"... I can't believe you were serious. You actually stopped the war with a wedding."
Two humans walked out of a room full of glowing crystals. The woman's clumsy steps almost caused her to fall, but the brown haired man grabbed one of her arms and pulled her up.
"Pay attention, Jean. You're going to end up flattening yourself." voiced the guy, only to giggle like a fool. This earned him a glare from the woman, Jean.
"... Are you done?"
"Not quite yet," he said, while still giggling.
She still glared at him.
"Flattening… Hahaha, as if. T-that's just impossible… ehehe…"
Not a single laugh came out of her mouth, even as he had no choice but to gasp for air.
"Oi… Jean… D-do you want to hear a pun?"
"..."
"What do you call someone who trips upwards?"
Her glare became fiercer.
"A drug addict."
"What-"
"... Because he gets high!"
Her face remained stone cold, in spite of the man's constant wheezing, which grew louder whenever he looked at her face.
About ten seconds later, he wiped one of his teary eyes with his hand, and glanced towards his companion. "Ok, that didn't land as expected… Let me try another one."
He breathed in, and shot his shot. "You know, Robert often says his wife misses him."
Her eyebrows softened. 'Who is Robert?'
"But I'm pretty sure her aiming is getting better." After his words came out, another bout of laughter ensued.
And his knees fell to the floor, while his lungs tried to stop him to no avail. And it drowned in the silence.
"... Looks like that one missed the mark even harder... Ah, good thing I still have the heavy ones."
Randall cleared his throat. "Have you ever tripped so hard…"
Jean raised an eyebrow.
"… That you fell in love?"
"... Randall. If your jokes are this bad, then I wonder what your life decisions look like."
He clutched his heart, while creating a dramatic expression worthy only of the most tacky Korean dramas. "Come on, admit it. They were funny."
"No, they weren't."
"Yes, they were."
While Randall tried to convince her, and she kept saying no, a pair of well-dressed demons passed by one of the nearby halls.
"Yo, have you heard what happened to the tripping hare?"
"Nah, what about it?"
"It tripped."
Jean's expression remained cold for 2 seconds. However, she had a thought.
And a smile soon appeared on it.
"... pfft."
"T-that-"
And she started laughing, only to almost choke.
"... Why?"
"I guess the-… T-the joke teller also matters? Heheh!"
The betrayal in his body spoke volumes more than any word he could muster. Seeing such a melodramatic scene, the woman sighed.
"Alright, alright. Tell another one, and then I'll judge whether you are actually funny or not."
"Great!… Knock knock."
"Seriously?" Muttered the woman, who rolled her eyes.
"Yes, now answer. Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"The love of your life!" He declared, only for doubt to creep onto him.
Meanwhile, time seemed to freeze for Jean, as all of her thoughts came to a grinding halt.
And one took priority over everything else.
'... wait, I think I fumbled the joke-'
"Liar, the love of my life would know how to tell jokes!"
"Guh! T-That was a deadly blow!... How will I ever recover from-"
"Please, knock it off with the jokes."
"My heart is a joke to you?!" he yelled out, with his nonexistent tears facing the cold back of the woman.
'God, I'm not an actor or anything, but that was an amazing line.'
"Keep up the show all you want, but you'll never be funny this way," she said… While suppressing the urges to laugh.
'Maybe I am becoming petty… heh,' she thought to herself.
…
Later into the night, Randall and the Queen rested in the large bed of a rather tidy room.
The sheets of the bed were kicked down to the floor by the Queen, who wore nothing but a knee-long white shirt. With her whole body sprawled around the messy mattress, it was truly… a silent sight to behold.
The moon shed some light onto these two, though most of it fell on the Queen… Alas, the silence permeating the room didn't last for long.
One of the two got up silently, and walked out of there.
With his hands hidden within the pockets of a stylish, custom-made gray overcoat, the man paced leisurely around the hall of the palace. The loud snores emanating from multiple rooms clashed with the soundwaves of his footsteps, and overwhelmed them easily.
Thus, enabling him to walk unnoticed by most. And even if they did notice, what would they do? Alert someone?
It wouldn't matter.
"Two weeks… We've been living here for two weeks now."
He continued wandering around the now familiar halls, mulling over an event that would occur soon.
The wedding of the decade, to be exact.
"Aha, here. Violet's library."
A mostly closed space, divided into three sectors. All containing a fair number of bookshelves.
He walked around the leftmost sector, glossing his finger over the many books.
"Read, read, read, clickbait… Right, this one: My experience in the Afterrealm, by Fiend Rave."
The Afterrealm, a place he had learned about while exploring the books found in the Queen's library. A potentially interesting concept to anyone, but something especially important to the current Randall.
He picked it up, and kept wandering. "Now, there should be two more… After all, this alone is not enough."
No.
He needed to do a few other things, on top of that.
A book titled 'Are we alone?' with a mostly blue body.
Written by a demon from the Banhel School, someone he often heard other demons call… Armchair philosophists.
"Whether they are or not… According to Earth's standards, this guy would be a visionaire."
With the three books in hand, he headed towards one of the large tables.
Only to find a particular book.
A book named, "Jokes about rabbits tripping."
"... If he could, why couldn't I?"
He grabbed that book, swore that he'd never let this happen again, and continued on his path.