Continued from [http://www.xeneth.net/urpc/index.php?topic=1986.msg30852#new].

Cyril, unfortunately, didn't get to hear the most potent of his young stalker's expressions of her annoyance. That was something he'd worked for all night. He could only hope Maladi was willing to keep up with the annoyance. He didn't want Nagori to get too complacent. Maladi was too nice and polite, probably. They'd probably wind up best friends. It wasn't like they had anything to compete over, here. Nagori was too afraid of Edii...

On reaching the small spring behind the house, Cyril would take a deep breath in of the steam, breathing out slowly as if it was going to release all the tension in his life. He was going to have to jump through quite a few hoops to get his life in order here, but at least his main rival was also kind enough to provide them with a secluded home. She had also seen fit to provide him with a spy, but at the moment, Nagori was occupied within the house, and she likely wasn't going to spy on him while he bathed, anyway. It would be more embarrassing for her than him, anyway. Still, it was nice to be able to bathe without having to worry about anyone watching.

Pausing for a moment to check his appearance, Cyril was happy to see that his hair wouldn't require treatment in the near future. It was still fairly short, but it had reached a point where it spiked forward along his head, coming to a sharp widow's peak and a bit of black hair that hung over his forehead. His eyes were still sharp, alternately blue or green, depending on the circumstances. A few small furrows permanently wrinkled his forehead, a byproduct of all the time he spent worrying, but his face was still broad and friendly. Leaning up a bit to look at his chin and neck, he smiled a bit at the stubble from the past few days, unfortunately lacking a male razor to shave, if he so desired. It wasn't thick enough to appear dirty, and that was what mattered, anyway.

Pulling off his shirt, Cyril would take a moment to look in the mirror at what seemed like an unfair amount of marks. He was surprisingly free of minor marks. He didn't get involved in a lot of small fights that could cause small scars, and he healed well, anyway. If nothing else, he was tough. Cyril was a large man, to be sure. His shoulders were broader than all but the largest of men he'd met, and while he wasn't extremely tall, he was tall enough to maintain respect. He didn't have quite the well-buttered tan of a bodybuilder with nothing to do but hang around the beach, but his body still kept a tan, and he didn't have an awful lot of hair on his body. It was still plain that his barrel chest and large body size were a result of large amounts of muscle, not a life of gluttony. Cyril wasn't exactly narcissistic, but he took a certain amount of pride in the way his body wasn't a shrine to excess the way so many others in his occupation had been. His health had been threatened enough times, as evidenced by the more prominent scars on his body. On either side of his wrists and on his stomach and back, there were matching marks from where things had pierced his body at various times, and his back was marked with accusing words and tally marks, evidence of a night when his life had caught up with him...

Locking his arms over his head and stretching his body out slowly, he would breathe deeply again, before reaching down and undoing his pants, pushing the article of clothing down and stepping out of it, keeping only his plain white briefs. His lower body was large in an objective way, much like the rest of his body, but Cyril's legs and feet didn't appear out of proportion or weak compared to his torso. They appeared large and powerful, and they were indeed so, but when he walked, there was a certain grace uncommon in a man his size. In shoes, his footsteps were loud and resounding, but barefoot as he was, his large frame moved silently and purposeful around the bath area, but without having any sort of feminine cast to his movements. It was just a matter of confidence, a practiced step that helped him to navigate through people without having to challenge or submit to those around him.

Picking up his towel, Cyril would walk to the edge of the spring, removing his last item of clothing with no concerns, one of the benefits of his gender. There was a privacy fence and a certain amount of privacy guaranteed, but he had no reason to worry about onlookers. Edii and Maladi were men, too. Cyril couldn't do anything to prevent Nagori from spying if she really wished to, and anyone else... They just weren't an issue. Cyril was confident with his body in any sort of private matters, and had nothing to prove.

Cyril would walk down the steps into the water slowly, in order to gauge the heat, but the spring was suitably warm without risking burns to his body. As he slowly submerged to his waist, he would bring a handful of water up to his face with his hands, pushing it up past his forehead and slicking his hair back in a sort of attractive way with a prolonged sigh of relief. Smiling as he felt the water start to wash away some of the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind, he submerged himself up to his chest on a bench-like structure, leaning his head back into his hands contentedly...

[Damn, apparently the "justify" button isn't able to justify the writing of Manservice.]