The sun was setting beyond the apartments, disappearing into night. The sky was alight with heat, and clouds danced in the horizon. Alis stared at the clouds in the distance that were dark and heavier than the rest, and then he walked out of the alley. Ei stood up and followed him quietly, as Alis’ expression was quite puzzling. He watched Alis stare up at the sky and feel the air in between his fingers.

“It’s going to storm,” Alis stated.

Ei looked at the clouds and said, “Sure looks like it.”

He didn’t understand why Alis was feeling the air, and he turned to walk back into the alley. Alis stared at the lightning that shot through the clouds, and he felt a jolt of amazement. He had stared outside for so long at the storms outside his window, and he longed to smell the rain and feel the heat before the storm in between his fingers again. Memories of a time where he stood outside with his father during a storm with their hair dancing in the wind, and looking at the overflowing currents entered his mind, and he felt a sense of sadness. Ei watched Alis’ back as he couldn’t help but stare. Ei hugged his knees to his chest and remarked, “What a weirdo.”

Alis sat next to Ei after feeling a few droplets land on his face, and together they watched the cobbled street turn a darker shade from raindrops. At first the storm was slow, but then it began to turn violent with the introduction of the wind. Flags flapped wildly, and people scurried past the alleyway toward their homes, guarding their heads from the hail that began to plummet to the land. The overhanging roof covered Ei from the rain, and Alis inched closer, as the droplets were nice at first, but they had begun to make his skin uncomfortably cold. Ei glared at him as their shoulders touched, but he didn’t say anything; he only stared blankly at the ground before his feet, watching ants as they surfaced from their little hill. Thunder roared in the sky like a beast, and Alis gasped. Ei turned, expecting to see the fragile-looking elf in terror, but instead he saw Alis’ eyes sparkling and his smile bright.

“There must be something truly wrong with you,” Ei said.

Alis turned to him and asked, “What does that mean?”

“You’re just too weird. I don’t understand you.”

Alis crossed his arms to gather warmth, and he asked, “What isn’t there to get? Do you not like storms?”

“I don’t,” Ei said. “They cause nothing but destruction and cold.”

“That’s not true,” Alis argued. “They’re very good for the ecosystem. Without storms, we would have stale soil, and our wildlife would die.”

Ei hummed and asked, “And how do you know that? From your fancy elven school?”

Alis shook his head and said, “I read it in a textbook in my captor’s house.”

Ei said, “Oh, is that right?” Without thinking deeply about what Alis said.

Suddenly, Ei’s obsidian eyes widened, and he asked, “Wait, what?”