[Otto's POV]
Otto let herself sink into a steaming hot bath and sighed. She'd been busy all morning with hauling buckets of water from the river to the bathroom.
Annabelle had learned her how to heat the water with a kettle and had surprised her by adding some herbal oils and some flower petals into the water.
"Oh! Yes, this is heaven," she mumbled as she let herself sink into the water, only her face peeking out above the surface and laughed at her own words.
Indeed, she was in heaven, what a silly thing to say.
Still, it was her first bath since she'd come here. Otto had helped Annabelle before with hauling the water to bathe the little girls, but she'd procrastinated bathing herself.
She'd thought Alex would have come to get her by now, but here she was, starting her fifth day in heaven and still no sign of him.
Not that she was complaining, really. Thanks to Jack, she'd been able to live comfortably. The past four days had been a blast!
But if she was being really honest with herself, she'd have to admit that the only reason she'd been able to smile so freely, was because she knew Alex was coming for her.
She'd been so sure he'd stop at nothing to find her. But now she was starting to worry that it might not be a matter of will. What if Alex didn't know where she'd vanished to? What if he couldn't figure out how to get into heaven himself? The chances of that happening were higher than she wanted to admit. After all, he hadn't been able to read the book of the dead like she had.
Five days was a long time to be away from home without prior notice. Did her parents know she was ok?
Before she could sour her mood further with negative thoughts, she heard something like a horse galloping up the path into the valley.
"Do people ride horses in heaven?" Otto wondered to herself as she kept listening.
Someone stormed into the inn, slamming with the door in his or her hurry. She thought she heard a male shout.
Was that Jack? Why was he in such a hurry?
Then she heard footsteps storm towards her and the bathroom door flew open. Otto's immediate reaction was to duck even deeper into the water then she already was.
Was it too late to grab a towel? She had praised herself lucky before, that there was no lock on the door, because one of the girls had tried to lock her out once, but now she was cursing that same fact.
"Otto! Otto?" Jack called her name as his gaze scanned the room hastily until his eyes met hers. "Oh! There you are! Come on, get dressed! We need to go! You're no longer safe here."
Otto quickly crossed her arms in front of her chest, hoping it was enough to cover her private areas from his view.
Jack looked quite the state, completely covered in dust, to the point were his hair and face looked gray. His clothes were torn here and there and... was that blood? What the hell was going on?!
But before Otto could even think of jumping out of the bath in a frenzy to get ready, something crashed through the bathroom window.
Otto had seen it happen from the corner of her eye; A human-sized projectile crashing through the relatively small window, shattering the glass and the wooden frame with an ear splitting "CRACK!"
The first thing Otto noticed when she turned her head towards the human-sized projectile, which had rolled on the floor to lessen the impact of its crashing, were the hundreds of little pure white feathers fluttering through the air.
Otto's eyes went wide when she finally recognised said human-sized projectile.
"Alex?" she asked and her heart fluttered when he looked up at her with a warm smile.
He seemed to be in a worse state than Jack; his hair and skin were also covered in dirt to the point you couldn't see the beautiful black of his hair anymore, his clothes were so badly ripped that they were hardly hanging on to his body anymore. And were she'd spotted a few specs of blood on Jack, Alex seemed to be soaked with it. Luckily she hadn't spotted any wounds on either of them.
Even though Alex was in such a state, he still made her heart beat faster effortlessly. She couldn't have forgotten how handsome he was in just four days, right?
And, ... were that wings attached to his back?
Otto blushed bright red when she found Alex's eyes and noticed his eyes had never left hers. He'd been watching as she took in his appearance.
Oh, how she wished she could reach her towel. Preferably, without exposing herself to two boys in the room.
Alex held her gaze for a moment longer, grinning at her reaction, but when his gaze met Jack's, all kindness was gone.
Jack, in turn, looked like he wanted to run away as far and as fast as was humanly possible, but for some reason he didn't.
He snuck a secret glance at Otto, as if he wanted to grab her by the wrist and drag her along to wherever it was he wanted to hide.
"Wait, Jack," Otto said. "Don't tell me... was Alex the danger you were trying to save me from?"
"Jack?" Alex asked even before Jack could answer. "Who's Jack?"
"Him of course," Otto said as she pointed towards him. "What did you think his name was?"
"His given name is Yahya," Alex said as he threw Jack (or was it Yahya) an angry glare.
"But you told me nobody uses your given name anymore?" Otto asked, feeling downhearted. "Why would you tell him and not me?"
"Like hell I told him! Nobody ever pronounces it right these days, so I chose a more modern name," Jack grumbled, glaring just as angrily at Alex as Alex was looking at him. He reminded her of a dog baring his fangs at the pack leader.
"Then how did you know it?" Otto asked as she looked back over to Alex.
"I might have known it from a past life?" he said, pitching the tone like a question near the end.
"Wait," Otto said as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together.
"Don't tell me... Is he your dad?!" Otto asked Jack incredulously. It certainly would explain why they looked so alike. They both nodded at the same time, making the resemblance all the more clear.
"Alex! How could you abandon your own son? You just left him here for four thousand years?!" she said in the most stern voice she could. Only now Alex understood that he was in trouble.
"N-no! It wasn't me! It was one of my past lives," Alex scrambled to defend himself.
"As if that makes it any better?!" she yelled. "You remember doing it, don't you?"
Alex ducked his head in shame.
"That's what I thought," Otto sighed as she pinched the spot between her eyebrows. "Ok, look. Here's the deal. I've been hauling buckets of water for hours this morning, just to be able to take this bath. So the both of you are gonna suck it up and get the hell out of the bathroom until I decide I want to come out of this tub. Then we'll talk."
"Ok. Sorry, Otto," Alex and Yahya said in perfect synchronisation like two scolded dogs and instantly glared at each other again once they'd noticed what they'd done.
"And Alex," Otto continued as she gestured for Yahya to go ahead already. "I'd appreciate it if you fixed the mess you've made. It's cold to be in the bath with the window open."
"I'm sorry," Alex cringed and with a swift motion of his hand, the window fixed itself. It was as if she was watching a movie in reverse. Except for the fact that Alex didn't fly back outside along the process.
He looked at her expectantly as if he was waiting for her to praise him, or something, but she wasn't in the mood for any of this bullshit.
"Out!" she commanded, and out he went.