The coldwater pool was, thankfully, empty. It gave Suna space to swim and float without being bothered or pestered. They drifted on their back, an anxious tension draining out of them. It always felt nice to be away from their parents, they'd learned. Like some weight had been lifted in their absence.

The clouds drifted high above, looking soft. For a bit, Suna felt almost relaxed. Free of their mother and away from the noise of the other children in the springs. They dragged their fingertips over the water, enjoying its coolness, and wondered if the men's baths had a coldwater pool. What was the layout for those springs, just on the other side of the high bamboo wall?

A cold, tight resentment congealed in Suna's belly. They hated that they couldn't just go see for themselves.  They reached the wall of the pool and curled their body up to press their feet against it and to grip the lip of the deck. Coiled up like this, they pushed off with more force than was altogether necessary, the water following them in a rippling tide. They decided they'd find a way to get into the men's baths and see them. Possibly today, even, if they could think of an excuse to go back to the courtyard without their mother.

Maybe they could even get there in time to watch the other two Slayers work. They'd never gotten to see the Dusting Force hoses up close. Their father used them every day for work, but he never really talked about them, and Suna's mother always steered them away from any other members of the Dusting Force when they saw them out and about.

Stay out of their way, she always said. They're working.

Did Slayers know how to use the Dusting Force hoses, they wondered. Suna had read once that the Slayers piloted mechs to fight sea monsters — hoses must seem easy to use by comparison. They thought of the boy Slayer who was so excited to hear that there were books about Yura in Keiba's shop.

It made Suna feel happy, in a way. It was nice to know they weren't the only person who liked reading about Yura. They kicked their legs a little bit. One day, they decided, they would be one of those people who wrote books about myths and monsters for everyone else to read. And they'd find their way to places not even the Slayers had been and make maps of those places, far far away from Tephra..

"Hey, watch out," a voice called, startling Suna out of their fantasy.

They kicked themselves up, treading water to look around. The girl-Slayer, Wyn, stood at the side of the cold water pool, her eyes fixed on the black body of a fire lizard, clinging to the lip of the pool just above the water. She held up a finger to her mouth in a shh gesture.

Suna froze, worried.

The fire lizards normally made their home inside Magmathalos. Every year, they traveled down from the volcano to mate. Their bodies were hot as lava — as Suna knew from experience. One year, when they were pretty young, they had tried to catch a lone lizard sitting on the deck of the baths. They had been both fast and unlucky enough to grab one. As soon as their hand curled around the lizard's black body, they dropped it with a shout of pain. The lizard scrambled away and Suna was left with a hand that was all puffy and red, burnt by the ember-like heat of the lizard's body, for a week.

Their mother made a salve for the burns and remarked that their curiosity was going to get them killed one day.

What's more, the lizards weren't just dangerous if a person touched them; they were pests if they got into the baths. Their body heat could change the temperature of the springwater if they fell in. The water would stun the lizards, who were used to magma, but they also famously made the springs unsafe for people to be in as well. 

Keiba used to say it was like dumping buckets of hot coals into the springs. That's why she called in the Slayers, to keep the lizards away before they could get into the water..

Suna watched the lizard, their heart racing a little bit. They didn't know what to do! The lizard might startle if they tried to swim for the wall, and there was definitely no way they'd get out before it jumped into the water. How many lizards did it take to heat up a coldwater pool to the point of danger? Suna didn't know and they definitely didn't want to find out.

The lizard flicked its tail and Suna sloshed away instinctively. Wyn held up her hand to still them. The lizard tilted its head this way and that.

"Hurry," Suna hissed.

"Sh!"

Wyn inched closer so slowly that Suna felt like their heart was about to crawl out of their throat. As her shadow fell over the lizard, it flicked its tail one last time and darted over the pool's lip. Suna swallowed a shout. Wyn dove for the lizard, catching it, and Suna expected her to drop it instantly, her palms scorched by its craggy black scales.

Instead, a pale blue glow flickered to life between the girl's palms, enveloping the lizard in a bulb of light. Suna stared.

With a focused expression, the girl deposited the lizard into her bucket, and then straightened up.

"How did you—" Suna started, bewildered, but before they could answer the question, the girl picked up her bucket and walked to a different bath.

Suna swam to the edge of the coldwater pool and propped themselves up against the obsidian stone of the deck. The other pool, by the looks of how it bubbled and boiled, was slightly infested with fire lizards. They watched Wyn crouch down, that blue glow coming to life again in her palms. Even though Wyn moved rather furtively, like she didn't want to draw attention to herself, Suna couldn't look away.

This Slayer was a magic user, they realized as they watched. She scooped the lizards out of the water and deposited them, gently, into her bucket. Every single one seemed to be sedated by the blue glow, resting calmly in Wyn's hands as she deposited them in the bucket.

