#Vahri'to Korla

[mealvaan]

Reticent

"How's the Den lately?"

Meindo shrugged half an ilm, and with it Vahri'to's star shuddered. Sure, his world had been only earthquakes as late, especially in the moons that he'd watched her volcano grow dormant and develop a crust over its maw.

Still he got up and tried again. He wasn't a scant teenager with his pants down his ankles. He was the One-Eyed fucking Royal.

"Get up to any interestin' shit over the sennend?"

Okay, so that wasn't the killer line he'd been hoping for.

"Not really," Meindo parried with ease. Maybe he'd have to pull out the big gun and let her tank it, none of this piddly small talk nonsense. The Beast had been on her mind lately.

"You hear from that b— I'a lately?" The nickname tripped off his tongue at a weird angle. Meindo noticed, as for a moment she stopped picking at her ramen with her fork...

"Nope," she said curtly.

... then she went right back to the excavation. Business as usual.

He wondered if this was how she treated Vahri'a. Lip service. Not that their self-appointed patriarch had never deserved it; he bore his teeth at any attempt to talk eye-to-eye until their conversations had been whittled down to the talking points. The first son killed any sentiment that was born after him. If Dalamud exterminated the west wing of the Shroud, then Vahri'a did the same to fun at the dinner table.

For once, Vahri'to called a ceasefire for his shots at the man's portrait on the wall. Maybe that was a bit harsh... said To, never, in defense of his older brother. But for one, they so rarely ate at a dinner table. How was he supposed to know that they were a place of conversation, not for sating his terminal hunger in pitch perfect silence?

If the Meindo he'd been dealing with all summer was the wall Vahri'a came up against, then maybe Vahri'to had been set up for success those many years prior.

Vahri'a set a skint table and needed everyone to be grateful, or it'd eat the sod up at night that he left even one of eleven other mouths wanting. So easily would the guilt corrode what little food they had, to the point that shutting the rest of them up was better than letting it in.

Vahri'to swooped in after Vahri'a raised his sister for the near epoch he was gone and plied her with buffet plates, firsthand clothes and a flock of profanities that she could barely even pronounce the first time around. Perhaps if it'd been the other way around — if Vahri'to had stayed behind in the Shroud, and Vahri'a abandoned them to pursue delusions of grandeur at the ripe of age sixteen — Vahri'to would've been the stepping stone for his brother.

It wasn't as if he hadn't been generous. That generosity had gone a long way, tee-up or not.

"Uh, I've been seein' someone lately," Vahri'to admitted, tail between literal tapping legs. How boyish he must've seemed; how stupid this olive branch felt in his hand.

Meindo's eyes flickered up at him. She slurped down her bite.

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

"What's she like?"

This was the hard part. Fang to tongue, then fang to cheek, anything to keep the game from slipping. But then no, this was meant to be a gift — a real gift, of actual gab, and if she caught a glimpse of his fang on his bottom lip then so fucking be it.

"He's pretty nice. I met him at the Platinum Mirage. He doesn't gamble none, though. He's a butler."

Meindo's eyes rounded out to blue moons. How benignly they reflected his own, that which shimmered at his own admission.

Silence settled over them like a blanket. It suffocated him no longer. He consulted the stars of her visage and understood, palpably, unmistakably, what that meant to her.

Vahri's only daughter. Yet he let her shoulder the star of it alone.

"That's cool," Meindo eventually said, running her tongue over the tiniest smile.

[mealvaan]

Turn a Blind Eye

TW. Alcoholism, drug addiction (and predating on it).

“Hey Li, could you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Could you step a little over to your left?”

Vahri'a is oddly sheepish. It’s odd to see the eldest, often a gaunt shadow cast over the lot of them, in the blundering state that he is now. Crawling through his drinks, sip by sip, despite having had five of them at this point. Hammering his five digits and the tip of his tail against the table’s edge. Nervously eyeing the other end of the room as if a predator stalks the entrance. 

