[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

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.

[justashotaway]

[A moment passes, and her gaze lifts from the cards to the woman's face. She's always drawn to movement first, but people expect to be looked in the eye. So she does, a steady green gaze framed by hair hanging loose around her face.]

Why?

[If there's curiosity there, it lives somewhere too deep to come through her blank expression.]

[unshut]

To amuse myself. [Which would be a fair answer on its own, but she allows herself some elaboration. Whisk, whisk, whisper the cards as she turns them.] I've been noting and filing reports all day, and this is an entirely different kind of head work. I find that occupying myself with something other than scratching notes on things for an hour or two before I lay down makes it easier to fall asleep. My mind is otherwise prone to wander.

[A pause here, the Song of Winter in her hand a moment before she decides to discard it.]

Would you like to learn?

[justashotaway]

[Oh.

To amuse myself is another way of saying this is a pointless endeavor--it's something without an objective.

But Laura's gaze keeps flitting down to the cards, all their unfamiliar designs. She wants to know how to use them with the same easy grace.]

Yes.

[In a moment of daring, she sits down across from the woman, her hands lying flat on the tabletop, as if she might push herself up and away again at any moment.]

[unshut]

Just so. [Fitcher pauses then to take a drink from her little wooden cup. It prepares her somehow, for afterward she doesn't hesitate whatsoever over the explanation.]

This game has at least five names that I know. I believe it's Patience in Orlais, but when I was a girl we called it Weaver's Game so that is how I know it best. It has four elements: the loom, the shuttle, the stock and waste. The goal is to lay cards in patterns along the shuttle, eventually transferring them all through the loom where they're laid in sequence according to their houses. See here, how I've all these rows built up in numerical order and how they alternate between black and blue houses?

[justashotaway]

[The names could be gibberish, for all Laura knows about weaving. But she listens with the same care she'd give a lesson on weaponry, following the places indicated. Loom, shuttle, stock, and waste.]

Houses? [Laura looks up at the woman, and then back down at the cards, her brows drawing together.] ...Yes.

[No. She can see that they alternate black and blue, and that the numbers go up in order, but where houses come into it is unclear. The term is something she is supposed to know, the way the woman uses it, though, so she intends to figure it out from context.]

[unshut]

Good. So as you can see, I've put myself into something of a corner here. There's nothing here I can shuttle, so I've got to draw from the stock to see if I can find a useful card. Anything that isn't goes face up into the waste here where I might eventually cycle it back into play.

[With a click of cardstock, Fitcher turns the top card of the stock face up.]

Ah, relief at last. Eight Daggers. [She tips her head to give her charge an expectant look.] Where do you suppose she goes?

[justashotaway]

[It takes Laura a breath to digest the question, too distracted by the image on the card. She wants to take the whole stack and look at each of them in turn, at all their drawings of blades and coins and powerful people.

The answer to the question becomes clear enough after a moment's thought, though: only one of the waiting stacks has a seven on top. Laura reaches out, sets a forefinger on her guess.]

Here.

[And only then does she look up, waiting for a nod or a slap to the hand.]

[unshut]

[Neither comes. What does is Fitcher lacing her long fingers together on her side on the table and prompting:]

Go on then.

[justashotaway]

[Laura watches her blankly for a moment, and then it's clear. She takes the eight, sets it on the seven.]

Now what?

[unshut]

Now we can shuttle this entire stack here to attach to it. Watch-- [lifting one of the columns wholesale and setting it in sequence below their eight Daggers] See how that's freed the face down card below here?

[Whisk. When turned, the card shows a coin standing improbably on its edge]

Ah, a good omen.

[With a wink, Fitcher takes the ace and sets it over the shuttle and onto the loom beside the three stacks already in progress there. She taps the empty space left behind on the shuttle.]

Now we can rescue our Song of Winter from our waste pile. [Which she does, slotting it into the gap.] Now, we might also shift one of our columns on the shuttle or draw from the stock here. But I believe firmly that it's best to first redeem the castoffs. You only have so many opportunities to do so and you can't win the game otherwise.

[justashotaway]

Yes.

