Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly
WHAT: Repairing friendship maybe??
WHEN: a few days after By's backfired apology (pre-Ghislain)
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: Drinking and drug use and probably violence, threadjacking negotiable

Lowtown taverns haven't been Athessa's regular haunts for a long while, probably because she tacitly conceded them to Derrica in favor of drifting along the battlements in clouds of smoke and visiting Hightown apartments where the food is arguably much better. But she's here now, leaning against the bar and trying valiantly to get the barkeep's attention. This isn't the one who passes her information for Riftwatch, just an unaffiliated one who has something against elves, or women, or short-arses, or all of the above.

So while she waits, she produces a blunt and lights it on someone else's match just after they light their own cigarette. It's surprising enough for the man that he stares, confused, until the flame burns down to his fingers and he drops the match and stomps it out when it hits the floor.

"Cheers," Athessa says, though he's already ignoring her again, just like the barkeep. She turns and leans her elbows on the bar, scanning the crowd for anyone pretty, handsome, pretty handsome, or pretty interesting.

Comments

[bouchonne]

He's still a bit too tender, though, it seems, to find amusement in that. His lips thin, and he shrugs, setting the shells aside.

"I hope you've a lovely time of it."

[sulahnan]

"Oh come on, By!"

She doesn't stand, and wobbles slightly because crouching is not a very sustainable position even for one as limber as herself, and she puts the shells back in place.

"Just show me how to do the thing, and then after we can either catch the ferry or not, but you're not getting rid of me that easy," On that not, she reaches forward to tap one finger against his forehead, right between the eyes. "You're stuck with me, chum."

[bouchonne]

He looks at her, rubbing his forehead, miffed by that tap. "You know," he says, "I may look a bit like Bastien, but I'm quite different from him. I don't get pleasure from teaching things or taking proteges or apprentices or whatever it is he's doing with you. If I'm teaching you something, just appreciate it."

[sulahnan]

"You don't look anything alike," she says, but raises her hands in surrender. "I'll appreciate it if you wanna teach me, I promise."

[bouchonne]

"We'll see," he says, but settles back down in front of the crate. "I don't think you're constitutionally capable of keeping your mouth shut for more than half a minute."

[sulahnan]

She scoffs, which of course means having her mouth open, but then she clamps it shut and casts about for something to sit on and finds an old wooden bucket with a crack down the side. Inverted, it makes a perfect seat for her, and she props her chin up in her hands, waiting silently.

And counting. Half a minute should be easy.

[bouchonne]

And then he recovers the pebble from where he'd concealed it, up his sleeve. Then: he repeats the trick, half speed. An arch of his eyebrows is the warning she gets before he does his trick: the pebble tucked almost invisibly into the fold between pinky and ring finger, then dropped into the gap between wrist and sleeve. Then, to complete the trick, he lifts the first shell, then the second - and then flicks the pebble under the third shell as he lifts it up, so that it looks for all intents and purposes as though it had been there all along.

[sulahnan]

As promised, she watches attentively, seeing perhaps better than he can in the low light of the alley. Shiny eyes track the pebble from hand to sleeve to shell, all while she drums one foot silently on the ground because if she has to be silent she has to at least move.

At the end of the demonstration, she lifts her hands to show the obvious lack of sleeves covering her arms.

[bouchonne]

"How is that my problem?" he returns. "You figure it out."

And then he stands, gesturing for her to take over.

[sulahnan]

Well then.

Athessa trades places with him, adjusting the shells somewhat idly. It looks idle, anyway; mostly she's feeling the weight of them and figuring out how she wants to shuffle them. After a moment of assessment, she nods and clears her throat.

"A catch in four parts," she begins, counting each: shell, shell, shell, pebble. It's an imperfect parallel but that's not the point; if she has to hide a pebble without sleeves, she has to do something other than shuffle to distract. So, moving the shells in time with the song and making sure to look up from the makeshift table every now and then to glint at By, she sings:

"Come, lay by your cares, and hang up your sorrow ; Drink on, he's a sot that e'er thinks on to-morrow ; Good store of good claret supplies everything, And the man that is drunk is as great as a king.

"Let none at misfortune or losses repine,
But take a full dose of the juice of the vine ;
Diseases and troubles are ne'er to be found,
But in the damned place where the glass goes not round."

The song and shells come to rest and Athessa gestures for Byerly to choose.

[bouchonne]

He points at the middle.

[sulahnan]

She lifts the shell. No pebble.

[bouchonne]

Simultaneous gestures to left and right.

[sulahnan]

The middle shell is set back down so she can lift the others, showing that neither of them has the pebble beneath.

"Well how about that?"

[bouchonne]

He doesn't bother to feign shock.

"Show me your technique."

[sulahnan]

"Same as yours, minus the last step."

She goes through the motions again, slowly, and tucks the pebble between her fingers like he did, and keeps it there instead of dropping it down a non-existant sleeve. If the light weren't low, and she hadn't added the distraction of song and elf eyes, the jig would've been up.

[bouchonne]

He nods. "You could probably get away with feigning a bit more primness," he suggests. "It'd make it look plausible if you folded your hands in your lap. The important thing is that the stone is recoverable, though." A wry little smile. "Some will demand to see under all three shells, and you should be ready to slip the stone back under a different shell. I had my arm broken once over being a bit too slow."

[sulahnan]

"Not very good at primness without the costume to match," she says, which is true of her so far. She can play the part when she has to wear a dress and do her hair and pretend to not be a classless street urchin, but it's a hard sell when dressed in roguish blacks. "I'll have to practice more."

She plants one hand on the ground to shift onto her knees, exchanging one unsustainable position for another. Then she flips the edge shells back over, slides them around, and lifts them. There's a pebble under each. The middle one reveals the original pebble, and she grins.

[bouchonne]

"A proper prodigy," he says, with an ever-so-polite little round of applause. "It seems I didn't need to teach you anything at all."

[sulahnan]

"It only seems that way because you're at a natural disadvantage. In broad daylight, you'd see how sloppy it all was." Nevertheless, she nods in place of a bow at the applause.

[bouchonne]

A casual shrug. "Still counts. Whatever you need to do to win."

[sulahnan]

She also shrugs. "So what do I win?"

[bouchonne]

"Oh, nothing from me." He smiles crookedly. "Don't you know that I'm far too impoverished to have anything to offer?"

[sulahnan]

"I'll accept an IOU."

[bouchonne]

"I'll always be impoverished. It'll do you no good."