[ionu's wager] trickster moon.

[Caelum]

OOCEditing of location necessary due to the fact that I am idiot. Carry on. stars, hide your fire these here are my desires and I won’t give them up to you this time around - mumford - Timestamp: 24 Fall 511 AV A trickster moon was rising in the east but it strung itself from a hydrangea sky as Syna’s sun had but begun to settle and set fire to the western horizon. Just without the unadorned walls of Ionu's Wager, a man who had been cut down in the height of his youth centuries before watched shy stars melt out of the world's ceiling. He was stretched out against the building's wall, having tucked himself into that inconspicuous corner but minutes before. He had misjudged both the time it took to traverse this new, strange city as well as his ability to do so prior to nightfall. The discovery of the gambling hall had been a blessing as among the last things Caelum wished to do was undergo the transformation from sun-drenched ethaefal to windmarked Drykas in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare. The far end of the Alvadas sky was igniting up with the blood light of the setting sun, embers echoed in the fall of dark hair and the tips of glowing lashes. He kept his eyes there, staying to the shadows as the moment of Leth’s diminishing of him approached. Wariness clung to the line of his mouth and the corners of his eyes, but he had yet a long way to travel. At not too long a length, he shoved with fatigued feet out of his slump to turn toward the door. He knocked and a funny smile cooked his mouth when surprised by the posed riddle. I am something. I am nothing I am lighter than air. I weigh less than a breath. Darkness destroys me and light is my death. “A shadow,” he answered at the end of a long pause, bemusement bubbling beneath the odd accent of his words. Within the shadow infested bar area, ensconced in the cozy dim, he slid out long legs with a drag of riding boots beneath the bar. The dust of a thousand roads was in his throat, begging for a drink. He had deemed it worth the spending of some of his last coins and not for the first time found an ironic fortune in the face that by day his body required no further sustenance than his abandoning goddess’ light. Alvadas was but a marker on the map of his fate, one he was running to now rather than from though he knew not the details of its path. The call was incapable of being ignored, a distant drumming against the interior walls of his soul, pulling him north, hauling at his heart. It was not the first time a god had summoned him, but while taking an evening to breathe and be still he genuinely prayed it would be the last.

[Victor Lark]

Two large glass pints knocked a greeting against the bar, and two large dirty hands grasped them by their mouths and dragged them to the tap. The fingers that released them slid away with a few impatient drummings, and then Victor turned around and replaced them with a pair of elbows. Leaning there, he glanced idly to one side and discovered a peculiarly marked man. His whole body sagged, with what the human could only guess was fatigue. He took a moment to stare, and this time bothered to soften the corners of his eyes, so that he would seem amiable if he were noticed too soon.

But weariness was a thick mask, and Victor could see nothing else in the stranger’s eyes. He would have to remedy that. His face spread into a smooth smile and he flopped a hand onto the counter’s polished wood, turning bodily to him. “What are you doing drinking alone?” He accused, as two newly filled mugs of cold ale skidded across the bar. He kept the iron of his eyes on the man as his hands regarded the drinks and wrapped clumsily around their handles. Lifting them, he added, “There are games to be played. Join us!”

The invitation was as trivial as it was genuine, punctuated by a wink and a sweeping nod that tossed the tourist into a wide pivot. He did not look back as he crossed the hall to a card table on the near wall, but he did steal a grinning glance as he finally sat, sliding the second drink to the white-haired and white-faced man beside him. There he reclined and dropped his attention to his cards, picked them up and inspected the betting pool.

[Seven Xu]

“So how do you play this game?”

Seven spoke loud enough to be heard, thumbing a pair of thin cards in his palm as he culled a wry smirk. A mug’s heavy bottom scraped against the pockmarked wood of a large table, heralding the return of his raven-haired accomplice. Ale frothed and sputtered within its glassy confines and drew the halfblood’s sidelong glance. “In,” he echoed the ante that circled the table, and placed his pair of swords face down in favor of a long pull of bitter amber.

They were still wearing the clothes they’d sailed to port in; not long after he’d been ushered to the second level of the Cubacious Inn for a well-deserved night’s sleep was he convinced that a night on the town was more suitable a celebration for an uneventful trip across a narrow sea.

The tipsy halfblood wiped the corners of his mouth with a thumb and forefinger, twisting his face into distracted curiosity as he followed Victor’s eyes. “Who is that?” He half expected the Ravokian to at least have a name; introvert and extrovert, white and black, they were oft-together and never too far apart.

“Show your cards, boys,” a gruff voice boomed from the far side of the table, pulling Seven back into the game, and away from the distant tattooed stranger. “Tonight, if you please.”

Seven straightened with a sigh of forced apprehension, flipping over a winning pair. The dealer scoffed when the albino donned a coy smile and a lofty, “So is that good? Ones are higher than twos?”