A woman in smithing attire with her mitts slung over her shoulder enters the restaurant bar with an entourage of friends. Vahri'a becomes one with the table. 

“Just pretend I’m not here.”

“Mhm.”

Vahri’li can’t believe his older brother slept with her, and clearly wasn’t courteous about it. He thought Vahri'a might know better than to act like that, but who is he to tell him off? Li’s the younger of them both and not remotely experienced in romantic affairs. At most, he’d just be cause for Vahri’a to make a bigger mess.

He serves his brother up another drink and watches as it shrinks, ilm by ilm, to near-nothing. 

* * *

"Ah, look! That’s the friend I was telling you about…! Isn’t he severe? I mean, in an impressive way…”

Vahri'li can’t say he recognizes the man, if for his type. Skin like a counter platter — and only ever the kitchen counter, never further — with burns to match. The stranger eyes Vahri'sae like he’s struck ceruleum and he’s pretending it’s dirt.

“Between you and me, Li,” Vahri'sae whispers like wind chimes, improvising a melody. “Have you heard of dreamweed…?”

“Nope,” says Vahri'li decisively. Honest and clean. Chef’s sleeves.

“Leon has. He says he can tell me alll about it at his place. For free! Most people in Limsa aren’t so nice, huh?" 

"No, I guess not.”

It’s not his job to tell Vahri’sae not to make mistakes. Especially not mistakes he’s still making, six fulms deep into his fascination with the illicit offerings of La Noscea. Who is Vahri’li to clip his younger brother’s wings? If Sae makes mistakes, he’ll make them, and Li will be the shoulder to cry on. But to scold him would be a bridge too far. He keeps his teeth and tongue to their own.

* * *

“Oi, Li. Could I get a fuckin’… bottle of wine for the road?" 

Vahri’to is a hazard to himself and others. He can barely walk straight, occupying the breadth of a two-way footpath which each step. His words are an incomprehensible slurry of phonetics. But he’d asked nicely — nicer than he usually does.

‘No’ isn’t a viable answer.

[mealvaan]

Pawn

Dragging steps part the red carpet as if it were its predecessor sea.

His hand is aloft as if there should be a drink sitting comfortably within it, but he’s forgotten the whole thing at the previous table. The legality of him indulging in drink is questionable — these Keeper men look so boyish until they’re decidedly not — but the staff will be damned if they tell him no. In his other, he lifts a loose leaf of parchment and slaps it onto the table.

“Am I late?”

The Gold Saucer attendant looks at the desk chronometer. Itimmediately strikes quarter to the bell.

“… No, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he says, turning tail quite literally. He swipes the parchment off the desk once she’s had a sliver of time to check his details, a needless formality at this point. Even for lack of a draft, the gumption with which he’d scooped the thing causes it to flutter into his hand, with only a miniscule crease to show for it.

He enters the Battlehall with a slouch and a yawn. Seeing this space in its liminal form, bereft of crowd chatter and its repetitive, lift music-esque anthem, should be uncanny. Instead, he feels at home. His occupation may require him to be a performer too often, and he plays up his irritability more than he’d like to admit as the despised heel of the tourney. However, this is a private tournament played solely for the amusement of rich folk that fancy themselves better Triple Triad players than they are. So the close-quarters audience is quiet to feign a deep connection with the cards — he doubts they can even read the numbers on them.

That knowledge that there isn’t a true audience is oddly calming. He can kick up his feet as much as he’d like here. Literally. All those that might tell him off eye his swirling drink and pistol at the hip and decide they can clean off the table later.

His opponent is already seated at the venue. She usually plays the face, if by virtue of being at the centre of the Far Eastern craze that’s swept Ul’dah in droves. Truthfully, as someone who’d joined the audience for most of her matches, she isn’t very good at it. She keeps a placid expression, hardly reacts to her victories or her losses, and shrouds any expressiveness in plain, white robes the same colour as her horns. 

