i_love_freddie | LJ Idol Exhibit B, SCI: Topic 2

It had all started with a question.

It had been close to midnight and the weary group of adventurers had put up camp for the night. Most of them were fast asleep, except Cory and Phellan, who were taking their turn at guard duty. The blond, half-elven assassin was reading a book of elvish poetry that he had found in some ruins a few days before. Occasionally he reached out to pet his wolfman, who was lying beside him. Phellan was actually being quiet for a change â something that Cory knew to be a bad sign. He was right.

âDo your boy human-cubs look different from the girl human-cubs?â Phellan piped up suddenly. Cory was so startled by the random question that he almost dropped his book into the fire.

âHow do you mean?â he asked carefully.

âWell, you know Valia - â referring to the resident party druid and the only woman in the group - âshe's a girl, isn't she?â

âYes, Phellan.â

âSo does she have a â a - â the young wolfman struggled to find the common word for what he meant, âa thing down there like we do? Or does she have nothing, like the girl cubs in out tribe? I think maybe theirs fell off when they were being born?â

Cory stifled a laugh. His friend had a very amusing way of putting things. It was not the first time the topic had come up; Phellan had spent his entire life with his tribe of human-like wolf beings in the depths of the swamplands â he had never even seen a human person until recently. So, his curiosity was to be expected.

Problem was, it was not exactly an easy question to answer. Cory was only young himself, and sometimes he felt unequipped to answer his friend's very innocent questions. How do people with children manage this stuff, he idly wondered, and was about to try and explain when an idea suddenly came to him. He glanced over to where his friends were sleeping, and his eyes fell on Valia. The druid was curled up in a tiny ball, her long red hair fanning out around her head.

Valia was a woman. Every evening she liked to bathe alone, even insisting that the group travelled an extra mile or two if there was no nearby water. She said it was a 'woman thing' and they wouldn't understand â Cory certainly didn't, and he didn't think that any of the others really did either. Except maybe Benny, because he was much older and wiser and he had been married once, so he probably understood about women. But either way, maybe her bathing ritual would end up being useful.

âTell you what, Phellan,â he smiled at his friend. âIf you want to know the differences, how about I show you?â

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As the two of them wriggled through the bushes, keeping flat on their bellies to avoid detection, Cory began to have second thoughts. Privately he had always thought that Valia's decision to bath alone was silly â having been raised in a guild with 500 other men, he was quite used to doing everything in front of others â but he knew that some people were shy about things like that. But it wasn't as though they wanted to spy on her to be creepy, not like Jonas â his brother â who often attempted to spy on her for his own excitement. He didn't like women much, and Phellan didn't at all. What could be wrong in just taking a quick look for the purpose of education?

Presently they heard splashing, and the sound of the woman's soft voice as she quietly sang to herself. Cory pressed a finger to his lips. âNot a sound, Phellan,â he warned, shifting himself forward a little more.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?