[Caelum]

Startled eyes followed the fox smiling young man – truthfully, he looked to be not much younger than Caelum did when in the Sunsinger’s skin – with a mixture of amusement and trepidation. Age was a tricksy thing to guess for a multitude of reasons; and if you believed like he that Tanroa could tuck time in pockets of breath and eons between bells, then it was inadvertently fallible. The thick bottom of his mug rolled against the lip of the bar and the cant of his chin settled the heavy knot of Drykas braids at the base of his neck. His mouth pulled sideways, shadows keeping score amid flecks of gold in his eyes like the spaces between the stars. Finally, he found his feet and followed. The hems of leather riding pants dragged a bit, primarily because they had been tailored to fit the taller man he was by day. Nothing fit him quiet right by night, not his clothes, not the skirl of ink swooping an eye in dim recollection of a lost god. He did not belong here. That much was plain. There were those who had wondered where he did fit, and those who did not have to ask at all. “’Cause I don’t know anyone,” came the belated reply to Victor’s question as he arrived at the table. A hand caught in a fingerless glove buried in a pocket and he sagged a shoulder against the wall. An idea of a smile touched his mouth, not easy but unthreatening, and he tilted his head in acknowledgement of Seven before giving his attention to the cards. They brought to mind a certain tarot deck in lily white hands. He blinked, banished it. “I’m Caelum,” he offered instead, even his name too cumbersome for his unearthly accent. “What are you playing?”

[Victor Lark]

Victor tossed his cards onto the table, where they fell noiselessly to reveal a pair of unrelated numbers and the mocking symbols between them. Though he had lost, he smirked at the winning cards and perched his arm on the chair behind the winner. Seven’s prize was just as easily his; he could concede defeat for that. Their less lucky opponents were also less impressed. One stood in a huff, while the other excused himself with some apologetic murmur about keeping his fingers.

Answering Seven’s question with an overdue shrug, a wave rolled from his wrist towards the approaching stranger. “Caelum,” he echoed happily to the man who had asked, pulling out the chair on his other side. “Sit!” he insisted, as the standing man heard a more relevant query.

“Anything you like,” he interrupted, his hands busy shuffling.

“St- St- Stammer and Blush. Again,” the dark-haired man answered without a beat. He tapped the table as if the cards would not know where they belonged, then moved his attention to his drink. A quick gulp seemed to steady him. He turned to Caelum again, catching his cards as they skated towards him. With two for each man, he spilled the flop onto the table before him: Cyphrus cards, spelling the the Six of Spears, then the Five of Shields, and a gruesome-looking illustration that was probably the mangled corpse of a Glassbeak with Spears through him. The gruff old man nodded at Seven to make the first bet.

“I’m Victor Lark.” Victor Lark exclaimed as their man worked. “This is Seven...” He slapped a jovial palm against his friend’s slight chest as he tried to remember the surname which he had only learned that very evening, despite having known the man for a season. “Seven, what was it?”

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s round nose crumpled as he tossed his mismatched cards aside with a languid flick of his wrist, muttering an “I’m out,” before occupying the same set of bone-white fingers with a weighted and sweating glass. Wagers circled the table; the turn produced another Five of Shields, and a candid whoop from the far side of their table resulted in another man’s begrudging fold. The hand that moved from the back of his chair to smack the center of his chest jarred Seven’s wide almond-shaped eyes from the game.

“Xu,” captured flames flickered dubiously between Victor and Caelum before settling on his cohort in an unspoken attempt to better commit his surname to the human’s memory, “Seven Xu.”

His free hand met the olive invader splayed across his chest, lingered on calloused knuckles, and gingerly discarded it from his person. Rocking against the back of his chair, a set of dry pink lips was afforded solace in silence and a long pull of bitter room temperature ale. In the best of conditions, Seven fell short of the social graces that seemed to come so naturally to Victor; he would gladly have slipped into the backdrop if we were afforded the luxury.

Alas, he had come to discover that wall-flowering was impossible, with Victor Lark. Sleep was nagging at the corners of his eyes. He censored a yawn, smiled through his teeth.

“Caelum’s the name of a constellation,” he observed over the lip of his mug. It was almost an accusation.

[Caelum]

"And seven's the number of the stars in it," returned the flat of the verbal blade, rasping out words well accompanied by a smile containing less bite. It crinkled the corners of his eyes, that smile, and melted the specks of gold within the dark in threat of glorious take over. They would, of course, but not for many and more hours yet. For now, Leth held him down. The chair creaked as he settled in, having dropped like a stone into the grave when Victor had issued the invitation -- demand, rather, but he was unconcerned with keeping track of such things. A deep draught was taken of his ale as he eyed the flipped cards, absently ransacking the ruins of his collective memories for something, anything, resembling card games and gambling. Numbers, well, that piece was easy enough insolong as they were to be in order; but pictures, especially those of cruel victories such as glassbeak hunting, well, he was terribly lost. Fortunately, he was used to that. "I don't know how to play," he explained, "Or have much money to bet with. I gather the first would be no problem --" Was he joking? How in the name of all that was holy did a pair of tricksy travelers in a gaming hall get this man to joke when the gods themselves had the damnedest of time? "The second I wager is a deal breaker. Ah," a breath of humor, accidentally magnetic. Moons and meteorites and basking in summer sun. "I said it. Wager."