On second thought, that’s probably what the crowd loves about her.

Himself? He’s a natural heel. He’s dressed in all black, he loves to flip off the crowd when they tell him to make dogshit plays, and he’s a keeper of the moon for crying out loud. You could blame his strategic forethought — i.e. obvious reads into obvious tells — on boons from miqo’te occultism and Dalamud worship. 

But there is no audience for whom the narrative spins. There’s no hero, no villain, no arc to follow. The spectators are purely here to pick up a dozen strategies (and only a single opener will stick); the Ruby Princess and the One-Eyed Royal are just here for fun.

Who are they fucking kidding? They’re here to make money.

Truth be told, he hadn’t expected to get this far in such a high-stakes tournament. The odds had been against him, yet here he is at the finals. 

“Good luck,” says the Ruby Princess, succinct and quiet. This is the first time she has ever spoken to him.

“Don’t need it,” retorts the One-Eyed Royal gruffly, and she’s reminded of why she never speaks to him. 

The determining order is drawn. Two blue, one red. He looks over his deck as he smirks for the advantage.

One card is an obvious opener — if he can capture the middle-right with these stats ahead of time, then he’s assured the entire right hand side. For a moment, his fingers dawdle over its crest. There’s a cold energy to the card; isn’t the most blatant play simply playing into his opponent’s hand? Will she not see that this is his strongest play and capitalise on the weakness to come?

His fingers dart to the leftmost side of his deck and he whips the card from it, playing into the middle-right. 

Its left hand side reads ‘1’.

The Ruby Princess raises a brow. The peanut gallery incessantly scribble their notes. The attendant clicks the chronometer and the timer on his opponent’s end starts.

Perhaps her dull, doll-like stare was a character after all, because he can actually catch glimpses of her expression as he observes her movements. Between the slivers of the foil fan she’s concocted for herself, he can see the beginnings of a smirk. She underestimates him, just like everyone else. His rise to the finals is an utter fluke, as she’s rarely faced him off save for elimination matches, and his backdoor is wide open.

She places her weakest card to his own’s left. Her 4 is enough to trump his 1, and she won’t waste her big guns on this trifle, she decides.

Without hesitation, he captures her centre card with a mid-tier one on the bottom. Her eyebrow twitches. The match proceeds with increasingly defensive plays on her end, as he captures the space she leaves in untouched corners when he can’t beat her walls. It doesn’t matter that she has untouchable real estate in red. His first play has already made its scoring difference and secured the match, resulting in the final score of:

“6-3 to the One-Eyed Royal,” calls the attendant.

The smirk has been completely wiped off the raen’s face. In his one visible eye and between the slivers of his fringe, he gives her a knowing look. She’s let the fool transcend to royalty, past the last bastion of her bloodline, and now he reaps the rewards of sovereignty from the bulk of the sports’ sponsors.

Golf claps all around.

He takes his cards as she leaves hers, dumbfounded, and collects the Gold Saucer chips into the crux of his arm — his wooden infant, clicking and clacking against his chest. 

“Cheers,” Vahri'to says in his wake. It’s a good thing he’s not playing a character, too, as his tail swings with the base joys of a child.

[mealvaan]

Scale

The static silhouettes of trees are disturbed by the hurried passing of cloaked figures. The first leads with purposeful steps, dutifully tying their pace to an unseen metronome. In contrast, the second is erratic and off-beat, skittering forward one second and skulking behind the next. The third of them — the last — keeps the flank close to their kin, the onus on those in front to set the tempo. The tag-alongs move with their shortbows knocked and at the ready, yet it appears the hunt is far from begun. 

