[OPEN] deal me in

[unshut]

WHO: Fitcher + you and also you
WHAT: A weekly card game
WHEN: At some point every week, without fail
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Catch-all mingle space; threadjacking encouraged and time is an illusion. Threads are not required to have anything to do with cards or even include Fitcher; may be before/after the game etc. No rules, just right; get your banter and gossip on.

There are really only two rules to play at Fitcher's table: you mustn't be a bad sport, and come prepared with conversation.

In theory, an invitation and the lady in questions presence are also required but both those guidelines have been broken: anyone who shows up in the the dining hall on the right evening who displays any interest in the game being played at one of the tables earns themselves an invite; and at least once Fitcher has appeared, slung back a single glass of wine, then announced, "I've work elsewhere tonight, but I expect a full account of all that occurs," before disappearing into the night.

It's sometimes loud and it's sometimes quiet. There are nights where more drinking is done and others with only a single shared bottle. Sometimes there are enough players to warrant splitting the game and sometimes it's just Fitcher, lying out a spread for Solitary as she smokes from a pipe and occupies herself with a little evening bookkeeping.

It's pleasant. It's a good distraction. One should never think too hard about these things.

Comments

john | ota

[hornswoggle]

John isn't a reliable fixture at these games. Most of his own paperwork and free time is spent in taverns closer to the dock, where his men have freer access to him.

But there's some benefit in cultivating familiarity with those he theoretically lives with. John doesn't deny this. So he attends from time to time, occasionally to play a few hands or split a bottle of whatever's on the table while he observes the gameplay. Winning a little coin is always nice. (Remembering how to cheat at cards is always nice too.)

"Quiet tonight?" is what he asks this time as he enters the room.

"Quiet" is a mutable term. The Gallows houses too many people to ever be truly quiet, and too many people pass in and out of these games for the dining hall to be quiet either. Really, quiet might mean "has anyone had a fight yet?"

[unshut]

"Why serah, we are as peaceable as lambs this evening." This as Fitcher turns up one of the unused cups on the table, gesturing for the bottle-- "Pass me-- ah there. Good lad." --and filling the cup accordingly.

It is quiet, due in part to the fact that they've strayed this night from Wicked Grace. Having to pause to think has, she finds, a tempering effect on most things.

"Are you familiar with Hen's Head, Mr Silver? I've just lost my partner and could use a fresh replacement."

[hornswoggle]

"Does it go by other names?"

John levers himself down onto the bench across from her as he speaks, eyeing the cards with interest.

"I'm willing to lose a few hands getting familiar with it, either way."

Hard to say how truthful either statement is. John's willing to play, at least. Willing to lose? Actually unfamiliar? Who knows.

fitcher (ota)

[unshut]

a. break the bank
[The stakes are never really that high and Fitcher rarely spends more than her pocket money over the course of the evening, but occassionally the cards are simply against a person and one has no choice but to either bust out of the game for the night or--]

Oh, it's early yet. [--to get creative. Fitcher fetches one of the long pins from out of her hair and tosses it into the pot.]

b. smoke break
[In the aftermath of some rowdier evening, Fitcher can be found just outside sitting on one of the steps leading down into the Gallows courtyard. The ember of her pipe glows at intervals, smoke twisting ribbons about her in the dark. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she pauses. Tips her face and smiles through the haze:]

Nice night.

c. wildcard

b.

[elegiaque]

So far, ( lightly, sweeping her hands beneath her skirts to sit on them, not quite close enough to touch upon the step. the smoke is oddly soothing, for all that she doesn't; associated with some of the memories she doesn't entirely dislike from what feels like a lifetime previous. ) There's still time.

( what a little optimist she is. )

[unshut]

[A laugh, low and pleasant in the evening's fading heat.]

That hand you played in the last round was neatly done, and in spite of the gentlemen being so distracting. [It is sometimes a trial to keep the table from dissolving into bickering; she imagines women with children must sometimes feel this way.] I appreciate a level head in the room.

[She fixes Gwen with a crooked, conspiratorial sidelong look, setting the pipe back between her teeth.]

b.

[bouchonne]

Dreadful night.

[ This has been a dreadful showing for By. Which is frustrating, given that it wasn't even a deliberate loss of any sort. At a few points, he even resorted to cheating, but the odds were just so overwhelmingly against him that he still lost. Which really is just embarrassing. ]

Decent night for you, I suppose.

[unshut]

[In response, her smile widens - cat that ate the songbird satisfied with her own good fortune - and then she pats the step beside her encouragingly. Come sit.]

a

[overharrowed]

"Madame de Cedoux got a pair of socks from me, once," he says, lightly, at the unusual wager. "I thought it was a joke and she'd eventually give them back, but she insists they're quite warm."

