My landing was heavier than I had meant it to be, and it knocked some of the wind out of me. I was more tired than I had thought, and the exercise was catching up with me. But, I noticed with a bit of pride, none of the balloons popped from my tail even with the heavier landing.

Steffie smiled at me as my momentum carried me a few more paces. "Good job! You caught them all again." She held out her hand, and I proudly passed the balloons to her. "I think it might be time for a break, though. Jean did say you would be tired today, and I don't want you to push things and end up getting sick again."

"Aw..." I let my wings sag at my side and made a mock pout. The balloon game was so much fun, and I didn't want to stop. Even though I was getting tired. "Just one more? Pweeeease?"

Steffie grinned and reached out to pat me on my head, but shook her head. "We can play more tomorrow if you'd like, but not today. I still need to check your temperature; I should have done that before we started playing."

I flinched at the thought of the thermometer and curled my tail around me. "I don't feel hot."

"That's good, but you were still a little hot last time I checked, so I need to be sure." Steffie reached into the purse at her side and pulled out the dreaded thermometer. "And then we can get you something to eat, since I'm sure you must be hungry by now, aaaand..."

She trailed out the last word as she took the clear cap off the pointed end of the thermometer. I leaned away from her, feeling my frills twitch as I tried to stare at the cold metal from out of the corner of my eye. I was hungry, now that I thought about it, but I wasn't going to let that distract me from... eep! An uncomfortable cold feeling went through the side of my head as Steffie stuck the thermometer in my ear.

I hate that thing...

"...then we can get you the bath you missed yesterday!"

I was too annoyed with the thermometer to realize what Steffie was saying for several long, uncomfortable seconds... then I lifted my frills and started to look up at Steffie, only stopping when I felt the thermometer tug at my ear. "A bath?!"

"Uh-huh! You did miss yesterday's, so there's still enough water for one. And you've been good, so I think you deserve one. I know a bath always helps me feel better when I'm sick." Steffie gave me another pat on the head with her free hand, nudging me back down a little. My tail swished in excitement – a bath! – as I waited impatiently for the thermometer to finish... then it finally made its loud 'beep' right in my ear.

I started rubbing the side of my head as she took the thermometer away and looked at it. I hated that thing, ugh. If I had to put up with that every time I got sick, then I hoped I never got sick ever again.

But a bath would be nice. It might be okay to get sick every now and then if it meant an extra bath.

"Hmm..." Steffie frowned as she looked down at the number on the thermometer. "Still a little on the high side. Are you sure you're okay? Is your head hurting, or are you having any more tummy aches?"

I leaned away from the thermometer and shook my head. "My head huwts some, but not too bad. Just a free. My tummy feels fine." Though I realized my tummy felt hungry too, now that I was thinking about it.

Steffie seemed to frown more as she stared at the thermometer. She reached out to feel the back of my head, then shook her head. "I'm sure you just need something to eat, and then you'll feel better. Go clean up and I'll get food started."

"'Kay!" I fanned my wings out happily and started towards our door in the cliff wall. Steffie followed after me, though I caught sight of her tucking the thermometer into her purse and bringing her phone out instead. Her frown came back as she started typing on the device... then she smiled as I came to a stop before the door and angled my horns to rest against the keycard reader.

The reader made the same satisfying 'beep' and 'click' as before, then the door to our home opened up for me.

I hopped in place – that was still so neat, and it felt so good to be able to open the door myself like that! – then slipped into our living room. I twisted awkwardly to try and get the headset off of my horn, which at least caused Steffie to look up from her phone to grin at me. I felt embarrassed at how hard it was to get my hands around the curving band wrapped around my horn... but seeing Steffie smile and cheer up a little made it worth it. I didn't like how much she was frowning lately, or how upset she had been when I had gotten sick.

She turned the phone to one side and pointed it at me. A 'click' sound came from the phone, and my embarrassment got bad enough to send a reddish tinge along the side of my frills. That sound meant Steffie had just taken a picture. One she would probably share with other people.

But the embarrassment was still worth it for the happy smile on my friend's face.

I finally got a claw under the curved band and pried it off my horn. I draped the headset over the fake horn on the charging station, then nudged it until the red light came on. With that taken care of I skipped off to my room to wash the dirt off my hands and claws. The bath later would get the rest of me clean, but Steffie always said it was important to make sure my hands were clean before eating. I stood up on my hind legs and held my arms under the cool water of the sink and waited while the dirt washed off my pretty yellow scales. Though... for some reason, my arm reminded me of... of something...

