Page 17 of Raw

“Let’s go brush our teeth,” he told me, and I quickly got up to follow him to our bathroom, which was just a bin filled with clean water that we filled up daily so we’d have water to clean our hands, brush our teeth, and wash our faces.

We didn’t have a toilet. Because, well…we had enough space to go do our business wherever we wanted out in the forest.

I took the cup I brought from home to fill it up with the water from the bin, then I grabbed my toothbrush and wet it before dipping it into the jar filled with charcoal powder.

That was our way of cleaning our teeth, and once we were done, we would use peppermint leaves and their juices to get rid of the black stains on our teeth.

It was a simple method.

“Are you okay?” I asked Fen.

“Yeah, I should’ve warned you about this. He’s been like this for weeks now,” he muttered.

I looked back at Papa who was staring at the fire in front of him.

Neither of them looked happy, but I had no clue how to fix their moods.

I’ve never seen them like this.

“What happened?”

He was brushing his teeth already, so talking wasn’t an option.

I started brushing my own, trying to understand why they would ever get on each other’s nerves.

They were close.

Maybe not as close as Fen and I, but still…they never had a fight.

At least none that I knew of.

Once we were done, I took a sip of the water and spat out the charcoal, then reached for the other jar filled with peppermint leaves in their own juices to wash out my mouth.

“Nothing you need to know about. It was just a stupid fallout and he’s still not over it.”

Although Fennec was talking silently, Papa heard every word he was saying.

With an obvious upset frown on his face, he did the same with his plate and bones as we did before he headed straight to his tent without saying a word.

I hated this, and I wasn’t going to take sides, so I placed my toothbrush back into the silver box I brought from home before walking over to Papa’s tent and crawling inside right behind him.

“Talk to me, Papa,” I said as he turned around on his knees.

“I’m sorry you have to see us this way, but it’s nothing you need to be worried about, okay? Fennec and I don’t agree on certain things but that’s not a reason for you to get upset.”

I knew not everyone could have the same opinion on things, but it seemed strange that two men who were so similar disagreed so much that they had to be mad at each other for weeks.

“I don’t like you like this. You’re the adult here, Papa. You should go talk to him.”

He looked at me with his frown getting deeper, but it eased after only a few seconds.

“You’re right. I will talk to him in the morning,” he said with a smile.

“Promise?” I asked, holding out my pinky toward him.

He hooked his own around mine. “Promise, Vespyr. I’m sorry we made you feel uncomfortable this evening.”

I smiled at him and shrugged. “I know you two very well, Papa. And neither of you ever acted this way.”

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