The thick droplets of congealed rainwater slammed against the floor of the cart like hammers to a smith’s produce. In the innermost starboard-side corner of the transport, three shapes sat huddled beneath a woolen blanket heavy with the exudations of the rain shower- two of whom seemed miserable beyond compare.

Asrael’s bagged eyes stared at the posterior edge of the cart. His pale, gaunt cheeks had not seen sunlight for a week, but none would be faulted for having assumed it had been years since last he had basked in any warmth. His black hair dripped greasy water over his face and down unto his shortest associate. With every shifting movement, the clammy, cold, wet, tattered black shirt and coat clung to his skin and sloshed with the noises of cloth-drawn suction.

In his lap, at the receiving end of his drizzle, the apprentice- Eleanor, was no less miserable than he was. Her long, raven hair was no drier than his, but undoubtedly slightly warmer. Like her Master, her distant, black-eyed gaze stuck to the shape seated at the edge of the cart. Beneath her black dress, her skin had begun to blister with the constant humidity, but the itch was far from the worst of her problems. In her lap, she held her right hand in a matrix of strips of fabric and wet sticks. With every jerk and movement of the cart, a new flash of fresh agony shot up to her elbow along shattered bones and provisionally repaired nerves.

Lastly, Neda- Asrael's second apprentice, sat at his side in a white, nearly see-through dress, huddled up against him as per his instructions, but she did so with a smile. The usually tan skin of the pair of arms wrapped around her master, nearly appeared gray in the cold, humid atmosphere. Every-so-often, she would move to gaze her red eyes up at him and sigh, before tightening her grip around his chest. She, as opposed to all the rest of her companions, could scarcely be any more satisfied. She was, after all, surrounded by her friends and her loved one, in an alien landscape- clad in a white, dirty but lavish dress.

Unbeknownst to the blightlander girl, the man at the back of the cart served as her exact opposite. His hair- usually golden, had been reduced to a greasy black in the constant rain. His eyes- once blue and lively were now dull and dark- locked in a distant gaze off into the distance. The sour necromancer had taken his shirt and torn off its sleeves to construe the bindings stabilizing Eleanor’s fractures a week past, but Kester had hardly argued. The tall, muscled man had ceased sighing and now, instead, clattered his jaw in the cold.

At the front of the cart, Berral- the small, fat, bald man in his cleanly, wet suit served as companionship’s driver, led a series of four, black, red-eyed horses behind a lazily chewing camel, whose confusion rivaled that of the blightlander in the back. Neither had seen anything like the choking mist swallowing the never-ending mires in every direction. Barrel was, however, well used to the mists, as he had oftentimes traveled the mid-peripheral midwest in his younger days. Still... his beady, sunk-in eyes had aged since those youthful days and therefore, they had had to reduce their effective travel-time for the few hours in which the sun stood high enough to illuminate the thick, tangible fog.

The numbing silence between the trio beneath the propped-up blanket broke as Neda turned towards her master to whisper: “Assie... he hasn’t moved all day.”

Asrael looked to the naked back of the muscles Kester and nodded. “Indeed. Perhaps, if we leave him to it, he will remain that way until we have arrived in Skum.” He bit back a confession of a similar hope in regards to his enamored apprentice. Reminded of her honorable master, Eleanor scooted back onto Asrael’s lap and whispered over her shoulder:

“When do you think he’ll freeze to death? Should we turn him when he does?” Asrael had to consider the question. Out there, in the fog, he already had six of his men scanning for the nature’s bounty. He whispered back: “He will collapse before he freezes to death, at which point we can heat him up again. I would rather wait with turning him until we’ve arrived in Skum.” Eleanor’s freckled, pale face bobbed up and down in acknowledgment.

Neda sighed and spoke a question into Asrael’s ear: “Would you be that sad if I took our baby and told you to fuck off?” Asrael squeezed his eyes shut in hopes it would help to envision the impossible scenario.

“I am dead. Despite that rapist’s belief in the opposite, I have my doubts I can father children. That said... your misguided attraction to me seems to go beyond reason. I do not believe you would be reasonable enough to send me away- not like Maribelle. A shame I did not choose to surround myself with reasonable women.” All held their breaths in excitement as Kester slowly turned around to look at the trio.