"Joy? Are you okay?"

I blinked and shook my head, pulling away from staring at my reflection in the mirror. The sink had filled up with a lot more water than I realized. How long had I been standing there staring at my arm?

"Sowwie!" I quickly reached up to turn off the water. "I'm fine; just got diswacted."

"Distracted." Steffie repeated the word from where she stood just outside my room, with the curtain of beads held up by one hand. "What by? Was something wrong with the sink?"

"Distwacted." I dropped back down to all fours and skipped into the shower, then tapped the button to turn on the air. The beads of water still clinging to my hands slowly trickled away, and I found myself staring at them again. "Is... is somefing wrong with my arm?"

"What do you mean?" Steffie's voice was suddenly concerned as she quickly crossed over to the shower. She reached down to take my arm and looked over it with a frown, then looked back up at me. "It looks fine to me. Does it hurt? Did you land on it wrong?"

"No, it doesn't huwt, it..." I looked back at the yellow scales of my arm, then at the smooth flesh of Steffie's arm. The air coming from the ceiling was blowing the tiny hairs in her skin in a way that felt... felt... something, but which felt like it was missing when I looked back at my scales. "It feels funny."

"Funny how?" Steffie turned my arm over in her hand, then ran a hand over my scales. "Tingling? Itching?"

"No, not like that." I hesitated, trying to find the right way to describe the odd feeling I had. "It's when I look at it. It doesn't fweel... like it looks like it's 'posed to."

Steffie's hand grew still on my arm. She was quiet for a moment while I stared at my scales and tried to understand the feeling, then she spoke in a calm tone that somehow still seemed very worried. "What is it supposed to look like, Joy?"

I stared at the scales and tried to make more sense of the strange feeling... but all that happened was my headache grew to a four. I shook my head and drooped my wings. "I don't know."

Steffie slowly took her hands away from my arm. She tapped the button to turn off the air dryer, then reached up to rub the back of my head. "Your arm looks fine to me. I think you're just tired from being sick yesterday; why don't you go watch some television and color for a bit while I finish dinner? You'll feel better after eating, I'm sure."

"'Kay!" Coloring sounded like a lot more fun than worrying about the funny feeling with my arm. I hopped out of the shower and ducked through the bead curtain, only pausing once I reached the living room as I remembered something. "Um... the television wasn't working this morning."

"Oh? What was wrong with it?" Steffie moved past me towards the kitchen, where I could hear something sizzling on the stove.

"Uhh..." I tried to remember, but I couldn't seem to. I just knew that I had tried to watch it, but that it hadn't come on, so I had gone outside instead. "I don't 'member."

"Check it again. Maybe it's fixed now?"

I nodded and picked the remote up off the couch. A careful tap of my claw against the button on the top caused the television to light up... and a few seconds later it made the 'bonk' noise.

"It says, 'Failed to connef to CloudComm nedworth. Please contat tednical 'pport for...' Uhhh... 'halp'." I read the message on the screen to Steffie and tried to think back to before. "Um... I think that's what it said this morning, too."

"Oh." Steffie paused, and I looked over to see her tapping on her phone on the counter. After a moment she frowned and shook her head. "I don't have any signal on my phone, just the local Arboretum network. I should have noticed that; I thought it was odd Jean hadn't answered my text."

"It's okay; I can just color instead." I used a claw to carefully push the button on the remote, and the message on the television went away as it went dark. I put the remote back on the couch and reached for the coloring books instead.

"Thanks sweetie." Steffie bit her lip, then picked up a weird metal thing that she used to flip the meat sizzling in the pan on the stove. "I do have some messages saying CloudComm was trying to reach me, but I assumed it was asking for your help somewhere and didn't want to push you until you were better. I hope it wasn't actually something serious. I'll try and call them back after your bath just in case."

I nodded, though I didn't think I really understood what Steffie had meant. Though... now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered somebody asking me to tell Steffie that she had a message like that. Oops.

The smell of cooking meat grew stronger, but I tried to ignore it – and my suddenly interested stomach – and focused on the coloring book instead. None of the pages felt particularly interesting at the moment, so I ended up coloring bits from several different pages. A car on one page, a horse on another, a rainbow and some clouds on another.

I tried very hard not to look at my arms while I colored.

Finally Steffie called out from the kitchen. "Okay Joy, dinner is ready!"

"Yay!" I fanned my wings out as I looked up from my coloring book. The smell of dinner had been taunting me this whole time. But it was finally ready!

