Trafalgor was still concerned that she may have bruised herself during her efforts to silence him, but he couldn't help but chuckle at her reasoning. "I see that Father Sidney's notes about her weren't joking in the least if even her daughter would potentially injure herself in an effort to prevent drawing her attention."

In the bathing room, before Daphne left him in privacy, Trafalgor gave a nod. "Very well, but please excuse the… ripeness when you open my bag. If you want, I can gather those so that you don't have to deal with the smell."

After waking up from the woman shaking him and giving his apology, he could almost have smacked himself in the head for missing the rune. "Ah, I see it now. Thank you." He quickly tapped it as Daphne told him about the borrowed clothing and placed the towel next to him. He gave her a smile and nod in return. "Thanks for that, as well, Daphne. Give me a few minutes and I will meet you downstairs." Once she disappeared back through the doorway, he stood up, allowing the water a few seconds to cascade down his body as the water drained quickly from the tub. Trafalgor watched it carefully and carefully knelt down to get a closer look at it.

"Is… it is! It's actually a gate!" He knew that's what Daphne had said, but he wasn't sure how such a thing was possible. He quickly jabbed a finger to the rune again, causing the gate to close and the water to stop draining. Another tap reopened the gate once more. "A gate activated and deactivated from a permanent runic array integrated into the tub itself… ingenious!"

Was the rune etched there by hand or with some spell? What language was the rune written in to achieve such an effect? Wait! 

His attention shot to where the hot water flow was still gushing and narrowed his eyes in thought. "Is that the same sort of thing?" Maybe…

With a jolt, he remembered that he still needed to dry and dress himself. The water in the tub had finished draining while his thoughts had wandered, so Trafalgor carefully stepped out of the tub and used the towel to quickly dry himself off. Throwing the towel over his shoulder to use on his beard in a few moments, he held up the borrowed pants Daphne had left there in front of him to check the size. They seemed long enough, but Trafalgor made sure to wear loose-fitting clothing when not wearing his robes for a reason. His legs muscles tended to take up space in normally tailored pants. These ones seemed to be appropriately sized, but he would only be able to tell for sure once he put them on. With a shrug, he did so and looked down at himself.

They weren't… bad. Just a bit snug and a couple inches too short. In other words, acceptable until his own clothing had been laundered. He gave the room one last look to make sure he hadn't left anything out of place, noting that Daphne had taken his dirty robes from the floor on her way out, before making his way out the door and downstairs.

As he entered the main room of the living area, he was in the process of using the towel to dry the excess water from his beard. Satisfied for the moment, he wrapped it around his neck and gave a nod to Daphne. "Thanks again. That was very relaxing… if my falling asleep didn't make that obvious enough," he said with a grin as he made his way to where his bag lay. He reached in and pulled out a small boar-bristle brush and began to run it through his beard, untangling it from several days worth of hard travel. He turned back to his host and paused in his grooming momentarily to cover his mouth as he yawned. "Give me a minute to finish this up and we can go."

He continued brushing as he shrugged the shoulder of the arm not currently in use, making the towel around his neck flap a bit. "Where would you like me to put this now that I'm done with it?"

Daphne just gave a chuckle as she shook her head. “Please, I live out in the wilderness… I’ve smelled worse from the bogs.”

Unfortunately, she had missed giving him direction for the runes on the tub. It was one of the many conveniences her mother had gifted her. “Alright, but don’t fall back asleep,” the nymph gave a light smirk before she left him alone.

Everything would be cleaned until it was relatively spotless. Daphne was a stickler when it came to making sure things were done right, after all, half-assed jobs got people in more trouble than she cared for. The woman looked up from what she was doing and gave a simple smile. “It’s alright, I tend to fall asleep myself sometimes.” She left him to finish what he had to and once he was back she pointed towards her basket of clothes. “You can just toss it there. We’ll get everything washed up.”

Taking the basket on her hip she showed him to the backside of the tree house. There was another set of pulleys. She hooked the basket up and started the climb down. Pulling on a rope the basket came to her. “There’s a good river that’s crisp and clear not far from here… However, we often have some… Well, you’ll see when we get there.”

Maybe she would be wrong this time but her heart was telling her there would be a few problems along the way. The walk was peaceful and she looked up every once in a while to point out something to Trafalgor. It would be a plant or creature of the woods. Or perhaps it was a creature that looked like a plant. “The Iron Woods are actually pretty peaceful once you get it’s protection, however, because of the settlements on the outside they attack every once in a while making it hard for me to relax completely.” Daphne was a bit sad to admit it but she rubbed her neck, “I am not very strong so it can take a lot to get the groups to turn around and leave sometimes.”

