ooc; memory crystal #3
"How's the water?" She couldn't see anything in this memory; huh.
A muffled voice responded in the affirmative.
"I see--good." A long strip of fabric unraveled beneath her fingers, and the sash fell to her feet a moment later. "Well then--I guess I'll get in too."
She heard splashing and spluttering before the voice she now recognized as Toushi's shouted, "Are you stupid?" He coughed some more. "The hell you think you're doing?"
"What? It's all right." Her voice was utterly unconcerned as she continued to get undressed, hooking her thumbs into the waist of her pants.
"It's not all right!! Hey, why are you taking off the bottoms first?!"
Oh, Toushi. You've always been easy to bait, haven't you?
"You shy boy," she snickered. "You still react just as expected. Such an inexperienced man~"
"Shut up! You making fun of me? Ah! Don't get in--no, NO--"
Then---her form flowed, shifted, moved...and she stepped into the hot springs, one paw entering the warm water, then 3 others. Her tail raised out of the water and her small ears flickered on top of her head--she'd somehow turned into a cat and it felt like second nature.
"There's no problem if I'm in this form, is there?" That must be her; she felt the voice rumbling through her own chest but she sounded like an old man. She paddled past Toushi, pausing to face him. "What? Disappointed? Hm? Be honest, you pervert."
"I will drown you," Toushi growled.
Okay, I just turned into a cat...and he doesn't sound surprised at all. I must have done it pretty regularly.
She remembered being a cat for part of her dream, but this was the first time it had come up in a memory.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Toushi spoke up again.
"Hey, ***-san," he began. The sound of splashing water drowned out what she assumed was her name. No matter--regaining it wasn't a priority.
"What?"
"I've been thinking--this place reminds me of that room beneath the *** shop." More splashing. How irritating--no names at all, then, huh?
"I imagine it would. That place was modeled after this one, after all." Bastet still spoke in that odd, scratchy voice, the water soaking her fur as she sat in the warm water.
"It was?"
"Yeah. Originally, *** and I built this place covertly when we were children, as our secret playground."
Who is it? Is it Honest or someone else?
"Covertly?" Toushi's voice was disbelieving. "A big ass space like this covertly?"
"It's an old story. When we were children, we played here almost every day. After he entered the Thirteen Squads and I entered covert ops, we trained against each other here."
Thirteen Squads...I was covert ops... This rang true, with a sense of familiarity and nostalgia and even slight guilt. So...one more thing I left behind?
"Wait--" By the sound of Toushi's voice, he was turning towards her. A moment later, she heard more splashing and sputtering. "Don't sit Indian style, you--"
She cackled, once more back in human form, legs folded in front of her as she perched on the edge of the springs. "Ah, that reaction never gets old."
(Youtube is here for those interested. Dialogue taken from that same sub--Dattebayo's, I believe.)