“I don’t know what decontamination is.” Straightening, Lamis put the last of the dishes away. She closed the soap box, and it made a rumbling sound, like machine parts moving around inside. It sounded a little like decontamination. “How about you tell me what parts about it you don’t like, and I’ll make sure the bath doesn’t have any of those parts?”

Moros leaned closer, fidgeting with his own fingers. “It’s too hot, and it smells bad, and the pressure from the sprayers hurts because the heat makes my scales lift, and it burns when it gets in my eyes and nose, and it’s loud.”

His mama’s hair was floaty again, and she crouched, hugging Moros very tightly against her chest. Her voice stayed light and soft. 

“We don’t do things like that here,” she said. “No loud or hurting or burning stuff in your eyes, I promise.”

Moros rested his cheek against her shoulder. He wondered if Lamis also didn’t like the idea of contamination. Even the scientists complained when they had to go through decontamination because it ‘took too long’. Deimos had always guessed it didn’t hurt humans as much.

“Is a bath like when we wash in the pond?” Moros mused.

“Can you tell me what that’s like?” Lamis asked. 

“We sit in the water and rub off the blood,” Moros said. “And sometimes we just sit and soak. If it’s really bad we tear off some of the blanket, but we’ve not gotten more blanket for a real long time, so we don’t want to use the ones we still got all up.”

“Do you get bloody a lot?” Lamis rubbed over Moros’s back.

“During experiments we get really bloody,” Moros informed her, and paused. He wasn’t supposed to tell Mama about the things that happened when they got hurt. “Then we wash off in the pond if there’s any left.”

“They shouldn’t have done experiments on you or your brothers.” The tight look was back. Lamis stood, keeping Moros in her arms so he was propped against her hip. She carried him past the living room and opened one of the side doors to a new room. Moros could hear Deimos following, wary of his brothers being taken past doors without him.

“But they did it anyway,” Moros said. “I don’t think they follow rules. Just their own.”

Lamis paused. She set Moros on the ground, putting both hands on his shoulders so she could look into his face. 

“They did. Those people did bad things to you, but they had no right to do those things, no matter what their rules say. The PSS rules are not the rules that exist here. You are a person, and you do not deserve to be covered in blood all the time.”

Moros wasn’t sure he knew what it meant to be a person. Was that much different than being an experiment? He didn’t want to think about it, so he focused around him instead.

The new room has a big mirror taking up one wall, and a white tub that was big enough for even Pom to soak in taking up the far corner of the room. Squeezed between the tub and a tall box with a basin in the top was a white chair, but it had a flippy lid that showed water inside. Moros puzzled over its use.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The toilet,” Lamis said, drawing him away from it. “It’s uh… Y’know. Where you do your business.”

Moros’ snout wrinkled. “Like when you have business to attend to?” Knight said that a lot.

“Poop,” Lamis said. “And pee, and other bodily waste. You sit on the toilet seat here, then when you’re done, you pull this little lever and it goes into the sewer.” She demonstrated. 

“Oh!” Moros’ mouth opened in fascination. “We just had holes in the corner of the enclosures.”

Lamis pet his head. Her claws felt nice, scratching through his cropped crest of feathery hair. “When we go camping, we poop in holes we dig so it doesn’t get stinky. But in the city we have toilets. You can come in here whenever you need to use the toilet, okay? I can show you how to use it again any time you need.”

“Okay.” He looked at the toilet again. “Can I push the lever anyway?”

“You can.” Lamis chuckled. “And you can turn the knobs over here to turn on the sink, where you can use soap to wash your hands.” She picked up a rectangle that smelled like flowers, holding it out for him to see. “I promise this one doesn’t burn.”

Moros turned it over in his hands, sniffing it. He licked it, then shuddered. 

“Blegh!” It didn’t burn, though.

Lamis laughed, turning a knob on the sink, fresh water poured into the basin. “Here, you can rinse your mouth out. We can get a snack after your bath to get the soapy taste out of your mouth, if you want.”

