Chapter 20 -Swimming along

I looked down to a wildly smiling Sabi who was clinging to the side of my skirt. I couldn't help but smile too then nodded. "Yes I can swim a bit but haven't in ages. Can you?" She nodded widely. "I can swim through the whole lake all on my own!" She proclaimed proudly. "The whole lake?!" I said in playful shocked manner. "You have to show me that!" She giggled happily. Suddenly a second later a second cutie was clinging next to her sister on my now quite heavy skirt. "I swim too!" her sister proclaimed just as proud. "Oh my two swimmers in the family? I so want to see that."

Suha and Gabrielel chuckled. They had used the moment of distraction to remove the chaos the two had created in the dinning room. "Well shall we?" Gabrielle asked gently pointing towards the stairs. I tried to walk but the two seemed to enjoy way to much to cling to me. So instead I did bend down to pick them up. On loudly giggling child on each side of my shoulders I walked out carefully following Gabrielle. Suha walked behind me shaking her head slightly. "You can borrow Violas swim wear I think it should fit you." I nodded the two curious kittens on my shoulders stared at my ears and suddenly there was a sharp pain from the right. "OU! OU! Ou please let go that hurts!" I begged Madi who took a moment longer to let go of my ear.

Suha steeped closer. "What did I teach you when you hurt someone Madiha?" Even trough I couldn't see her I could feel her look down. "I am sorry miss Kitty, didn't meant to." I smirked I resisted the urge to use her to rub against my ear to ease the tension. "Its ok just please don't pull on my ears again that really hurts." She mumbled a quite ok and I couldn't help but smile. In truth it had not hurt that much but as my big sister had taught me when you want to show something to kids you have to be quite clear on what's going on.

We reached the ground level of the building and Gabrielle opened a door. "We can change here. We prefer to keep a certain level of decency especially with the risk of the old duke walking in." She gently took off Sabi from my shoulder while Suha took Madi, both of the little ones where excited and happy and giggled the whole time while they got changed quickly. The chamber that we were in had a row of benches on the ground and similar to the bathhouse places to store your cloth. There were some alcoves with curtains in which one could change in privacy and some washbasins with pumps next to it. Most likely to clean up after the bath.

Suha steeped up and handed me a giggling Madiha. "Well then watch over the two while we change, will you?" Suddenly I had two young giggling girls and the two, grownup steeped inside the changing cube next to each other. "I had tried to give misses Fluffels a bath before, but she really didn't want to. Why do cats hate bath? Do you hate baths too?" Sabi asked suddenly beaming up to me. My lips started to hurt a bit, from smiling so much but I couldn't help my giggle. "I bet she hated the bath a lot. I think it feels wired for them. But I love the water. Its soo nice and relaxing. In fact, this will be my second bath today. Do you like to take baths?" I asked her back while tickling her side a bit. She giggled and shook her head. "Baths are stupid. But I like to swim!" Madiha feeling left out by her older sister chimed in. "I Like baths!" Just to be shut down. "No you don't! You cry the whole evening when you have to have one! Until you are in the tub dummy."

"Sabiha be nice to your sister." Came from Suha still hidden in the changing stall. The two young sisters poked the tongue out to each other before giggling again. Shortly after she moved the cloth aside and steeped out. She was wearing a green thin short toga-like dress. I had not seen people of the kingdom swim in something like that, but I assume that inside here they basically could wear whatever they wanted. She was beautiful simple and easy, and I had to force myself to not be rude and stare. "You can change in there now" She pointed towards where she just stepped out and gave me some king of swim toga as well. "Wear this as a top it should fit you nicely. I sadly don't have much that will fit a tail, but I think you can keep your current underwear on and get something fresh once we are done"

I nodded carefully while unfolding the toga. It was basically a nice yellow dress that had a few discrete padding's sewn in while the rest was extremely thin and light. I quickly changed for the third time today. It fitted quite nicely and was tied up with a soft rope belt that was part of it. When i steeped out of the stall i could see Gabrielle in her bathing suit. She wore a completely different style which basically was a sexy green top and skirt as well as soft Sandals. She noticed me staring for a moment and chuckled. "Well shall we?" She pointed towards the door and then picked up a giggling Sabi.

Suha gave me a bag to carry and signed me to follow Gabrielle. I could see that her top was hold on by a tight knot in the back, that was so tempting to untie. One day maybe. Suha walked behind me together with Mabi, who was walking on her own in front of her mother with both of her hands being hold by Suha. Occasionally she was pulled up completely and set down again gently causing both of them to giggle loudly. After a while I could hear the mother hum a gentle song while she played with her daughter. When I noticed that Gabrielle hummed the same song, I felt like a visitor seeing a loving family of two with their little kids. They were definitely happy to be together and took lovingly care of each other. For a moment I was thinking about just leaving and letting them life peaceful in this little world of theirs. But then at the same time there was nothing so far saying that I couldn't become a part of this.

We entered the courtyard and it barely felt any warmer than the rooms we just left if anything it was even a bit colder just the right temperature to enjoy the outside. We walked the short distance to the beach area where Suha took out a blanket from a heavy box that was sitting hidden in that area like a treasure chest. "Did you asked Lizbeth if she wanted to join us?" She suddenly asked Gabrielle while they spread out the blanket. She got a short nod in reply. "She was a bit shy when I mentioned that our dear duke will join us." She said without any hesitation and looked to me. "Of course she did not mean any offense, she took quite a while till she joined us here and is not exactly the most active of all beach goers ... it apparently doesn't mix well with books." Meanwhile Suha took out a large umbrella from the chest. It must have been dug deeper inside the ground since there should be no way to keep that large umbrella inside that chest.

