"O- All right then," Alexi paused at the stream of orders Katherine rattled his way, but composed himself quickly. He had put the task of finding camp in her hands, no reason to balk as she lived up to the request. Slowly, stiffly, he dismounted his own horse, leading it to a nearby tree that seemed fitting. The knot he tied to secure the leash seemed sturdy enough, and there was grass a plenty for the horse to graze upon. 

All told, this was a perfect place to camp, wasn't it?

Alexi's measure of Katherine's abilities continued to climb steadily upwards. She did carry some prestigious chits on hand, didn't she? Someone with such knowledge as she seemed to hold, with a strong reputation, she could afford better jobs, couldn't she? Not that he wasn't paying well, but escorting a freelance scribe loosely tied to the church was not the job most jumped at... as evidenced by the number of times he had been turned down before. 

A question to ask later, perhaps? Their conversation earlier, before the ambush had spoiled things, had gone well enough. Maybe over dinner, or during their next day of travel. For now, though, she had mentioned bathing, and [i]that[/i] was something he definitely, desperately needed.

He made his way to the trickling stream, a tender test with a hand sending a shiver up his arm at the temperature. Cold- well it wasn't deep enough to really sit in, anyways. Shrugging at the thought -an action he found himself regretting- he set about cleaning at least some of the day from his body.

It certainly wasn't something he was used to doing, though the simple actions of washing his hands, face and hair was easy enough. Finding a dry spot of bare rock to leave his shirt for the moment, Alexi attempted to clean his back and chest... and hoped Katherine was too busy setting camp to witness his actions. Less than clean, his attempts left him shivering as he finally stomped back over to his shirt, spotted from head-to-toe with water but not really 'cleaned'. How was he supposed to do that anyway? Without flopping about in the frigid water like some overlarge fish, how was he supposed to 'wash' anything? Just stand there and continue to splash water at himself like a fool? O- Or...

...Or... He could have dampened a cloth, used that. That would have worked quite well, wouldn't it? Yes, yes it would.

Pity he hadn't thought of that...

Having wasted enough time in the waning light, the defeated scribe chose to let Katherine have the chance to clean herself up before it became too dark to do so. He tossed his shirt back on, it's warmth helping somewhat in the wake of his- what was that?

Pausing as he turned to find Katherine, Alexi peered out towards the thickening woods on the other side of the river. It was certainly growing darker, as if night was growing out from under the thickest boughs of the forest before it took to the sky. And yet, amidst the deepening shadows, he could see... lights?

Small, green? Flickering like candleflames, how... odd? Certainly not something he would expect to see, what was it, that made lights like- huh?

Taking a step back towards the stream, Alexi found himself pausing as the dancing lights simply... vanished. Gone in a blink, nothing but darkness left behind for his eyes to search in vain. Odd, odd... was it a trick of the cold water? Maybe the setting sun reflecting off something? He made his way back to the clearing proper- resembling quite the camp now- the sight still refusing to leave his mind.

"If you wanted to wash up, the water's... cold." Another shiver made its way down his back as he found Katherine at work. The tents were already up and standing firm -he'd really taken a while, hadn't he? "I suppose I'll start putting on that salve an- yeah." 

Another shrug -another mistake- and the water-dappled, chilled scribe made his way into his tent. He certainly remembered buying the thick, water-shedding cloth and stakes that had been so well set-up, and indeed there was salve waiting just inside.

"Well, let's do a better job this time..." Shedding his clothes within the shelter of his tent, Alexi set about to applying the salve on his travel-worn legs and backside. "And... maybe see if Katherine knows anything about dancing green lights."