WHO: Fitcher, Marcoulf, Bartimaeus (+) & YOU WHAT: Ye Olde Catch'all WHEN: Nowish WHERE: Kirkwall, The Gallows, le Misc. NOTES: Starters in comments; if you want something/someone who isn't here, just hit me up and I'll scrape something together.
There's a pause, long enough to seem as though Athessa might not have a response beyond a slow nod and a slower pull on the joint. She's looking at the cards like they're a puzzle to be solved.
"What's your favorite, then?" She asks.
She won't know any that Fitcher might list, other than Wicked Grace or that other one people are always playing in taverns. Not even that one, truly. She can't even remember the name so how would she recognize it?
"Euchre. Or Hen's Hand, if you're Ferelden." This too is said absently around the pipe stem as she turns the page on the top of the stack.
"But it demands four to six, and a good partner." Fitcher shoots Athessa a look over the line of her hand. Her mouth isn't visible, but the arch of her eyebrow suggests one of those sly smiles older women sometimes excel at. "High asks anywhere, unfortunately."
"You play in teams of two. I suppose you might do eight," she muses, pausing in her examination of the page. "But the game would be nightmarishly complicated. Playing with six is already trouble."
"You and me both. But played with four to six, it's manageable. Less math, and more a matter of both lying cleverly and trusting your partner's intuition. It's a game where you build off one another's plays, but you can't see the cards in your partner's hands or know what they mean to do next. An excellent game to be played with a friend."
Or to learn a person's impulses. But that's not important.
Impulses aplenty, but of poker faces, Athessa has nought. In a moment of honest self reflection through the haze, she sighs. “I don’t think I’d be very good at that game, then.”
Then, putting the grin in chagrin: “I’m a terrible liar.”
The woman laughs. It's a lovely sort of sound - low and real and pleasantly rasping. "How refreshing. Then it's only fair that I tell you I'm a rather good one when I want to be."
Over the curve of her wrist and the short stemmed pipe, Fitcher winks. "No matter. Next you see a proper crowd here playing cards, you should step in anyway. We can find you a game that works to your advantage. And if nothing else, it's good luck to be spectated - certain players in our midst could use it."
"Won't say no to being a lucky charm," she laughs too, though hers is less lovely than Fitcher's by her estimation, and more silly. A doofy chuckle with a slight wheeze from the smoke. "But I do like playing games. Do you think lying is something you can teach?"
"Oh, most definitely," she says, pulling from the pipe. "We are all of us creatures of habit when given reason to be, and losing money is fantastic encouragement to improve oneself."
That too is part a joke and part nothing of the sort. It's just one of those things that's both funny and true.
"Besides, it's always best to get your practice in among friends when you can."
It makes sense, as far as practice goes. Practice when the stakes are low. Got it. Totally behind that. But lying to her friends? That's the tricky thing. She's bad at lying to strangers, but she's abysmal at lying to anyone she cares about.
Just thinking about how poorly she lied to Matthias about that incident with Bartimaeus makes her cringe.
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"What's your favorite, then?" She asks.
She won't know any that Fitcher might list, other than Wicked Grace or that other one people are always playing in taverns. Not even that one, truly. She can't even remember the name so how would she recognize it?
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"But it demands four to six, and a good partner." Fitcher shoots Athessa a look over the line of her hand. Her mouth isn't visible, but the arch of her eyebrow suggests one of those sly smiles older women sometimes excel at. "High asks anywhere, unfortunately."
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"Or is it just that you like having a co-conspirator?"
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So: yes.
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Or to learn a person's impulses. But that's not important.
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Then, putting the grin in chagrin: “I’m a terrible liar.”
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Over the curve of her wrist and the short stemmed pipe, Fitcher winks. "No matter. Next you see a proper crowd here playing cards, you should step in anyway. We can find you a game that works to your advantage. And if nothing else, it's good luck to be spectated - certain players in our midst could use it."
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That too is part a joke and part nothing of the sort. It's just one of those things that's both funny and true.
"Besides, it's always best to get your practice in among friends when you can."
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Just thinking about how poorly she lied to Matthias about that incident with Bartimaeus makes her cringe.
And "Hm." is all she says.