For Likorale, that day was just another regular day on their boring life as a highly frustrated unemployed young adult. Just a regular Thursday sending a million curriculum and getting zero answers, just as always. What did they expected anyway? Ugh.
Good thing they still had some fanfictions to read and podcasts to listen to while taking a break from their boring life. The Internet was both a big mistake and a fucking paradise –just like Anime though.
Thursdays were not overly good days for them, but usually they would just go through without much of a fuss. But that day everything seemed more boring than usual. They didn’t feel like staying inside their little apartment doing absolutely nothing, eating unhealthy snacks and watching a both homoerotic and homophobic shitty show like Supernatural.
Nah. No more Destiel for that week. Or even for the whole month –goddammit Dean, kiss that idiot of an angel already!
They decided to go out and buy some groceries, which was kind of unnecessary, because their fridge was pretty ok –not full, not empty: just ok, you know, with a mostly rotten broccoli, a half dried-up lemon, some cheese and yogurt, a couple Tupperware their mother had filled for them last time they saw each other a couple weeks ago; on a second thought, would be better to get rid of those though.
Anyway, they decided to go outside. Big mistake. Bigger than the Internet and Anime put together.
Ok, maybe not that big.
As soon as they put a foot outside their little apartment, some sort of portal frame appeared in front of them out of the blue. Although Likorale didn’t even notice because that portal opened right in front of the elevator’s door and the poor idiot was just too distracted with their phone, choosing a good playlist for their little walk to the supermarket, to tell the difference.
“Ugh. A variant of this guy again? This is getting old already,” a man barked.
Likorale was also so distracted skipping through the songs they already found boring on their own phone that they didn’t had a moment to realize how oddly those guys in front of them were dressing.
“In name of the Time Variance Autority, you’re under arrest for your crimes against the Sacred Timeline”, a woman said loudly to Likorale.
“Can you hold me the door, please? Thank you,” replied Likorale without taking their headphones out, entering the portal on their own.
“Welp that was easy…” one of the TVA agents uttered.
The poor idiot did not realize until they were inside and it was too late.
“Oh damn,” Likorale muttered. “I was sure that was the elevator’s door…” They turned around and saw the agents enter the portal behind them while taking their headphones out. “I didn’t know there were offices in the building… Anyway, do you guys accept CVs?”
“Sure, kiddo, leave it on the counter with Casey,” one of the agents scoffed, and Likorale took a look at the receptionist.
“That sounded rather sarcastic, but I’ll go get it anyway,” Likorale replied, turning around to cross the portal again.
“Yeah, no,” the woman agent replied, pushing Likorale back to the counter. “You’re staying here with us,” and proceeded to take their phone and headphones away. “Casey, log this as evidence.”
“Hey, what the fuck?! What’s wrong with you?!”
Suddenly, two other translucent portal doors opened on both sides of the reception desk and a couple of men were pushed through them by other TVA agents. One of them, tall and slender, black haired with pale skin and a sharp jawline, the other one… exactly like the other guy, except he was blue-skinned with weird scar-like markings on his whole body and had red eyes. Both those guys were dressed pretty similar too with weird-ass robes on green, black and golden. What the actual f-
“Oh, hey, it’s two of us!” the blue-skinned laughed before turning and spotting Likorale. “Three of us! We’re a handful today!”
What was that guy saying? They didn’t look alike at all? Besides the black hair, of course, they all were pretty different. Although it was true that it seemed that the three of them had had a similar idea when it came to getting dressed, for even Likorale was dressed on those colors with their black jeans, a green t-shirt and their black leather jacket with golden zippers.
“Y’all Lokis are indeed a handful…” complained the Agent who was pushing the blue guy to the counter.
“So, first time?” the blue guy asked, looking alternatively at his pale copy and at Likorale.
“Yes?” Likorale simply replied.
One of the agents escorting the pale man approached the counter with a blue pebble in his hand. “Evidence,” he communicated to the guy behind the desk.
The pale guy seemed not very pleased with that. “«Evidence»? How DARE you calling them such a thing?!” The guy behind the desk, Casey, took the blue pebble and put it into a drawer alongside Likorale’s phone and headphones. The pale man gasped lividly. “A drawer! How inconsiderate!”
Without much more to say, the escorting TVA Agents led their respective prisoners to three different doors in the same hallway and pushed them all at once through them.
