“Might want to brush those off,” Aahz said, glancing at me and shaking his head.
Neither he or Tanda seemed to have any on them at all. I had no idea how they had managed that and still moved so fast.
“Why?” I asked, half-heartedly pushing the white and red scales off my sleeve.
“They’re acid,” Tanda said, reaching over and flicking a scale off my forehead with a polished nail.
I picked up the speed of my brushing, working at getting every one of the hundreds of scales stuck to me.
Tanda and Aahz just laughed.
“Little help with the back?” I asked, shaking my entire body as hard as I could.
Tanda laughed even harder as I turned around and her hands worked over my shoulders, down my back, and across my rear. Any other circumstances I would have enjoyed the feel, but standing in the middle of a crowd with acid scales all over me sort of deflated any thoughts of enjoyment.
Aahz just stood and shook his head, staring at the tent, until I was finished and Tanda had inspected my hair and neck and other areas for a stray scale. I didn’t know that we had both missed one in my left shoe until I looked down and saw that my shoe was smoking. It was one of my best pairs, too.
As I kicked off the shoe and emptied the acid scale onto the ground, Aahz looked at me and bared his teeth in a grin.
“Just count your blessings it didn’t go down your pants.”
I looked at the hole the scale had burnt into my shoe and shuddered.
“Want me to check you to make sure?” Tanda asked, smiling.
“Thanks,” I said, putting my shoe back on. “Maybe later.”