A light smile, which suggests absolutely nothing about his hand. He's not a regular in the sense of coming to the game every week, but this isn't his first time. He usually wins slightly more than he doesn't, but only very slightly; whether that speaks to average skill or above-average diplomacy is anyone's guess.

"Though I admit, currency does make gambling a bit more convenient. Not trying to value various items of collateral on the fly makes Wicked Grace go much quicker than I grew up playing it."

[unshut]

"But rather less personal, don't you think? I expect your socks say more about you than the coins from your pocket do, Enchanter. Madame de Cedoux must surely treasure them."

She smiles in return, fetching up a fresh card and ridding herself of another. With a look about the table, she adds, "Mind you all, I quite like that pin. I would like to have it back."

c.

[justashotaway]

[She watches for some time, sticking to the room's longest shadows, as the woman lays out cards and flips them around, drawing and setting down and turning over. It seems...transfixing, somehow, to sit there, moving the cards around according to rules she can't figure out from a distance. It looks pointless, but like the woman is not treating it as a pointless endeavor.

When no one comes along that night, Laura slides off the chair she's been crouching on and walks over to the table.]

What are you doing?

[unshut]

[The woman with her dark hair and mottled blue cloak has quite long hands. They aren't elegant - not really. Rather, Fitcher's hands are just this side of mannish, with worn knuckles and short nails and callouses on the web between thumb and forefinger. Still, they're very good at shuffling and turning cards, at managing the cup at her fingertips, and keeping well free of the ink on the page as she scrawls lines across it.

She looks up when she's spoken to. Her smile is small and crooked and her voice pleasantly low as if saying a secret.]

Playing a game.

a

[thereneverwas]

Well that's hardly fair.

[It's said with a warm smirk nonetheless, Barrow's gaze following the pin into the pot.]

Does that mean I can start betting my nose hairs?

[unshut]

If you can make an argument for what they're worth, I don't see why not. Beyond that - you can hardly blame me for coming prepared.

[Is it possible to sashay while sitting on a bench? No, but Fitcher somehow manages the whole coy over the shoulder look anyway. It's overblown to the point of being a joke behind the fan of her cards, but no less appalling for how easily she manages it. That, men somewhere have at some point warned their fellows - perhaps when Fitcher was younger and presumably even more keen to rely on her excellent bones -, is a minx of a woman.]

b.

[ketterdamn]

[ It's gotten too loud inside, the raucous laughter reminding him less of the Crow Club and simply becoming a ringing in his ears. Here, he doesn't have the luxury of going upstairs to escape. Instead, it's a bit of a walk to his quarters, though he isn't in a particular rush. Too much restless energy; he's been too directionless and rudderless. Having to start from the bottom up– well, he doesn't shirk hard work, but it's still a lot to take in and adjust to.

So he takes his time going back to his room, cane tapping out a less aggressive rhythm than usual. He pauses at the form of someone sitting upon the steps, gauging if they're wide enough to fit down without tripping. ]

Perhaps for some. [ He glances back to the building where plenty of people have lost more than their pocket change tonight. ]

[unshut]

[From behind the swirl of pipesmoke, the woman with her dark hair and dark eyes and her long hands smiles. It's the sort of curving expression which predates a coy statement like 'Yes, well--' which requires no real end but suggests a half dozen. Instead, after a beat in which the smile makes the statement for her, Fitcher sighs and removes the pale wooden pipe from between her teeth.]

The nature of the beast, I'm afraid. If we were all winners, it wouldn't make for much of a game now would it? [This, characterized by the exhalation of smoke tinged with something both like cherry wood and mintly medicinal.] Remind me; what was your name? I think I was otherwise occupied when introductions occured.

mhavos dalat | ota.

[murderbaby]

a. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

Mhavos wasn't aware there was a card game. If he had, he'd have avoided it. But it's late and the library is closed and he has more work to do-- mostly self-imposed-- so he takes a pile of books to the dining hall, balanced carefully underneath a bowl of cold porridge.

And then there's a card game, a few tables away.

Mhavos falls back into familiar patterns. He does his work, scribbling in lines and sums and translations almost by rote, while he listens to the talk a few tables over. It occurs to him that counter-intelligence within Riftwatch might be useful. It occurs to him that all sorts of things may be discussed in a situation such as that.

It occurs to him that he just wants to join the game. The urge is as unidentifiable as it is undeniable.

His work done, books carefully folded away and porrige finished, he wanders over to the nearest game.

