I made the mistake of being the first to laugh.
"Think it's funny, do you?" Ery said, eyeing . I tried to stop laughing, but couldn't get it under control before Ery scooped up another handful of flour and threw it at . When I stared back, face as white as my hair, Ery broke out into more laughter and let Cierra down.
She regretted that almost imdiately when Cierra lunged forward, grabbed an entire bag of flour, and jumped to pour the entire thing down the back of Ery's loose robes.
After that, all hell broke loose. Flour was flung in every direction, and all five of us were all in on it. Within the short few minutes that the flour fight lasted, we managed to cover practically every inch of the kitchen in the white dust, and we were all coated in it. We had thrown almost all of the flour that was loose in the kitchen before we finally collapsed to the ground in laughter.
"Oh boy, this is going to be a nightmare to clean up." Talya said between fits of giggles.
Ery just sprawled out on the floor still laughing. "Talya, I don't want to think about that right now."
"Agreed." I said, as I shook my fingers through my hair trying to dislodge the flour. It fell out in waves. "I'm more concerned with cleaning ourselves at the mont. We can always clean up the flour here later. But we probably shouldn't spend the rest of the day covered in it ourselves."
"I guess we should try to clean ourselves off before we bathe, too." Ery said. "Dipping ourselves in the water while covered in flour won't be pleasant."
I thought for a mont, then stood. "I think I can help with that. But we should go outside so we don't make a bigger ss." I bent down to pick up Stena who was nearest to before offering Ery a hand to pull her up.
"Let's go then." She said while levering herself up.
Once we were all outside, I used a variation of my Blizzard Dragon technique to whip up so strong gusts. While I kept them concentrated, moving the gale closer to each of us in turn blew off a lot of the flour on our bodies and clothes. We had even gathered near the bathhouse and stripped because so much of it had gotten inside our clothing.
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It took a little while to get us all to the point where we weren't too worried about clogging up the bath by mixing the flour and water, but we did manage to get there. As a group, we moved inside the bathhouse and took to helping each other clean off all the flour. Thankfully, between so cloth and rinsing, we were able to all get reasonably clean in a relatively short amount of ti.
It was a few minutes before we all slid into the large bath for a soak. Stena and Cierra were the first ones in the water, and they were happily doggy-paddling around in the middle of the extra large bath when Talya, Ery, and I slid into the water.
Talya took a spot a little to one side, watching the girls as they played. Ery, however, scooted right next to and laid her head on my shoulder with a serene smile as she watched the girls kick and splash.
"Hi." I said laly, as I laid my head against hers.
"Hi." She responded softly.
"I know you told Talya and Vale that we're…whatever we are these days, but I'm not going to lie. I didn't expect you would be such a cuddler."
Ery laughed and moved in closer to prove my point, until we were touching from shoulder to ankle. She even went as far as wrapping her leg around mine so we locked ankles. "I didn't realize it either." She laughed. "But once we took the kids gloves off, I realized that I basically always want to touch you."
I raised my eyebrow in a silent question at her wording and she laughed again. I could feel her whole body shake with it. "I didn't an it like that. I just find myself always craving hugs or cuddles. The little things just add up, I guess."
I moved my head so I could plant a kiss on her wet hair. "They really do. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy monts like this."
As if on queue, Ery and I suddenly got facefuls of water. We turned toward what we believed was the source - the two little girls playing in the middle of the bath - and stared daggers at them. They both tried to look innocent, and Cierra was pointing at Talya. Our gazes slid over to Ery's sister, to find her looking skyward, eyes closed, whistling a light tune to herself.
"Y'all are gonna pay for that." Ery said, her voice sounding almost demonic in its depth. But I could see her struggling to hold back laughter too. Her eyes narrowed, moving between the girls and her sister. Eventually, she settled on the girls. "You promise it was her?" She said, jabbing a finger toward Talya.
Cierra and Stena nodded so fast I was worried for their necks. And in the next instant, Ery moved. She raised her arms as she cycled her Qi, and her blades began to manifest around her. However, she took an extra mont to focus and shift their shapes into that of floating buckets.
There were ten of them, all rather big, and they dipped down into the bath to fill themselves. Talya was still acting nonchalant about it all, as all ten buckets hovered about her with two of them poised to dump their water on her.
"Any last words, sister?" Ery asked, her voice dropping into so seriously sexy low tones.
Talya cracked an eye open and looked at Ery. "I thought you two could use so cooling off."
"With hot bath water." Ery stated flatly.
"I said what I said. With the way you two were looking at one another, I was worried what the children might see -" Having more or less said her piece, Talya was suddenly drenched in deluge of water from what was essentially a waterwheel of buckets, as all ten buckets rotated quickly filling themselves, then depositing their loads over Talya's head.
It was long before Talya leapt to her feet and all but tackled Ery into the water and all hell broke loose for a second ti that night. Talya and Ery spent half a minute trying to dunk each other and hold the other under the water for any significant period of ti.
Thankfully, it was clearly play-fighting, as Ery and Talya kept trading positions. I was laughing when Ery reached out for . I felt her grab my hand while she was being held under and I went to pull her up expecting her to be grabbing for help.
I didn't expect the Sky Realm level strength she used to pull completely under the water with her.
I fought back, my own body's strength slowly ramping up to match hers as Talya scrambled away. When I finally got out of Ery's hold, I grabbed her by the waist and practically lifted her into a suplex, dumping her in the water behind . I laughed at how light she was.
Then I felt her grab my ankle; she swept completely off my feet, and I went down into the water. As I tried to find purchase on anything, one of Ery's buckets fit itself snugly over my head blocking my sight.
I quickly let my Qi and Domain out to get so semblance of senses back. I could tell Talya was ushering the kids out of the water and getting clear of the bath. She redoubled her speed when she felt my Qi leak out, and I smiled under the water as everyone except Ery and I left the water.
Which suddenly wasn't water anymore, but ice. The struggle suddenly ceased, as I lted the ice near so I could get my head above the water and pull off the bucket on my head. I let the ice everywhere else lt shortly thereafter, leaving a freezing Ery shivering in the ice-cold bath water.
"Oooh." She said through chattering teeth. "You're gonna regret that one, Ri."
"Am I?" I asked innocently, going as far to tauntingly bat my eyelashes at her. "Whatever will you do to ?"
Her Qi flexed again, and I suddenly found myself boxed in by her floating buckets as she slowly approached , a nacing air surrounding her. When she was a few steps away she lunged at . I tried to dodge her, but the buckets got in my way and cut off my escape.
Ery grappled like a pro, and began to try to tickle anywhere she thought might be effective. My sides, underarms, stomach, behind my knees; I was assaulted everywhere. She twisted around in the water trying to get to my feet - which are very ticklish - when I panicked.
I stomped to try to get her to leave my feet alone. And I did it just a bit too hard. The stonework of the bottom of the bath cracked when I stomped, with a whole web of cracked stone spreading out from .
Ery and I both stopped dead where we were when we felt it happen, the only sounds in the bathhouse were Cierra and Stena laughing hysterically and a great sigh from Talya.
Ery and I glanced at each other and laughed.
At least until we heard Vale shouting from the house. He sounded angry.
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