I skipped to the table and sat up on my hind legs before the plate Steffie had sat out on my side. I reached for a piece of delicious, steaming, cut-up steak just waiting on the plate...

"Ah-ah-ah!" Steffie shook her head from the other side of the table and pointed at the silverware next to the plate. "Fork."

I pouted and let my wings sag at my side – my headache had only barely calmed back down to a three, and I wasn't looking forward to having to add fights with forks to that annoyance – but I picked up the fork and stabbed at one of the pieces of meat. The fork behaved this time, surprisingly, and I swished my tail behind me in relief as I brought the fork to my mouth and bit into the meat. Yuuuuum.

"Thank you, Joy." Steffie smiled and sat down in a chair across from me, then used her fork to poke at the leafy green stuff in her bowl.

"Yowelbome." I was too busy shoveling more chunks of the steaming steak into my mouth to answer Steffie. I hadn't known just how hungry I was until I had actually started eating, but I was starving. I had eaten last night, so I really shouldn't be this hungry... but I guess I had thrown up that dinner, and been sick after that. My tummy probably hadn't appreciated that.

Steffie giggled at my mumbled reply. She slowly picked at her bowl a few more times, then stopped completely. I slowed down enough to make sure she was okay, but she was smiling as she leaned back in the chair and watched me eat. That was a little embarrassing, and I pulled my wings in closer... but it wasn't the first time Steffie had seemed happy watching me, and I was hungry, so I focused back on the dumb fork.

Being stared at while I tried to eat felt weird, and was embarrassing... but I was just glad to see Steffie was smiling again, after how upset she had been about me getting sick.

My fork cleared the last of the steak off my plate much too quickly, and I pouted at the empty plate as I chewed the last piece. Steffie laughed again and got up from her chair, grabbing a small plate from the refrigerator before sitting back down. She pushed the new plate over to me, and I felt my wings perk up as I happily stabbed my fork into the slice of cake on it. My head was still hurting, but my tummy was having the best time.

I slowed down so I could enjoy the taste of the birthday cake, and by the time I had finished it my tummy felt nice and full.

"Dat was good... tank you, Steffie!" I grinned up at Steffie, then swished my tail behind me. "Is it time for the bath now?"

Steffie chuckled as she nodded, though she just used her fork to get some more yucky green stuff out of the salad she was eating. "Go wait by the pool; I'll be in to start the water soon."

"Yay!" I fanned my wings out in excitement, then dropped to all fours and dashed to my room. I pulled my wings back in as I ducked through the curtain of beads, then turned and ducked again as I pushed through the second curtain of beads in the doorway leading to the 'workroom'.

The entire back half of the workroom sloped down into a giant pit. It was deep enough that I could stand on my hind legs and not reach the walkway surrounding the pit. It was empty right now, but there was a big pipe near the top of the pit that could fill it with water. At the bottom of the pit was a drain that could open to carry the water back out for the Arboretum. I had seen giant tanks near the edge of the canopy that would hold the water – some labeled 'Potable' and others 'Non-Potable', and Steffie said the bathwater went to the 'Non-Potable' ones to be used to help water plants.

There were shelves along the side walls, and a counter along the 'front' wall that ran between the doorways out of the room – one with the bead curtain leading back to my room, and the other with a door that led to Steffie's room – and a pair of weird looking couches. Steffie called them 'pool chairs', but to me they looked much more like the couch or a bed than they did a chair. And Steffie usually stretched out in them when she used one, the way she would on the couch or on the bed, instead of sitting up in it like she did on the chairs by the table or in the van.

Words were confusing sometimes.

The room was lit by a few lights in the ceiling, but there were a lot of extra lights in the back half of the room, arranged alongside air blowers like the one in my shower. Steffie had turned the extra lights on once to show me what they did, and they were bright. Painfully bright. Steffie said that originally this room was meant for 'hydroponics', and that in the other cliff homes workers would fill the pit up with water and turn the overhead lights on, and that was how they would grow certain plants that needed extra attention.

But for us, this room was for taking baths!

It had shelves along the wall, and counters, and a few chairs, and then the back half of the room was scooped out to form a giant pit. Steffie would fill that pit with water on some days and I would have a bath, and Steffie would put on a special outfit she called a 'bathing suit' and come swim with me. When she finished swimming, or if she had too much homework to do, then she would sit in one of the chairs and work on her tablet and watch me play.