“This one’s like the one in the kitchen!” Moros leaned closer, scooping water up into his hands to slurp.

“Yeah. That soap is for dishes, but this one smells like flowers and I got it at the farmer’s market, so I like to use it to wash hands.” She wiggled her long taloned fingers. “It makes me feel fancy!”

“We didn’t have soap at all so it all feels fancy!” Moros giggled, turning the water on and off to test it. One of the knobs even made the water warm.

“Well, I’m glad I get to share fancy soap with you.” Lamis kissed his head. Her hair escaped its bun, the feathery whisps floating and writhing around her head like snakes.

Moros giggled as the strand tickled his head and face.

“You can turn the knobs over here to turn on the water to fill the tub too.” Lamis crossed the room towards the white tub. She turned a knob poking out of the wall, and water cascaded down with a roar. It wasn’t as loud as decontamination though. She let the water flow over her hand. “We take baths in here, with nice fancy soap.”

Moros leaned over the edge of the tub to watch it fill. “It’s so small! The pond was like, four of these.”

“This is just a place to wash. We can go find a bigger pool to swim in, if you want? Not today though. Today is just bathtime to clean up.”

“Tomorrow!” Moros chirped, grinning up at her.

“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll have to see how we all feel.” She scratched over his head. “Is the water too hot?”

“Nuh uh, it’s nice and warm.” Moros started to climb in, but paused, one foot up on the edge. “Uh. Can I get in?”

“Yeah. Do you think your brothers would want a bath too?” Lamis asked, opening a drawer. She pulled out a squishy sponge shaped like a chicken. 

“Yeah, probably.” Moros’ tail wiggled, but he didn’t move from his spot. “Deimos?”

His eldest brother peered around the doorway into the bathroom, crest half-raised. “Yes?”

“Hey Dede!” Lamis smiled at him, brandishing the chicken. “Do you want to take a bath? I got the fancy sponge for scale scrubbies!”

Deimos drew back, then hesitantly slunk into the room. “Okay…”

Deimos stood beside him, peering into the water. Moros stayed with one foot on the edge of the tub, staring in with him.

“What do you think?” Moros asked.

“I’ll go get Perses and Icelus.” Deimos left the bathroom, and Moros looked back to Lamis.

“Here, I can get the rest of your bandages off,’ she offered, holding out her hand.

Moros stepped over to her, turning his back so she could get to the bandages there. Her touch was soft, even softer than when Deimos helped them clean up after tests. There were bandages taped all down his spine, and a few on his belly where Chi had to reach his liver to get one of the trackers out. 

“There,” Lamis said, picking off the last bandage. She pet over his head. “You doing okay?”

Moros nodded. “Yeah, everything healed. We don’t get scars. And we got painkillers! That was nice.”

Lamis’s hair hissed around her head. “You deserve to not be in pain, Momo.” 

Moros, fascinated, reached for her hair, letting it snake through his fingers. It moved like the strands were underwater. He was more interested in that than thinking about what he deserved or didn’t.

Lamis leaned closer, sad things pushed to the edges of her smile. “You like my feathers?”

“Feathers?” Moros looked up at her with wide eyes. Her hair did feel unusually soft. His did too. Then again, he’d never touched anyone else’s hair.

She hummed. “Yeah. You can feel the quill just at the base, and they grow in really fine, so they look like hair.” She pet over his buzzed crest, eyes soft. “You have the same feathers as me.”

“Really?” Moros reached up to feel his own hair. “It’s never been much longer than this. They cut it every shedding season.”

“You do.” She combed her claws over his head. “Do you want to grow it out long? The old feathers should be replaced by your next shed. I can show you fun ways to style them!”

“Yeah!” Moros grinned. “I want it to be long like yours!”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” She scrubbed her hands over his head. “You’ll have beautiful long feathers, just like your mama!”

Moros laughed, leaning into her hands.