She heard the groaning before she saw where they came from. “AGAIN?!” She yelled as she started to run towards the river’s edge. She threw the basket up on a hook near where she would wash clothes. She took her skirts and pulled them up tying them. “YOU ALL KNOW BETTER THAN TO BE IN THIS RIVER,” she yelled it at a few tall but thin rattan palms. They suddenly began to move and the groans started.

“DON’T GIVE ME EXCUSES OR EVEN START,” she threw her hands up as she stomped into the water. It was up to her knees as she got close to them. “You know that this river is one that I told you not to be in!” Hands went on her hips as she began to delegate. “No, this is absolutely not Hassan River. You know better!” She waved her finger at them. “This is Krimi River. The one at my house!” They were moving their branches at her now as she puffed her face out at them. “You group of Ents are always giving me trouble since I took over! Just because I am not my cousins does not mean that you can decide not to listen to me! Now you will remove yourselves at once!”

She began to make a shooing motion with her hands. Looking back apologetically at Trafalgor she blushed brightly as the ents spoke something else. “HE IS NOT. STOP THAT,” She kicked water at the ents now. “It’s also none of your business what his business with me is. Now move!” She began to try and push some of the smaller ents out of the way.

Trafalgor merely nodded his head and tossed the towel into the indicated basket with the rest of the things needing to be washed. He then followed Daphne to the back entrance of the house and down the ladder. At her explanation of where they were headed, he quirked an eyebrow at his companion when she trailed off, but said nothing in response. He felt it would probably make sense when they arrived, but assumed she was referring to the aforementioned ents.

Nevertheless, he easily fell into conversation with her as she pointed out various landmarks, fauna, and flora that were unique to the area as they made their way along the forest floor. After the bath, it was nice to take an equally relaxing walk… especially with such good company. However, as she mentioned the other local settlements outside of the Iron Woods, Trafalgor couldn't help but frown at the thought. "Then it is just as well that I can help relieve that particular burden for you. If you handle attacks in a similar manner to how you handle wayward travelers, I fear that those attacks will never cease. As much as I dislike conflict, there is a reason that Gulu has not been attacked by our neighbors in nearly a decade," he said, eyes narrowing slightly as he kept them focused on the path ahead of them. "Bullies tend to only respect and fear one thing: a show of force." He then glanced over and smiled at Daphne. "And with you, by your own admission, not having many means to defend yourself, it seems that I will have to take matters into my own hands sooner rather than later in order to head off further aggression on their parts."

As Daphne yelled out and ran ahead, Trafalgor quirked an eyebrow and increased his speed slightly to catch up to her. As the river came into view for him, he noticed that Daphne was already knee-deep into the water and had tossed her basket up onto a hook that seemed to be expressly for that purpose, then turned his attention back towards the scene before him as he came to a halt on the bank of the river.

He could easily hear both sides of the conversation with his ability to commune with nature, but held back from commenting for the time being to see how things played out. Honestly, in his opinion, Daphne was being too light-handed with them… especially if this had become a regular enough occurrence that she could almost predict their presence at the river before they'd even departed her home. It meant that the ents didn't respect her, even knowing that she was the protector of this portion of the forest. Well, Trafalgor had an easy solution to that.

As Daphne finally lost her temper and started to try and physically remove them from the river, he decided that it was time for him to step in and, hopefully, end this foolery once and for all. "While it may not be their business, it might behoove them to know it anyway," he called out firmly from the water's edge. He then turned his attention towards the ents and made sure he was fully channeling his communing ability. "No, I am not Daphne's mate. What I am, however, is her assistant Protector. And unlike her," he began as he started walking slowly into the water and raised his hands in front of his chest, his magick speeding up the air between them until it ignited into a ball of flame, "I am both capable and more than willing to take you all to task for your behavior."

Having said so, he clapped his hands into the fire and melded his arms and entire upper torso with it, making him a walking inferno wading his way across the river. "You all know very well where your river is. I recommend that you go root yourselves there post haste before I take real offense at your blatant disrespect," he said as he came alongside Daphne, far enough away that the heat shouldn't cause her harm, and folded his arms across his chest.

"Now go."

The ents took the hint quickly… for ents, anyway. Only after the entire lot of them had removed themselves from the water and made it to the edge of the trees did Trafalgor let his fire melding drop. He then glanced to Daphne and smiled. "Well, now that that's taken care of, shall we take care of the clothes?"