Chapter 23: Wrong Place, Wrong Time

The first thing Theo Serrano noticed, walking into Marci and Lorelei's shared dorm, were all the books littering Lorelei's side of the room. Clearly the woman preferred them over their digital versions. Some of them were stacked up alongside the night stand, while others were crammed into the few available shelves above her bed, but most seemed to be stored in the small closet next to her desk.

Strangely enough, the desk owned the only surface that was spared from the mess of books and paperwork. It did, however, have a small tin cup of water, and several smaller sealed vessels of what looked to be paint resting on a water resistant pad.

Theo searched for signs of canvas artwork, but without delving deeper through her belongings, which would be incredibly inappropriate, there was nothing to see.

He couldn't help but notice that most of the paperback books had nothing to do with classwork, in fact most were in a completely different language. He picked one of them up, just out of curiosity, and tried to gauge the title. The lines were in cursive, but the letters were clearly not English. Eventually it dawned on him that this was the Reverie alphabet.

He looked around, the floor was piled with Redever literature, and his interests were suddenly peaked! One book was filled with illustrations, and his heart leapt up his throat upon seeing a detailed cover image of…tentacled monsters swarming around a female character. He put the book down, and picked up another. This one had a blue haired Redever being pinned underneath a rather muscular human man, both were moaning with ecstasy. The third one he looked at had a cover of a Redever beauty in a latex garb!

There was an entire series of books collected on a shelf, some twelve in all, featuring a muscular, small breasted, girl with red hair in highly unconventional armor fighting tentacle beasts. The girl was clearly a Redever, with small sharp horns, and a long tail, her dashing purple skin seemed to contrast her flashy red pixie styled hair. The artwork stunned him, he never heard of Redever adventure novels, especially ones with sword wielding heroines.

The titles were all in Reverie, so he couldn't understand a single word, but clearly, he stumbled upon a guilty pleasure that Lorelei indulged in.

Where the hell did she get all these books? He couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps she ventured to the Redever districts more often than he thought, which shouldn't be surprising, but still, he never knew Redevers wrote so much literature.

Shuffled in the layers of paperback novels, he found small bundles of magazines. Some were written in English, others in Reverie, and all were about fashion trends. One thick magazine was focused on hair styles, and included human, wolfkin, and redever men and women in its pages.

"I won't tell her that you've been snooping through her things. Just avoid the cabinets, unless you want me to tell Lori that you're a perv." Marci was laying on her bed, with several pins in her hair, and clearly not wearing a bra underneath her loose shirt. Her nipples were poking against the fabric, and the soft curvature of her bosoms hanged heavily toward either side of her torso while she played with her hand held music device.

Theo swallowed, ignoring the playful stares the lamia kept sending him, and doing his best to avoid the cabinet she mentioned. Instead he sat quietly on the desk chair, and pulled out his own phone to pass the time.

"Any idea when she'll get back?" He asked Marci.

Theo had never been so bold as to directly approach a woman like this, especially one who seemed infatuated with him. Perhaps it was the excitement of the expedition, or something deeper, but he felt like he just had to talk to Lorelei. He hoped he wasn't overstepping his bounds, or coming off as inappropriate. Now that he really thought about it, Theo worried that maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea. The longer he sat in her room, the more he fought the temptation to leave, and summon the courage to approach her again later.

Marci tried to break the silence by queuing up some music on her device. Lamia culture seemed to put an emphasis on stringed instruments when it came to their music.

"So…you and Mike doing ok?" Theo asked.

"About as good as one could expect," Marci chimed, twiddling her thumbs.

"Good…good," Theo leaned back. "So why do you have a body pillow of yourself next to you?" He couldn't help but address the elephant in the room. Next to Marci was a body pillow of a semi-naked version of herself, her likeness wearing a foxy boxing uniform.

Marci laughed out loud, then leaned onto her side so that her back was pressed against it. "It's a little gift for Mikey, a surprise present for those cold nights when I'm not there to warm his bed."

