faderift | [Open] Where There Is No Wine

WHO: James Norrington and You. Yes you.
WHAT: Drinking wine solves everything. Or at least that is what James is trying out this month.
WHEN: After the Tevinter debacle
WHERE: The Blooming Rose - he's only there for the good vintages and the chess games, kids.
NOTES: Warnings for talk of torture, bloodshed, and general warning for drunk James

There are times in one's life where one simply wants to blot out a few of the worse hours of their lives. For fewer, it is days, perhaps even weeks. Very few want to blot out about four months worth of time from their memory, but after returning, barely, from Tevinter?

James Norrington, Knight Commander and 'fed-up with being calm, polite, and gritting his teeth', had decided to get absolutely and totally shit-faced. He was also going to get shit-faced in the best brothel in all of Kirkwall, but honestly it was because their wine cellar was second to none, and all of the ... employees of the establishment were more than willing to get 'paid' for their time with a glass of wine and a good chess game.

He didn't just disappear from his office. He wasn't off to have a bender and never be seen again. There was a note tacked to the door of his quarters, and his office, in the same bold print so anyone could find him if they really desired to.

It said simply, Off to share the Maker's love at the Blooming Rose. Blessing the fallen with holy wine. Please join if you are looking to save the sinners and enjoy a good Red from Antiva. - J. Norrington

He was saving them, persay. They wouldn't have to sell their bodies for at least an hour or two while playing chess with James. It totally counted as an act of charity from a member of the Templar Order. If he got to drink wine along with it, well, he was just blessing himself.

He needed a lot of damned blessings.

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He gives the young girl across from him a keen look over his wine glass. Assessing her, assessing him. She was sharp, this one. Already looking for weaknesses she could exploit. She would make an excellent warrior. Of course she was probably more of a rogue - knives, that sort of thing. Sword-play might be too slow for her ...

A smile escapes his usually serious expression, and he puts the glass down. "Sabina wasn't looking for a game, though. You are. So I shall put aside my - eighth - glass of wine. Give you a run for your coin." He looked over the board. "Black, or white?"

First or second? He hoped she went first, knew she would probably go second. Testing him again.

She takes it easy for a long moment, leaning back, looking at the board. She's doing this on purpose, she's doing this to make an impression. This impression matters, although she couldn't say why.

Finally she turns the board so the white pieces are on her side. "I'll play white," she says, although she usually doesn't. She usually doesn't make the first move. She does it because she thinks that she wants him to think she's a little bit strange, and she is.

The rifter shard in her hand isn't hidden, but it's not enough for her.

This was going to be an interesting battle of wills, and neither one of them had even made a move on the board yet. She certainly is a mystery - and she is trying to make herself more of one. What was it about the young and wanted to create secrets on top of secrets? He often felt like telling them that life would give them enough to hide away without them having to invent anything.

Still, he did not know her. She could have had a much rougher life, and that was why she seemed so old and young at the same time.

"Very well." He waited for her to make the first move, then he made the second, and so on. He watched her play for a few moments, "Did your chess teacher tell you to be this ballsy?"

She laughs a little. "He'd probably slap me on the top of the head," she says, cheerfully enough now, her opening move easy. This should be a fun game, challenging for her and maybe a little bit on the edgy side for him, but even drunk he should win. She's only as good as an education lets her be.

But to her credit, she does unexpected things. Where someone might go right, she goes left, less like she's playing chess and more like she's directing not an army, but maybe something more organic. A pack of wolves, perhaps. "What did your teacher tell you to do? I hope it wasn't flirt with the whores while you played."

He smirks at that, and makes his own opening gambit. Much more conservative than yours, but he wants to see just which way this mongoose ran the board. Considering how she slipped her pieces here and there. Considered all the angles before moving her piece.

"My teacher taught me to clear my mind of all other distraction, except the board and the pieces. Where I am is irrelevant , all that matters is the music, and how it makes me feel."

"How is that working for you?" she asks, smiling a little. She pulls her legs up so that they're cross legged on the chair, the trousers that she's wearing loose enough to make it look comfortable. She never realized how much elastic made her life easier until this moment.

"I mean, where we are is pretty irrelevant."

"Considering that I have yet to lose a game ... I would say it is working quite well for me. The music of a chess board is rather like the music of a battlefield, after all." He mused, as he looked around.

Then he snorted a laugh. "Yes, I suppose so."

Then he started to move, starting to the demolition of her defenses.

She doesn't talk much as they play. She doesn't talk much, not because she doesn't have a lot to say, but to keep the game interesting she has to focus all of her mental energies on making it interesting. It's true that she plays a strange game, uneducated, organic. She plays with someone who knows the rules but doesn't understand the underlying precepts.

But she also understands strategy.

It's not an easy game for Norrington, but eventually he wins, and Luana sets her king down, her head tilting towards him. "At least you're not bored."

It is a fascinating game. He would love to get this young woman in front of a battle map, to see how she would set her traps. It would be all fluid motion - nothing laid to wait a few moves down the road. There, now. She is immediate and she is merciless, but he eventually catches her because her impetuous strategy unfortunately leaves her defenses quite bare.

He sits back, and eyes his wine glass, which he has not touched this entire time. "Not in the slightest. I enjoy the way you play, stranger."

She looks at the board, as if she's trying to see where she went wrong. That's what Aluisio always made her do after they played, to get an idea of how to improve next time. "Luana," she says, a little absently, and then she looks up at him. "That's my name. Don't be a stranger."

He looks at her thoughtfully, before one corner of his mouth lifts up and he nods, "James. I won't be."

[Open] Where There Is No Wine

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