"Cleaning!?" Abby's lustful head complained and looked to Jim, and with her eyes, and despite the incredibly low light in the back end of the cave that they could reach, she could see him very well. And Abby felt herself growing a bit aroused as a result. The internal walls of her reproductive equipment, now more like a reptile's cloaca than her equipment as a human, but that made sense. She wasn't human anymore, but a hybrid of two mythical reptiles. "I wanted to do something more fun..."
"We'll have plenty of fun later," Abby said to her lustful head, "believe me... I want to feel Jim's big dragon equipment within me, too. But Sandra left this place a complete mess. Look! There's bones of old kills laying everywhere, some of which look like they were human too..."
"What they were doesn't matter," Abby's surly head commented, "The fact is that she left this place a mess."
"It's not too bad..." Jim's carefree head commented, "besides, it's not like she could bury what she killed."
"I'm not living in this mess," Abby's angry head snarled.
"Neither am I," Jim's furious head agreed, "She may not have been able to bury them, but she could have AT LEAST put them in a place where they were out of the way... or tried to cremate them... something that wouldn't have the scent of rotting meat and bones lingering all over the cave."
Jim's carefree head nodded and backed down. He loved Abby just as much as his other heads did, and he didn't want Abby to angry with him. In this, both dragon/hydra hybrids came to agree to get things as cleaned up as they could. They had left their human lives behind, ultimately to save each other from Sandra's vengeful attitude and abuse of the powers she gained as a dragon. With the human vial destroyed and their clawed fore"hands" being too big, even at their reduced size from earlier, to manipulate the vials, neither of them would be able to become anything other what they now were without help. Cleaning up the cave and making it as close to a home as they could manage was important.
"There will also be the issue of the box and the vials," Jim's noble head commented.
"Yeah," Jim's understanding head nodded, "the griffons wanted it destroyed because they feared what Sandra would do with it if it came into her possession again."
"Engineer her own defeat," Abby's surly head pointed out.
"Yeah! We beat her!" Jim's cocky head cheered.
"That doesn't change the fear the griffons had," Jim's understanding head.
"And while Sandra did run off..." Jim's noble head commented, "it wouldn't be impossible to suppose that she might try to come back when we go hunting for deer or fish or something... or get around to showing that despite our appearance we aren't the monster Sandra was."
"Should we destroy the box?" Abby wondered.
"I'd say we keep it," Abby's intelligent head commented, "what one becomes from drinking the vials isn't as important as what one does. Sandra's angry and vengeful attitude at the griffons and her attempt to make Jim her sex slave and manipulate us probably would have been there regardless of what form she was in. If some one comes wanting to have a little fun with them and isn't going to wage war on us, the fairies, the griffons, or on humanity... I see no reason not to share a vial with them."
"Yeah!" Jim's carefree head agreed.
"We'll still need to make sure it's protected to make sure no one like Sandra gets their hands on it," Jim's noble head commented, "but that should wait until after we've gotten this mess cleaned up."
Jim turned and went to retrieve the box from its location at the mouth of the cave. His feral head obediently picked it up and held it gently as he returned deeper into the cave with it. Jim set it down in a spot that wasn't that dirty and would be out of the way from anyone that might see it outside the cave.
"There," Jim's noble head spoke, "It'll be out of the way for now... Now how will we clean up all the bones and get rid of the rotting meat smell?"
"We're big enough that we can crush the bones into smaller pieces," Jim's scientific head pointed out, "that would make it better for us to either cremate the bones... or Abby's ambitious and surly heads can more easily melt them with acid."
"A good idea," Abby commented and soon set to moving about the parts of the cave that could reached by the two of them and began pushing all the bones into a single pile.
Abby hated the smell as it was clear that Sandra hadn't bothered to try and keep things clean, as if even her dragon form became more feral over time. A part of her did like the power she herself had gained when she first became a hydra and then a dragon/hydra hybrid, as shown by her ambitious and angry heads in their vote accept Sandra's deal and be a dragon/hydra hybrid. A part of her did wish to be human again, but that part of her did accept that she was outvoted. She also knew that with the human vial destroyed, she'd never get to be human again even if most of her heads had wanted to be human. She accepted being a dragon/hydra hybrid and accepting being as powerful as she had become, but all her heads could agree that she wasn't going to be as messy as Sandra had become.