Of course, the Black Shroud knows no shortage of hunters. No, it’s the bards of eld — bowmen that employed the power of song to invoke ancient power in their frontline peers — that have seen little light of day since war plagued. Yet here stands a young and unassuming Keeper of the Moon, lute in hand and shortbow strapped to his back, leading his kin in an art lost eras prior. Hunting is typically a quiet sport. Still, it is only befitting of the devout to prelude a feast with a prayer. 

A strummed instrumental shifts fluidly between major chords, setting a joyous harmonic rhythm on which the hymn will take stage. The young venator’s voice rings crystal clear amid the indecipherable ambience of the forest. The chorus that joins hold far less power in their tones, but they do their best to carry the tune all the same. After all, they have only ever served as harmonies to the melody that is their eldest brother.

I wash my hands of the blood I’ve sown A broken covenant renewed A sordid impulse subdued As I beat my heart and solemnly atone Bear witness to my transformation And to the Moon’s divine salvation

I wipe my eyes of the tears I’ve wept A wound stitched closed An intent transposed I relinquish the confession I’ve sorely kept In my throat, bereft Of the words I have left

I shed the skin of the life I once led— 

The first hunter ceases his strumming abruptly; the band’s marching dies as the song does. Despite his light singing voice that expertly navigated the flightful Ionian mode not moments ago, the timbre with which he addresses the problem is curt, strict and firmly rooted. 

“To. We spoke about this. You always end the first line on the wrong note. Remember the scale we practiced?”

“Sorry, I’a,” the second hunter mutters, eyes falling to the floor as he stumbles to a stop. 

“The song loses its power when we don’t perform it to perfection. When we have to do another round, we waste valuable nightshroud.”

“I know, I’a—”

“Do you know? Because this has happened every hunt without fail this sennight. I never have to give Sae or Ra notes. Why is it that your younger brothers are far more willing to practice—”

The third hunter pipes up. “I-I’a, To will practice more. L-Let’s just continue the song…”

“Li, I have been practicing,” the second insists. The weak resonance that plagued him during the song has since been shed, his words delivered on a bed of throaty grit, to which the interloping third shrinks back. “I end it on that note because the original doesn’t feel natural.”

“It doesn’t feel natural?” the first repeats in disbelief. His regard for his brother until now had been a mere half-turn — now, he revolves about properly and relinquishes the low-hanging hood from his head.

Vahri’a, the first son — he looks exhausted to the point of twice his brothers’ age. Disheveled white hair falls to the length of his collarbone, split ends and forming tangles evident at the tips. Dark circles frame sharp, violet eyes, hanging over long dry war paint that blends into his pale hair. Poking out from under the heaps of cloth that form his robes are thin wrists that cling to the bone.

His feline-like ears have swiveled backwards as he stares his brother dead on. If that weren’t already a sign of his aggression, his teeth grit to the point of bearing fangs, and his free hand balls into a fist.

“Might I remind you, Vahri’to, that Mother taught us this song,” he says gravely. “Did she not compose it to your liking?”

Vahri’to’s features — strikingly similar to Vahri’a’s own — contort into something discordantly bestial, pulling his facial muscles taut. 

“That is not what I fucking meant, I'a.”

“Language.”

“Please, I’a, To…” Initially, Vahri’li shrinks back from the conflict, but he knows better than to distance the flank he had kept so flush earlier. Instead, he rushes towards a close perpendicular between his elder brothers — everything short of interposing between them. “We can j-just do the song over again. I don’t mind.”

Alas, the third son’s imposition is far too little, far too late. Vahri’to, hunter that he is, has set his target and refuses to let him go. He bulldozes through Vahri’li’s attempts at placation, ignoring him in favor of pursuing his prey. 

“If you’re going to bring up Mother, then I ought to remind you that she never had half the stick up her arse that you do. She never corrected us when we sang the ‘wrong’ note. She loved it when we cared enough to improvise. We wrote new numbers that way. For the Goddess’s sake, they’re hunting songs, not scripture—”

“They literally are scripture,” Vahri’a corrects, regarding his second-in-command as if he’s setting up a checkmate. Where something primal has risen in Vahri’to, the cold first son views the impassioned argument before him as a mere equation to be solved. 

