You Gotta Know When to Hold 'em

[Shai]

Timestamp: 35th of Winter, 511 AV

Shai had almost walked right by her destination; the discrete building was only marked as a bar by the writing in its window. She might have even past it multiple times in her attempts to find the location. Bob had given her the name to find it by. Directions would be ridiculous in a city with such a dynamic layout. At any rate, the spider was early she had assumed the city would give her a hard time finding the tavern but it had only taken her twenty chimes to arrive at her destination. The sun had set several bells ago now which suited the thief and she assumed Bob wouldn't mind either. Compared to Sunberth at night Alvadas was tame even if you might be kept from finding your way indefinitely.

Stepping through the threshold of The Stars and Sun, Shai ran her eyes over the interior and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It seemed much like any of Sunberth’s bars, only vastly cleaner and the patron’s looked slightly less likely to shank you for enjoyment. Thus far her stay in Alvadas had been measurably less larcenous and as a result her income had taken a massive hit. On the journey to the city of illusions the Symenestra had secured a guarantee from Bob Barton to teach her how to play cards. Shai figured this was the best way to continue her trade while abiding by the city’s laws. Steal from a man while he’s not looking and it’s theft. Steal right in front of a man and they consider it sport.

Sitting down at one of the tables, carefully arranging her black cloak so it didn’t lie awkwardly, the thief caught sight of the ceiling. Murmuring faintly to herself in Symenos, “Magic. . .” she made the word into a curse. It’s not that the reflection of the sky outside wasn’t lovely but it was a blatant display of the force she had come to loathe due to damage done to her and extensive bells wasted practicing. The name made sense now though. In her opinion the illusion would have been vastly improved if it was a cave ceiling with lovely hanging stalactites. But humans rarely understood such Symenestra proclivities, they found caverns 'scary'. Getting comfortable, Shai pushed back her hood and drug out her braid from her neckline allowing it to run down her front. To complete her loiterer’s posture she tossed her mittens onto the table in front of her and lounged in the chair.

Any normal Symenestra would hide in any city outside of Kalinor, but just this once it wasn’t entirely necessary for Shai to do so. She was in the city working for the government which meant they knew where she was sleeping just in case those nasty bed time stories turned out true and she decided to snatch children and eat their innards. That meant her only real sources of danger were the people, luckily living in Sunberth had taught her how to get away, quickly. Besides soon she’d be joined by her companion and he would surely prove an excellent obstacle to throw in the paths of any pursuers. The man had exceptional luck and she had no doubt he would survive just fine, but Shai had no misconceptions of the little man playing the hero nor did she want him to.

Tilting her chin upward, Shai idly observed the constellations on the ceiling as she waited.

editedchanged the time so Vic could join

[Victor Lark]

For once, Victor had arrived while the door was still unlocked. A reimancer had lost a bet he did not want to pay, and so had instead cleared the Wager of her patrons with a short but effective tantrum. The smooth-tongued bird had not been among those chosen to help clean the mess, and so he had departed while the moon was still rising. His hair reeked of embers and the sides of his hands were red where he had covered his face, but the streets had doused him with a pleasant drizzle as he challenged them to take him home before midnight. He had lost that game, but only by a few chimes—he was starting to suspect that he had been having an easier time of wandering, lately.

He had related as much to the black-haired man he had found behind the bar, and then proceeded to occupy the majority of it in a sprawling repose. He spoke to the moving ceiling when Seven was close enough to listen, and that was most of the time. Those who remained were likely the bulk of the night’s business; they did not need bothering.

Victor had been trying for chimes to convince his fool to feed him where he lay, to test how much ale he could take horizontally, when the door opened again. The outside’s clear quiet swarmed in on cold air, and most faces turned to see the source of the disturbance. His chin tipped awkwardly upward as his head craned to see beyond his scalp; it was all the salutation the reclining co-owner would bother to offer—that was, if their latest customer had not worn such a peculiar face, with those jeweled eyes and the promise of a bite behind her lips.

A cloud crossed the moon as she revealed herself, starving his eyes’ probing steel of a proper glimpse of her. So he granted her the effort of turning over, eyeing Seven for any opinion (or lack of one) as he rolled toward the slight man and then recoiled to his elbows before he could fall off. Feet kicking, Victor laced his fingers together as he called to the woman in the corner. He could not suspect she was expecting anyone else, much less the dwarf-man he had encountered five years and a continent away.

“We don’t wait on people here, beautiful. You have to come to us.”

