Orn did not remember falling asleep, but he vaguely recalled drifting in and out of it for some time. In the half lucid moments he heard Kao say it was safe for him to rest before he would fall back asleep. Either his injuries were not as sever as he feared, or he had used whatever healing mana he gathered in those moments. Orn could not think of any other reason he was not greeted by a wave of pain when he awoke.

Instead, he woke to things crawling on him, and the buzzing of flies. They exploded into the air as he shifted his sore muscles. Orn turned his head and pulled it toward his left to stretch out the kink in his neck. The damage to the woods was clear in the early morning light. Broken branches and long gouges torn into the sides of larger trees were a silent reminder of the extent of the fight that had occurred the night before. He released his head and slowly scanned the disturbed woods.

His breath caught in his chest as his eyes met the yellow orbs of the goblin mother to his left. Without thinking he fell to his right and scrambled away, his aching muscles screaming at him to stop.

“Orn, it is ok,” Kao said standing a few steps in front of him. “It is dead. You will be ok.”

Orn’s leaden legs stopped moving and he slowly turned to look at the monster. The creature was laying on the ground its face turned toward him. The creature’s face was frozen in a permanent roar, its yellow eyes staring lifeless.

Orn breathed deeply and pulled his attention away from the eyes to where the monster’s head reached its back. His sword was stuck in the shredded remains of the goblin mother's neck.

“Did I?” Orn swallowed dryly.

“Nearly die?” Kao finished for him. “Yes. But you won from the moment you stabbed it with your knife. The greatest danger after that was it falling on you. The monster could barely move when it fell after that last charge. It was not even able to get its arm out from under it after it fell.” Kao paused cringing as she remembered something unpleasant. “It screamed for a long time while you hacked at it.”

Orn slowly turned from her to the monster’s corpse, unsure what to say. The fear from a moment before was replaced with a hollow feeling, and Orn stood staring blankly at the body. From where he stood, he could see the blade was buried deeply in the creature. How long did I hack at it?

Seeing him slipping into a catatonic state Kao interposed herself between him and the body, and started giving him instructions. He followed the instructions mechanically, searching for his things in the trees.

Kao had Orn collect his things which were scattered around the trees. As he moved through the tasks, he began to feel the distance separating him from the world around him begin to fade. He never realized Kao had started him on the tasks furthest from the monster, or how she sometimes asked him to repeat tasks he could perform from muscle memory alone.

...

Hours later Orn was trudging away from the trees toward a creek Kao promised him was “not much further.” He felt she had said that earlier, but was not sure. He was desperately hoped it was close though, the flies were becoming unbearable.

He waved a few out of his face, and spotted the glint of light reflecting off water. A few quick steps later and he could hear the flowing water. Orn dropped the bag and rushed for the creek. He threw himself into the water and felt the cold water rush over him.

Orn stood with a yelp, but grit his teeth. He refused to leave the water until he was clean. His ruined clothes fell in the water and started floating away in the knee deep water. Kneeling he scooped up a handful of sand from the bed of the creek and started scrubbing. He moved quickly as he could already feel the chill from the water warring with his need to be clean.

“No decency in front of a lady,” Kao’s voice came from behind him and Orn suddenly felt heat rise up his neck. He had not even considered that she was walking with him.

He hunched and turned his head to see a tree several paces away. Kao’s back was too him, as sht sat at its base, leaning against it. Orn breathed a sigh of relief that turned into a shiver as the chill from the creek sank into him. Shaking his head he returned to trying to scrape the filth off.

“I cannot say I blame you though,” Kao continued a few minutes later as he sat up pulling his top half back out of the water. “If I smelled like a sheep, I would race to get clean as well. I do not know if I would ever feel clean again.”

Unable to take the chill anymore Orn jumped out of the water, and knocked out his cloak before using it as a towel. The noon sun felt good on his skin, but with Kao sitting just behind the tree he felt exposed and raced to get dressed.

Once he was dressed he grabbed his pack and headed toward Kao. “I am dressed again,” he said rubbing at his wet hair with the cloak.

She stood and wiped off her dress as he approached. She turned to look at him when he was a few paces away and her face scrunched up into one of disgust. “You smell terrible.”

“What?” Orn managed staring at her dumbfounded.

“You smell more like sheep now than you did earlier,” Kao’s eyes focused on the cloak in his hand. “Why would you dry off with that?! It reeks of sheep.”

Orn pulled the cloak away from his head and stared at it. “It is a wool cloak,” he said completely confused. “It has always smelled like sheep.”

“No,” Kao said staring at the cloak as if it was covered in filth. “It used to smell like wool. But then those, things rubbed all over it. You should burn it.” She nodded at the last as if it was decided that was the best thing to do with the cloak.

He started at her blankly, completely at a loss for what to say. The sheep had actually reminded him of the smell of wool clothes when he entered their pen. Kao seemed truly horrified by the cloak now, and he realized she had not been joking when she mentioned how much she hated the smell.

Suddenly an evil thought occurred to him. Without thinking he stepped forward. “There, there,” he said and stretched out his arms, one still holding the cloak, as if to hug her.

Kao blinked out of existence, only to reappear a handful of steps away, glaring at him. “Touch me with that and I will smite you.”

Orn laughed, at her response, and kept laughing as she ordered him to clean the smell off. He finally complied when she threatened to not show him the shortcut back to Mutton if he did not.

The water felt somehow colder, but the horrified look on Kao’s face, in the instant before she vanished, kept playing in his mind. Somehow the strange expression was enough to keep him laughing as he got clean again.