Everything that happened next was just crazy: first that weird machine -which seemed to be the bastard offspring between Marvin from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an old broken down TV from the 60's, and GLaDOS from Portal- completely disintegrated Likorale's clothes, leaving them on their birthday suit; then a trap door opened under their feet and they suddenly fell to the floor below, fully dressed in a khaki prison uniform –“really, khaki? Wasn't there a crappier color?”–, and a guy behind a desk urged them to sign some papers that were supposed to list everything they'd ever said in their lives. A stack of half a meter. Pretty small for Likorale’s big mouth, to be honest.
“Are you sure this is everything I’d ever said? Because I’m not so sure,” Likorale obviously argued.
The printer began to make a printing sound and a new paper with those words on it was put in front of them. “Please, sign this too.”
“Do I have to sign every single one of these or just the last one?”
Another paper was printed with those words. The guy behind the desk sighed as he put the new printed paper in front of them. “And this.”
“Do all my monologues with myself count? Because I talk to myself a lot and this pile of paper seems rather small,” a new printing sound. “Who decides what counts and what doesn’t?” The printer didn’t stop printing. “Have you read any of these? Those are pretty private, you know?” And another paper was placed in front of them while the machine kept on printing. “This is all because I didn't read the terms and conditions of some video game, right?”
The guy behind the desk rolled his eyes as Likorale kept on asking seemingly random questions and reaching to intricate yet absolutely wrong conclusions about what that place was. The poor man wasn’t paid enough for all that shit –well, he wasn’t paid at all, but still.
After half an hour and a whole rainforest reduced to a huge pile of printed papers, Likorale was finally sent to the next lower floor, where a short man asked them to verify that they were not, in fact, a robot.
“Sure, where’s the Captcha?” obviously asked Likorale. How else could they verify they were not a robot?
“…move through,” the man replied with kind of a dead-inside voice. That man wasn’t paid enough either.
Once Likorale had passed through what looked like a metal detector of an old airport, the doors opened and they were let out of that place, leading them to a room that looked like the entrance to a ComicCon, except without having to wait in line because the room was practically deserted. Likorale recognized the only two men in the place, the same ones who had entered the hall of that place almost at the same time. The two guys were talking to each other, actively ignoring the guards posted at both ends of the room who were asking them to keep moving.
“Of course I took my time! Until a few years ago I didn't even know I wasn't Asgardian, how could I be sure I wasn't a robot?” Likorale overheard the pale man conversing with the blue guy.
“Tsk, you Asgardians really make a big deal out of nothing!”
“Easy to say when you’ve not been kidnaped, made think you’re a different race, raised to hate the race you actually are, and then get disowned by the man who kidnaped you after killing your biological father to prove you’re a worthy son.”
“Holy fuck, you guys had such a shitty life,” exclaimed Likorale, approaching them.
“Nah, not me,” the blue guy replied calmly. “Just him. And a bunch more of Lokis with similar lives.”
“Oh, I’m sure you had a magnificent life on that abandoned frozen rock you call home,” the pale guy snorted sarcastically.
“«Abandoned frozen rock»! Oh dear,” the blue guy laughed. “I overthrew Asgard's rule over the Nine Realms and proclaimed Jotunheim as its own sovereign nation centuries ago! If there’s an «abandoned frozen rock», that’s undoubtedly Asgard!”
“You WHAT?” the other man shouted.
“Jeez, what kind of Game of Thrones parallel universe do you two come from?” asked Likorale.
The pale one stared in silence at both while the blue guy laughed lightly at Likorale’s comment. “Loki of the House Laufeyson, first of his name, bane of the House Odinson, and rightful king of Jotunheim. Ha! I actually like how it sounds!” He had obviously understood the reference somehow, but was not willing to explain it to the other guy who just looked at them puzzled.
“So… you’re Loki,” said Likorale looking at the blue guy, then at the pale guy. “And you’re…?”
“Also Loki.”
“And so are you,” the blue guy uttered nonchalantly.
Likorale snorted. “I’m no «Loki», guys. You must have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Likorale!”
“You’re kidding me, right?” the pale guy looked dead at them. “Your name is an anagram for «Real Loki».”
“Also the translation of this crackfic author’s name in Sotho. They spent half an hour trying to find a translation of their name that didn’t sound like their real name, the fucking loser!” the narrator confessed.