[Seven Xu]

Had the halfblood’s hair survived the fall in a mop of unruly alabaster, the pair would have been a veritable set of opposites; pawns, cast on conflicting sides of a chess board. While his bird’s oft-harsh Ravokian tongue weaved a cloying greeting, Seven’s mouth was a flat line of silent assessment; his teasing laughter had been sucked from the tavern with the determined thump of a door settling back on its frame. His gaze had followed the human’s, when a stomach turned into a back with an inelegant shuffle.

A wooden mug had been filled to the brim with ale; it had teased Victor, knocked against his jaw and dribbled body-warm down a winsome cheek only to be wiped away by the back of the same hand that put it there. Now it lingered, forgotten, in Seven’s hand, before his grip tightened on the handle and he brought the mug to his chin. “Widow,” he murmured, void-black pupils drowning out a flourish of color reminiscent of fresh blood. He could have been less surprised, being that one of his business partners was, in fact, a Widow beneath the hoary face of the moon, but the woman was a painful reminder of a face that had been crushed beneath the heel of an unforgiving boot: an image that had haunted him for so long.

The cup tipped against his upper lip, caught momentarily beneath a row of teeth, and was handed off to Victor, a noxious glaze spread along its deep-grained wooden rim. Whether that would quell an unannounced craving or ignite it further, Seven could not be sure. “Remember Syliras,” a warning was exhaled on an unsmiling breath; the remainder of a bitter sting was swept from his bottom lip on a thumb and pushed to the grinning corner of Victor’s mouth, “Scars teach lessons.”

The apple in Seven’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, considered the woman lounging a stone’s throw away at the only empty table the Sun and Stars offered (despite its dwindling and tiring crowd), and spoke, loud enough for her to hear through the din of bargains, ten-silver-rim stories, and the scrabble of fingers and mugs over worn tabletops. “A drink,” Seven’s voice cracked, his tongue tripped across the eloquent Symenos; he cleared his throat and trudged on, “If you are wanting one. Come to the bar.”

Seven stole a sideward glance at Victor and found his misplaced smile.

[Shai]

Turning towards the call, Shai gave the human behind the bar a brief glance before her attentions were sharply diverting. His Symenos is atrocious was the first thought that came to mind as she lay her eyes upon the human’s companion. Dozens of seasons had passed since the days when his ruby eyes would force Shai to involuntarily avert her gaze. Giving the younger spider a deliberately extended appraisal, Shai knew she should act. In normal company the thief would have simply waited for Bob without liquor to aid the chimes passing. Tonight, it seems, would benefit from a change of pace.

Retrieving her gloves with alacrity common to the shadier elements, Shai discretely deposited the mittens into one of the numerous pockets lining the interior of her cloak. The female Symenestra efficiently took to her feet and with a twist of her ankle around the leg of the chair pushed it in. “Normally, I do not wait either, but it appears that tonight I will be making exceptions.” She mused aloud in compliment to the soft pad of worn leather boots subtly placed to avoid unnecessary noise. The human, though flattering, was of less consequence than her kin beside him. The thief did not disregard the human though, the dynamic may not be in its proper order here and she might be forced to deal more with the human than the young spider. Stepping up to the bar she continued her speech by slipping Symenos, “Don’t worry, I understood him. But who was your teacher? Your Symenos has been left at a rudimentary level.”

His speech made his foreign heritage evident; no Kalinor raised Symenestra would speak flawed Symenos. Stepping up the edge of the bar, Shai took a moment to note the young man’s nails, or lack there of. A Dra? But even Dra have. . . Covering up her inspection she made a request in Common, “Do you sell wine? I have never had a taste for ale”

[Victor Lark]

Victor’s mind flitted easily away from the spidery creature on a distant stone rooftop, did not even think to settle on a dead woman’s disgrace or an associate’s nighttime shadow. After a moment’s deliberation, he set the beer aside and wound his hands idly around his forearms, feeling for the long absent memory of true fangs’ bite. His eyebrows rose lazily at Seven, impatiently acknowledging the cautionary advice before he turned to consider this, more immediate, woman’s approaching figure. Though he usually favored a study of the eyes, Victor was not averse to the sight of the rest of her; showing this stranger such an appraisal would probably earn him some reaction, anyway. His feet swayed in the air behind him.

He smiled as if he could have known what her hissing reply meant, searching his fading recollection of the words for some understanding. When his own mind could not answer, he decided that Seven’s inevitably would. At least, he could detect the unmistakable sneer on her tone, which sounded so much like the loaded lilt of Ravok’s noblewomen. The Common Tongue leapt onto hers soon enough, and his smile smoothed out into comfortable invitation.