While Abby moved the bones to a central pile, Jim continued to look around the other parts of the cave. There were exits that went deeper into the earth, but they were too small for him or Abby to get into. At the deepest part of the cave that he and Abby would be able to reach, he found a hole that opened into a vertical, or near vertical shaft that went down into something deeper. His carefree head initially wanted to look deeper into it, as the area was strong enough to support his weight, and while he found that the shaft was long and deep, he couldn't quite see the cavern underneath. And a certain smell also drifted up from that shaft. Realizing he'd found what would amount to the "bathroom" for himself and Abby, even Jim's adventurous head didn't want to investigate that too closely.
"We'll need to do something about the smell," Jim's carefree grumbled.
"The forests around here are all spruce and pine," Jim's scientific head mused, "a pine scent would smell nice. We could go get a tree and bring it in."
"A good idea," Jim's noble head commented.
"Yeah," his romantic head agreed, as he watched Abby beginning to crush the bones that Sandra had left behind into smaller pieces, "and we could use some of the branches as candles and a nice mood for Abby."
"She'll like that," Jim's noble head agreed.
He made his way forward and slowly approached Abby as she continued to crush the old bones that Sandra had left behind. He could hear the bones cracking and crunching her the weight of her muscular body. She couldn't grind the bones into powder, but she could make the bones smaller and easier to break down by other means. Namely the acid that her ambitious and surly heads could spray, and had found they were quite accurate in the battle with Sandra.
"Hows it coming?" Jim asked to her as he approached.
Abby turned her central head around while her surly and ambitious head began spraying acid on the pile of bones. They smiled as their acid began to eat way at the bones and began to dissolve them. While they went about their work, Abby's central head turned back to Jim.
"Good," Abby smiled, "I'm just about done with the physical remains that Sandra left behind. No more bones to clean up after."
"We'll let you finish," Jim's scientific head said to her, "We have an idea to combat the smell and make things smell better."
"Oh?" Abby asked.
"Yeah," Jim's noble head answered, "bring in some pine or spruce trees and use the branches to provide a nice pine scent. The trunk of the tree can then be used to provide some kindling for a fire and illumination..."
"So set the right mood," Jim's romantic head added with a smile.
"Ohhhh," Abby's lust filled head piped in, "I'm all for the right mood if it means WE both have fun together."
"Only to show that I love you," Jim's romantic head commented with a smile and Jim than made his way out.
Abby stayed behind in the cave and continued on the work to clean up the bones that Sandra had left behind. She periodically sprayed acid on them, used her muscle mass to crush the bones, and blasted fire on them. The acid she sprayed did little damage to the cave floor and didn't fully destroy the bones, but it did work on the bones and allowed her to reduce the mess that Sandra had left behind. Eventually through her efforts she reduced the bones to crushed powdery ash, though it too her some time to do so. She then used her tail to sweep that pile along the ground to the same hole that Jim had found earlier. She made a mental note that that was the "bathroom" in the cave and figured putting some of the pine branches there would be a good thing.
As she finished, she found that Jim had returned, with an uprooted spruce tree in each of his mouths. Abby smiles as she breathed in the scent of the coniferous trees and soon joined Jim in separating the branches from the trunks of the tree to use the branches as air fresheners, which did work. Once they got all the branches placed and safely hid the box with some of the branches and not too far from their "bathroom," Jim and Abby settled together toward the center of their cave.
"Here we are," Abby commented with a smile and nuzzled her muzzle to Jim's noble head's muzzle, "a new home... maybe not the Ritz, but we did clean it up well... and a new life starts."
"Yes," agreed Jim's noble head nodded, and returned the nuzzling while his furious head hit the tree trunks, which had been placed a safe distance from the other branches that they needed for the scent. The glowing fire illuminated the cave and the two of them began to enjoy a quiet moment together.