“LOL”
“What-”
“Pff.”
Anyway.
“But if you’re not convinced yet of the fact that you’re another Loki just like us,” started the blue guy, “there is one constant feature that is always present in all Lokis, no matter what.” The blue guy took both Likorale’s and the pale guy’s forearms with his bare hands, making them both turn blue. “We all are always Jötnar!”
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Likorale screamed in disbelief. And started rambling about it. “I’m blue da ba dee dabba da-ee? I was blue this WHOLE time? ALL THOSE HALLOWEENS I HAD THE PERFECT COSTUME AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT.”
“Grabbing also my forearm was entirely unnecessary and uncalled for,” the pale Loki complained.
“I was trying to make a point, you Asgardian crybaby.”
“YOU THREE, MOVE THROUGH!” a TVA agent shouted from one of the sides of the room.
“SHUT UP, WE’RE TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION IN HERE!” the blue Loki replied. “Always so impatient, as if they were getting out of time in this timeless place!”
“Always?” the pale Loki repeated.
“You said it was not your first time here… Just how many times have you been arrested by these guys?” Likorale wanted to know.
“During the last decade? Like a hundred!” the blue Loki replied proudly. “I know everything about the TVA!”
“So… where are they taking us? Where does that door lead to?” the pale Loki asked.
“Oh, that door! It leads to the court, where they will judge us and hold us guilty of having committed crimes against a thing they call the Sacred Timeline,” explained the blue Loki.
“Haven’t I had enough committing crimes against Skyrim and its people…?”
“I haven’t committed a single crime!” the pale Loki complained, and both Likorale and blue Loki stared at him cocking an eyebrow. “I MEAN AGAINST THAT STUPID TIMELINE!”
“Well, apparently you have; otherwise you wouldn’t be here,” the Blue Loki snapped while Likorale made a disapproving noise with their mouth. “And so do you, you little rascal. You’re not innocent either.”
“Who? Me? All I did was setting a foot outside my apartment!”
“With a pandemic going on and without a mask. I would hold you guilty myself!”
“Fuck, the mask! I knew I forgot something!”
“AAAAHH!!! SHUT UP YOU TWO!” the pale Loki yelled.
“Jeez… chillax.”
“Yeah, calm your tits down, Asgardian.”
“How am I supposed to calm down?! I have to return with my fiancé!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” the blue guy replied. “Our respective timelines parted without us, and so did your fiancé.”
“What does it mean «our respective timelines parted without us»?” asked Likorale.
“I don’t care what it means! My fiancé is not in any stupid timeline, THEY’RE INSIDE A DRAWER!”
“Ooooooooh…” the blue guy seemed to understand. “You’re engaged with the Tesseract…”
“Precisely.”
The blue guy suck air through his teeth, kind of disgusted.
“Tesseract?”
“The blue rock they put in that drawer alongside your Midgardian device.”
“…a rock…”
“Some Lokis have developed a «sense» to perceive the infinity stones on some kind of humanoid forms, and some of them have also developed romantic feelings for said… rocks,” explained the blue Loki.
“Gross,” uttered Likorale.
“Do you have ANY problem with my personal relationships?”
“Not at all, you’re a grown man responsible for your own weird paraphilia. I can respect it. Cannot quite understand it, but I do respect it.”
“Man, after knowing the brony part of the Internet, you fucking a pebble sounds even healthy.”
“Thank you, I guess.”
“MOVE, YOU THREE!” an agent shouted again.
“SHUT UP!” The three Lokis replied at the same time.
“So, if they are to hold us guilty no matter what, what are they going to do with us after the trial?” asked Likorale.
“They will prune you. Well, us, actually.”
“I’m sorry, «prune»?” inquired the pale Loki.
“Erase. From existence.”
“YOU KNOW THERE’S A TAPE THAT EXPLAINS THAT, RIGHT?” another Agent yelled.
“I EXPLAIN IT WAY BETTER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” the blue Loki yelled back. “As I was saying… Yeah: they will erase us from existence.”
“And… how are you alive right now?” wanted to know Likorale.
“Because I escaped, obviously!”
“How?” asked pale Loki.
“The first time: I fought my way out, stole a TemPad, and got out of here.”
“Very well, so as you’re so experienced in this arena, what’s your plan to get the three of us out?”
“Fight our way out, steal a TemPad, and get out of here!”
“Shocking.”