“Oh, and you think yourself a prophet? The be-all and end-all to what the Lover wants of us? You’re the patron fucking saint—”

“Language.”

“The patron fucking saint of holy nursery rhymes, are you?”

“I’m not claiming the Lover’s will at all. I’m doing what we were taught. I know these songs by heart, I know how they work, and I know that your improvisations, nay, your slip ups could cost Li a gash in his leg like it did the last time.” 

Vahri’li’s frail, lofty pitch can hardly cut through the monotonous percussion of Vahri’a’s matter-of-fact delivery and Vahri’to’s harsh, passionate strike tones. “I’m f-fine, it’s already healed—”

“You think you somehow know everything that Mother did. You don’t know epochs worth more than me just because you were born a cycle earlier. I was taught the same as you. I knew her just as you did. Actually, you want to know what I know that you clearly don’t?”

“What, pray tell?”

“Mother’s songs worked the magic that they did because they lifted spirits. We all had something to contribute, and those contributions were valuable. The bottom line of it was that singing with her was fun for everyone and that’s what emboldened us. With you, it’s a chore. All the singing does is waste our energy and scare away venison, all because you aren’t putting your heart into it and don’t let us do the same. Hells, do you even have a heart in there?”

“Mm, as if Mother just conjured all of those ancestral hymns from her heart of hearts. As if the sinews and organs of each instrumental weren’t kept together by her expert playing. As if she wasn’t using complex music theory to accommodate your childish improvising. I could tell that she was adjusting for you, while you were pampered, fancying yourself some sort of acapella genius.”

“Do you even hear yourself? These are family hunting songs, not the grand opera—”

“You speak of our situation like we can afford to spend nights holding hands and singing for recreation’s sake—”

“Enough!” 

The two free themselves from their deadlock. Vahri’li has finally found his volume. For a moment silence hangs over them, pierced only by the squawks of birds in flight from the noise. A beat after, Vahri’li verbally lunges forward, practically scrambling on all fours, desperately searching for words to which his brothers take so eloquently.

“If you two are done — done with this p-pointless argument — might I remind you that the others are waiting for us to bring back dinner? If we don’t have food for them, then… And Ya is sick. Ya is bedridden, and we’re wasting time here arguing over something like — like whether the first line should end in A or C?!”

A breath mark.

“Please, just — I know this situation is stressful, and everything feels like it’s weighing on you two, but just — stop arguing about what Mother wanted. Every single time it comes to what Mother wanted. It’s so pointless, it’s pointless because… It’s pointless because we’re never going to know.”

A caesura.

“Okay?”

Several measures worth of rest.

“Okay?” The power behind Vahri’li’s voice already seems to be waning.

Vahri’to passes a sidelong glance to the eldest of them. Though bitterness remains on the tip of his tongue, he’s since licked it off his lips and swallowed it. The scales may have just fallen off of his eyes, but for now, he can keep them in his pocket. 

“Okay.”

Vahri’a meets the second son’s stare with a distant glaze over his own. He may have every intent to address the problem, every impulse within him screaming at him to do so for efficiency’s sake, but for now he’ll take pause with grace.

“Okay.”

The leader of the band turns around once more, setting the pace and the path for the others to follow. They march to the beat of their own drums, yet they keep together all the same. 

“Let’s try this again,” says Vahri’a in even measure, taking his lute up once more.

Despite the cacophony of the argument prior, the dissonant melodies clashing in every metric, and the anti-climactic crescendo falling into a unanimous tacet al fine — despite the terrible song they’ve composed — they unite under their mother’s hymn as one voice in three tones. A holy trinity. 

“I wash my hands of the blood I’ve sown…”

[mealvaan]

Captious

“Fuck!”

