's cool, bruh. Also, I just realized that the territory description mentions nothing of them being hot springs, so maybe only one of the entrances is actually warm? And not necessarily hot, but just warm enough that they can sit in the water?
Aha! Success! Claudius could see that he had sufficiently surprised (and perhaps confused) her. His grin widened, but this time it was a sneaky grin, so he tried his best to hide it. He didn’t want Terra to know how competitive he had gotten. He thought that she would find it amusing that he wanted to compete with her like this, but he was still tormented by bouts of insecurity, so he figured it best if he just kept this smile to himself. By the time she looked over at him, she seemed to have recovered because she was smiling again.
As they neared the springs, Claudius could see some steam lifting. He wasn’t sure how warm they would be exactly. After all, he had always thought they were just regular springs with no warmth, but he was fairly certain that some of them held water that was just a bit warmer than usual.
The smell of salt rose in the air with the mist and he could tell that Terra had noticed it too. He kept his arm steady as they neared the rocks, knowing that it would be a slippery descent.
“Huh-ho-old on,” he warned her. “It’ll get… slippery… okay?” He reached around with his other arm, crossing it over his chest, to hold on to her hand so that she wouldn’t fall. As they walked closer, the dense forest gave way to rocks and water. He could see some steam rising, but couldn’t feel any warmth quite yet. They would have to move closer if they wanted to warm up.
Image credit: Artur; template from the mentors
[/html]