“Guys… I don’t know how to fight?”
“Also shocking.”
“But you have a wicked aim, don’t you? All Lokis do.”
“Well, yes… but I don’t have anything to throw them?”
“Oh, no. We have no weapons nor magic! HOW. SHOCKING.”
“Luckily enough for the three of us, they never register inside the bodies! And a plastic bag wrapped around any device prevents it from melting during the Temporal Aura scanner! Let me show you!”
The blue Loki proceeded to pull his prison uniform and underwear down to his knees. Both Likorale and the pale Loki turned away immediately to avoid seeing that deplorable spectacle, which consisted of the Jötun Loki trying to expel something from his anal cavity in front of everyone.
“«Dear diary, today I’ve seen a blue dick. No, I’m not on drugs, I swear. I was also not watching smurfs porn, I swear that as well».” Likorale cradled themselves.
“Oh, when traumas were this simple…” the pale Loki sighed.
“I’m suddenly so happy for you and your marriage with the pebble!”
“…”
“And…OUT!” Uttered happily the blue Loki.
The pale Loki turned around to look at the other Loki, just to find out the thing he had expelled from his inside was almost as long as one of his arms. “I’m so happy for my marriage too...”
Likorale also turned around and saw the thing. “Holy shit!”
“There are now two reasons not to let me be touched by those hands… Ever again.”
“Ditto.”
“This is a pruner, my dear friends!” the blue Loki announced, pointing at the long staff that was minutes ago inside him. “With this, we can prune whoever tries to prune us! Do you wanna wield it?”
“Yikes. No.”
“No, thanks.”
“It’s your lose.”
“I can live with that.”
“Same.”
“Well, let’s get out of here.”
The blue Loki put on his khaki uniform again and started moving to the door at the end of the room, both Likorale and the pale Loki followed him.
“Your ticket, sir,” the agent asked him. Likorale retrieved their ticket from their pocket.
“Move aside, Jerry. We don’t have time for this.”
“My name’s not-,” and the poor agent didn’t finish his sentence because the blue Loki pruned him on the spot. The agent’s own pruner hit the floor.
“Damn.”
“Bye, not-Jerry.”
“Most of them don’t even know their real names. This place is so fucked up.”
The pale Loki bent down to pick up the pruner from the floor, now they had two weapons with which to defend themselves, wielded by two well experienced warriors.
The blue Loki made them leave that room and walk through the corridors with an unknown direction for everyone except for him. Along the way, anyone who asked if they had permission to be there was pruned.
Likorale could not help but get distracted by the futuristic scene that could be seen from the open corridor to the rest of that strange place, which looked like the typical picture that comes to mind when you try to imagine what the world would be like in the year 3,000 if there was no climate change.
They came to a door that read "evidence", and the blue Loki froze the knob with his hand and kicked it open.
“Why do you still have your powers but we don’t?” the pale Loki asked.
“I don’t have powers… I think,” muttered Likorale.
“Because it’s my nature, not a power,” explained the blue Loki. “They can restrict magic, but cannot restrict what’s biologically yours.”
“Oh, wow,” sighed Likorale, going through the broken open door.
A room full of hundreds of shelves as far as the eye could see filled with trillions of different objects stood before them. Likorale began to walk among those shelves, scanning everything on them and touching half of the things without even knowing what they were. The sections were arranged alphabetically, so the Lokis walked straight to the letter L, and more specifically to the section named "Loki Variants", which was undoubtedly one of the largest. There, the blue Loki pulled out a cardboard box and opened it before the pale Loki.
“Pick a wife,” laughed the blue Loki as he watched the pale Loki turn even paler at the sight of that box completely full of infinity stones, most of them blue, but there were also some red, yellow and green ones.
“How- I- What- Why-”
“You can't tell yours, can you?” grinned the blue Loki mischievously.
“O-Of course I can!” replied the pale Loki offended, carefully inspecting the box contents.
While the two Lokis were discussing if the pale one was really able to distinguish his own stone from the rest, Likorale found a whole rack full of weapons, but especially daggers and swords. “Oooh, cool knives!” exclaimed while picking up a golden dagger with intricate green patterns.
“A Loki’s treasure is another Loki’s treasure,” smiled the blue Loki, walking over to Likorale to check out the dagger they had chosen. “Beautiful, very beautiful.” He had abandoned the pale Loki further back, leaving him embracing that box full of infinity stones and unable to distinguish his own.
