Whoops

"Care for a late night adventure?" James points his award winning grin my way but I have already grabbed the scroll and opened it.

"Whoops, I slipped." I say stepping backwards into the green portal. His shocked face was pretty priceless.

The portal closes up and I'm back at base. Well, we call it base but it's the town I have a house in and Aba has a headquarters set up here. I wonder if James will be fine? Meh he'll be fine, moving on. I run back to my place and pull Samantha from the house before she placed what she called bread into the oven. I grab her gear before closing the door.

"I told you to not bake while I was gone." I scold her while locking the door then head for the road.

"But I followed the recipe." She pleads following close behind.

I lightly stare her down while we jog to the waypoints in the middle of town.

"Fine. But the last time I made that recipe it turned out good." She pouts. "And why are we running?"

"Perhaps. Now we are running because we have to go on another hunt."

"But I wasn't assigned-" 

"I will hire you to work with me." I bribe.

"Alright!" She perks up. Samantha will do pretty much anything for money.

She follows me through the waypoint and we are standing in another foggy grass field. The sun has set, the stars and moon try to light the area. With the fog lit up it makes it difficult to see far.

"Soooooo, what are we looking for?" Samantha says turning around and around.

"Let's find the road." I say summoning a holographic like map infront of me. With a swish of my hand its gone then I lead the way to the road. "This way."

Samantha is close behind with her bow in hand like me. The gravel crunches beneath our feet as we step onto it. I stop and close my eyes to listen for any sounds. I can feel my trainee's stare.

"You can listen too." I tell her.

"Okay." She replies. Then I hear her clothes rustling quite a bit. I peek and she is turning as if only using her right ear.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I can't hear out of my left ear." She shyly says.

"Wha- why-" I hold my hand up to her, "did you try to clean it yourself?"

"Yea?" She replies hesitantly.

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose between my eyes even though it won't help a forming headache.

"You should have told me this beforehand." I scold her.

"I was a bit busy being dragged out of the house." She retorts.

I sigh again. Then the sound of pounding hooves is already upon us. I tackle Samantha to the ground and the dullahan flies on by. I hear the horse slow then the sound of clomping hooves getting louder. 

"On your feet!" I shout and draw my bow. My flaming enchanted arrow flies past him. He swings but I roll to the side. Samantha isn't as fast and it nicks her shoulder. She grits her teeth but never screams.

"I will draw it's attention. You get healed!" I shout to her as she has pressure on her wound and is drinking a healing potion.

The sound of the hooves is faint now. While I was yelling at Samantha the Dullahan went off into the field so it's horse's hooves are quiet now.

"Shi-" I begin to say but felt the need to get low. I squat down just as the dullahan's horse leaps over the road and it's sword barely brushes the top of my head taking a few stray hairs off with it. I barely get a glimpse of it but in it's off hand rests it's ghost-like head. Then is gone again into the fog. Great, now this one we definitely have to put down since it rejected being at peace.

Again I can barely hear rustling of the grass. An arrow whizzes past me and into the fog. The explosion that follows thins the fog enough for me to see the shadow of the dullahan for a second. I loose a fire charged arrow that strikes the ground and sets quite a bit a blaze. We can see the dullahan charging for us. With a smooth motion, I'm able to pull a blessed spear and throw it right into the head. It's head like the fog starts to disappear. The body slumps dropping the sword and spooking the horse.

The horse bucks the corpse from its back and gallops off into the night. What's left of the dullahan slowly disintegrates into the gravel road. The fire I had started is also dying out.

"Do we need to get that horse?" Samantha asks.

"No, the horse probably belongs to one of the farmers in the area and will make it home. Let's go." I say leading the way to the waypoint. 

"I'm showering and going to bed. Oh shoot we left that bread on the counter." She says exhaustedly.

"I will take care of it when we get home." I tell her. "Just get to bed."

"Thank you." She smiles and I give her a nod.

Once home Samantha showers then pads off to bed. I quietly throw the soup she called bread into the trash, pan and all.

I grab a flask I have hidden in a drawer and head to Aba's headquarters. His place is inside a cathedral. Most people bring their worries there anyways so might as well set up shop here. I sit down in a pew and take a sip from my flask.

"Are you regretting taking Samantha, who *cough cough* isn't very experienced *cough cough* and not James?" Aba's voice bounces off the walls startling me a little.

"It worked out, didn't it? She needs the experience and I prefer working with her over him anyways." I say before taking a longer drink.

He sighs, "you were at least smart enough to listen to the notion of getting low I sent you." I can hear the smirk in his voice.

"Yea yea, me not listening is just another thing to add to your a thousand ways to be headless book." I sass back.

"That one's already there. If I didn't have subcategories for not paying attention, the book would be well into the thousands but that thousand ways to loose your head has a nicer ring to it." He says in a pondering way.

I shrug in agreement and then wonder why my flask is empty.

The next morning Samantha is in the kitchen rummaging around. I come out of my room to find that she dug the pan out of the trash and is washing it.

"You threw the pan away?" She looks at me like I was some kind of monster.

"Yea it was bubbly and soupy. I can't bake either but I know it ain't supposed to look like that." I laugh.

She looks on the counter behind her. "Whoops." She says.

"What?" I ask.

"I never added the flour to the bread." She laughs embarrassed.

I laugh with her. Oh this girl. Sometimes I wonder if her head is even attached.