I walked to one of the lower shelves and rose up on my hind legs. Most of the shelves had boring stuff on it that Steffie used for cleaning, and those shelves were all out of my reach... but this shelf kept the fun stuff. I grabbed the giant rubber duck from the shelf and lowered back to all fours, clutching the toy close.

It squeaked a little when I squeezed it, and I bobbed my head a little at the sound. I wasn't supposed to run or jump in the pool room – except for a special exception when the pool was full – but Steffie said it was fine to move my head or tail or wings when I was happy instead.

There were other toys on the shelf, but I liked my rubber duck the most. It didn't look like the ducks I saw on the television – those were usually green and brown, or white – but mine was better than real ducks. It was yellow, just like I was, and Steffie had painted some of the special purple stripes onto its back. It was about as big as my head, and it was fun to chase it around in the water.

Steffie finally finished eating, and she ducked under the bead curtain to join me in the pool room. She smiled when she saw me holding my duck, but I noticed she hadn't changed into her bathing suit, and I drooped my wings a little. "Aw. Not swimming too?"

She held up the tablet she was holding and shook her head. "Sorry, sweetie. I got a lot done while you were helping with the floaters, but I still need to study. There's an important test next week, and I need to do well on it."

I clutched the duck a little closer, causing it to squeak again, but I nodded. "Okay. Can I halp?"

Steffie smiled and nodded. "Sure. I'll read some to you after you've played a little; that will make it easier to remember."

"Yay!" I spread my wings a little – but not too much, since I had to be extra careful not to trip or knock Steffie over in this room – and moved out of Steffie's way.

My caretaker moved to the back of the room and began tapping on a panel built into the wall there. It lit up when she touched it, the way the panel by our door did, and it showed a bunch of different words and symbols that Steffie tapped through. But I stared down into the pit, swishing my tail while I waited.

A 'thunk thunk thunk' sound came from somewhere... then there was a loud sound of running water, and then the pipe at the top of the pit began spewing out water.

I crept to the side of the pit and held the duck out so it could watch the pool fill up with me. It was always fun to watch this part. The water was coming out of the pipe fast, and there was a lot of it, but the pit could hold a lot of water, too. So I got to watch the pool fill up in a strange combination of fast and slowness, as water quickly rushed in, but the space left to go didn't shrink much.

It was weird, kind of like how the floaters had felt. Things going that fast shouldn't be that slow, but it still was.

After several long minutes the water was close enough for me to easily reach with my hand, and I reached out to feel it... though I looked away from my arm at the last second, when I started to get a strange feeling from seeing my arm. The water was pleasantly warm – Steffie said the water was warmed by the sun when it was outside, so it would be warm at first, even though it got cool later – so I brought my hand back and dropped the rubber duck into the mostly-full pool.

The duck sank a little when it fell into the water, then began bobbing as the swirling water carried it along. I swished my tail happily and looked for Steffie, spotting her stretched out on one of the chairs. Just like how she would stretch out on the couch, even though, for some reason, the chair was a chair, and not a couch. I shook my head again at the silliness of the words and looked back towards the pool. Steffie must have gone to the chair while I had been busy watching the pool fill up, but the important part was that she wasn't near the pool. And that meant...

I gave a half-flap of my wings as I jumped into the water.

That was the one time it was okay to jump in the pool room – a special jump that Steffie called a 'dive', even though it didn't involve much flying – and I heard a happy 'splash' as I crashed into the water. I was supposed to be sure Steffie wasn't near the pool before I dove in, especially when she wasn't wearing her bathing suit, but outside of that it was okay to do. And it was fun to do, since it carried me deeper into the water than just walking into the pool would. That meant the fun of the pool could start right away, instead of waiting.

I pulled my wings back against my sides and tucked my legs in against my chest, and began wiggling my body in the back-and-forth motion of swimming. The water was still swirling as the pipe spewed more water into the pool, creating a bit of a current, and I followed that current as I swam a lazy circle around the length of the pool. Swimming was almost as fun as flying was. It had the same almost-weightless feeling, and I could move in any direction with just a few flicks of my tail. It was so much easier than trying to walk anywhere – even Steffie was pretty fast when she came swimming with me – and made me wonder why humans didn't just put water everywhere so they could swim instead of walk.

There was only one real problem with swimming.

I angled upwards and broke the surface of the water to take a deep breath just as my lungs were giving me the tingling feeling that meant they were upset. Water was nice to move through, but I wasn't able to breathe in it. That meant flying was better than swimming. Plus I had learned that flying outside the Arboretum had the stronger winds that made flying even more fun. So flying won out by a lot.

