"You are not some woodland mongrel, Ky," Yamma Kostis says between clenched teeth as she bursts through the door to the bathing lodge, dragging her daughter by the arm. Yamma whips around to inspect her defiant face, lightly scraping mud from her cheek. Kywen could easily pass for a bramble-dweller, adorned with forest debris and proudly wafting a feral scent. Her long hair is the only thing she’s kept clean, and it sits in a braid of tangles, coiling under a mossy shawl that shadows her sludge-stained face.

She had swiped an untreated tanruk stole to wrap snugly around her lean frame. The pungent oil that coats the silky fur of tanruks, plump creatures that can grow as large as a horse and feed exclusively in marshes, allows for a smoother passage and provides extra protection from the thorns and burrs that sprout within dense thickets around the Udrou Marsh. The scroll she hunted could be anywhere, and if the fishing crone’s tales were to be believed, only the adventurous at heart will find what has been lost.

Driven by both the desire to find success where so many before her had failed and enough curiosity to fuel an entire village, Kywen spent much of her childhood escaping her lessons to explore the forests, marshes, and bogs surrounding her home in southern Hindar. Complaining to anyone who'd listen, her cries of immoral treatment every time she was dragged back to her tutors fell upon deaf ears until the day Sundeera appeared, soaking wet and shivering alongside her father, having only just been plucked from a sinking raft in the middle of the Cimmerian Sea. Even now, only Sundeera understands the grievous injury of being born to a traditionalist mother when you are also destined to seek glory. Though Yamma had long given up on trying to tame her daughter's need to roam, she refused to allow Kywen even an hour of missed instruction in preparation for this day.

She hides a smile as Yamma orders her out of the furs.

"We have less than two hours before the Collaboration and you show up painted with that rancid oil! Who in their right mind will take your bid seriously when you smell like a bog creature? It’s almost as if you plan to embarrass this family," Yamma says while dumping several ingredients into the water and swirling them with her garden-roughened hands.

"I'd rather have no one accept my bids,” Kywen says as she peels off the stole and shawl and drops them in a heap near the tub, shaking her hair loose. “Sixteen summers have passed, and without an apprenticeship, I can do whatever I want. I won’t be forced to follow our clan’s path," the words bubble from her lips before she can stop them, "or your vision for me.”

Yamma flinches just slight enough to miss as she begins applying a rich cream to her daughter's knotted curls, and her dark, watery eyes dart around the room before settling on a flickering sea-glass lamp in the distance.

"If that’s what you think I’ve been doing all these seasons, at least one of us has made a terrible mistake," she says, and despite the sharp sting in her voice, her hands remain as gentle as ever, sectioning and finger-combing through Kywen’s hair with ease as her fingers slip through the tight coils, leaving each one defined and glossy. The familiar scent of shea butter and grapeseed oil mingles with an earthy blend of lavender and rosemary, perfuming the air while Yamma deftly works her way around Kywen's crown until her face is framed by a waterfall of curls that dangle just past her collarbone.

“Maybe if you simply say what you mean for once, people won’t have to guess what you want from them,” Kywen says.

Yamma opens her mouth to respond, but as the seconds tick by, her shoulders slump, and she sets the jar of cream beside the tub. Deflated, she turns and stalks away from her daughter, energy building until she’s about to loosen her grief upon the wooden door. Wiping her palms against her linen pants instead, she pauses without turning and gathers the tendrils of her rogue emotions before responding.

"You’ve always been free to choose whichever path pleases you, Ky, but you must make a choice, and the time to choose is now. Putting your future off to hunt treasure is childish, even for you." Declining to witness the effect her words may have, Yamma leaves quickly, and the thud of her boots echoes loudly off the stone floors.

"And there is it, mama," Kywen calls towards the open door, gazing up through one of the high lunettes that sparkle in the lodge’s dome.

A faint breeze slithers in, extinguishing the nearest lit candle and raking its chilly fingers through her hair before one of the apprentices rushes to close the door Yamma had left open.

"You can belittle my dreams, but you can't guilt me into being you," her words are venom, but they're spoken so quietly the toxin would fail to affect Yamma had she still been combing her hair.

The Kostis bathing lodge overflows with sea sponges, rare oils, blended butters, and dried botanicals, all surrounded by neatly stacked piles of breathable wraps and cotton kaftans. Throughout the room sit several moderately-sized cisterns filled with large river rocks, and Kywen watches a handful of apprentice Crystal Channelers, half-way through serving their discipline rites, as they practice harmonizing craftings of water and fire. The efforts of their channeling keep half the lodge in a haze of steam.

The largest bath takes up the entire central quarters of the chamber, but Kywen's filth necessitates one of the private tubs along the perimeter. Each of the faucets, gleaming and gracefully arched, are dotted with tiny red gemstones that are activated with Crystal magic to heat the water. The Kostis lodge nearly rivals the enormity of the public ceremonial bathing lodge in the Capital up north. Yamma had insisted the grounds have proper accommodations if the Kostis freehold were to be maintained as a trading port, and, Kywen thinks angrily, Yamma always gets her way.

Each private tub is accompanied by a wooden chest inlaid with sapphire-blue stones, the small containers imbued to chill meats, cheeses, and berries if guests were to find themselves hungry during a soak. Gauzy veils of silk billow from the ceilings, gathered into crystalline hooks. The moisture-repelling curtains are practically decorative, rarely loosened for privacy aside from the bashful frozen tundra nomads who visit only a handful of times each season.

Kywen’s father, Galen, sources the rare silk from the siccum-spider’s home of Tulara, a large, humid island that lies to the southeast of their home at the southernmost tip of Hindar. His ties to a former Tempus-scribe turned smuggler allow him access to goods from semi-restricted regions like Tulara’s steam-forests or the furnace-lands of Skoth, and as long as he pays the right people, he finds his ships at the top of the trade guild's priority list.

Kywen picks up a large sea sponge and scours a few layers of bog-mud from her arm. Droplets echo into the mucky water as they swirl with fragrant herbs and musky loam, like a wicked dance between the living and the dead. Leaning over to scrub between her outstretched toes, she feels a shadow descend upon her only seconds before it buries her in darkness. She awkwardly twists her body, expecting to block an oncoming blow. A spray of bubbles and muddy water slosh over the tub as she slips on its slick sides and goes under. Surfacing with flailing arms, a trilling laughter echoes loudly as the familiar amber eyes of her nexum materialize from the shadows, brimming with amusement. Kywen could feel the warmth rising in her cheeks.

"You really have to stop showing off like that. Inaru bending isn’t fair," Kywen sulks.

"Yes, it is. How else can I test your combat reactions without sneaking up on you?" the taller girl replies as she glimmers out of the shadows to full visibility. Pinching her nose, she glances around the room. “Why does it smell like a family of tanruks have invaded?”

Kywen gestures to the heap of fur crumpled on the floor, “The herb stores are low, and catmint and feverfew grow well in the thicket. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone, stock up on cuttings for Yamma and dredge the southern bog for the scroll.”

“So that’s where you’ve been all day,” Sundeera says as she rolls up her sleeves, a sly grin peeling her lips apart, "and since you decided to coat yourself in slime, I hope you don’t mind me showing off a bit more to get you ready in time.” Her eyes gleam like deep forest pools teeming with life. She withdraws a small piece of folded cloth from one of the pockets in her robes, holding it out to Kywen.