The piercing sound of shattered porcelain serves as an accompaniment to Meindo’s profanity. The curry sauce spills into the floor, grains of rice flowing forth and finding a comfortable place in the crevices.

She doesn’t hesitate a second to disintegrate into apologies. “Sorry, ‘m sorry, I’ll fix it, I’m so sorry,” she rasps, one knee pressed hard into the tile. With digits in desperate claws, she scrapes up what little she can muster from the mess she’s made. With each gesture, more slips between her fingers. No matter how much she tries—

“Mei, relax,” Vahri’to chides, striding over calmly to inspect the mess. “A mop’ll have this right as rain if you give it a fuckin’ second, alright?”

Purple eyes like unbroken dinner plates, she cranes her neck up to him from her popped squat. “It’s alrigh’…?”

“‘Course it is, I’ll just get a new one. Now c'mon, off the floor, you’re gonna cut yourself on the shards if you aren’t careful.”

Taking her calloused, curry-stained hand in his own, he helps his little sister to her feet. There’s a bashful air about her for all of her big talk — embarrassed that she had fallen apart into old ways. Displayed a nervousness she thought had been buried and gone.

Vahri’to makes nothing of it. As he ambles over to one of many storage closets in his grand abode, takes his sweet time looking for the misplaced bucket to his lone mop, and spends a good few moments giving the bucket he procures a proper sniff, Meindo watches in a type of abject awe previously unbeknownst to her. 

Why is she so surprised?

It’s not as if Vahri’to is being particularly polite. Profanity peppers his speech as always. The pace at which he seeks to address the issue is casual at best, as if there’s no urgency whatsoever to the broken plate.

 But why would there be? He’s right in that there are plenty of them in this world. He could go out and purchase one this instant if he wanted, but he’s the proud owner of more than two dinner plates. 

Slowly but surely, Meindo feels the pounding in her chest simmer. 

“Curry ain’t really a Heavensturn dish anyway, is it?” Vahri’to says, seeming blissfully unaware of Meindo’s predicament before him as he mops up the muck. “Fuck it, let’s get some… fuckin’… noodles. That’s how they do it in the Far East, you know.”

“… Y’ sure? I really don’t mind makin’ some more.”

“Nah. Should’ve taken you out in the first place. You can use one of my coats or some shit. There’s a place just ‘round the corner.”

In a flurry of wool and buttons, the two black-haired Keepers set out into the chill of the night. Where most of their kind would welcome the cold — it was the Lover’s domain, after all — the two have since acclimated to warmer weather. 

“Dunno why they bother fuckin’ doing this when the weather’s just fine most of the twelvemoon,” Vahri’to bitterly comments, catching flakes of thaumaturgical snow in his hair. The heels of his boots click apace upon the brick road, eagerly passing by the nooks and crannies of his all too familiar neighborhood.

Of course, the wealthier district of Ul’dah is a stark change to the hurried alleyways of Limsa Lominsa that Meindo is so used to. While the street is still awash with merriment, all of it is muffled behind glowing windows and closed doors. The balls of a lifetime held within those walls are only shared to the two of them in glimpses when someone dares to open the door. Safer, by all means, but still lonely.

Perhaps this isolated culture is just what Vahri’to wants. All that space in that manse of his, but he only invited one guest. Now they’re not even using the dining hall.

“‘To,” she says between strides, easily keeping pace with him. “D’you get invited to Vahri’s nameday party?”

At first, all he musters is a grunt. In quiet, sharp words, he responds, “Took the Beast long enough to get with the times, didn’t he? He used to chide us for celebratin’ shit like that for ourselves.”

“Are you goin’?”

“No.”

There’s no bells and whistles to his answer. No uncouth adverbs, no sighs or pauses. It earns a furrow of the brow from his sister, arms folding over her chest. She knows him well enough to speak her mind despite their difference in age. He knows her well enough to have found peace with her bluntness.