[The woman turns the card, and for whatever reason, it goes up (or down, from Laura's perspective, but she knows it should be up). Because it is a one, she decides. There must not be zeroes in this game. Start with one, count up, alternate colors. This does not have to be difficult.

That they use what they already have needs no explanation; that's the whole world. Start with what you have in your hands and work out. But taking the castoff to the shuttle doesn't entirely follow.]

What is a Song of Winter? [Why is it called that? Why can it take an empty space? Can any of the castoffs, or just--she's not sure she asked the right question, but she knows better than to ask more. Start with one, learn what you can.]

[unshut]

[Here, a pause. The woman with her dark hair and smiling mouth and her long hands seems briefly taken aback by the question. Her head tips as an attentive dog's might and for a moment, she says nothing. She waits as if she expects some second question, as if her ear is perked and ready for it. When in doesn't come, Fitcher fetches up Winter.]

She is the queen mother of the house of Songs, as Truth is to the house of Angels and Wisdom to Knights and so on.

[Her head swivels to tip in the other direction. Owl-like.]

Not usually one for cards, I take it?

[justashotaway]

[Not the right question--not with the way it makes the woman stop and look at her again, like she's waiting for something. Laura doesn't know what, so she waits, too.

The explanation wants for something, but Laura isn't sure what. (What are the houses, why are they all songs, why a queen?) And she's disinclined to ask, especially when a question's posed of her.]

No.

[unshut]

Ah. [She sets Winter back into its empty slot on the shuttle.] Then you must be very bored indeed to come asking after a game like this one. Does Riftwatch not keep you as busy as you like?

[justashotaway]

[That is a question too treacherous to answer directly. Admitting she hasn't done much of anything for them so far might be cause for retribution later. She's felt more idle, more unwatched, here than ever in her life--and part of her is waiting for someone to realize she's eaten their food, slept under their rafters, and done nothing to earn either privilege.

The silence stretches, Laura unsure and uncaring if it's just a little too silent, as she watches the woman's face. But finally--]

I will have a mission soon. [Yes, that seems safe.] That is why I am here.

[unshut]

Oh? Were you recently recalled from the field?

[Wouldn't that be nice? She'd much rather discuss the work that Riftwatch is doing ferreting around Andraste only knows where than more Gallows business.]

[justashotaway]

[Laura shakes her head, then goes still, wondering if she's answered too much. If she'd come from a past job, her presence would be more justifiable--but a lie on this subject might be easily found out. She doesn't know the workings of Riftwatch well enough to know. At best, she can tell the truth:]

But it is why I joined.

[If she's attempting to complete objectives for them, perhaps that will sound good enough.]

[unshut]

[The woman across from her makes a soft sound - that's too bad; she would have liked to hear about it - and then she lifts one of her long hands to shield her mouth. Leading forward as if to say something secret across the cards laid out between them--]

I'm new too.

[justashotaway]

Oh.

[Laura relaxes slightly, slumping forward a fraction in sheer relief. Just enough that she's willing to venture another question.]

When did you join?

[unshut]

I've hardly unpacked my things.

[Straightening, Fitcher begins to rearrange the layout of cards - unthreading carefully woven sequences and turning face down cards face up. She's ordering the deck into four distinct piles.]

Lucky for the pair of us that Riftwatch is so hard up for any spare hand, hm?

[justashotaway]

[Laura nods twice, intent--but in a moment, her attention's drawn by the movement of the woman's hands.]

What are you doing?

Pretend i wrote five piles there i forgot dragon age has five suits fuck off thedas

[unshut]

I'm dividing the Houses so you can study them. A young lady ought to know her cards, even if she doesn't care for them.

[Songs and Daggers and Knights and Angels and Songs--]

there are five lights.

[justashotaway]

[Laura nods again, the tilt of her head barely perceptible this time, and waits for the woman to finish before she touches anything. Even when all the cards are laid out in their piles, a breath goes by before she reaches for the first stack.

The cards are smooth and soft at the edges, as if they've been handled so often they no longer remember what it feels like not to be, fitting easily against her palm. She turns first one and then another, slowly examining the painted snakes with the solemnity of someone reading her own writ of execution. As simple as they are, they're still among the most beautiful things she's ever seen.]