She had no idea why she even said anything in the first place! The last thing Markus needed was an excuse to play even more pranks on everyone.

So when the first day of Fourth Month rolled along, Ashe seriously thought about spending the rest of the day in her tree, only coming down to grab food, but she soon pushed the idea out of her head and jumped down. She spent the rest of her walk bracing herself to whatever prank-filler horror she might see at the bar.

At the Nine Shrines, she stood in front of the wood door and gently pushed it open. She stayed outside as the door swung inwards. She waited to see if anything would drop from the top of the door. When nothing did, she breathed a small sigh of relief and walked it.

Doing a quick scan of the inside of the bar, she thanked the gods nothing had been painted garish colors, flipped over, broken, set on fire, or just not how it was supposed to be. It didn’t even look like Markus had set foot there yet.

“Hey Ashe!”

She couldn’t help but stiffen for a moment at the sound of Markus behind her. She spun around, expecting something to be in his hand, a water balloon, a pie, anything.

She wasn’t expecting black coffee in a bright blue mug. He smiled at her.

“Morning! Is there something wrong?”

Ashe relaxed her shoulders. “No, no, everything is fine.”

Markus shrugged taking that as enough of an answer as he walked over to a nearby table. Ashe followed him with her eyes as he did so. He made no suspicious movements, which made Ashe look harder for anything out of the ordinary.

She sighed, accepting her fate of not getting the upper hand on Markus this Trickster Day. She reached over for a coffee mug and poured herself a cup. She was about to sit by Markus when the bottles of beer and keer caught her eye. 

In a split-second decision, she went behind the counter and grabbed a bottle (of beer, not keer). She felt like she’d need a shot in her coffee for today. She’d never tired it, but if Thog had it everyday, it couldn’t be that bad.

She held the bottle upright and undid the cork. With a sharp pop, the cork popped off and with a louder bang, a volcano of multi-colored glitter erupted from the top, spilling on the counter, into her coffee, onto the floor, even in her hair. She stood in shock for a moment, the sound of Markus dying of laughter in the background making it through the ringing in her ears.

Through laughter, he said, “Y’know, rainbow it a good look on you, Ashe!” before dissolving into giggles.

Calmly, Ashe set down the bottle before vaulting over the counter and running straight for Markus, who booked it as soon as Ashe started to move.

“Markus! Get back here!” she yelled as he ran through the hole in the wall.

As they ran past the Wizard Drugs pool, an image of Ashe force-feeding Markus glitter appeared.