Phara's fingers unbroken.
RL Date: 1/23/09
IC Date: 11/1/18 --Jacked log from Phara. Very little bad language. And none of it was mine, for a change! :D
Gaming Room, Benden WineCraft
An oddly-shaped, cozy cavern that is one of the more popular of attractions for residents and visitors to the area alike. Chairs and tables are grouped about the room, with a different game laid out atop each table. The archway to the east connects with the Great Hall of Benden Hold. The door to the south opens on the Tasting Hall maintained by the WineCraft Hall.
Ever busy in the evening, the gaming hall at Benden Hold houses a wide variety of so-called poker players, ranging from the frivolous lads who came up on some cash and are now here to completely blow it to the serious players with their unreadable expressions and barely-touched mugs near at hand. N'thei counts among the latter. Except that his expression, just now, is not precisely unreadable: the cat that got the canary while his palm drags a pile of marks toward his portion of the table, the other hand lifting the mug to be drained, grin holding fast to his expression. With a disgusted pfah, two of the four at his table get up, broke, and leave the man to rest on his mark-heavy laurels.
Phara is the worst kind of player come to prey at Benden Hold - the kind that learned at Bitra. Just her knot at Fort Weyr would be a give away, Thunderbolt's reputation at Telgar followed its Wingleader and his loyal riders when they became Flint at Fort. Now, she ranges farther for a good game. She wanders the hall with a mug of spiked cider, her newest favorite, and when she sees a few seats open up at N'thei's table, she makes her move. "Mind if I join?" she asks with a slow, curving smile, setting her free hand on the back of an empty chair.
"What if the answer's yes." If Phara's the worst kind of player, then N'thei's the worst kind of person to play with. It's the liberty that really prompts it, evidenced by the direction of those suddenly slate gray eyes; yes, he grinned only a moment ago, but now there's no trace of that winner's merriment left in the look he slants up at the bluerider. Leaning back, his hands wrapped around his own mug, he challenges with a quirked eyebrow, raising that bland look from the hand Phara lays on the empty chair to the woman herself.
Phara doesn't let his stony gaze defeat the easy smile on her face. "What if it is?" she challenges in reply, turning the chair to slide into it. One elbow leans onto the table, her whole presence taking up more space than her slender body should, even with the way she sprawls in the chair, her legs outstretched towards the other open chair. Her eye flicks to the other person at the table and then she extends her hand casually after setting her mug down. "Phara, blue Bennath's. Fort's duties."
The other person at the table has been putting up with N'thei all night, possibly longer than that given the lack of care he has over the whole situation. Really, he's too busy trying to get a buxom serving girl to come and be his good-luck-charm to care whether Phara's there or not. Leaving N'thei free to point out, "Why bother asking if you don't actually care what the answer is." Says the man who can't quite get the lilt of query to replace the demanding quality that comes naturally to his voice. The hand-- a glance-- and? "Money on the table, love, then maybe we'll get around to pleasantries."
Phara's mouth curls up even more, though still without a flash of teeth. "I care. But you can't play poker with just yourself." And she reassesses his face and muses aloud, "Though I bet you'd find a way, wouldn't you?" Humming in satisfaction with her own idea, she unhooks her purse from her belt and drops it, letting it spill open. Honey eyes never leave his face during this process. "Better?"
"Certainly not above playing with myself, if that's what you're asking." Hardly a fit subject for mixed company, but it /is/ a game hall, and the cards that slip across the table drive home the point: N'thei is here to play cards, not to win friends and influence people. "We play hold 'em. Small blind's to you, darling. Anyone cheats, I break their fingers. Everyone's comfortable with those rules, I'll assume," while he pins a card beneath his index finger, the smile that flies around the table one that-- were it not for the blatant avarice behind his eyes-- could be misconstrued as pleasant and charming.
Phara chuckles darkly. "Do that a lot, don't you?" The tip of her tongue traces her lower lip as she reaches one hand farther across the table like a taunt. "Oh, I'd be most fascinated to see you try to break my fingers," this a tease, but more seriously, her eyes sharpening on him, "I don't cheat." She takes a drink from her mug and nods, fingers twitching impatiently as she selects her marks carefully and slides them aside, glancing towards the other player.