“He’s turnin’ thirty y’know. I know you two don’t talk, and I’m not askin’ ya’ to bury the hatchet, but it could be a bit of a nice thing to do, don’t y’think?”

As Vahri’to shakes his head, strands of hair fall upon his face — only to be blown away by the dull ‘winter’ breeze.

“Do you really think it’s gonna be any fuckin’ fun?” he asks, a tinge of anger in his voice. It’s not directed towards her. Rather, it’s an ambience that seems to follow whenever their dearest big brother is mentioned. “Or are you just gonna be actin’ the way you did when you dropped that plate, the whole night through?”

Taken aback, she finally falls behind him; it only takes a few of his steps, after all. She briskly catches up a moment later, clearing her throat into a balled fist.

“Wh… What d’you mean?”

“I mean you act like a kicked puppy ‘cause of him. That’s not the Mei I’ve come to know. But sometimes you slip into all that, and Hells, I was there too. I was like that for a whole seventeen summers, and I got a shit load of nothin’ out of all the time I spent bein’ a good little dog.”

For the second time that night, she’s stunned into silence.

“I don’t think you should be showin’ up… Even if the bastard was turnin’ a hundred fuckin’ cycles. What d’you owe him that you haven’t already given him? He’s already squattin’ in your apartment—”

“It’s his now, to be fair.”

“Your name’s on the deed.”

“It’s not a problem.”

“It just feels like you think you’ve gotta meet his standards and please him after all this time. He’s a grown ass man and you’re a grown ass woman, so if you don’t actually want to go, you don’t have to go. If he’s not got any friends to celebrate his nameday with, it’s his own fuckin’ fault, isn’t it? For bein’ such a— such a prick, findin’ fault in every little thing. He would’ve made you clean up that mess, make us more curry, and apologize the whole way through. And why’s it like that?”

Ever the draumaturge, his spit finds its way onto the pavement for emphasis. “‘Cause he needs to fuel his damn ego. That’s why.”

Meindo finds herself chewing on her lip. While she allows his words to stew in her mind, bubble and boil and marinate her inner thoughts…  something about them feels wrong to her. And perhaps that’s because he’s right. Perhaps she does bend over backwards to appease their older brother, even now, whether she realizes it or not.

Her train of thought comes to a screeching halt as Vahri’to stops and turns tail.

“Here it is. C’mon, you’re gonna love it.”

With that said, a grin cracks across her lips. Fangs bearing, she starts digging into her pocket for her coin purse — only for Vahri’to to grab her wrist.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare. It’s on me.”

[mealvaan]

Unlikely

Lady Luck, spin me a good spell…

A light hiss brushes the skin of his chapped lips as he beholds the card he’s drawn. The piercing air goes far from unnoticed, but only the most brutish among them — Diamond Hand — has the gall to announce it to the table.

“Feeling more like a one-eyed pissant now, are you?”

The jeers and snickers that erupt from the table make the lines under his eyes carve deeper. A deeply cut statue, severe in every shade of grey that graces his face. The One-Eyed Royal’s sharp violet gaze would slice skin in two were one of its ocular daggers not concealed in an ornate black eye patch. Its golden trim instead softens his right eye’s spark into a twinkle. Perhaps others would be intimidated, but this elite table is one of ex-pirates, the formerly povertized, and noblemen fond of their mercenary hires. On the contrary, an eyepatch is par for the course; only those with a penchant for the unusual would be caught gambling to the degree that they’d be found here.

In the wake of the rancor her good friend stirred, Snake Eyes throws her cards into the center, scratching the fray along her ear. “Alrrright, I’ll fold. You cats have at it.”  The Kibitzer follows suit to no one’s surprise, with not a word spoken other than, “Fold,” and not a look dare cast to any present.

For all of their mannerisms, the Royal keeps his one eye on the tells. He has a hunter’s leer for its half cut, detecting every fidget and rustle. He’s not here to feast or kill, but it’s because this is prey he can harvest again, and again, and again. The meat does more than line his stomach — it cushions his pockets.