Gabrielle had already took both of the cuties towards the water and gently guided them in one on each side. Despite her earlier claims Sabi seemed to be a bit afraid of the water or just maybe disliked the feeling of getting in. I stepped up to Suha and smiled. "Can I help you?" She pondered for a moment then smiled and pointed towards the left side of the large box. "There at the side is a opening behind which there is a large stone. It's to heavy for us so just roll it over there." It didn't took long for me to find the said compartment and inside was a nice round stone with a metal piece that was obliviously designed to hold the umbrella. I rolled it out then carefully tugged at it to judge its weight.

Before my prison time I would have easily carried it around for half a day but now ... I hesitated for a moment and inspected the weight. It was not only that it was bulky and heavy it had no way to really grip it. I shook my head slightly and followed her advice. "I think with a decent grip it would be way easier to carry it." I said to her while rolling it gentle over the ground. She nodded slightly. "I assume it was designed to be carried by a slave, the umbrella is from us, but the stone had already been here most likely since the palace has been build." I nodded and placed it where she had pointed to and steeped back. "Well we should adjust it so that it is less bulky to carry around, maybe add a grip or something like that." She smirked while locking the umbrella in the heavy stone. It was clearly she had done that multiple times.

She walked back and pulled out a few foldable wooden chairs from the treasure chest. "Here put them there please, and i agree but it is not that important at the moment." She gave them to me one by one before she dug out some pillows as well. I put them up below the shade of the umbrella. They were extremely well crafted and darkened from age. We finish placing them and Suha sat down relaxing a bit. I sat down next to her watching how Gabrielle was playing with the two girls in the water. "Just to be clear the reason why I allow you to see us like this is because you are more or less a woman in this house. Usually the social rules outside of the house would require us to be more covered but it isn't like you can just walk in here." She smiled a bit then looked me straight into the eyes.

"How much experience do you have with the nobles and the royal court?" The topic change surprised me a bit. "Not much, I encountered a few traveling diplomats and such on the journeys trough the desert, but they usually stayed among themselves." She nodded the sighed. "With your appointment the king and queen did change one of their biggest opponents to their ally. At least everybody will expect you to act like one. I don't know how the royal court and the nobles will react over this whole affair. I mean we did not have a angry mob jet or anything like that, but we will have to see what their reaction will be. I really don't want my kids to be in any danger so you better learn quickly. I think we should start with hosting some small parties to invite those that would profit with aligning with us."

I nodded carefully. You could see how she was adjusting more and more to the whole situation and was planning how to make it work for this family. "Usually the preperations would be mostly done by the butler. I mean writing the invitation and making certain that they get where you want them to get to. We definitely will need to get a decent butler someone who knows the ins and out of the whole court and can help you with what ever task you need." I nodded again before speaking up. "I recently learned that the old butler had been accused if not convicted off being part of many of the old duke's crimes. Additionally, I doubt that his loyalty would lie with me." She laughed suddenly and smiled to me. "You got that one right. That one was loyal to only two things. The duke and money. And he was a sadistic bastard. I hope he will rot in that cell forever. "

For a moment I was deep in thought. I knew that prison where far better than the alternative of just killing, enslaving or exiling every criminal but the condition they were in was really not great. And the loneliness and boredom. My thoughts were so focused on my old home that I didn't even noticed that Suha had continue talking to me till she gently rested her hand on my forearm. "Everything ok?" I nodded then shook my head clear. "Just remembering my old 'home'. Anyway, where does one find a decent butler? I doubt that you can get them with a note on a board or something like that."

She chuckled. "Yeah for most nobles they get them from each other. The best butlers go through strict training, but they are usually already signed on at that stage. Madam Laferin might have a few suggestions as well as the royal court. But both come with risks the first group is most likely connected in some way to one of the noble houses. The madam will of course do her due diligence to make certain that they are not outright bought by said house but since they will have family connections rumors will spread into their direction sooner or later. The ones from the royal house on the other hand will have questionable loyalties towards us since they will be most likely loyal first towards the royal house and second to us. Now considering that you are counted as a close ally of them that might be fine. But not everybody loyal to the royal house is loyal to the king and queen."

"That's ..." I stopped because Sabiha did run up to us. "Come! I want to show you how good I can swim!" She gently pulled on my hand and I followed her guidance. Gabrielle was sitting with Madi on her lab playing in the water. Her top was now completely wet showing her form even better making me so glad that I did chose a tight bound underwear today instead of just a loincloth. The pond itself was lined with a soft sand with a few large rounded stones in between. On either sides there where large almost hidden wooden pillars that seemed to be there to avoid having anybody drifting out of the pond or anything drifting into it. Sabi guided me until she couldn't stand and started to swim. I gently lifted her up a bit and watched her careful.

It was so strange to do something like this after being restricted for so long but I couldn't help and smile widely. On the far end I found that it was deep enough for me to swim too and it felt really good to be able to do that. Suha did join me and Madi really soon and just like that we started to play in the water. Madi had got a hard leather ball that was in the bag that I carried with us and we started to toss it around. She was surprised that it seemed to be impossible for me to not notice the ball and catch it in time even if it was thrown from behind. In truth she was giggling loudly every time she was throwing it so I had enough time to turn around. I completely lost track of time until we finally got out of the water.

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Sooo here we go again xD

Its a bit harder for me to write chapters at the moment because i am mostly at home and most of my writing happened on the travel from home to work, but i think i finally found an ok rhythm. So ... sorry for the long delay ^^

This whole chapter came to be because the original content that i had was simple to early during the day. Madi and Sabi really always do stuff that i had no plan for xD

I love the family interaction and i hope that the bathing is not to forward. Deciding the bathing cloth was actually quite hard but in the end it is my world ;)

Anyway i hope you can enjoy this family moment ^^