The shrug starts to answer what N'thei does or does not do a lot of; a man's got to keep himself occupied somehow seems to be the gist of the heavy carelessness of the gesture, but he never gets around to vocalizing a response. Because she'd be most fascinated to see him try to break her fingers; "I'd be most fascinated to see you try to stop me." With the particular relish of an admitted sadist, the new interest in looking at the delicacy of a woman's fingers, his own hands steepled before him while the third player-- who has succeeded by now in getting the buxom barmaid to perch on the arm of his chair-- puts in the large blind. "We don't have a fourth, so I'll open." Not a big open, but he looks expectantly to Phara once his marks are on the table.
Phara takes him in with measured study as she places her own bet. The relish is noted, earning a small twitch at the corner of her mouth, a quick tremble that may or may not have actually occured. "That would be fascinating," she finally agrees, a distant acknowledgement of the foot of height and pounds of muscle he outstrips her by. "Would you break them all at once, or one at a time?" Again, she looks towards the other man and his 'good luck charm', eyebrows raising in amusement.
"Depends." The third party there really has no hope, so enamored of breasts-and-thighs he's coaxed into adorning his chair that he's just pushing marks toward the pot when it seems like it's his turn, oblivious to the talk of broken fingers going on around him. So it's around to N'thei again to check, his fingers twitching eagerly across the marks he slides toward the middle of the table, his attention finally raised from Phara's fingers to her eyes; again, the deceptively amiable smile. "Are you the hysterical screaming type, or are yours the soft, slow, sad tears?" Long, luxurious S-es.
Phara lingers over her bet this time, her index finger following the edge of one mark, tracing the circle. "It's hard to say, nobody's ever broken my fingers intentionally before." She considers, now sliding the coin forward, still upping the bet confidently. "But I highly doubt tears."
N'thei, forehead creased, eyebrows pulled upward; "Shame." Sad eyes look down to the marks while Romeo over there matches, then it's a careless flick with his fingernail to match the raise. Whether he means it's a shame that no one's broken her fingers before or that she doubts there'd be tears if someone did is hard to say; given the tragic pallor that passes briefly across his expression, it's likely a combination of the two.
"You prefer crying," Phara assumes, catching her lower lip softly between her teeth. She exhales, eyes closing briefly and then stares at him again, intently. She glances at the last player, her eyebrows drawing downwards. More marks. "Do you charm all the ladies by breaking their fingers, then?"
Wordless. But yes. The very faintest pull at the corner of his mouth answers to that; N'thei prefers crying. Not that it should come as any surprise. More marks, more marks, always more marks. Fortunately, none of them seem to care how much they're spending on a pre-flop bet here, and more trickle in from the two men to match Phara's. "Are you charmed, then."
Phara seems as equally unconcerned, pushing the pot ever upwards. "Intrigued." She takes another drink, and extrapolates. "I don't think you're trying to charm me. I'd say you're the sort who's more content to whack it alone. But you have my attention."
Denial-free; "At least you know what thoughts will keep me warm tonight, neh?" Fingers laced, they crack loudly before N'thei sets his elbows back on the table, hands re-steepled, marks moving around the table again and again and again and something's got to give eventually. "One of us is going to have to fold eventually," with a sudden, stern look at the third party.
Phara's gaze also turns to the other man, and from the narrowing of her eyes, she's grown irritated with his peripheral involvement with the game long before now. "I don't fold," she says in a hard voice, but now her eyes are on N'thei, and perhaps she's not talking about cards this time. "I think I can use my imagination."
What? Him? Blinking, confused by his sudden inclusion, the man looks from Phara to N'thei and back again, and it's only a matter of moments before he's collecting what's left of his money and luring his voluptuous toy off to less hostile territory. "Why don't you tell me what you imagine, love, and let's see the flop." As in, stop raising so the hand can progress.
Phara slides her fingers across her lower lip thoughtfully. "Funny thing about imagination. Hard to put into words. Never as good as the real thing." And she nods her agreement to stop raising and allow the flop. "So is this what I imagine you'll do when you get home... or what I imagine you'll be thinking?"
"Whichever one..." One, two, three cards turn up, watched for a moment before N'thei looks back across the table to finish the thought. "...intrigues you."
Phara studies the flop cards, and then laughs, and now she does grin, flashing her teeth in a distinctly predatory way. "Both do," she allows, focusing on his hands this time.