The warm water was very relaxing, though. It was so easy to just forget all the strange feelings I had been getting, or about the scary nightmares I was having, or about being sick and keeping Steffie up late while I threw up in my shower. All I had to do was float along and enjoy the warmth, and everything was okay again.

There was another 'thunk thunk thunk' sound as the water finally stopped spewing out of the pipe. I glanced to the sides of the pool and saw that it was full now, with the water sloshing up to just barely beneath the edge of the pool, and then began paddling with my legs towards the rubber duck. It was quiet, and warm, and there was nothing to worry about here. I could play as much as I wanted, and everything would be okay.

I bumped the rubber duck with my nose and sent it bobbing in a new direction, then dove under the water to swim ahead of it. I broke through the surface as I turned, and I gave the duck another quick bump to send it off in a new direction. The water was calming down now that the pipe wasn't bringing in new water, so there was no resistance fighting me as I chased the rubber duck around the pool.

After a few more relaxing minutes I rolled over onto my back and floated in the pool, spreading my wings out and using the tips of them to bat the rubber duck back and forth above me. I tilted my head to glance at the chairs and saw Steffie reading over her tablet. "I tink I'm done playing. How is your homework?"

Steffie lowered the tablet down to rest on her chest. She looked at me for a second... then her eyes glanced over to the shelf that held all the toys. She just gave it a significant look for a long moment, then looked back at me.

I sighed and rolled over to start paddling towards the side of the pool. "Fiiiiine." I crawled out of the pool and walked over to the shelf, dripping water onto the stone floor as I went, and leaned up on my hind legs to reach for the thing Steffie had looked at – a long white handle with a ball of stiff bristles at the end.

"Thank you, sweetie." Steffie lifted her tablet back up and looked back at it. "And not as great as I'd like. I've read this book several times, but all it's done is give me a headache. I think I'm at a two."

I trudged back into the pool and slipped in, then used the handle to bring the bristles against my scales. Cleaning my scales wasn't as relaxing as just floating in the pool... but it did need to be done. And at least Steffie hadn't said anything about the weird soapy stuff she made me use sometimes, when I was really dirty. I began scrubbing as I floated along, then looked back up towards Steffie. "Wat's the book about?"

Steffie tapped the side of the tablet, which I knew brought it to the next page. "It's about buildings we've managed to dig up from some of the Golden Isles digs. Details about the materials used in it, a few theories on what the buildings might have been for, that sort of thing."

I could vaguely remember Steffie mentioning the Golden Isles before. My head usually started hurting if I tried to pay too much attention to the big words Steffie's books had, and I would be lucky if my headache was only a two. "Dat's the place with the vulka no?"

"Right. Where the volcano happened long ago, and destroyed everything." Steffie nodded as her eyes skimmed over the book. "This chapter is about a type of building they found. One that had two floors, without any walls on the bottom, but completely walled off on the second floor. It's confusing, since that's not usually how people make buildings. We would normally think a building like that was just a one-story building built on stilts, since the supports are the only thing surrounding the first floor... but there were usually furnishings found on the first floor. Crude chairs, tables, other things. Things you would normally expect to find inside the house, where they would be safe from the elements, or on the roof instead if they wanted views of the outside."

I nodded slowly as I kept scrubbing over the scales of my chest. I wasn't sure why that was a big deal – the Arboretum had plenty of important things outside, like the water tanks or the lights and tents they used for the trees, so it seemed like a perfectly normal thing for me – but it wouldn't have been in Steffie's homework if it wasn't important. And I didn't really need to understand it anyways, so long as Steffie did. "Oh. Wanna wead it?"

"Okay." Steffie tapped the side of the screen a few times, probably scrolling back to the start of the chapter, then began reading. "A dig headed by Professor Owens in the jungle region of the third-largest island in the Golden Isles chain unearthed a ring of twelve two-story structures..."

I began to zone out as Steffie started reading, especially as the words just got bigger and more confusing. I tried to listen while I kept scrubbing my scales clean, just in case I thought of something that might be useful... but I really had no idea what Steffie was talking about, or why it was important. I was pretty sure I would just make it more confusing for her if I said anything, or take away her study time if I stopped her with questions.

But it was really nice to hear her read to me.