“Drink!” He affirmed, in a coarse version of Symenos that could have made a Ravokian cringe. He was comfortable where he lay, so he did not bother to rise; there was an open bottle of the stuff beneath the bar anyway, and he could have reached the stash of mugs if he were blind. He brought them both up before him and tipped one into the other, sloshing the last of the bottle’s stale-sweet red inelegantly between rough wooden walls. As he offered the drink to her, he lifted his own. The grin on his face did not bother to give up some polite apology for the miserable attempt; in fact, it might have been daring her to take offense at it. Instead, he happily assumed the command was the same as the noun and repeated, “Drink!”

[Seven Xu]

“You should be grateful to being greet in Widow tongue at all,” Seven bristled as he drew his exposed fingertips beneath his knuckles; splayed hands became fists. “You be careful in Alvadas. I have seen woman face kick apart for less.” It wasn’t spoken as a threat so much as a scathing fact, uttered by a compromised ego. He seemed to pick the most opportune moments to disassociate himself with his connection to the tribe of spiderkin from the depths of the Kitrean Mountains; it was easy to do, when he spent most of his time in the company of a human.

Seven donned the Common tongue again, comfortably slipping back into his airy, Lhavitian cadence. “My apologies,” mollifying sincerity was placed between his lips; he bent a pair of dark brows, and a brave finger snuck out to fumble along the linen-wrapped elbow of his cohort. “I taught myself. There aren’t many Symenos enthusiasts, where I’m from.”

Alabaster fingers joined olive ones in a mutual push of the wooden tankard towards the woman. She certainly wasn’t the trembling animal they had met in the darkness of rooftops in a Citadel far away; he wondered how far his human would push, before he broke another. Seven swallowed a cringe, let his hand fall away from the mug, where murky burgundy frothed and fussed in its cage. “Drink,” he echoed Victor’s enthusiastic command and paired it with a wan smile. “And let it be said that we are not known for our wine.”

[Shai]

Shai kept her initial reactions minimal. Her eyes slide past the human and his appraisals, any attention not directly based upon her abilities made her nervous. It was simply not safe to be noticed in Sunberth, especially not for a woman. And the only way to make such a situation worse was to acknowledge it, so she moved on quickly to his attempts at Symenos. Close enough… It was probably for the best to stick to Common in any event, even if she could play with them a little by using her mother tongue. “Picking up a few phrases?” The human knowing smatterings of Symenos was of little concern to the spider but not to remark would be immoderately rude and Shai preferred to actually build the bridges before she burned them.

Redirecting regard to her loosely named kin she spoke with a matter-of-fact tone, if they wanted her to rise to an insult it would need to be much more poignant. “I see no reason to be grateful for your choice of language. I will say a thank you for your warning, albeit unnecessary.” She gave the male spider an impish smile as she considered the irony of a spoken warning of violence, “Where I reside such activities are sport.” Snagging one of the stools that went with the bar she gingerly seated herself and continued this conversation. “It is although commendable to teach yourself a language. I doubt I could do so well. I can only imagine you taught this other young man as well?”

Relieving the men of the tankard the Symenestra woman eyed the liquid momentarily, they seemed full of disclaimers tonight, but perhaps it was simply who they were. Taking her inaugural sample the spider looked upwards briefly in reminiscence, trying to connect the taste to a memory. “Tastes about like what they serve in Sunberth.”

Assessing the currently occupied space upon the counter, Shai promptly set the mug to rest upon the human’s backside. “Now, be a dear and do not squirm? That would be a horrible mess.” The request punctuated with a nod and a barely concealed jest hidden behind closed lips. “So, how about a topic not racially segregating? As I implied earlier I am waiting for someone, perhaps he has already come and gone? He is quite remarkable you might have seen him." Extending her arm she indicated about four and a half feet, “He stands about this tall, likes to believe he is irresistible to all women, and will wrangle a miza from your palms before you even know you owned it. His name is Bob. Has anyone like that been through here tonight?”

[Bob Barton]

Normally as per normal convention Bob will be the one waiting for the woman but today it was the other way around. It was not really his fault though, as he would explain if Shai asked "it is all Jinsen's fault! Jinsen and this mad city" which always changed from day to day. Why did he not listen to Wrenmae's explanation properly the last time? If he did then he would not have came to the city and risked all the chaos from the past few days. Even as he was walking through the street it was as if nothing had happened. An illusion of peace and security that he will never again be fooled by which was why he resumed his usual practice from Sunberth. Take the dog around so that it will alert him for any oncoming dangers and help him navigate around the city.