The nod indicates her marks-- as there's still betting to do before this hand, already monumentally fiscal, is over. N'thei, despite the byplay, is still here to play cards, remember. "Then tell me about both." One thumb to the pad of the other, he does have twitchy fingers in their way.
Phara absently pushes in more marks. The betting isn't the part that interests her the most about playing. Eventually someone will give, and she's determined not to be it. "I think you'd start with this finger." She holds up her left pinky, the others curled in. "I won't scream... not yet. Not until the next one." Her ring finger raises to join her littlest finger. "I'll cry by this one." Middle and index finger raise. "By the time you reach my thumb, I'll say anything, beg, just to make it stop."
She won't be it. Not if the new stacking of his remaining marks, a pile considerably dwindled compared to its state before Phara sat down, is any indication. There's a palpable change that takes place after reach-my-thumb, from N'thei being riveted to the idea of snapping fingers... to the unmistakable sense that the game is over, that he's folded without a word about it. It's the way his hands slide down, the way the money gets put away, the laxness.
Phara just watches him, her body somehow stiff even in the relaxed pose she's never bothered to move out of. An eyebrow raises at him, her smile fades into wariness. She knows when a win has come too easily, her hand still stretched across the table flexing out flat against the wood and sliding slowly towards herself. She's silent, waiting for something from him first.
N'thei waits until he finds his feet to point out, "You look worried." And 6'4" looks down on 5'5" with a questioning head-tilt, as if he can't fathom why Phara might be concerned for her well-being! Whatever nefarious thoughts filled his horrible little head, there's no trace of intent left in the leisure that attends him to pull on his riding jacket, to put away his things in the pockets, to leave a few extra marks at the edge of the table-- bar-bill, he's a ways into his cups by now.
Phara chuckles and begins to pack up, scooping her purse up and hiding it away. "You didn't even try," she points out. "I didn't have shit, you didn't even try. Why?" She looks puzzled, standing so that the distance doesn't feel quite so pronounced. Still, she must crane her face up to look at him, the question in her eyes that doesn't reflect in her voice. "You're going."
Why? "Not your business." A smile that, on anyone else, would be sunny lights N'thei's expression briefly; on him, it comes across more scalding than balmy. And he is going, yes; more specifically, he just sort of goes-- leaves-- without the trouble of a faretheewell or a backward glance.
IC Date: 11/1/18 --Jacked log from Phara. Very little bad language. And none of it was mine, for a change! :D
Gaming Room, Benden WineCraft
An oddly-shaped, cozy cavern that is one of the more popular of attractions for residents and visitors to the area alike. Chairs and tables are grouped about the room, with a different game laid out atop each table. The archway to the east connects with the Great Hall of Benden Hold. The door to the south opens on the Tasting Hall maintained by the WineCraft Hall.
Ever busy in the evening, the gaming hall at Benden Hold houses a wide variety of so-called poker players, ranging from the frivolous lads who came up on some cash and are now here to completely blow it to the serious players with their unreadable expressions and barely-touched mugs near at hand. N'thei counts among the latter. Except that his expression, just now, is not precisely unreadable: the cat that got the canary while his palm drags a pile of marks toward his portion of the table, the other hand lifting the mug to be drained, grin holding fast to his expression. With a disgusted pfah, two of the four at his table get up, broke, and leave the man to rest on his mark-heavy laurels.
Phara is the worst kind of player come to prey at Benden Hold - the kind that learned at Bitra. Just her knot at Fort Weyr would be a give away, Thunderbolt's reputation at Telgar followed its Wingleader and his loyal riders when they became Flint at Fort. Now, she ranges farther for a good game. She wanders the hall with a mug of spiked cider, her newest favorite, and when she sees a few seats open up at N'thei's table, she makes her move. "Mind if I join?" she asks with a slow, curving smile, setting her free hand on the back of an empty chair.
"What if the answer's yes." If Phara's the worst kind of player, then N'thei's the worst kind of person to play with. It's the liberty that really prompts it, evidenced by the direction of those suddenly slate gray eyes; yes, he grinned only a moment ago, but now there's no trace of that winner's merriment left in the look he slants up at the bluerider. Leaning back, his hands wrapped around his own mug, he challenges with a quirked eyebrow, raising that bland look from the hand Phara lays on the empty chair to the woman herself.