"That's very…nice of you." Theo rolled his eyes.

"If I can ever get Lori to compete, I'll be sure to get you a pillow of her."

Theo leaned forward, rubbing his eyes. "I'm actually surprised she hasn't joined the fights." He figured that she had to get the money for all these books from somewhere.

"Oh she's just shy, doesn't like the uniform either."

"Can't say I blame her," Theo nodded. The primal male part of his brain wouldn't say that, but he wasn't about to listen to it right now.

Marci smiled at him. "You know, we don't have many people like you around here."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. Most humans are so obsessed with themselves. You seem different, outside of this dumb obsession to leave the city. It's kind of refreshing, really. Most people barely look at Lori, and when they do, the glares make me want to lash out at them. But you, you never do that."

He shrugged, not really sure what to say in response.

Marci gave him a serious look. "That's why I'm working so hard, setting you up with her."

Her words caught Theo completely off guard, and he didn't quite know what to make of them. Was he being complimented? Or was she trying to manipulate him somehow?

Marci continued, "Lori needs someone like you, someone to guide her. Someone who understands her struggles."

Theo nodded in agreement.

A long silence passed between them, and both sat in silence for a few moments before Marci spoke again. "She's going to need someone to protect her, too."

"Protect her from…what? What do you mean?"

Marci continued to play with the fabric of her shirt, giving Theo a long and serious look. She was staring straight at him, no longer holding anything back.

"From the other humans."

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Another hour passed, and still no sign of Lorelei. Marci had grown frustrated, and tried to call her repeatedly. Eventually Theo had to leave, as it was getting late, and even Marci couldn't think of a good excuse as to why he should stay the night.

As much fun as that chaos would cause, she wasn't comfortable with having a guy sleep over. Not that she had a problem sleeping in Mikes room, but the reverse seemed like an invasion.

Lorelei's tardiness was starting to make her worried, and once Theo left she began putting on some fresh clothes so that she could go out and look for her. Just before she was out the door, a light scratching could be heard coming from the covered window

"What the…" Marci turned around, and lifted the blinds. That's when she saw Lorelei clinging to the tree branch just outside the room. She was carrying a rather large crate on her back, attaching it with a belt wrapped over her shoulder and across her chest. Somehow, it didn't seem like it was uncomfortable for her to carry.

"LORI!" Marci screeched. She unlocked the window, threw it wide open, and reached out to pull her roommate inside. While only two stories up, the idea that Lorelei would do something so reckless confounded her.

"Were you seriously hanging out there the entire time?" Marci was outraged.

Lorelei let the crate fall to the floor, then threw herself on her bed, and buried her face into the sheets.

"You realize that boy was waiting for you for hours! You didn't even respond to a single text! I was getting worried!" Marci shut the window close, and made a mental note to do something about that tree branch so Lorelei couldn't pull a stunt like that again.

"I'm sorry!" Lorelei began pounding the sheets. "It was so sudden! I just couldn't! I'm so sorry."

"One of these days…" Marci mused. "One of these days I'm gonna have to do something drastic."

Curling up on her bed, the lamia threw her jacket off, and finally looked at the crate Lorelei had dragged in with her. "What's in the box?"

"Just stuff…for the expedition."

"You know you're going to have to see him…talk to him eventually, like during the expedition right?" Marci wondered if Theo was still on their floor, just down the hall, and if so if she could drag him back into the room.

Lorelei just made a whimpering sound, she didn't even notice that some of her books were misplaced. Her book series about 'Lucy the Dungeon Crawler' looked as if they were meddled with. The telltale bookmark used to mark her place had fallen free from its pages, and could be found on the floor.

Marci slithered over to the box, opened it, and grinned. She then opened the closet on her side of the room, where her own expeditionary gear had been neatly stashed. "You know what? I bet we can make your body protection look even sexier."

"Please don't," Lorelei groaned, her tail flicking from side to side.

Marci studied the specialized gear a bit further. Oh yes I can make this look damn sexier. But first, time to do something drastic.