The Verdant Grove
Heartland City had many bathhouses, both public and private, far more than any city I'd visited. Here, they took it as a luxury, not simply a necessity. Tana's eyes shone as we skipped into the Verdant Grove, her favorite among the private bathhouses.
The bath was a small, tiled indent in the floor fed by twin streams of water flowing from a nearby statue. It was far from their most luxurious, but a small, single bath was all I could afford at this point. Even before I slipped into the water, billowing waves of steam enveloped my body, tickling my nose with the scent of flowers. My skin glistened with condensation, the smooth, hard texture of my horns growing slick and glossy.