Phara doesn't let his stony gaze defeat the easy smile on her face. "What if it is?" she challenges in reply, turning the chair to slide into it. One elbow leans onto the table, her whole presence taking up more space than her slender body should, even with the way she sprawls in the chair, her legs outstretched towards the other open chair. Her eye flicks to the other person at the table and then she extends her hand casually after setting her mug down. "Phara, blue Bennath's. Fort's duties."
The other person at the table has been putting up with N'thei all night, possibly longer than that given the lack of care he has over the whole situation. Really, he's too busy trying to get a buxom serving girl to come and be his good-luck-charm to care whether Phara's there or not. Leaving N'thei free to point out, "Why bother asking if you don't actually care what the answer is." Says the man who can't quite get the lilt of query to replace the demanding quality that comes naturally to his voice. The hand-- a glance-- and? "Money on the table, love, then maybe we'll get around to pleasantries."
Phara's mouth curls up even more, though still without a flash of teeth. "I care. But you can't play poker with just yourself." And she reassesses his face and muses aloud, "Though I bet you'd find a way, wouldn't you?" Humming in satisfaction with her own idea, she unhooks her purse from her belt and drops it, letting it spill open. Honey eyes never leave his face during this process. "Better?"
"Certainly not above playing with myself, if that's what you're asking." Hardly a fit subject for mixed company, but it /is/ a game hall, and the cards that slip across the table drive home the point: N'thei is here to play cards, not to win friends and influence people. "We play hold 'em. Small blind's to you, darling. Anyone cheats, I break their fingers. Everyone's comfortable with those rules, I'll assume," while he pins a card beneath his index finger, the smile that flies around the table one that-- were it not for the blatant avarice behind his eyes-- could be misconstrued as pleasant and charming.
Phara chuckles darkly. "Do that a lot, don't you?" The tip of her tongue traces her lower lip as she reaches one hand farther across the table like a taunt. "Oh, I'd be most fascinated to see you try to break my fingers," this a tease, but more seriously, her eyes sharpening on him, "I don't cheat." She takes a drink from her mug and nods, fingers twitching impatiently as she selects her marks carefully and slides them aside, glancing towards the other player.
The shrug starts to answer what N'thei does or does not do a lot of; a man's got to keep himself occupied somehow seems to be the gist of the heavy carelessness of the gesture, but he never gets around to vocalizing a response. Because she'd be most fascinated to see him try to break her fingers; "I'd be most fascinated to see you try to stop me." With the particular relish of an admitted sadist, the new interest in looking at the delicacy of a woman's fingers, his own hands steepled before him while the third player-- who has succeeded by now in getting the buxom barmaid to perch on the arm of his chair-- puts in the large blind. "We don't have a fourth, so I'll open." Not a big open, but he looks expectantly to Phara once his marks are on the table.
Phara takes him in with measured study as she places her own bet. The relish is noted, earning a small twitch at the corner of her mouth, a quick tremble that may or may not have actually occured. "That would be fascinating," she finally agrees, a distant acknowledgement of the foot of height and pounds of muscle he outstrips her by. "Would you break them all at once, or one at a time?" Again, she looks towards the other man and his 'good luck charm', eyebrows raising in amusement.
"Depends." The third party there really has no hope, so enamored of breasts-and-thighs he's coaxed into adorning his chair that he's just pushing marks toward the pot when it seems like it's his turn, oblivious to the talk of broken fingers going on around him. So it's around to N'thei again to check, his fingers twitching eagerly across the marks he slides toward the middle of the table, his attention finally raised from Phara's fingers to her eyes; again, the deceptively amiable smile. "Are you the hysterical screaming type, or are yours the soft, slow, sad tears?" Long, luxurious S-es.
Phara lingers over her bet this time, her index finger following the edge of one mark, tracing the circle. "It's hard to say, nobody's ever broken my fingers intentionally before." She considers, now sliding the coin forward, still upping the bet confidently. "But I highly doubt tears."
N'thei, forehead creased, eyebrows pulled upward; "Shame." Sad eyes look down to the marks while Romeo over there matches, then it's a careless flick with his fingernail to match the raise. Whether he means it's a shame that no one's broken her fingers before or that she doubts there'd be tears if someone did is hard to say; given the tragic pallor that passes briefly across his expression, it's likely a combination of the two.
"You prefer crying," Phara assumes, catching her lower lip softly between her teeth. She exhales, eyes closing briefly and then stares at him again, intently. She glances at the last player, her eyebrows drawing downwards. More marks. "Do you charm all the ladies by breaking their fingers, then?"
