The Strangest Places - Psyche

"Curse this blasted weather," Xiram muttered, drawing his cloak closer to himself. His long, pointed ears twitched beneath his mop of shaggy blond hair, his angular face wrinkled in visible annoyance. The tall elf wore a fur-lined cloak around his shoulders, draping against his ankles. A pair of muddied trousers clung wetly to his slender legs, and his green tunic was splattered with dried splotches of what looked worryingly like blood. "Why must we explore regions so frustrating as this one? Surely there are other jobs we can take." 

Gemeni shook her head with a soft grunt, grimacing visibly. Her scaly head was wrapped up in a massive scarf, her gigantic coat no doubt keeping her warm from the slightly colder weather. A pair of beige spiral horns stuck up from the back of her skull, curving upward, and her crimson eyes glinted through the heavy bindings. "We cannot abandon a job once we have taken it," She squeaked in a high-pitched voice that was at contrast to her tall frame. "Because then, potential treasure becomes lost treasure, and we cannot afford to lose any treasure." 

Xiram kneaded the bridge of his nose, trying to come up with a good comeback to that, but it was honestly rather difficult. It had a nonsensical logic to it that was difficult to counter, and he ended up falling silent instead. Rather than attempting to carry through with whatever he could have said, he turned towards the third member of their group. "Five, please, agree with me."

Five slowly looked at Xiram as he continued to walk, the strange creature's steady shambling trot never stopping. Despite his best attempts at disguising himself, Five was undeniably not human, with slightly too-long legs and a too-broad chest. Dressed from head to toe in coarse fabric, he wore a pair of highwayman's boots and a flat cap. All of his clothes were closely fitted, and yet were irregularly filled out by his body, with some parts being taut and others baggy. His entire body was asymmetrical. And yet, no one had questioned his identity yet. Perhaps they were afraid of the answer. Xiram certainly was. 

No reply came from the taciturn creature, and Xiram let out an aggrieved sigh. The sky was beginning to get grayer, ominous mountains of black washing across its hues with a distant rumble, and Xiram frowned up at them. "Do you think those are rainclouds?" He asked aloud, not expecting an answer. His eyes narrowed and his pupils dilated, a faint golden glow highlighting the edges of his whites. "Who knows, we might be lucky," He told Gemeni. "It could just be normal clouds."

As it turned out - to no one's surprise - they weren't lucky.

Xiram had a distinct scowl on his face as he held his tunic over his head, his scrawny chest on full display. Soaked to the skin, he could feel water dripping through his tunic onto his head as he trudged through the waterlogged road, his lovely boots utterly ruined for the time being. He already knew that it'd take at least ten minutes to pry all of the mud off them and he really wasn’t looking forward to the process. 

Staring up at the rain, he gave it an annoyed frown. “Say, which of the gods is responsible for rain?” He asked Five, who unsurprisingly didn’t answer. “Orthma, right?” Turning his face up to the sky, he bellowed, “Fuck off and take your rain with you, Orthma!”

The furious gray skies let out a growling note as if to laugh at him, shaking the soaked ground beneath the mercenaries. Xiram could feel his hair plastering to his head despite his best efforts, and he let out a disparaging groan of annoyance. Somebody chuckled a moment later and he blinked, glaring at the source of the laugh. "What was that!?" He asked, his tone deeply offended. 

 Five's cool gaze met the elf's, and Xiram's annoyance evaporated instantly. "You look like a wet cat," The creature rumbled, misshapen triangular teeth bared in a grin. "Scrawny."

Xiram swallowed back an expletive and kept his head down, uttering a small, frustrated groan instead. “Damn you all,” He muttered.

Gemeni turned towards the trees, heading off into them at an odd trot. It was strange to see someone with such short legs on such a tall body, short arms under a small head stacked on top of a long torso. Regardless, he still followed her, and Five was close behind. 

Glancing back at Five, he frowned slightly. He didn’t know the creature all that well - they’d met at the tavern where he had accepted this job, but bar for his gold-class warrior’s badge, he had nothing to go on for who exactly he was even working with. His thoughts began to slowly drift, ambling over potential theories as to who he could be. 

Snapping out of his own thoughts, he looked forward and suddenly realized he wasn’t following Gemeni anymore. The dragonborn was gone, and he blinked in confusion. “Gemeni?” He called, tentatively walking. Had there been a trap? “Where are you?”

“Drying off.”

The dragonborn’s raspy chirp came from somewhere down by his feet. When Xiram’s gaze fell, he found himself looking at Gemeni’s face tucked under a small hollow beneath a tree’s root system. “How did you get yourself in there?” He asked disbelievingly, then paused. “Would I fit?”

Gemini giggled, a hoarse, crisp chitter that made Xiram’s forehead furrow in visible annoyance. “Find your own tree,” She told him, and hunched back down with a yawn, stuffing her coat in the entrance to block the flow of rain.

Xiram stared down at the coat inside the tree and briefly considered yanking it out, but he disliked the idea of waking up to a knife in his back at any point in the near future. Turning to Five, he tried for a grin. “Please, surely you have an idea?”

Five shook his head, sitting down as he leaned against a tree, and Xiram realized there was no point in asking for shelter from a creature who didn’t mind rain. With a deeply aggrieved sigh, he climbed up into the tree Gemeni was hiding under, carefully spreading his tunic over some of the branches, Curling up underneath them, he closed his eyes and forced himself to go to sleep, desperately hoping the rain would stop by the following morning.