Don't Trust Me (Amirah)

[Lye]

Scowling sourly, Lye glared through the warm, flickering light of the fire. The object of his ire lay not entirely upon the eypharian, though, as one would expect, or at least the entirety of her; his hatred was settled primarily on her lips. Full, curved like the bow of a mischievious, enamored cherub, and wrapped so smugly around the last cigarette. If it wasn't for theives honor, he'd simply pounce upon her, knock her unconscious, and steal the wonderful thing back, but she'd won it fair and square, something that pissed him off even more than the fact that he wasn't going to get half of it. Not even the last two hits.

It had started out as a friendly game of cards. He'd even been in a damn good mood for a while; he was kicking her ass up and down the deck, then, suddenly, the little desert princess took a complete one eighty on him. "Hate card sharks," he muttered angrily under his breath, watched the tobacco closely as it burned away into ash. His eyes, thin and devious as a serpent and as crooked as his way, narrowed hatefully as he fingered the hilt of his lakan, thinking of what a good and efficent undertaker the desert could be.

"You're an asshole," he snapped, perking up a bit from his hunched position on the sand, still glowering at her. "Did I tell you that? You're an asshole. I oughtta kill you and take my money and sell your corpse to the Myrians for rations." If the voice coming out of the akalak hadn't been bitter, the words constructed with poor grammar, perhaps Amirah would have had need to worry, but Lye rarely went as far as his darker side went. "Can't beleive this shit," he muttered, but nonetheless picked up the deck of cards and began shuffling them, whispering acerbic, biting comments under his breath.

"This is gods damned ridiculous...take the fusting time out of my busy schedule to haul some cheating ass woman across the plains, and what do I get for my grief? More fusting grief for my problems, and I get cheated." Quickly, he began to deal the cards, flicking them from the top of the upside down deck with the tip of his thumb, landing in a fairly neat little pile before the both of them. "Gonna have to make the damn trip back sober...I hate you so much...."

[Amirah]

Her lips only curved, and her breath only deepened at the Akalak’s outburst. Her eyes fluttered closed as her chest raised as breath was drawn and the glowing end of the stick grew brighter and crept further down its path. Her finger pulled the cigarette from soft lips and exhaled the soft plume of smoke on such a sigh. It crawled across the flesh, and sounded of carnal rapture, lips primed, for a kiss, laughed and gave a low short moan as she shifted how she sat, admiring the glowing ember above her hand.

“Whatever you say Baby. What you got, is what you gave, and I will admit, I am having more fun than I have in a while. Cut the deck already. …Or do you forfeit? Even if I raised the stakes, say… this last, remaining half, of my one and only cigarette?”

The woman was smiling as the cards were being dealt, she even giggled softly and to herself, her eyes surveyed her partner before her, the time spent had been an educational experience, and after much, she’d given into the temptation, and took the merchant up on his offer to play cards.

He cheated of course. She knew that, even before they begun to play, it had simply taken a few games to find out, his tells, then to see what he used, one used less tricks on a novice as she claimed, than they did when playing on a leveled ground. They were sloppier too. That had been remedied though when she started winning, although she had not bothered to call the merchant out on it, she simply kicked his ass soundly with no quarter. It was one thing to be a card shark, another to be a cheater. The fact that she was both, well one couldn’t say much. About one being both, after it known of being one or the other.

Just the same she allowed her eyes to sweep over the Akalak from time to time, watching for tells and seeing if something that shouldn’t garnered his attentions. All with a devilish smile upon her lips.

“Do not hate me, Baby, because you drank away all of your wine. Besides you need not be on the plains drunken and alone, someone might slap a collar around that pretty neck of yours, Baby. “

[Lye]

"Ha ha ha, you're so damn funny," he growled bitterly, scooping up his cards off the ground, glaring at her over the top of them before glancing at his hand. "I can do just gods-damned fine drunk in the plains. I've rode across them a hundred times almost blind from drinking too much. I'm not the one that needed a fusting guide," the akalak grumbled, picking cards out of his hand and shoving them between others, studying them carefully. Biting at his lip, feeling the urge gnawing at him, weakening his common sense, Lye's eyes flickered up, watching as she smugly appraised her own hand, the cigarette cocked beside her head.

"What are you doing?" Lye dropped his hand into his lap, his tone sharp and annoyed. "You're letting the damn thing burn away! Flick the ember off the end! That's like putting up ten gold for the ante and spending seven of it on drinks!" He clenched his jaw, the muscles bunching angrily as he waited for her to delicately flick the smoldering cherry off the tip of the cigarette, blowing her last hit of smoke over the top of it to make sure no fire lurked to eat away at the treat as they played. She set it aside and began to fiddle with her cards, humming, smug and happy. Lye narrowed his pale eyes at her, raising his own hand, his glare lingering on her.

She was cheating, surprisingly. How he hadn't anticipated it, he blamed on his own blind arrogance. Of course, he'd been cheating too, and making little effort to hide it, never imagining her, at face value to be any good at the game, much less to have picked up on his little tricks. It was beginning to grate on his nerves, how some cocky little foreigner had been reading him like a book, had played the innocent little lamb before pulling back her lips and showing her fangs. "You know, in my circle of friends, we kill card sharks," he snarled, searching her face for a reaction. He scowled when he was rewarded with nothing at all; she was too far into her comfort zone, too confident that everything was going in her favor.

Lye was sitting at a cockeyed angel to her, his knees almost to his chest. "How the fust did you get any good at this?" He kept his eyes on his card, focusing on the small talk as he slid one of his cards away, lowering his hand to his boot. Easily, he stuffed it into the cuff, slipping out a new one that was sure to win his cigarette back. "You Eypharians don't really seem like you play cards and shit. Just lay around bitching about politics and painting up your faces...."