Lysandra pushed the door open with the back of her hand, wrinkling her nose at the lingering stench. The goblin was there, wrapped in a tense stillness, his pale eyes tracking her every move with quiet urgency. There was something in his posture — a subtle strain, a flicker of intent — that hinted at a desire to act, though what he wished to do remained unclear. Bound by the remnants of the summoning, he seemed held in place by forces that stifled more than just movement.
She stood still, hesitating, the tips of her fingers itching with the urge to retreat. With a sharp sigh, she muttered:
"Ick... But I'm not going to live soaked in this stink."
Lysandra shoved the guardian with a dry punch to the shoulder, guiding him toward the bathroom.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed against the cold tiles, each movement laden with reluctance. Without saying a word, she made him step into the bathtub — the warm water was already waiting, murky and silent like a poisoned invitation.
With a brusque gesture, she tore off her gloves, the damp leather snapping against her skin.
She stood there, bare hands at the edge of the tub, fingers trembling and slick with sweat, staring at the monster as if he were made of rotten flesh and bad memories.
Steam rose slowly, wrapping them both in a muffled haze.
The guardian's smell — old sweat, oxidized metal, and something indefinable, like fungus — mingled with the soft scent of soap, creating a suffocating atmosphere.
She hesitated.
The exposed skin seemed to scream.
Touching that body without any barrier was like plunging her fingers into a nightmare.
But there was no choice.
The fear of hurting him was greater than the disgust consuming her.
His skin — thin as wet paper, marked by bluish veins and poorly healed wounds — looked ready to fall apart with a firmer touch.
Lysandra felt as if she were facing something too broken to exist, and yet, there he was, breathing, waiting.
"If I use the gloves, I might tear him apart," she thought, swallowing hard.
The idea revolted her.
Not just because of the direct contact, but because of the forced intimacy, the closeness to something that shouldn't be touched — a body that wasn't human.
She could smell the fragile flesh, mingling with the warm steam.
It was as if the air itself was soaked in pain.
Duty kept her there.
Not out of compassion, but out of responsibility.
He was a burden she couldn't drop, a promise made in silence, perhaps to someone who no longer existed.
With trembling fingers, she leaned in.
With a racing heart, she plunged her fingers into the scented foam and pressed her palm against the creature's wrinkled skin. A shiver ran up her arm: it was damp and cold, as wrinkled as a frog's belly. The same frogs she had loathed during dissection class.
She kept her palm pressed against the guardian's arm a second longer than she wanted.
Her heart beat like a broken drum, and the sweet smell of the foam seemed to mock her — as if trying to mask what could never be hidden.
With slow movements, she began to scrub.
The skin gave way beneath her fingers, soft and slippery, as if it were about to dissolve.
The foam turned a grayish hue, revealing crusts of grime embedded in deep grooves.
Each line seemed to tell a story she didn't want to hear.
The smell hit first: acidic, rancid, with notes of mold and meat left out in the sun.
She gagged, stepping back half a pace, her eyes watering.
'This isn't a smell. This is an assault.'
The sound of thick water shifting — a glub-glub viscosity, as if the liquid had texture — made her stomach churn.
She pinched her nose tightly, but the stench seemed to seep in through her eyes, her skin, her soul.
With the tip of her pinky finger, she touched a dark crust stuck to the guardian's skin.
She let out a muffled scream, as if she'd touched a dead insect.
'This is... this is... unacceptable!'
Her voice came out shaky, almost childlike, as if she expected someone to come and take her away.
The sound of grime peeling off — a wet crackle, like mud being stepped on — made her whole body shiver.
She trembled, not from cold, but from pure horror.
'I was raised to wear silk gloves, not to scrub... this.'
But no one answered.
Only silence and the smell, which now seemed to laugh at her. She chose this. She was the one who wanted a companion.
The foam dissolved into strands of dry mucus, slipping between her fingers with a wet sound that made her stomach twist. His filth was so overwhelming she couldn't help but be surprised.
"Ugh... you walking stench," she muttered, her voice choked, as if the very air burned her throat.
"This is worse than..." she tried to finish, but the sentence died in the air.
There was no comparison.
Nothing in her life of perfumed sheets, baths with imported oils, and climate-controlled rooms came close to this.
She swallowed hard, her eyes squeezed shut as if trying to shield herself from her own olfactory memory.
"This is worse than anything I ever imagined could exist," she spat, nearly in despair.
The guardian remained silent, as if the insult were just another layer of filth stuck to his skin.
Gobu-gobu?