Today it was decided that Bob and Shai were going to check out what was known as one of the rising establishments of Alvadas. The Sun and Stars Tavern. If they were going to go for gambling that Ionu's Wager place would have been better but a lot more serious. Bob needed a little practice and warm up to get back into the game before he started on it again after that long journey from Sunberth. Now all he needed to do was get started on his practice game if only "you know the way Jinsen?" This dog was really not earning its keep when it as always got distracted by the strangest of things like garbage. The only reason that Bob allowed it to do that is because sometimes the dog will "find anything interesting?" However he had a schedule to keep so he started tugging on the dog's leash because "we are going to be late. Come on Jinsen, lets go! I am not in the mood."

Bob did not want to let the dog do what it wanted to any longer because lately it seemed like the dog was affecting him. It was not bad since it made things a lot more interesting but for some reason his reasons for doing things with it were changing as well. Initially the reason was stuff but now when Jinsen took Bob to a pile of garbage, he wanted nothing more than to roll around in it with the dog. Now it the urge was coming on him again and sweat started to trickle down as his eyes moved from the heap to the exit. He was so disturbed that he lost his grip over the leash and allowed Jinsen to jump past him into the heap first which forced Bob to get closer to try and get it out. "Come on Jinsen...lets go now..." he begged until the sweet, savory smell of it reached his nose and with an excuse that "if you are not coming out then I will have to come and get you!" he dived into the trash and swam through it, picking through some here and there but there was nothing interesting to take since it seems like a pile of clay model rejects.

Once he was satisfied and smelling very rank like a beggar Bob got to Jinsen and told it that "we are done, lets go!" grabbing it at the collar and pulling it down the street where he held on to the leash and told it "the tavern now!" pushing it forward with his foot when it refused to go right until they reached the place. Brushing himself for no reason whatsoever, the horrible smelling and equally foul looking midget stepped into the tavern with his messy dog to look for Shai which seemed to already be getting acquainted with some other people. Bob was not in the mood for a drink yet and was only starving for a game so he surveyed the tavern to find a spot he could sit to wait for the symenestra woman while patting on his pocket where his cards were, the game that they were going to play today and rub his wrist where he had his lovely helper tool which if he was at a real place like the Ionu's Wager be unable to use.

[Victor Lark]

“Tastes about like mud,” Victor corrected, gesturing with the mug in his hand. He might have taken another draught, might have even looked back to see the woman’s reaction to his opinion of his own merchandise—if he were not suddenly paralyzed by the prospect of filling his pants with wine. He pushed his drink away and buried his head in his arms, stifling a defeated laugh. He heard the rest of what she had to say without seeing it. The words took a moment longer than they should have, to reach into his mind and pry open his memories.

When they did, he forgot about the trap their symenestra friend had laid. “Bob?” He repeated, rising to his elbows again. The door opened and, anticipating the face that it would reveal, he sat up on the bar and jumped to the ground.

The stench was awful, even from across the room. If Victor smelled it, he did not seem to immediately care. An incredulous laugh escaped him and his arms rose from his side. “Who would have thought!” He mumbled. In a few long paces he was standing over the filthy dwarf, and in the next second he was crouching beside him. Floating on the fading merriment in Barton’s expression and so many vague memories of drunken afternoons, Victor took his old friend by the shoulder and shook him hard.

“You got shorter!” Victor teased, rising and stepping back to examine the man. Only then did he recognize the smell; he wiped his hand absently on his thigh and satisfied an unrelenting itch on his nose.

[Seven Xu]

Seven grunted when Victor moved; a delicate hand surged across slick counter to rescue an abandoned wooden mug. He caught it by the mouth, but not before overpriced swill splashed its sour red over his palm. A steady tendril snaked its way towards Seven’s elbow, before it was quashed by the ball of his opposite hand. “Bob.” It was little more than a scrutinizing echo. The name held no meaning in his reachable memory. As if on command, the man in question had appeared; as if fate could not have teased them further, Victor seemed to know him.

The tavern-warm wine was forgotten, wiped in a jagged smear across sky blue cotton, and Seven padded a trail after his bird. “We don’t allow dogs,” was all he could think to say. It wasn’t even true, but the halfblood’s tongue was poised to dismiss what he assumed was the cause of that stench. Gods, it was so palpable he could almost taste it.

“So, you know him?” Seven continued, reaching for a shoulder, a waistline, something to nip at to pull Victor from the distraction of a reunion and demand explanation. “That woman—” he turned, fixed his eyes on the Symenestra, and realized she had not divulged her name. Or if she had, he could not recall it, “You. You are from Ravok, then? What is Sunberth? Is that close to Ravok?”

Seven’s attentions were not long for the nameless svelte figure at his bar. His nails caught the leather of a belt, and he probed again, in clumsy, fragmented Widow Tongue. “Victor, who is this?”