Chapter 2- A strike where it hurts

When Sage entered the room, which Kyu had dubbed as ‘their base’; he was actually a tiny bit disappointed. This was less of a base and more of... just another apartment. It was slightly larger than Sage’s chamber, in fact nearly five times as large. It had multiple counters and wardrobes, dividing the place into different sections that seemed to fulfil different purposes for whoever was living here. To his left; there where the backsides of two bookshelves with a gap between them, obviously replacing a proper door frame. A blanket was placed at the gap, creating the illusion of a doorway into a separate room. To his right; there was a hip-high cabinet and a closet dividing the room further into something that seemed like a bedroom.

From what Sage saw in this angle, there was little more than a bed in that right section and along with some storage room for personal belongings. Behind the bed, he could see another door that was half-opened and was giving him a glimpse of a bathroom who's centrepiece was a massive, quadratic bathtub in the middle. The section right in front of him, the one that connected the bedroom with that weird bookshelf-walled pseudo-room, there was a group of pillows and couches, in front of an old tube-TV. Most of the inventory looked like it was at least second hand and a lot of it had little clusters of short, white hair sprinkled over it, as if there was a white-furred cat living in this room. Sage remained pretty unimpressed by Kyu's “base” until the dark-skinned Elf girl pushed him towards the blanket that divided the room. When he passed through this make-shift door a slight sulphuric smell crawled into his nose and made him shiver.

The rest of the ‘gang’ was already present and sat on the seats that surrounded coffeetable. The two redheads sat on a small couch in a corner, next to a bookshelf overflowing with books of different kinds while the Riverelf was standing in front of a working table that was filled with chemical elements of different kinds and Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks. Sage only now noticed how small she actually was, ranging at not more than 1.3 Meters and looking almost like a child with cartoonishly large eyes.

There was actually an additional member present, sitting on a table in front of the couch and eating what seemed like legitimate red meat. Sages jaw almost dropped when he saw the girl, for several reasons. First of all there was the face, which had such a beautiful almond-shape and the purest of all pale skin tones that it was hard for him to not stare at her immediately. It took him quite a moment to realize that she was not a Woodelf either. Or any Elf in the classical sense, by the looks of it. On the one hand there was her pure body size. She was so large, she had some difficulties sitting on the chair that seemed to be designed for Woodelf-sized people, so she had to bend over deeply to cut her meat. One could've assumed that she was a large human woman, but this explanation was also unlikely.

Sage noticed her strong, edgy and muscular jaws and wide shoulders as well as a yellow-grey tone in her eyes. When taking a bite of her steak she revealed weirdly long canines that had more resemblance to the Riverelf’s shark-teeth then than a humans. Her nose was flat and wide and segwayed so seamless into her upper lip, that they appeared to be grown together. Maybe her clothing added and over-exaggerated her weirdness a bit. She had a woolly cap on her head, from which long, white hair ran down to her chest in straight streaks. The hat prevented Sage from checking on her ears, so sage couldn't confirm from the shape of her ears, if she was an Elf and not. The rest of her body was equally concealed by a long, white dress with no cleavage and long sleeved that nearly covered her hands entirely. It looked very impractical to say wear such a piece of clothing, especially in mid-summer. Her pants were equally weird and inconvenient, as she was dressed into wide pants that looked like they had been stolen from a museum featuring the 70s hippie-movement. They were wide and baloney and looked more like a costume then an actual piece of clothing that someone would wear in the modern day and age.

“Okay, since the entire group is here now, let me introduce everyone properly...” Kyu said her loud, heroic way. She first pointed towards the redheads.

“These are my Sisters, Titania and Laniel. They are both older than me, so do respect them.”

She pointed to the Riverelf who didn't even bother to look up from her chemistry, when she was introduced.

“This is Curel, the gang’s brain. Seriously, she’s crazy smart and actually twice as old as all of us, so DO fucking respect her.”

She pointed to the white haired girl that was still busy eating but now gave Sage a shy wave with her palm between her bites.

“This pie here is Inu, our mascot and muscles. Be nice to her, she’s more sensitive then she seems.”

The pale-skin blushed a bit and gave Kyu a slightly annoyed look: “I would be happier if you just told him to respect me; like you did with the others...”

Kyu sat down next to her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

“But you're our clan’s special guest, no matter what so you get a special treatment.”

As she was saying that she bent over and kissed that girls cheek. This sparked a reaction from the Riverelf at the chemistry table. Seemingly calm but clearly threatening her eyes turned to Kyu, who instantly loosened her patronizing grip on the shy whitehead.

“Alright, alright, I'm sorry.”, said Kyu quickly. “I'll stop teasing.”

“Good.”, responded the Riverelf and continued her work in the same mute, stoic way as before.