Belle snickered and dragged Thomas in too, literally shoving him on top of Teaser. They both yelped and flailed as they went under, little bubbles surfacing where they had been, and Belle snickered rather evilly. Sebastian backed away from her, knowing well her evil tendancies.

Instead, Belle went back over to check on her fire lizards and Xiang, deciding to introduce him to how nice water could be. She was going to give him, and the lizards, a bath.

Andy joined Belle a few minutes later. Xiang looked like he was enjoying the bath that he was being given, so Andy decided to help out a bit.

Belle had taken to dumping buckets full of water over the dragonet, gently scrubbing him clean before dumping more water on him. She did the same to her fire lizards too, while she was at it.

Once Andy was sure that Xiang was well taken-care-of, she went out further to the other dragons. She knew they always liked a good scrubbing whenever they got to a beach, so she started on Lien first and started scrubbing the white dragon's scales with sand.

Belle went over and helped her, figuring it would go faster with two people. The two fire lizards followed her, with Precious staying on her shoulders or head, and Brownie going off to investigate Temeraire, hovering in front of his face and cheeping curiously.

Temeraire almost had to cross his eyes to see the little bitty fire lizard. After a moment, he gave the equivalent of a shrug and ignored it again.

Xiang was slowly getting a bit braver, and cautiously paddled out to where his parents were. He was a bit surprised that he was able to float, but he wasn't going to question it.

Brownie went over to investigate Lien as well, before he blinked out and reappeared on top of Xiang's head again, cheeping and finding a comfy place to sit while he got a free boat ride.

Belle snickered as she watched, shaking her head.

Xiang didn't mind Brownie on his head. He was used to it by now. Instead, he paddled around a bit, though he didn't go far from either of his parents.

Andy was busy climbing all over the dragons, scrubbing their scales and picking out things that had gotten lodged underneath the scales. She knew how to take care of her dragons, and she knew what they liked.

Brownie just stayed there, watching the two trainers scrub the dragons with interest. He found it kind of amusing.

Belle helped out, taking Andy's example and checking under their scales and scrubbing them down. She was half-tempted to go drag Lawrence in too.

Andy was more than half-tempted.

"Come on, Lawrence," she called. "Come help. You know best where Temmy's problem spots are." Lawrence nodded and went out to help them.

Belle grinned and helped Andy finish up with Lien, which took a bit of time. They were rather large dragons, after all. But then she swam over to Temmy to help out Lawrence.

She was actually having a lot of fun with it. And the fire lizards were curious too. Brownie had started grooming Xiang.

Andy happened to glance over at Xiang and grinned.

"Aww, look," she said to Belle. "Look how cute."

Belle snickered and shook her head, amused and hiding the initial 'aawwwww' reaction.

"You know, pretty soon it's gonna be hard to separate those two," she said mildly. They were getting along even better than she'd thought they would.

"That's alright," Andy said. She didn't mind as long as Belle didn't. Besides, the two were adorable.

Belle just chuckled and went back to helping clean Temeraire. Even Precious helped, a little. Mostly by pointing out spots where there were things stuck under his scales, or where he needed a good scrub.

Whoever said fire lizards weren't helpful and weren't intelligent were so wrong.

Andy had climbed up Lien's neck and was carefully working on the delicate areas around the dragon's webbed spines, on her head. Lien was clearly enjoying the attention, and her hide was back to being pure white again, rather than the dingy ivory that it had gotten from the road.

Belle had a great time cleaning off Temeraire, scrubbing him down quickly and efficiently and chatting with Lawrence while she did.

"How far out at sea have you two gotten with just the two of you?" she asked, looking between the rider and the dragon.

"Not too far," Lawrence replied as he helped Belle scrub down Temeraire. "Ten, perhaps fifteen miles out. Far enough for a comfortable flight, but not so far that Temeraire had to take a break."

"But far enough out that there were large fish to catch," Temmy added.

Belle nodded. "Yeah, I imagine that far out there would be decent-sized fish. You ever thought about trying to go across the sea? All the way across?" She raised an eyebrow at Lawrence.

"That would require either a dragon transport vessel, or specific rest points along the way," Lawrence replied. "There have been those who have tried, and those two methods seem to be the best ones. Not even heavyweight dragons can cross the ocean on their own without some assistance."

"Oh, okay." Belle hadn't thought about that. Although it did make sense, now that it had been pointed out to her.

"You know, there are islands along the way," she said slowly. "I know they're there, I've seen them on the map. There's a whole chain of them going straight across."

"There is still a fair distance between them," Lawrence pointed out. He knew the islands she was talking about. "It would be tricky."

Belle nodded. "Okay, I was just wondering. Can't help being curious." She scrubbed at some scales near the base of Temmy's wings, making sure they were spotless and there was nothing under them.

Andy finished up scrubbing Lien and slid down the dragon's hide into the water again. Lien shook out her wings a bit, sending water everywhere.

Belle laughed and finished up making sure Temmy was clean before she jumped back into the water too.

"Feel better now?" she asked the two dragons, wading far enough back in the water that she could look up at them comfortably.