Her arm ached like a bitch. A deep, bone ache that made her grit her teeth.

Blinking sleep away, Ai looked around her stiffly. She wasn’t far from the cave. The smell still lingered in the back of her nose, mixed with blood and death.

She wasn’t cold though, like she had expected to be. Instead she was wrapped in furs. Her arm was still there, bandaged with some ripped cloth she suspected came from Jacks top.

Blinking away the remaining fuzziness from sleep she inhaled sharply, drawing in the damp cold air. She wasn’t looking forward to getting out of the warmth of the rolls.

But she had to. She had to know what happened.

“Jack?” Ai called out. “Goblin?”

They really needed to give the goblin a name, even a temporary one. She couldn’t just keep calling him ‘the goblin’. It would get confusing, to say in the least, if they ever ran into another group of goblins.

Her arm throbbed, as if punishing her for getting carried away.

On second thought, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to be shouting out names in the middle of an empty forest. She didn’t know where they were or if something had happened to them. Though, if something had happened, she would’ve thought it would have happened to her first. She was the one sleeping through all the important stuff.

She got up.

At least, she tried. Her legs turned to jelly and she twisted as she fell to avoid re-injuring her already very hurt arm, landing in an ungraceful heap on the floor.

Hissing in pain, she tried again. Slower this time. Her arm hadn’t bent in half or anything, so maybe she had just imagined it snapping. Just the thought of hearing her own bones crunch in that monsters mouth – it turned her stomach.

Taking a deep breath she swayed precariously for a few moments before finding her feet. The rolls were here, and their bag of supplies, meagre though it was. Had they put the healing gel on her arm? They must’ve, she was pretty sure she would either be dead or an amputee otherwise. Propping herself up against the closest tree trunk she tugged on the knot holding her makeshift bandage shut.

Twisted, scarred flesh. It was knotted and ugly.

Her fingers feathered over it, quickly pulling back when it aggravated the constant ache. Silently, she was thankful they had the gel. She wasn’t sure how well she would have dealt with the pain she remembered before. Even the memory of it seemed to make her wound more painful.

Irrational as it was, she actually felt ashamed she had passed out. She felt like it made her weak.

If there was one thing she didn’t want to be known as, it was weak.

It was a shame that the gel didn't reproduce lost blood though. Ai was guessing that was the reason for her lightheadedness. Or erase scars that offended her useless, and currently weeping vanity. She shook away the unnecessary emotions. It was a battle scar. It happened. She should just be thankful she was alive. She hadn't expected to be.

Taking a deep breath to calm her rolling stomach Ai headed, slowly, in the direction of the cave. There would be some answers there.

The goblin was the first to react to her approach, big ears twitching as she made her way through the undergrowth. When it grinned with all of its small, sharp teeth Ai wasn’t even disturbed like she usually was. Instead, she was relieved.

Her rolling stomach settled down and it occurred to her that she didn’t feel sick at the pain, but at the prospect of being alone in this forest again.

“What happened?” Ais voice was hoarse.

“Ai?” Jack moved into her line of sight. “You’re ok!”

“That’s me. Ever hard to kill.” Ai tried to smile, but thought it came out as more of a grimace.

“What happened?” Her gaze flicked between the two of them, taking into account their blood stained apparel.

“Queen makes good meat and clothes. Her skin is tough and useful, if you find bits without holes in.” The goblin replied.

“I can’t say I’m a particularly skilled butcher.” Jack looked sheepish.

“You should rest. Heal. The red gel only partially heals, it can’t make you better instantly.” The goblin said sagely, as if it were wise on the subject.

Ai wondered how it knew all it did. She knew it had a somewhat unhealthy habit of eavesdropping, but was that all it ever did?

“I’m fine. I’ll sit down here. Can’t either you or Jack offer it to the spirits? It’s not like we’ll be able to carry even half its stuff, losing some might actually be in our favour.”

“Goblins don’t make offerings to spirits.” Ai fought the urge to face palm, instead moving forward so the clearing was entirely visible before sitting on the ground. The least blood covered ground she could find anyway. The corpse of the Queen was bloody and one wing was indeed torn to shreds. There were blue lines imbedded in the flesh, stopping the wing from being able to fully extend. Ai would think about the meaning of that when she was less cold, achy and miserable.

“Then get Jack to do it.” Ai blinked once, twice. The dizziness receded.

The goblin grunted in agreement, and Ai watched as the huge mound of a monster they’d killed was reduced to a neatly folded pile of skin, fang and claw.

“Sorry.” Ai muttered, cleared her throat, then spoke again. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Jack looked confused.

“I thought- I didn’t think everything through. I should’ve known that the poison would affect it differently to humans. It was already wearing off by the time we got in the cave. If I had thought about it-”

“People make mistakes, and learn from them. We’re all alive and relatively uninjured. That’s all that really matters.” Jack was only half looking at her through his otherwise touching speech. He seemed very distracted by the fact the heap of monster had turned into a floating pile of materials. Ai didn’t blame him; she was amazed the first time too.

“As long as it doesn’t happen again.” The goblin piped up, blinking innocently at her.

The expression was so bizarre on him, Ai couldn’t help but laugh.

“It won’t. How did you guys end up killing it anyhow?” A smile lingered on her lips.

“It has a weak spot on the back of its skull. When it turned on you, it wasn’t that hard to dispatch.” Jack said, still not looking at her, instead swiping his hand under the pile of materials, checking for some kind of trick.

The goblin hobbled over to Jack on his wooden leg, snatching the skin impatiently out of mid-air. It then shook the skin out, inspecting the black scaled hide.

Jack plucked a talon out of the air, turning it in his hands as if he wasn’t quite sure whether to believe it was real.

Ai cleared her throat, feeling like she was interrupting two boys with their newest toy.

“We haven’t got any food. I don’t know how useful I am right now, but I think we should go out scavenging.”

“We have meat here.” Jack pulled out some steak-sized portions of meat from the mass of floating claws.

“Tainted meat.” The goblin snorted.

Jack dropped it, and actually looked surprised when it hit the muddy floor.

Stretching, Ai was surprised to feel several items hit her outstretched hands.

Like a gift from the spirits, another hide – and some stringy blue material landed in her hands. The same blue material that had been wrapped around the Queens wing, she realised. But why had it just dropped into her hands?