Nessa tried her best to focus on the tangled mess that was Grisha's hair.
The little goblin that was her new companion sat on her lap basically purring, her eyes closed and tail lashing, delighted to get this sort of attention.
It had been a couple of days of trouble, and they had finally been able to wash in a local stream, but Grisha's thick hair was refusing to relent even to Nessa's strongest hairbrushes.
"By the devils in hell, Grisha, how is this so messy?" she said, undoing another tangle with her nails.
"Grisha has strong hair! Chief could lift me up by it!" she said, proudly.
Nessa sighed, as annoying as this was, she had really enjoyed her new friend's company for the last couple of days, she was like an odd ray of sunshine in this crazy world.
It helped how physical and touchy Grisha was, she seemed to love snuggling with Nessa, making her giggle and also making her moan.
Her tongue and fingers were very dexterous...
Nessa pouted like blushing, giving Grisha a little kiss on her head before returning to her work.
"Why doesn't Nessa just cut off tangles?" the goblin asked, throwing her a cutesy look.
"Because you'd end up with bits of your hair longer than others, it'd be a mess!" said Nessa, wanting to take a scythe to the messy mane.
"Just cut it all off! It will grow back, Grisha always has more hair!" the goblin poked her tongue out playfully.
"Don't tempt me!" said Nessa, finally defeating a tangle with a grunt of success.
Grisha giggled while dangling her feet, a huge grin painted on her cute face.
Suddenly, one of the goblin's big ears stood up to attention, slapping Nessa on the face.
"Ow!" complained Nessa.
Grisha shushed her, going very still.
"You hear?" the little green lady said, her head and ears following some sound.
Nessa tried to slow down her breathing and concentrate, aiming her own pointy ears in the same direction as Grisha's.
It sounded like a distant clang.
"Someone is fighting," said Grisha, in a more serious tone, "we should check it out!"
Nessa nodded, carefully putting her stuff back into her backpack and pulling out a dagger just in case.
Grisha did the same, skulking ahead of her along the grass and bushes, slowly moving towards the top of the hill.
"Better follow her, bubble brain," her Master said in the back of her head.
She nodded while blushing, hating how he being mean to her turned her on at the worst times.
Nessa tried to be as silent as possible while following her friend up the hill, though she was nowhere as dexterous.
Still, by imitating her steps she did a reasonable job, or at least, so she thought.
Both women sneaked via the overgrowth, until Grisha lifted a hand, indicating for her to stop.
"Big fight, walking corpses," the goblin said, probably meaning some kind of undead.
Nessa dropped to the ground and crawled next to the goblin, trying to look over the edge of the hill.
There was indeed a big fight going on, a group of grey warriors surrounded a smaller figure. Two of them had already been felled, grievous wounds almost splitting their bodies.
No blood had spilled with from them, so Grisha was probably correct and these were undead.
However, the eerily clumsy yet in-sync warriors did not look like some random zombies rising from dark energy coalescing around a grave.
These undead were equipped with mismatched weapons and old badly kept, bottom of the barrel when it comes to such things, but still, someone had outfitted them.
The orange and black figure fighting them off was... a woman?
Some kind of tiger stripped catfolk, Nessa thought.
She was small and wiry, though still probably taller than Nessa (not that such a thing was hard), with a body that seemed composed of steel wires covered by short soft fur.
In her hands she tightly held a long yet slightly curved sword, it was almost as big as her, but looked rather agile for its size.
As the undead moved to swarm her, the tigress moved with rough and brutal grace, slashing at her enemies with such force that whole segments of their rotting bodies flew away with every hit.
Her feline green eyes radiated a cold and barely contained fury.
Grisha prodded Nessa on the side, asking her with hand gestures if she wanted to get closer.
Despite the potential danger, Nessa felt she should help, so she slowly started to crawl closer to the fight.
Her goblin friend grinned and joined the skulking, her dagger tightly gripped in her small hand.
The battle progressed as they advanced, with the undead still trying to swarm the feline warrior.
Despite her ferocity and skill, it was still just her against an overwhelming number of opponents, so slowly they managed to push closer and closer to her, their weapons gracing her fur.
She wore no armour that Nessa could see, only wearing a pair of shorts and something akin to a leather bra that very tightly held her chest, though she didn't seem to have much of a bust.
One after another the undead fell, but it was obvious they were closing their grip on the warrior.
As she cleaved yet another enemy in twain, another one on her flank thrust with its spear, and with a sound of rending flesh punched it through her back, the tip sticking out of her belly.
The feline warrior roared in pain and quickly turned, brutally dislodging herself from the spear, beheading the one that wounded her in one fell cleave.
Yet, she looked dazed and in pain, and didn't notice the last two of her enemies closing in on her.
Throwing caution to the wind, Nessa stood up and held up a hand, concentrating to summon her Master's power through her.
A jolt of stardust looking energy shot from her palm with such force that it might have been launched from a catapult, and it went cleanly through one of the undead's head, leaving a smoking hole in it as the moving corpse crumpled to the ground.
Grisha, not wanting to be left behind, chucked her dagger at the remaining enemy, its blade stabbing the undead's forehead with a satisfying crack.
The feline warrior, looked at them, her gaze still consumed by fiery fury, yet she was spent, and slowly her eyes lost their brightness. She held herself up with her sword with a hand on her bleeding abdomen.
Nessa and Grisha dashed to her side just as she started to drop, carefully cradling her to the ground.
The little goblin placed the warrior's head on her lap and caressed her short blonde hair that she carried in a bob cut.
"Who are you?" the warrior asked, a tickle of blood running down the side of her mouth.
