They slowly looked around the room. Dusk sighed and walked over to the tub. "Is this real?" She tapped it. "Does it actually work?" She turned the handle to warm and turned it on. She softly squeed, as water started pouring into the tub. "Oh yes." Dusk smiled, and ran her hoof through the flow, until the water was just right. She put the stopper in the tub's drain and crawled into it.
"Dusk what are you doing?" Escutcheon asked. blushing and covering his eyes.
"Taking a bath," she answered. "Oh come on we took baths together before. Remember the small pool in the grove on the other side of the desert?"
"Well yeah but." He stuttered a little.
"But nothing. I get that something happened to you but you, can at least calm down okay. It's just me taking a bath." She sighed. "Escutcheon what happened?"
"It's nothing Dusk. I, I need to go take a walk. I'm sorry." He headed out of the room Turkeylegs looked up and watched the colt head out of the room.
"Escutcheon wait."
"Let him go Dusk." Professor Atlas stopped her from going after him. "I'll talk to him about this okay?" He smiled at her. "You enjoy your bath." He headed out after Escutcheon.
"He's a strange colt." Red Wine looked to Dusk as she slid into the hot water of the tub. "Not just does he prefer to wear cloths. He seems to be very shy about you in some ways and not in others."
"He got hurt somehow, after he left the forest." She looked at the door the two of them had left. "I wish that he'd tell me what it was, but it's clear that it really messed him up, and it hurts that he won't tell me. That he doesn't trust me to help him." She slouched in the tub Her nose just above the waters surface.
"I think it's something he'll have to deal with his own. For now at least." Red lay down in one of the beds.
***
"Escutcheon are you okay?" Atlas asked, as he approached the colt, who was sitting down on the bottom of the stairs. "Dusk is worrying about you. and to be honest I'm starting to worry about you as well." He sat next to Escutcheon. "Something must have happened to you that caused you to become very self-conscious. What was it?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
"It was that bad?" He put a hoof on the colt's shoulder. Escutcheon nodded. "I won't push it, but maybe talking about it would help."
"I." Escutcheon took a deep breath. There was a scream. "Dusk!" Escutcheon's horn lit up and the two appeared in the room in a golden flash. Atlas took a moment readjusting himself. Dusk was out of the tub all the water was crimson red. She was shacking being cuddled by Turkeylegs. A message was being written on the wall in the same bloody fluid.
LET ME LEAVE