[OPEN]

[bribon]

WHO: Cornelia + Desidério + YOU!
WHAT: Closing a rift in central Antiva goes awry.
WHEN: Early Fantasy!October
WHERE: Central Antiva, and then also the Gallows + Kirkwall + Wherever
NOTES: Rifts and rift-closing accessories; content warn in your subject lines as necessary.

Comments

[cozen]

Freshly turned back to face the duelists instead of the chattering crowd around and behind him, Bastien glances back at Byerly with a slanted smile. It is not a smug expression, instead guileless and faintly quizzical, as if he'd been caught daydreaming.

His real answer is in the crooks and twitches of his fingers when he scratches his head a moment later: a general-purpose sign that all is well, which in context means he has massaged the odds on various side bets well enough to ensure they will at least break even either way.

"And a song," he adds on, hand on Byerly's shoulder to enlist him in this offering whether he thinks they are now overpaying for their entertainment or not—because it is quite a trick they're asking the man to pull off, and Bastien finds himself wanting him to succeed. Especially if it won't really cost them anything. "Five silver and two verses."

[bribon]

Oh, well. If there is a song involved—

Desidério flicks the point of his rapier toward his opponent-turned-assistant. "Don't fuck this up for us, Patrick."

Patrick is mid-reply—something to the tune of, 'Fuck off yourself'—and is interrupted by a sudden lunge and parry from the shorter man's flashing blade. He seizes, jerking naturally back through shoulder and elbow. Hand yanking in an abrupt, defensive maneuver as if he has only just this moment recalled the fact that he is in a suspect Lowtown bar and engaged in a game of sport with a man who probably qualifies as a murdering mercenary if not a demon from beyond the fade outright (the anchor in his opponent's off hand suggesting one or both). To say nothing of the fact that the stakes of this game are ridiculous to the extreme. No, actually. Now that he thinks about it, it would be much easier for the quicker, lighter man to stab a hole in him and run off with his winnings in the ensuing chaos than to actually match the terms of the bet.

And then in the next moment, the sword has been knocked free of Patrick's hand and whacked back up into the ceiling plaster.

"For fuck's sake!" Desidério cries, over the instant whoop and boo of various onlookers. "Now you remember how to step wide?"

A longer retreating step back may indeed account for some measure of the shortfall of a solid foot and a quarter from the original sticking point in the ceiling. But it probably doesn't explain the wiggle to the left.