She beams at him, then finishes the last of her meal and sets her now empty bowl aside. Then she folds her hands in her lap and looks expectantly at Taharqi.

"Right, then. We should put everything away and—" He looks outside through a window. Night has thoroughly fallen by now, and the torches and braziers inside the house of insulated wood are the only thing keeping the desert's night chill at bay. He turns around once more to look at Saevetei. "I believe I shall wash myself in the river and we should figure out where you want to sleep and whether you want to have sex with either of us before that. Your options for sleep are 'here', 'outside', 'upstairs in my room ', and 'upstairs in the workshop', although the only beds are Sendhei's over there and mine so outside and the workshop will need bedroll arrangements "

    "Your options for sex are 'no one', 'me', 'him', and 'both of us'," Sendhei says as he gets up and starts picking up the dishes they used.

Taharqi rolls his eyes.

"I think I'd like to stick with one sexual partner for now, but I expect to be perfectly happy with two once I'm more acclimated to the waking world. But I'm not picky for which, you're both very pretty, so you two may fight over it if you'd like," she teases. "Sleeping arrangements are more up in the air, I don't think I have much of an opinion. I'll even tolerate sleeping on animal pelts, it's not zero creepy, but it's less creepy than the heads. And I'd rather be warm."

    "He can keep you, I prefer men anyway," shrugs Sendhei.

Taharqi laughs. "Well, we have some loot to deal with. And as mentioned I absolutely need to wash myself." With that said, he goes to the pile of loot and starts sorting.

Saevetei also cracks up. "Thanks," she says to Sendhei, not sounding even a little offended. "Oh well. Maybe some day! I live in hope."

Then she looks down at herself. "I should probably do the same? Huh. I guess that would be a problem, wouldn't it."

"A problem with?" asks Sendhei, who is putting the rug back in place and figuring out what items will need to be washed or stored in some special way. The bits of game that Taharqi brought in particular will need to be dried and salted.

"Needing to wash up. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it's just not a thing that one needs to do for dream sex."

Can she help with sorting through things? She can put things away or clean things! ... Sendhei can handle the bits of dead animals, though.

She can help! Other than dead things there are bits of iron weapons and a couple of glass flasks, some pouches filled with strange powders, and one small bag with silver coins. There is also Taharqi's own battleaxe and, of course, the things he might ironically refer to as "clothes".

"That sounds like it would be so convenient," sighs Sendhei.

She doesn’t immediately know where things should go, exactly, but she can certainly go where pointed and organize like things together.

“It was! Lots of things about the dream world are pretty convenient.”

The meat and hides go outside, where Taharqi and Sendhei have a number of tables and other workstations, including something they can stretch and tan hides at and somewhere they can hang and dry meat at. They also have a stone bench in a corner where Sendhei places all the metals and powders, in little organised spots "so we can figure out what to keep and what to not keep and then smelt it in the furnace out back". The coins definitely go in the grinder, though, because "silver and gold powder are really useful alchemical reagents, I'm told."

This is all very interesting! Soon enough everything is tidily put away. She’ll need samples of the various metals at some point in the future, but worrying about gardening and eventually growing literal iron plants is a tomorrow problem. Tonight’s problem is getting everything put away, and then going and getting herself cleaned up. ... the water’s not too cold, right, it’s still warm from the sun?

The water is still not quite freezing but the wind is freezing and everything else is extremely cold.

Doesn't seem to be stopping Taharqi over there, who is already in the shallow river cleaning himself up, this time 100% naked rather than merely 90%.

Oh man, she forgot how much bathing sucked before she had baths and heated water sorted. This is terrible. This is so terrible. Fixing this will have to be a major priority.

She debates skipping the river bath in the freezing desert via creative application of suicide. If her body gets remade from scratch, she doesn’t have to clean it. If she were sure that she’d resurrect on the spot like last time, she’s pretty sure that actually, she’d totally do it to avoid an unpleasant bathing situation. The unpleasantness would, comparatively speaking, be over faster. What gives her pause is that she actually hasn’t tested what happens if she dies twice before having gotten any sleep. It would be very bad if she were pulled back to where she last resurrected. Waking up back at the cannibal camp, hours away, in the middle of the night, sounds like the opposite of a good time.

Fine. No cheating, then. Just get it over with as quickly as possible. All thoughts of modesty and pretty men are thrown out in favor of a singleminded focus to get this done as fast as physically possible. And also swearing. Lots of swearing. She keeps it mostly under her breath, but probably her swearing will be noticed.

Taharqi looks at her and makes a funny face. "You alright, there?"

"Fine," she says tightly, "I'm just acquiring lots of motivation to make a bathhouse. Lots and lots of fucking motivation!" And then she's back to swearing, quietly.

Aaaaaaaaaaa okay she's rinsed off, and most of the blood and dirt is off, this is good enough. She is absolutely not going to wash her hair it doesn't need it, it's fine. Out she goes, outer robe is for drying off right now, inner robe is for putting on because the cold is worse when she's naked and wet, and then all of her clothes are bundled up in a heap and she is back inside. Augh! Augh, why.

Taharqi watches her with some bemusement but stays outside.

    Sendhei seems to just be walking downstairs, three towels hanging on his arm, also entirely naked, and about as bemused as Taharqi is to see Saevetei back inside already. "That was quick," he says.

"Not nearly quick enough," she hisses, shivering. "I forgot how much I hated bathing in rivers! It's the worst! I hate it!"

"Do you prefer lakes?—oh, wait, you're from that paradise world, right, do you—always have hot water...?"

"Yep! And indoors, so no chilly breezes. Or in the dream world, which doesn't count even if you do go diving in a river. I am a spoiled sheltered dream child, and you have my permission to giggle at me if one of those towels is for me."

He does in fact giggle and extend her one towel.

"Thank you, you're great and I am very grateful." Towel! It goes around her to help warm her up, because she's already mostly dry, on account of her outer robe's heroic sacrifice. All of the rest of her clothes go in an untidy pile of sadness for sorting out later.

Sendhei laughs again and walks outside, shutting the door behind himself.

Saevetei stays in a bundled heap of misery on the floor! After some reflection, she relocates to the fluffy animal rug, because, look, it's not like the critter is using it anymore. And she is cold, and she hates it.

She'll warm up eventually, just. Augh.

She'll warm up pretty quickly, actually. The insulated wood is, well, pretty insulated, and there are a grand total of three torches and one brazier in this room alone. It is warm and cosy.

Yay! Then she won't be quite so miserable anymore. And she can lounge inside in the warmth on a fluffy rug and think about what sorts of things she needs to prioritize growing first, and what materials she needs for them. Hmmm. She probably needs to refresh herself on some books, it's been a while since she bootstrapped herself up from cracked sand and dead tree husks.