Karl muttered to himself and set himself to the task.  He calculated the time since he’d last been with a woman and wondered what was wrong with him.  It had been years and he never felt hunger and here he is staring at this poor woman’s crotch and second guessing a lot of choices he had just made.  

With a stern face he continued his work and eventually had to place her other leg on his other shoulder while he worked around her anus.  Normally a prolapse takes some doing to get back in.  On a war mule after a rough birth the womb can prolapse, so it’s kept warm and damp and slowly placed back in.  He’d never worked with a human or with a rectum.  He was concerned that it would be bad for her, but he didn’t have any other choices. After shaving the whole area clear, he reached over and grabbed the little pot of ointment that he used for cuts and placed it on the exposed tissue.  

He kept whispering apologies and slowly pushed the tissue back past the sphincter.  He would stop every few minutes and reapply the ointment to ease the work and hopefully reduce any problem with infection.  

The warm water appeared to have helped the process and he was done faster than he thought.  Since the woman hadn’t tried to kill him, he thought things went well.  

“Okay, let’s get you up and dried off and we’ll get you some food.”  He toweled them off with some linen he had bought years ago thinking it would be softer than the canvas.  At least more absorbent.    

He returned her to the house and sat her on her side.  

“Let’s give your backside some more time to heal up before you go sitting on it yet”.  

He wrapped her in a blanket even though it was a warm time of year thinking it might be comforting.  

He prepared a stew of vegetables thinking it might be the easiest for her to consume after a long fast.  While it was cooking, he gave her some clean water from a jug in the kitchen.  

She wouldn’t even take the mug he offered so he gently put it to her lips and poured a little in.  She drank and he did it several times until the mug was empty. 

“Boy this is going to be a long couple of days.” he thought.  He really hoped that maybe she could help sooner in the fields, but it seemed far away at this point or maybe not even possible.

Feeding her went the same way.  Spoon at a time and then finally more water.  This time he placed her hands on the mug during the drinking process that seemed to trigger some recognition.  How long could an Orc get along without food and water? 

After the meal, he gave her a small measure of distilled liquor he had made.  It didn’t taste good, but it made him relax.  He gave her the smallest measure in her mug and bade her to drink.  Sure enough she brought the mug to her lips and drank.  

Before he cleaned up, he laid her on the bed and covered her with the rough, wool blanket.  Darkness had fallen long before and the room was warm and comfortable from the fire.  He cleaned his teeth with the split end of a willow twig and wondered how the Orcs kept their teeth so impressive.  The tusks were very large and frightening.

He moved to the bed and climbed over her.  As he lay there listening to her regular breathing. His mind flashed back to his first combat against Orcs.  He was young and frightened.  He could see them lined up across the green and watched as they girded their loins.  He noticed with some shock that there were males and females and that they appeared to be the same size!  

The only reason the men won the day was they worked better together due to rigorous training and better weapons for the melee.  The Orcs preferred big axes and hammers which didn’t work out in a tightly packed conflict.  

They had separated the Orcs and attacked close in.  He killed his first opponent with a short sword.  He still carried it everywhere.  Many of the men died at the ends of the tusks on their throats.  

Even though they took prisoners, many escaped in the evening.  When he thought of that he wondered about her.  Would she run away?  He thought about the value of her versus her personal freedom.  If she did want her freedom he wouldn’t stop her, but she was deep in human territory.  She would have to be very careful.  He drifted off thinking of all that and listening to her deepened breathing. 

Karl woke up and was pleased and partially surprised that the woman remained and appeared to be sleeping.  He chose to lay still and allow her to continue sleeping.  He figured she would need a lot of those nights.  He drifted in and out for time and eventually had to get up to empty his bladder.  As he tried to step over her to get out of the bed, she opened her eyes and looked around.  

Karl was pretty happy about that.  She was able to start focusing on things.  

“Hello, good morning.  I’m going to use the bathroom; would you like to come along?"

She appeared to show no understanding, so Karl gently urged her up and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.  He kept gesturing to move forward, but it took some time to understand what he was urging.  He finally got her out and showed her the outhouse and pile of soft leaves for cleaning up.  She stood still as he urinated and then gestured to her and the outhouse seat.