“Yeah, about that. I don’t think I’m a Loki really,” commented Likorale, admiring another dagger.
“Oh, but you are,” replied the blue Loki. “Don’t you long for glory? Don’t you always feel like you were born to be something else? To be someone way more important than you are right now?”
“I mean… yeah. Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Don’t you usually describe yourself as an ancient god?”
“All non-binary people I know describe themselves as ancient gods, so it doesn’t count.”
“But you did turn blue!” shouted the pale Loki, his eyes still fixed on the box.
“But I did turn blue though…”
“Ha! See?”
“How can I do it again? It would be rather useful to freeze stuff on our way out.”
“Sorry, but most Lokis cannot use their Jötunn appearance nor abilities. A very powerful spell was casted on you short after you were born in order to contain your true power and indomitable nature, and this spell won’t allow you into your Jötunn form unless an external force triggers it,” the blue Loki explained.
“Wasn't magic supposed to be useless in this place?” asked the pale Loki.
“Not the All-Father’s though. I don’t know what kind of magic he used, but it’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“So, all I can do is… this…” Likorale sighed as they pointed to the knives.
“Pretty much, get as many as you can carry.”
“Yeah, ok. I just see a problem: I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Aim at their weapons,” answered the pale Loki, joining them with the whole box under his arm.
“Are you taking all the wives with you?” smiled mischievously the blue Loki.
“I’m not taking any chance.”
“No shit! There is a Ninja Loki?” Likorale exclaimed raising a shuriken.
As Likorale was showing the other two Lokis the shuriken, they heard a lot of footsteps of security boots running in their direction, and TVA agents armed and ready to fight began to enter through the door. Reflexively, Likorale threw the shuriken at them, hitting one of them in the fingers and making this agent to drop his weapon.
“Nice throw, kiddo!” the blue Loki praised them. “Now check this out!” The blue Loki placed one knee on the ground and, placing one hand on the floor, began to freeze it in the direction of his pursuers, trapping their feet in the ice. “How do you like that?”
“Cool!”
“Show off…” the pale Loki slurred.
“Grab some knives and run while they’re still trapped,” the blue Loki suggested.
“Already on it,” answered Likorale, who had found a backpack and was packing it entirely with knives.
“At least one of us is using acceptably their brain,” Blue Loki muttered as he snatched the box full of infinity stones from the Pale Loki’s hands and emptied it into the backpack. “You too grab some knives, you lovebird!”
“Yiu tuu grab sum knivis, yiu luvbird,” Pale Loki muttered mocking him with a high-pitched tone.
“What was that?” Blue Loki snapped.
“Nothing.”
The three ran out of the room as the TVA agents desperately tried to break the ice that anchored their boots to the floor. The blue Loki was running first, leading them down the long corridor to another of the thousands of doors there. Likorale wondered to themselves how many times he must have run through these endless corridors to know exactly which door they had to go through to get out of there.
Other TVA agents stood in their way, but all their weapons ended up on the ground before they could wield them against the Lokis. Likorale and the pale Loki knocked them out of their hands by throwing daggers at them, and the blue Loki threatened the agents with pruning if they tried to use those weapons against them.
Eventually they reached a door that had no identifying sign and the blue Loki led them through it to end up in the lobby where they had entered the TVA headquarters.
“We’re where we started, genius…” the pale Loki complained.
“I’m aware,” Blue Loki shrugged. “All we have to do now is wait for a door to open and we run through it.”
“That doesn’t sound exactly like a solid plan to me…,” mumbled Likorale.
“But it is!” Blue Loki replied. “Oh, I hope the agent coming through is Hunter B-15! She hates us Lokis the most, it’s so endearing!”
“Oh my Norns, he’s in love…” muttered Pale Loki.
The guy behind the counter noticed then that the three Lokis were standing there. “Oh, can I help you?” he asked.
“Of course you can, Casey!” the Blue Loki leaned into the counter. “When does the next door open?”
“Oh. I cannot tell you that!” he replied. “Last time I almost got into trouble!”
“I promise you, sweet Casey, you won’t get in trouble this time.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Next door opens in a minute.”
“Good. And… who happens to be the Agent assigned to that door?”
“Oh, you know her! It’s Hunter B-15.”
“YES! I-I mean, good. That’s cool. Good to know she’s still on duty.”