She brought a delicate hand to her chest, fingers resting over the generous curve as if seeking comfort.
The touch was instinctive — a gesture of self-protection, almost childlike, in the face of the revulsion that consumed her.
She felt her heart pounding beneath soft skin, as if it wanted to flee along with her.
'Did I make the right choice?'
The doubt echoed in her mind like an uncomfortable, almost painful whisper.
'Daddy warned me...'
She could hear his voice, firm and distant, like a memory that never lost its tone of reproach.
But she didn't listen.
Or she did, and chose to ignore it.
Now, there, with the stench clinging to her skin and the monster before her, the question returned with force.
In the middle of her daze, she felt the slippery texture between her fingers.
Her gaze dropped to the hand resting on her own chest — the same one that had scrubbed the guardian's skin.
A second of silence.
Then, horror.
"YUCK!" she screamed, recoiling as if shocked.
She jumped back, shaking her hand in the air, her face twisted in pure panic.
'I touched myself! With the dirty hand! With that disgusting thing!'
She ran to the sink, turning the faucet violently.
Water gushed out, but it felt insufficient.
She scrubbed her fingers with soap, then her arms, then her chest — as if she could erase the touch, the memory, the mistake.
The goblin watched her in silence, his eyes dull, as if he were already used to being treated like poison.
She, on the other hand, felt as if she had been contaminated.
After scrubbing her own skin nearly raw, Lysandra stood before the sink, shoulders slumped, her gaze lost in the distorted reflection of the faucet.
Foam dripped from her fingers, but it didn't wash away what she felt.
'It's no use. It's already in me.'
She sighed deeply, the sound escaping like a muffled lament.
She dried her hands with whatever cloth was nearby, no longer with the same care as before, and returned to the bathroom with slow, almost dragging steps.
The guardian remained motionless in the bathtub, wrapped in warm, murky water.
His eyes followed her, but without judgment — only a strange patience, as if he knew she would come back.
Lysandra knelt beside the tub, head bowed, her hair falling over her face like a curtain of shame.
She plunged her hands back into the water, feeling the familiar shiver crawl up her spine.
She began scrubbing the other arm, this time without words, without protest.
Only the sound of water, the friction of skin, and the weight of duty she couldn't abandon.
'I chose this. Now I finish it.'
Each stroke of her hand peeled away a sordid layer from the guardian's body, clouds of steam lifting the acrid stench of old and fresh sweat. The smell clung to her nose: a mix of mildewed leather, sour metal, and something indefinable — as if the creature's insides had fermented for decades. Lysandra furrowed her brow and pinched her nostrils, but kept scrubbing foam over every fold of translucent flesh.
She stepped back, raising her hand to shake off the excess water. The monster, now less filthy, let out a hesitant "gobu… guuuu…"
Lysandra rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and huffed.
"Well, feel honored, you stinking thing..."
She frowned, biting her lower lip lightly, let out an impatient sigh, and plunged her hands into the foam. Again.
The wrinkled skin gave way beneath her fingers, the grooves releasing strands of dry mucus that peeled off with a wet sound. She pressed the foam against his wrist, adjusting the cloth to clean every fold. At the nape of his neck, she shuddered as the fabric slid over the smooth, cold flesh — like the slippery belly of a frog.
She turned him sideways and ran her left hand down his back, smoothing the foam from top to bottom. The acrid stench burst into her nostrils again — old and new sweat mixed with a metallic tang — but she clenched her teeth and scrubbed with vigor, feeling the bony ridges beneath her fingers.
Lysandra scrubbed with determination, her knuckles already sore from repeating the motion so many times.
But that specific spot — just below the collarbone — wouldn't come clean.
The foam formed, trickled down, but the smell... the smell persisted.
"This isn't normal," she murmured, wrinkling her nose.
The odor was acidic, penetrating, like old sweat fermented in the sun.
It wasn't just strong — it was aggressive, as if trying to invade her nostrils and settle there.
She ran the cloth over it again, harder this time, almost angrily.
But the result was the same: the smell returned, as if embedded in the flesh.
"It's like he's covered in sour sweat... like he's been sweating inside and out for years, without ever drying."
"It's as if his body exudes this naturally. As if it's... part of him."
She pulled back, panting, her stomach twisting.
But Lysandra felt the stench cling to her, as if she'd tried to cleanse a spirit and came out stained in the soul.
Lysandra finished rinsing his left leg and swept the foam away with a tug of the towel. The relief lasted a second: when she looked again, she spotted an extra limb, twisted and dangling to the side.