"Deal me in?" His tone is polite, making it into a request rather than an order.

b. WAS THAT A CARD TRICK.

He's played a few rounds. Won some, lost some. He has an excellent face for it, carefully expressionless, but no special luck nor willingness to try cheating. He is having fun, though.

At a lull between games, he takes the deck and moves his hands over it. "I learned this," he says, voice so even-toned it's difficult to tell if he's joking, "in a closet."

c. WILDCARD, LITERALLY.

[im up 4 anything.]

b

[unshut]

Across the table, Fitcher has taken possession of the last standing bottle and begun to portion out its contents into the nearest glasses. It pays, evidently, to sit within arm's reach of her. But here, she pauses, the play of the cards in the candlelight drawing her attention from the task and the low muttering conversation happening directly to her right.

She tips the bottle upright (nevermind her neighbor's soft sound of protest), then half stands to reach across the table so she might dose the glass - previously used or otherwise - near Mhavos' hand with some fair measure of the currant black wine.

"Would you say then that you could do it with your eyes closed? Or do you keep lights in your closets for just such an occasion?"

[murderbaby]

He notes this, and wonders at it. Though he doesn't know Fitcher, it's clear she's in charge of this little gathering. She keeps her eyes on everyone and no one. He's kept himself out of her way, simply observing and appreciating her observation. And now he's been noticed. Is that good or bad?

He considers the wine, and takes a sip (fine stuff, finer than he's had before; he'll have to be careful with it) before shuffling the cards again, hands careful and nimble.

"It was a large closet. The kind nobles had. There was a window, but-" He closes his eyes, and repeats the trick. Mhavos opens them with mild surprise, comfortably pleased with himself. "Ah."

a

[overharrowed]

Julius is shuffling the deck, and glances up at the polite request. "Of course," he says, easily and without hesitation. "Have a seat. We're playing for low stakes; I hope that's alright." There's no particular assumption it would or wouldn't be in his tone; they've had people with more of a taste for gambling disappointed before, so he makes it a practice to always warn a new face.

"I'm Julius," he adds. "Not in charge, just happen to be dealing this round."

[murderbaby]

Mhavos laughs, a polite huff with no real humor behind it, save the simple unexpected pleasure of being included. Being included in a game with a well-spoken human, no less. "A pleasure, serrah. Mhavos." He takes his hand and begins carefully to organize it.

"Low stakes are precisely mine," he says, and pulls something from his pocket: a button. This is an old and well-recognized staple of betting in Orlesian servant's quarters after dark; he wonders if it will fly the same here. Only one way to find out.

He taps the button, and explains what it represents: "a favor."

c just 4 u

[limier]

She looks up, doesn't smile; an absence as habitual as the indication of her hand: Of course, sit,

"Superstition," Somewhere between explanation and admission. The cards splay across the table in unusual formation — it might be one of half a dozen games, but it'd be a bad hand in any — "Don't tell the Sisters."

The slant on her words is Val Royan. The serpent of decay winks as she moves to shuffle, deal again.

"Have you done this before?"

:0

[murderbaby]

Mhavos sits, tidy and polite.

"Play cards? Yes." He taps the deck his companion draws from. "The game you're playing? No."

derrica | ota.

[tender]

Always, always, Derrica arrives with a bottle of her own. It's meant to share, as if she needs to have some further contribution other than coins and a willingness to lose them.

Maybe it's a little bit for her too. It's always easier to make conversation when she's had something to drink. Starting over is always difficult, and she's in a position here where many of her talents aren't necessarily applicable. (Seaside knowledge, ill-gotten or legitimate, doesn't fit here.) She finds her way to the table, and wedges herself into the first free space available.

Maybe she has to elbow herself some breathing room. It's fine.

"What are we playing tonight?" She asks, a little breathless, as she clunks her own bottle onto the table. "Can I be dealt in?"

[ketterdamn]

As far as game nights go, it's not as rowdy as some he's seen. The one at the Club could really go askew, especially if the gang was high on a victory, adrenaline causing risky plays, as if they had no fear. He rarely played at the tables, preferring to gamble in different circumstances, with different stakes. He'd leave the monetary losses to Jesper.

But despite the noise level being more acceptable, it's still crowded. It's an uncomfortable feeling and he has half a mind to leave, hating how close his elbow is to the person next to him. The thought crosses and then there's another person filling the just emptied spot on his other side and he's a bit boxed in. His entire frame tenses for a moment before he rolls it out of his shoulders, folding his cards face up on the table. There's a bit of moaning and groaning at lost rounds, coins and trinkets exchanged, and the dealer collects, shuffling with admirable skill.

"Wicked Grace. Hand just ended, lucky for you."