They dropped their bags down onto a mossy rock and Kre stretched a bit. Kitalia was already rummaging through her pack for a few things to make a small soup meal using her charred oak tablets. Without being asked, Kre took the pot and the bucket, and he scooped some water up from the river and brought it back over.
“Soap is in there,” she gestured to a side pouch on her pack. “Just a small sliver, rubbed vigorously between your hands until it suds up, will do. It is potent, so you do not need any more than that, despite your level of muck. I would suggest washing your clothes too, while you are at it.”
She put a few things into the pot of water and set the pot on a little stand atop the blackened oak brick. “If you to downriver a bit, around past that big rock, you will have your privacy. The soup will be ready when you are done.”
“Thanks Kit,” Kre said as he shaved a small piece of the white soap off with his fingernail. “It’ll be nice to get that mud off of my arms, even if that magical mud did save me from that itching flower.”
Kitalia stirred the pot as she chuckled a bit. “Magical mud indeed.” She tapped the spoon and laid it down alongside the pot. “There is no magic in that remedy. It is simply a matter of countering the pulu balin with a substance that neutralizes the flower’s mild poison.”
“And that mud does that? Is it special mud?”
She had a hard time keeping a straight face while still considering how best to answer his question. “In a way, yes. One of the two ingredients of that mud paste is indeed the remedy, while the other simply allows the remedy to be more easily applied.”
“You mean water and some special kind of dirt, right?”
“No, and no.” She bit her lower lip and considered leaving it at that, more for his sake than hers, but she also knew that he was the type not to let this go. “The dirt was completely normal, dug from the ground, dirt.”
“So…” he started, trying to piece it together in his tired mind. “If the dirt wasn’t special, then the water was… but you just said that water wasn’t one of the ingredients.”
“Kre,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head. “I truly believe that you should wash up before you take this conversation any further.”
Kre looked down at his traveling companion and tentatively sniffed at one of his mud-crusted arms. “Kit,” he asked slowly, “what did you use to mix with the dirt?”
“Bathe, then I shall tell you. Trust me.”
He crouched down across the pot of simmering soup. “Kitalia, please. I won’t be angry with you.”
She leaned closer, the steam from the soup making a wispy curtain in front of her face. “I am not worried about you being angry with me. Not one bit of this whole thing worries me at all. I am merely looking out for your best interests here.”
Kitalia leaned back against the dirt wall behind her and smiled, “But since you want to know so badly, I shall tell you.” She made a show of looking to either side of her, as if making sure they were well and truly alone.
“Urine. Urine neutralizes the flower’s poison. While you could have a trusted friend go to town all over the affected areas, mixing urine with dirt to make a mud paste is generally the most socially acceptable and most effective way of coming up with the remedy. Also, it is ill advised to try and do it yourself, especially if your own hands are infected with the poison, for obvious reasons.”
Kre stayed crouched across from her, his face impassive and unreadable, even to her. “I’m just going to go bathe now,” he said finally. “I may be quite a while.”
“I understand. Take your time, I will keep the soup warm for you.”