I finished scrubbing myself clean after a while and put the scrubbing brush on the floor outside of the pool, then rolled back over onto my back and pushed back into the center. I played with the rubber duck for a little, happily bouncing it back and forth with my wing tips and watching it bob in the water... but eventually I began to feel tired, and I began to drift off.

Falling asleep when I was completely in the pool was bad... but it was okay if my head wasn't in the water. I rolled back over and paddled to the side of the pool, then lifted my head out of the water to rest it on the cool stone floor. It took a bit of awkward rearrangement, but I got the front edge of my wings to stretch out along the stone floor, too, and that kept the rest of my body from floating away. It would be okay to fall asleep like this, since Steffie would notice the splashing if I slipped back into the water – and even if she didn't, it would usually wake me up all on its own.

I yawned and listened to more of the big words as I drifted back off again. The rubber duck bumped into me a few times, but I just made sure to sink my tail enough that the spikes wouldn't poke it and went back to relaxing. It was late, and everything was so nice. It was so easy to close my eyes and drift off to the gentle sound of Steffie's voice...

Pain. Sharp, agonizing. A left hand that couldn't bend anymore, bones protruding from the skin and leaving it red and angry, a disgusting fluid seeping slowly out from the edges. Claws emerging between fingers. The reflection in the glass showed sharp nubs under thinning hair. Something had twisted inside of feet that could no longer stand. Moving made it worse, leaving no option but to lay on the floor and hope for the pain to diminish.

The pretty lady was on the other side of the glass. Her voice was nice, but her appearance was fuzzy. Everything beyond the glass was fuzzy – not because of the glass, but because of changing eyes that could no longer see any further than a few feet. The voice continued, soft and pleasant, reading a newspaper.

The voice was nice to hear. It numbed the pain a little – or at least made it slightly more bearable.

"CloudComm stock is dropping. Their latest tablet design has to be recalled. Apparently there was a flaw somewhere in the design, and the antenna can't get a strong enough signal to connect with. Interference from something else in the tablet. People are wondering how something like that could have gotten past the testing phase; the CEO is saying it's just an unfortunate glitch nobody could have predicted. Um. Most of the rest of the article is about how the company has just been going downhill ever since they fired a partner several years ba-"

A sudden angry shout interrupted the pretty lady. The fuzzy appearance of the angry woman was suddenly behind her, and her voice carried cold rage. "What are you doing."

The blurry forms shifted. The newspaper was set aside as the pretty lady looked up. "Reading the newspaper."

"Reading it to that thing? Do you have any idea what type of person it was?!"

The pretty lady stiffened. "I read the files on his history. Confrontations with coworkers, fights with landlords, likes to throw things and so on. That doesn't mean he doesn't need to hear a friendly voice."

"'Confrontations with coworkers'? Who cares about that! It tortured, raped, murdered my sister. Dozens of others! It doesn't deserve a friendly voice! It deserves to suffer, alone and in a cage, for what it did! How can you even think about sitting there and being nice to it after all that?"

There was silence for a moment. Then the pretty lady's voice came in a slow, careful tone. "Because I have chosen not to be like him."

More silence. Then the blurry form of the angry woman finally pointed away, and her voice returned with frozen fury. "Get out of my lab. You are done here."

"Joy?"

I mumbled in my sleep at the sound of the pretty lady's voice and tried to turn over. Water sloshed around me as I felt myself float back and forth with the water's movement. I blinked open my eyes and tried to make sense of the strange feelings.

"Joy, it's time to go to bed. Come on; let's go to your room."

The pretty lady was there before me, leaning down against the rock floor and holding my head in her hand, but... how had I gotten here from...

A yawn forced its way out of my mouth as I slowly woke up a little more. I blinked and tried to understand what I had been thinking. Something about being in a... lab? But that was silly. I had been in the pool, listening to Steffie read while I took a bath. And it had gotten late and I had fallen asleep – and now Steffie needed me to go to bed. Just like always, so she could empty the pool and turn on the air dryers. Otherwise it would get mold. And mold was something bad.

I looked up at Steffie and nodded slowly, then heaved myself up out of the warm water. I had an urge to shake off some of the water, but remembered not to at the last second. Steffie didn't appreciate getting her clothes wet. "Tank ewe for tha bath."

"Thank you. And you're welcome, Joy." Steffie smiled back at me as she stood up and led the way to my room. She helped me into the shower and turned on the air dryer, standing next to me while the water dried off my scales... then she turned the air off. "Good night, sweetie."

"Goodnight Steffie." I yawned again, then crawled over to the rock platform of my bed and slumped back into sleep.