[Victor Lark]

“And the victor’s the person who actually plays,” the man in the middle parried them both, shoving five copper pieces to the center of the table.

He turned to Caelum with a friendly grin on his slack lips, but then a sigh twisted his expression into a mockery of urgent encouragement. “We’re the only two left this round. You have to put in your bet or I can’t even play. Here.” The cards in his hand snapped face-down onto the ale-damp wood, and one of his hands moved to point at a house card while the other braced against Caelum’s arm. “This bird thing—”

“Glassbeak,” the dealer corrected.

Victor rolled his eyes. “Right. This is the Glassbeak of Spears. It’s like a Page, right above the Ten. The order goes two, three, four, to ten, and then there’s the Glassbeak, above that is...”

The House’s man obliged his customer’s suggesting glance. “The Pavilion, the Ankal, and the Strider.”

“Yes. That. So you want your cards to fit with the cards in play. Whether they match exactly or make a straight or anything.” An amiable shrug renewed his faltering smile. “Listen, you should just match the bet and see if your cards are any good. What’s five coppers?”

“There are more games than cards, too,” the dealer offered, but Victor ignored him. His dallying fingers finally slipped from painted flesh in favor of the cold condensation around his mug. Lifting it to his mouth, he nodded towards Seven without removing his eyes from the object of his inexplicable odium; Victor might have deciphered the meaning of their brief argument if he cared enough, but his fluttering mind alighted on a simpler conclusion.

“This one knows plenty about the stars,” he told the ethaefal, then finally regarded Seven’s tired mien as he nudged his wispy arm with a hard elbow. “Two silvers says you can’t tell me what that Caelum constellation means. What is he, an old knight who speared a glassbeak?”

[Seven Xu]

“It’s small and dim.” Seven smiled glibly from the safety of Victor’s other elbow. “One of the dimmest in the sky. I don’t bother myself with the meanings; leave that to the astrologers with their quills and their grand notions of celestial spheres. It isn’t as if they’re watching back.”

The ale’s hot fingers clutched the halfblood’s narrow chest, left his feet heavy and his head light; a once-conserved tongue turned into a fleshy pink whip tipped with playful contempt. He laughed, lilted the mug’s wide mouth and peered into a golden world of obscurity. “It’s good to name yourself after something small. Not many would pick up on its significance.” Whites flared around peculiar reds as they drifted back to regard Caelum. “The first Ethaefal we met was a cunt.”

The matter-of-fact comment was followed by another short laugh, bubbling on fatigue and inebriation. “No matter, right? We’re all friends and strangers, here.” A boot hooked something too significant and too warm to be a neighboring chair leg as he turned his facetious grin on his companion.

An apple bobbed beneath a stretch of skin as another quaff of frothing amber went down his pale throat. Seven let the heavy glass sing on hardened wood in favor of listing sideways to fish something from his pocket. Two silver-rimmed mizas scrabbled a short distance to a set of olive fingers, hitting knuckles and clamoring noisily against the din of the Wager’s patrons. He wiped the corners of his mouth on his sleeve. “Guess you win.”

[Caelum]

Velvet eyes lifted to Victor's face when he braced against his arm, but he returned his regard to the cards and the lesson they had to offer. He slumped in his chair, his own pair of cards face down on the table's edge and when released his hands rose. Fingers wormed beneath the worn leather of fingerless gloves, slowly peeling them off. Chin down like a shadow boxer, he look from the dealer to Seven. A startled choke of laughter came out, tilting his shoulders forward. Golden stained opal swirled a winged serpent across the back of his right hand, glinting in the dim light as he jammed his gloves into his pocket and shoved back his sleeves. "It means resurrection," he provided on the quiet, besieged accent. Leaning forward in his chair, he let five copper rimmed mizas fall to the pot. "Call." "Sometimes," he looked up to Lark, then back again to Seven while collecting up his pint. "The stars don't mean a damned thing at all," a beat and he tilted his glass toward Seven. "But they're like Justice, eh? He which is supposed to be blind, but you.." A strange smile curled his mouth, compassionate. Self deprecating. It was the only sign his words were not meant as mockery. Not mockery, at least, of his gambling partners. "You are like I, aren't you? You know that bastard's got eyes and they're in the back of his head. He sees everything. Don't sit there and tell me they aren't watching back."