He can tell when St. Finnea calls for the sake of calling, as she looks at the rest with such indignance despite none jeering at her, and the Kibitzer shoots her an according look to designate that he doesn’t care for her last stand. That glare’s enough to make her fold despite her nicknamesake, and then as always, she orders another glass of brandy. He can tell when Tent has a middling hand he thinks he can win with because he shuts up and scratches a horn he thinks no one can see under his hood — only for Diamond Hand’s big relentless grin to make him phone it in on the turn. He can tell when Cherry has no idea what to do with her hand because she goes as red as her hair with every hold. In the chaos of a crowded table, someone has to make some sense of it. Take this mess of discarded yarn, knit one, purl one, and turn it into a scarf.

With his gaze softened against his will, the One-Eyed Royal can’t make people back down purely with his looks. Perhaps, that’s in his favor; he was never a patient hunter, and a hunter should never enter the fray. It doesn’t stop him from trying to intimidate, spreading across his armchair and flashing a fang with each announcement that he’ll call. 

But the Royal joined their ranks when he was a desperate little kid, about an epoch ago. He tries to play it tough like the others, but they know where he’s from: a small sheltered clan in the Shroud. He prayed to the Mother Moon for every hand and crashed into a tantrum whenever she forsook him. They used to call him the Card in the Sleeve, but it was a jeer at best — it was because they could see his heart in the cloth. And as the stakes loft over them in this game of Hide the High Heart, despite all that he’s achieved to earn the court card title he totes, they still see that sorry little sixteen-year-old in him.

It’s just him and Diamond Hand now.

“You really don’t have to do this to prove a point, pup.” Diamond rests his chin on his knuckles which are adorned in glittering gemstones, a couple rings for each finger and then some. “I mean it. I called you in the first round. Hells, I’ll foot your buy-in if you’re that worried about it.”

“Seriously? Let him take the loss if he’s gonna be like this,” says St. Finnea, looking at the man with burning indignance. In what world doesn’t she worship the Fury? “I reckon he gets off on losing the money.”

“Fuck you, Finnea,” the Royal growls. He’s a rat backed into the corner, attacking his drink instead of his overlords. “Let me play my godsdamn hand. Just for that, I’m raisin’.”

Diamond shrugs, laughter still bubbling up from his chest. “I mean, babe — it’s just sad. He’s fighting for dear life here.”

“Just get the fuckin’ round over with,” says the Royal with a throttled sigh, tapping his fingers incessantly on the table. 

“If you insist, I won’t back down, pup.”

Diamond plays his hand. A marriage of lord and lady — he was holding out for a royal flush, but the high pair will do. 

“You really fell for that shit, Diamond?”

The One-Eyed Royal lets his cards fall to the table. Thus follows Diamond Hand’s jaw.

“Why in the ever-burning Hells did you slowplay those pocket aces, you arsehole, ” he curses, his hearty guffaw now a slurry of curses. “You only ever called and called. What is wrong with you?”

“To prove a point.”

A sweeping hand collects the chips before he rises, looking over the table with unadulterated disdain. They call him a puppy despite playing like children, meeting hands because people dare them to, backing down when they’re scolded. 

“You all think you know me? Get your eyes checked. It’s an epoch too late for this bullshit.” 

He turns tail without a second thought, the distant swears background noise amid the carnival fare of the Gold Saucer. It’s music to his ears. The click in his step is an attempted match to the music if not for the off-beat swing in his step. The teller would be surprised by his sullen expression paired with all those chips, were he not their dark spot of a regular. The shadow cast in the entrance square.

“Cashing in?”

“No, I’m here to wipe my arse. Of course I’m fuckin’ cashin’ in. And hurry, I’ve got places to be.”

“R… Right away, Master Korla.”