Suna was entranced. They'd read about magic users in some of Keiba's books, but this was the first time they'd ever seen someone do it in real life, at least not without a gauntlet. Some of the Black Susans, and a few members of the Dusting Force, had gauntlet technology that helped them in their work, allowing them to use magic in their smithery or when they needed to direct the flow of their hoses in a specific way — but no one, as far as Suna knew, was able to use magic without the gauntlets to help them channel it. Until now, they thought it was made up, or at least just a reference to ancient history in some of Keiba's books. They needed to know more.

Glancing around, they checked for their mother. To their relief, she was still in one of the other hot springs with her back to them, chatting with her friends. Suna hauled themselves out of the coldwater pool and shrugged their robe back on. On tiptoe, as if they had to be as quiet as possible to avoid drawing their mother's attention, they made their way across the obsidian stone to the Slayer.

She paused as they approached, the blue glow dying from her palms. That made Suna's heart sink a little. They didn't want her to stop! They just wanted to...see. To know more. They hesitated, unsure of what to say now that they were close enough to talk to her.

"Do you need something?" the girl asked.

She sounded annoyed, which irritated Suna in turn. They weren't doing anything wrong — and this girl was the guest in the baths anyway! Who was she to be annoyed with them, they wondered indignantly.

They squared their shoulders and stuck their chin up a little bit. Even strangers from far away weren't going to intimidate them.

"How do you do that?" they asked, crossing their arms.

The Slayer girl's irritated demeanor slipped a little bit. She looked down at her bucket full of lizards like she was suddenly embarrassed.

"I'm just doing what we came here to do," she said.

Suna glowered, bothered by Wyn's deliberate obtuseness. "No, I mean the magic. I've never seen anyone do that before."

"Well, there's a first time for everything, kid."

Suna bristled at being called 'kid'. This girl was older than them, sure, but not that much older.

"I'm not a kid," they resisted. "And you didn't answer my question."

The girl picked up her bucket with a long-suffering sigh. "Look, I have to work, okay? Just—"

"Suna!" Their mother's voice interrupted.

Suna flinched, gaze snapping back to the hot springs. Their mother waded to the wall and hauled herself out of the water, her face dark with anger. A pit of frustration and anxiety tightened up in their belly as she tossed her robe on and stalked towards them.

"You!" she snapped, pointing an accusing finger at the Slayer girl. "Stay away from my daughter."

Wyn backed up, clearly surprised at the aggression in Suna's mother's voice. A few other bathgoers had paused to watch the confrontation.

"I'm sorry," Wyn said, holding up her hands in some kind of peace gesture. "I...um. It won't happen again."

"It had better not." Suna's mother grabbed their hand, but kept the finger of her other, free hand pointed at the Slayer. "You are a guest here, at most. Remember that."

The girl's face suffused with a deep, ashamed blush. She cast her gaze down to her feet, but the humiliation was done. Other people continued to stare, and a few of them murmured to each other. Suna could sympathize a little bit, their own face prickling with heat at the mere fact of being indirectly caught in everyone's attention.

"I'm sorry," Wyn said again.

Suna's mother hmph'd and turned on her heel, tugging Suna after her.

"And you, Suna. You're staying with me."

"But Mom—"

"No buts. I told you to stay away from her."

"I just wanted to see what she was doing," Suna protested, angry at being admonished in front of a staring group of people. They weren't being reckless, they had a reason for trying to talk to the Slayer! "She can use magic—"

"Suna, stop it."

Suna fell silent, their chest tightening up with the force of their anger and the fact that it had nowhere to go. They slouched as their mother tugged them along, glaring at their feet. Just as they reached one of the hot pools with their mother, a loud clap of a sound clattered through the air. Suna twisted around to look, along with everyone else.

The Slayer had either dropped or knocked over her bucket, and she stood with it toppled at her feet, her eyes wide with surprise—

And a sudden clot of fear iced down Suna's spine as the fire lizards, startled out of their sedated state by the fall, all came skittering out of the overturned bucket in a panic.

A woman screamed. Pandemonium followed.

The frightened, disoriented lizards slipped over the damp, obsidian deck, and scrabbled this way and that, falling into the hot springs with little blurp sounds. More women shouted. Mothers grabbed their daughters and scrambled from the baths as the stunned lizard bodies turned the water scalding hot.

Time seemed to slow down, somehow, even as all the women made for the door to the path in a panicked near-stampede. Suna's own mother swore, yanking Suna out of the way as one lizard dashed past, nearly darting over Suna's feet. She all but dragged Suna in the direction of the door.

They fell into the crush of bodies, and Suna caught sight of the Slayer girl one last time, standing on the far side of the baths with a numb, hopeless look on her face.

As their mother pulled them onto the path back to the courtyard, their heart sank with the certainty that this would be the last time the Slayers ever got invited back to the village — and one small, precious glimpse of the wider world would be lost to them.