Wordless. But yes. The very faintest pull at the corner of his mouth answers to that; N'thei prefers crying. Not that it should come as any surprise. More marks, more marks, always more marks. Fortunately, none of them seem to care how much they're spending on a pre-flop bet here, and more trickle in from the two men to match Phara's. "Are you charmed, then."
Phara seems as equally unconcerned, pushing the pot ever upwards. "Intrigued." She takes another drink, and extrapolates. "I don't think you're trying to charm me. I'd say you're the sort who's more content to whack it alone. But you have my attention."
Denial-free; "At least you know what thoughts will keep me warm tonight, neh?" Fingers laced, they crack loudly before N'thei sets his elbows back on the table, hands re-steepled, marks moving around the table again and again and again and something's got to give eventually. "One of us is going to have to fold eventually," with a sudden, stern look at the third party.
Phara's gaze also turns to the other man, and from the narrowing of her eyes, she's grown irritated with his peripheral involvement with the game long before now. "I don't fold," she says in a hard voice, but now her eyes are on N'thei, and perhaps she's not talking about cards this time. "I think I can use my imagination."
What? Him? Blinking, confused by his sudden inclusion, the man looks from Phara to N'thei and back again, and it's only a matter of moments before he's collecting what's left of his money and luring his voluptuous toy off to less hostile territory. "Why don't you tell me what you imagine, love, and let's see the flop." As in, stop raising so the hand can progress.
Phara slides her fingers across her lower lip thoughtfully. "Funny thing about imagination. Hard to put into words. Never as good as the real thing." And she nods her agreement to stop raising and allow the flop. "So is this what I imagine you'll do when you get home... or what I imagine you'll be thinking?"
"Whichever one..." One, two, three cards turn up, watched for a moment before N'thei looks back across the table to finish the thought. "...intrigues you."
Phara studies the flop cards, and then laughs, and now she does grin, flashing her teeth in a distinctly predatory way. "Both do," she allows, focusing on his hands this time.
The nod indicates her marks-- as there's still betting to do before this hand, already monumentally fiscal, is over. N'thei, despite the byplay, is still here to play cards, remember. "Then tell me about both." One thumb to the pad of the other, he does have twitchy fingers in their way.
Phara absently pushes in more marks. The betting isn't the part that interests her the most about playing. Eventually someone will give, and she's determined not to be it. "I think you'd start with this finger." She holds up her left pinky, the others curled in. "I won't scream... not yet. Not until the next one." Her ring finger raises to join her littlest finger. "I'll cry by this one." Middle and index finger raise. "By the time you reach my thumb, I'll say anything, beg, just to make it stop."
She won't be it. Not if the new stacking of his remaining marks, a pile considerably dwindled compared to its state before Phara sat down, is any indication. There's a palpable change that takes place after reach-my-thumb, from N'thei being riveted to the idea of snapping fingers... to the unmistakable sense that the game is over, that he's folded without a word about it. It's the way his hands slide down, the way the money gets put away, the laxness.
Phara just watches him, her body somehow stiff even in the relaxed pose she's never bothered to move out of. An eyebrow raises at him, her smile fades into wariness. She knows when a win has come too easily, her hand still stretched across the table flexing out flat against the wood and sliding slowly towards herself. She's silent, waiting for something from him first.
N'thei waits until he finds his feet to point out, "You look worried." And 6'4" looks down on 5'5" with a questioning head-tilt, as if he can't fathom why Phara might be concerned for her well-being! Whatever nefarious thoughts filled his horrible little head, there's no trace of intent left in the leisure that attends him to pull on his riding jacket, to put away his things in the pockets, to leave a few extra marks at the edge of the table-- bar-bill, he's a ways into his cups by now.
Phara chuckles and begins to pack up, scooping her purse up and hiding it away. "You didn't even try," she points out. "I didn't have shit, you didn't even try. Why?" She looks puzzled, standing so that the distance doesn't feel quite so pronounced. Still, she must crane her face up to look at him, the question in her eyes that doesn't reflect in her voice. "You're going."
Why? "Not your business." A smile that, on anyone else, would be sunny lights N'thei's expression briefly; on him, it comes across more scalding than balmy. And he is going, yes; more specifically, he just sort of goes-- leaves-- without the trouble of a faretheewell or a backward glance.