The Tipsy Leaf was busy this afternoon, drunkards looking to get drunk and adventurers looking for adventure. 

“Hear ye, hear ye!” someone cried above the noise. Chanyeol would have paid no mind to the guy if his party members’ curiosity weren’t easily piqued. “You there!” the guy said, turning a sunny smile at Chanyeol’s group. “You look like a group of worthy adventurers to slay a mighty beast!”

“Mighty beast, you say?” Paladin, their party leader, said, sharing a laugh with the others. No one had bothered to tell Chanyeol the names of his party members, but then, he hadn’t thought to divulge his own. They called him Pointy Ears, and he was mostly all right with that. “Well, get on with it. Tell us about this mighty beast!”

“Ah,” said the guy, waving a finger at them. “Caution is vital to slay this one. Many adventurers have tried to fell the beast, yet none have succeeded. It dwells in a cave near the mountains a day’s ride from here.”

“That will be easy as pie,” said Wizard, leaning against his wizard staff and playing with an orb of fire in his hand. “My spells have never been more powerful.”

“You will need cunning and courage to defeat it,” the guy said.

Rogue tch’ed. “Not to worry. I can get in a good first hit if I can sneak up on it.”

“It might detect you before you get close enough for a sneak attack,” the guy warned. 

Chanyeol liked this plan less and less. The three others never stopped bragging about their numerous achievements, but something about this didn’t sit right with him.

“Maybe we let someone else deal with it,” he said. Paladin guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder, as though he thought they were sharing an inside joke. “Think about it,” Chanyeol implored, “if no one has beaten it before, we shouldn’t –” 

“No chance!” Paladin exclaimed. “Don’t be such a wuss, Pointy Ears. No one shall grab the gold and glory but us!” He paused, eyeing the guy speculatively. “There is a reward of gold, no?”

The guy nodded eagerly. 

“I must know,” Rogue said. “What kind of beast are we up against? Giant? Undead?”

“Shapeshifter,” said the guy. “It regularly takes the form of a dragon.”

“We defeated a dragon before,” said Wizard, grinning. “It was one of my spells that finished it off.”

“It’s settled,” Paladin declared. “We shall defeat this mighty beast and claim the reward.”

“Marvellous,” the guy said. “So listen closely…”

~

Chanyeol suspected they were in trouble. The mighty beast had been nicknamed Tiny, which rubbed him the wrong way. Using laughter as a way to deal with danger was one thing, but calling a man-eating, shapeshifting beast Tiny? 

His suspicions increased tenfold when the guy winked and slipped a piece of paper into his hand in passing.

You are not one of them. You will not be harmed.

Chanyeol, despite not being overly fond of his party members, did try to warn them of a potential trap, but Paladin silenced him every time, Rogue rolled his eyes, and Wizard cut him off to instead eagerly talk about the spells he was preparing for the fight.

So, Chanyeol gave up. If this cost them their lives, he would be damned if he mourned their sorry asses. Fortunately for him, as a ranger it made sense to avoid direct combat, so he could stay near them until he saw for himself just what kind of mighty beast they were up against. If things went south, he could be on his way faster than Tiny could barbeque him.

~

They reached the cave after a long rest (on Wizard’s request) and took in the nondescript entrance with overgrown greenery. Perhaps Tiny used the bones as toothpicks before eating them, too, leaving no remains for wanderers to stumble upon.

Rogue went in first, crouching along the dim walls as the rest followed at a distance, staffs, bows, shields, and weapons at the ready.

They walked in silence until a scream from Rogue hastened their steps. It still took far too long to reach him, at which point his body was already crumpled against a bloody wall.

Paladin roared, attention honing in on the one man standing in the room and watching them passively. 

“Who are you?” Wizard demanded. Chanyeol slowly edged backwards, sensing trouble. The beast was nowhere to be found, and yet Rogue was dead. He had a feeling the tiny man in front of them was, in fact, Tiny.

“Get out of our way,” hissed Paladin at the stranger. “We have a bone to pick with the beast.”

“The beast, as it just so happens, also has a bone to pick with you,” said the stranger.

Diving behind a clutter of large rocks, Chanyeol squeezed his eyes shut as Wizard’s and Paladin’s demands turned to shouts of fury, which turned to cries of fear and pain, which turned to… silence.

Soft footfalls eventually approached Chanyeol, and he dared to look up only when they came to a halt in front of him and he didn’t immediately die.

The stranger gazed down at him. “Junmyeon mentioned you. I thought you would have scarpered, given the chance. Why did you travel with them?”

Chanyeol swallowed, unsure where he stood with this – man, this… Tiny. “They were the only ones willing to accept someone inexperienced into their party. I hardly know them.”

The man harrumphed. “I’m Kyungsoo.”

“Chanyeol,” Chanyeol said. He cast a furtive glance at the remains of his party members. “Why…”

“They bullied me when we were younger,” Kyungsoo said. He shrugged. “Nearly drowned me once. They were particularly fond of jokes regarding my height.”

Ah. Chanyeol was starting to understand. “This was a setup?”

Kyungsoo’s mouth widened into a little heart-shaped smile. “Indeed. I know what their ego was like, so I had Junmyeon tempt them into coming here.”

“So you’re not a shapeshifter?”

“Oh, I am,” Kyungsoo said. “They just weren’t worth the effort.”

“Well,” Chanyeol said. “You just killed my party. May I join you?”

Kyungsoo frowned at him. “Did you miss the part where I killed your party? Why would you want to party up with me?”

“You hold a grudge worse than a dragon,” said Chanyeol, shrugging, “but you’ve already said more words to me than they did, and never once cut me off. I tried to warn them, you know. This is all on them.”

“Hm. All right.” Kyungsoo held out his hand and helped Chanyeol back on his feet. “We’ll meet up with Junmyeon and Jongdae. If they agree, you’re in.”

Chanyeol grinned. “Deal.”

This last round of Tinysparks had two 'themes': Spark and Tiny. I wrote a story for each; this one was for Tiny. Do I know what I wrote? Nope. 

(I gave the words to a friend and asked him to note down his thoughts, and a 'giant beast called Tiny that is underestimated and people get wrecked' was one of them, so I took it and ran) :D