Despite all three of them being well versed in the horrors of the Empire, not a one of the trio could claim to be unbothered by the intense, wide-eyed stare of the tremoring, pale, half-naked tavernkeeper.

“R-Reasonable!? I-I w-was t-the r-reasonable o-one, you a-asshole! I-…" Kester raised his hands to rub his upper arms in saccadic jerks, before continuing: “S-she... deserves better... t-they b-both do. I-I p-pulled a k-knife on them...” Asrael contorted his lips in a sideways smirk and cautiously wrapped his arms around the relatively warm Eleanor to pull her closer- like a fleshy, limp blanket.

Kester continued: “E-Ellie a-nd N-Neda d-deserve b-better, too... y-you d-don’t. T-that's w-why I-I'm c-coming w-with you.” Asrael seemed unimpressed with his reasonings and thought: That and your propensity for murder, you savage beast. To Ellie’s relief, Asrael did not voice his objection. Curiously, her cheeks flushed with an unexpectant warmth as she felt Asrael’s hands press over her chest- squeezing her budding breasts tightly against her chest. She released an involuntary, muffled moan. Asrael thought at first he had pained her arm and loosened his grip, but Neda knew better. She had been through those years of tender breasts herself and recognized that moan with an envious glare.

The blightlander folded her arms as Kester turned back around to stare into the fog and mumble to himself. Asrael responded to the movement in his periphery and watched Neda with disapproval as she scooted away from him to stare out into the white wall of fog.

“I have tasked you with keeping my dead corpus warm, woman. You will heed my command or there will be consequences!” She had heard his idle threats for months on-end by then, yet save for the occasional slap to the back of her head, he had proven to be a forgiving tyrant.

“Make me.” She muttered and blew a snort out her snotty nose. Another moan escaped Ellie’s lips, but she remained as adamant in her master’s arms as ever. Asrael’s narrow eyes bored into Neda’s back, but as Eleanor had learned by then, there could be no victor- only losers, when those two began their bickering. For a week, the two had been confined to one-another beneath the soggy, woolen blanket and she had been forced to be the middle-man in their pathological, repressed relationship- all the while feeling a sleight of jealousy for Neda’s honesty in her attraction to their master. She was, after all, not foreign to the idea of feeling a certain warmth in her loins whenever the necromancer graced her with his impressively strong, long, thin arms.

She imagined her own attraction as a natural phenomenon due to her subservience to him and her wish for his acceptance- an acceptance he rarely, but definitively did show every now and then. She had learned that Asrael responded badly to compliments and advances and therefore: she remained as silent and as timid as ever and instead pressed his hand reassuringly against her under the guise of warming his skin.

If he had noticed, he made no mention of it. Instead, he continued towards Neda’s back: “Perhaps I will make you. Your skin might prove an acceptable rain-coat...” Naturally, the last part was better fit for a mumble, as he suspected that she would no-doubt find some sexual undertones in the prospect of being worn as anything.

Still. Neda remained stubborn- staring into the white mist over the cart’s rim. Even Kester suffered in the silence that ensued and knew that, by long, Asrael would either break from his stubborn stance or explode with undeserved rage. To Ellie’s surprise, it seemed Asrael had achieved some wisdom on this journey of theirs and quickly understood the blightlander’s stubborn stance.

“She is half your size and the last time you had her position, you continued to-… shift.” Neda spun her head over her shoulder and threw her wet, long hair across his face to blow another offended ‘hmph’ through her nose.

“Well, you were poking me in the butt with that thing!” Ellie sounded another yelp as Asrael’s irk continued to ascend towards the inevitable climax- as signaled by the twitch in his forehead.

“T-that is a natural reaction. Your... shifting... did not make it any better.” Asrael paused and forced himself to loosen the grip on Ellie’s chest, before continuing: “This is the superior arrangement. Her naturally flat chest is easier to reach around and offers less insulation- leaving me more heat. Observe, girl- she is as flat as a plank.” Asrael demonstratively squeezed at her chest- provoking another, more sensual moan from the girl- one that unnerved even him.

Neda’s jaw dropped, before she turned back around to face his back towards him. “Well, maybe she’s cold!? If you loved either of us, you’d give her a break and let me have a turn.” Asrael squeezed his eyes shut once more- hoping to find the strength and motivation to decipher her obscure outbursts, but to no avail.