A/N: I still don't own BLIZZARD.
Ezirin Michaelis sat at his small campfire in the desert surrounding Lut Gholein. He was tracking a small blob of light with his eyes, determining if it was simply a mirage of the quickly fading sun, an enemy, or that damn sorceress. His skeletons chittered quietly to one another, while his golem sat playing aimlessly in the sand, watching it slide through his chalky fingers. Far off he heard the yips and screams of a pack of Leapers. Ezirin had slaughtered what felt like thousands of them in the past week.
Suddenly his skeletons drew more alert. They'd spotted something of interest, but they weren't standing to attack. Ezirin swore viciously in his mind. That damn sorceress was back. Her name was Chromandi or some-such. It had had something to do with colors.
"Hello Ezirin!" She said brightly, once she drew close enough to see him clearly. Ezirin rolled his eyes, raking a hand through his hair. The petite woman threw down her pack and sat on the sand beside him. The light he'd been tracking was simply a globe of lightning attached to the top of her staff, which cast a wide glow around the two adventurers.
"Do you need something, Sorceress?"
"You looked lonely. And my name is Chromandi, not Sorceress." She replied, not at all perturbed by his grouchiness.
"I wasn't." He said, slinging his hair back again.
"Your hair is pretty."
"Thank you?" He ran a hand through the long white strands. He couldn't remember the last time he'd washed it, much less the rest of him. Looking up, he caught a mischievious grin on the Zann Esu's face. "What?"
"It's in your face."
"Yes…?" Ezirin answered cautiously.
Slinging her heavy braid into view, she replied "Mine isn't."
Ezirin glanced at the woven strands; the woman certainly had some skill for it. Perhaps the Zann Esu truly did engage in underwater basket weaving after all. "And your point would be?"
"Imma braid it." She said, teleporting her seated body behind his. Ezirin attempted to scramble away, protesting, but she simply yanked on a handful of his loose hair, and he was forced to sit, or have his hair ripped from his scalp. "Which prevents monsters from doing that."
Ezirin hmmphed, but sat still as she used an interesting combination of ice and lightning spells to wash and dry his hair. His golem chittered in amusement, but pouted when Ezirin glared at it, and returned to playing in the sand. Chromandi's hands glided through his hair, untangling the fine, white strands. It relaxed him a bit to feel her messing with it, which was an unusual sensation he didn't know fully how to process.
Snatching her wrist, he half-turned so he could see her a bit, before growling "If you make me look in ANY way feminine, I will disembowel you with a cursed athame, and use your dying body to fuel an immortality ritual."
The sorceress had the nerve to giggle at him, working quickly to turn the loose threads into a tightly coiled Arreat battle braid, tying it off with a small piece of leather.
"You done?" He asked, only half-snarky.
"Yep! All done! You wanna go raid some tombs?"
"As if you're giving me a choice." He muttered, getting to his feet. Noticing that the sorceress hadn't moved, he glanced back at her, to find that she was giving his golem an odd little half-smile.
"His name is Loess."
"He reminds me of my son." she said, carefully touching the golem's face. The traitorous little brat leaned into her touch, smiling. Rarely did Ezirin regret preferring to make his golems detailed and lifelike, but here was a good time to do so.
"I thought Zann Esu weren't allowed to marry?"
"If every group that said they practice celibacy actually enforced it, we'd have destroyed the population eons ago."
"That is - that is true." Ezirin said, puzzling over the thought for the moment. He waited until the sorceress had turned her back and begun to walk, before reaching over and smacking the golem with his wand. It had the gall to smile at him just as Chromandi had done when she'd sat down next to him. Skeletons chattering behind, he followed the sorceress and her eerie globe of lightning into the Aranoch dusk.