“Oh my god, he is in love,” muttered Likorale.
They waited patiently for the promised door to open, and when it did, several agents came through it dragging a green woman who was threatening to kill them all if they didn't release her immediately. Behind the procession of agents, one more agent entered, a black-skinned and wide-hipped woman, holding in her hands what looked like a smartphone, her brown eyes glued to the device.
The Lokis didn't even hesitate for a moment. As soon as they saw the door open, they rushed towards it and positioned themselves on the sides so that they could pass through as soon as all the TVA soldiers had entered through it. The blue Loki waited so he could be the last one to take the TemPad from Hunter B-15. He waltzed up to her and effortlessly snatched the TemPad out of her hands, making her waltz with him for a second before she could realize what was happening.
“Oh, Love, if only we could have more time!” He purred.
“NOT YOU AGAIN!” She barked.
“Bye, Love!” He waltzed out through the door and closed it behind him.
That door had led them to an arid planet with a purplish atmosphere, its sky covered with what looked like a permanent solar eclipse. There was a huge cliff in front of them, and as Likorale and Pale Loki looked down they saw a purple guy bleeding to death in the deepest part of the cliff.
“You deserve that, you fucking grape,” the pale Loki spat at the corpse at the bottom of the cliff.
“Where are we?” Likorale asked.
“Vormir,” Blue Loki answered. “But we’re about to get out of here before we get erased with everything on it.”
“Can I go with you?” a red skeleton guy asked.
“No. Limited capacity, sorry pal,” Blue Loki replied while looking down at the little screen.
“It’s ok. I’m quite used to it by now…”
“Ooh. Poor red guy,” Likorale took pity on him.
“He is a Nazi,” explained Blue Loki.
“Oh. Fuck him then.”
“Good to know this kid is not a Nazi,” muttered Pale Loki.
“To my knowledge, not a single Loki is a Nazi. I’m proud of us!”
The blue Loki managed to open a different door, and the three entered through it. They found themselves in a kind of spaceship parking lot. A big-headed, sad-voiced robot asked them what ship they were looking for, but they ignored him, so he left muttering something like "I should be used to it by now."
Before they could ask where they were, the blue Loki positioned himself in front of them and pointed with open arms to the place they were walking towards. “Gentlepeople, we are at the only place in the entire universe in which the TVA has no jurisdiction: the restaurant at the end of the universe!”
“Cool! What’s its name?” Likorale asked.
“The restaurant at the end of the universe.”
“Catchy,” replied Pale Loki as sarcastically as possible.
“Don’t you have a wife to retrieve from a backpack?” the blue Loki reminded him.
“Oh, shit!” The Pale Loki rushed to take the backpack from Likorale and searched inside desperately. “Why I cannot see them? Why they look…dead?”
“Oh, that's because infinity stones only work in their respective timelines. Outside of them they’re just misshapen marbles. Maybe I should have told you that before.”
“YES YOU SHOULD!”
“R.I.P.”
“Anyway, let’s head inside.”
They entered the restaurant, which also doubled as a hotel, and waited at the counter to be assisted.
“But don't be sad about losing your stone wife, you've got us. In the end we'll be like a family, you'll see,” Blue Loki tried to cheer Pale Loki up.
“That’s how a lot of fanfictions work too. Found Family trope,” commented Likorale at themselves.
“Just fuck off, you two,” Pale Loki growled, and proceed to ignore them all while mourning his loss.
“I’ve done nothing!” Likorale replied.
“I know this and I love you,” Blue Loki told Likorale, a hand on their shoulder.
“Oh, you know the memes. You’re well versed in the Internet way. I have nothing but respect for you, my good sir.”
Before the conversation could go any further, a woman with short hair approached them at the counter, asking how she could assist them.
“Oh, you see, young lady: my friends and I would want to rent a room. One for each of us, if possible.”
“Of course Sir, did you have a reservation?”
“Uh, no. It’s an unplanned trip, you know?”
“Why does this sound familiar?” Likorale though out loud. “Like one of those fic tropes…”
“I'm sorry, sir, but there are not three individual rooms available at the moment. We are in peak season, you should have booked.”
“Oh my god, it does sound like that fanfic trope.”
“And, what can you offer us, my fair lady?”
“A room. With only one bed.”
“I FUCKING KNEW IT!” Likorale squealed.