Amiable Losers

Amiable Losers 8 MINUTE READ

“Third deal, gentles, third deal,” the dealer said, leaning over the spread of cards as he shuffled the deck in his spindly, yellow-nailed hands. “Who wants to sweeten the pot, and who wants to fold?”

Five people were arrayed around the table in front of him. A dwarf cleaned his nails with the point of a throwing knife, a carved pipe between pinched between his lips. A half-orc with eyes that glowed in the dim light of the tavern winced at every clink of glass and pewter tankards as they played. An elf with curse-markings around their fingers like rings surveyed the pot. A human with tightly-curled black hair, a streak of white at her widow’s peak, smiled down at her cards. A halfling with a beer gut fiddled with a necklace of little gnomish teeth as he thought.

“F-fold,” the half-orc sputtered, slurring around his fangs. “I don’t… this is some witchery.”

The dealer frowned and pointed at a sign above the bar: “NO MAGIC WITHIN 25 FEET OF GAMBLING.”

“That’s enforced, you know,” he growled. The half-orc snorted, nostrils flaring, but laid his cards down on the table and stood peaceably enough, leaving behind an ornate set of diamond earrings.

“Fuck this,” the halfling spat. He tossed his cards down almost on top of the brutal-looking dagger he’d bet “I’ve lost enough for the day. Good luck to the rest of you scoundrels, then.”

“I think I, too, will take my leave,” said the elf. They hopped down with an unnatural grace from their tall bar stool. “Enjoy the chain, my dears, but not too much.”

The dealer leaned over the pot, lifting the glittering chain left behind between his fingers and wiggling it between the last two occupants of the table. “Well then, well then. Place your bets, lady and gent.”

Essa the Red reached down to a belt pouch and came up with a small, black vial. She placed it amidst the gold and various curiosities in the pot with a small tap.

“Varisian black,” she said. She reached up to tug down the neck of her blouse, showing off a dagger inked into the skin of her neck and clavicle. With a touch she drew it, an actual blade in her hand, and imbedded it in the wood of the table. “Inherently magical. Anyone with the skill can give you a tattoo you’ll never forget.”

“Acceptable, acceptable,” the dealer said, glancing over the dagger, though he did raise an eyebrow and nod towards the sign over the bar again. Essa waved him off but put the dagger away in her bag instead of laying it back into her skin.

“Just a demonstration,” she said. “You let the elf tie that poor halfling in knots with the unending chain. Don’t get squirrelly on me now.”

The dealer shook his head but smiled. Then he looked to the dwarf. “How will you call?”

The dwarf leaned back in his chair, looked over his hand, and then glanced at something just to the left of the dealer. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, throwing it out onto the table for the dealer’s inspection.

“Deed to a tavern, north of here,” he grumbled. “Includes the surrounding ten acres of land. Needs work, but no serious damage.”

“A property will do quite nicely,” the dealer said. He spread his hands over the table. “Last round, now. Shall we?”

Essa nodded. The dwarf rearranged his pipe to the other side of his mouth. The dealer gave them each another card with a careless flick of his wrist. Essa added hers to her hand and surveyed it. The dwarf seemed less than interested and made his play without looking down.

“Pair of pairs, mages on top,” he declared as he put his cards on the table.

Essa smiled as she fanned her cards out before her. “Full party.”

The dwarf sat back as Essa raked the pile towards herself, the folded parchment skimming along the top of the coins and other loot. The dealer took the cards back as the dwarf got down from his seat and adjusted his coat.

“Well played, stranger, well played,” Essa said. She funneled her spoils into a bag much too small for them. The parchment she took last, winking as she copied the dwarf and stuck it down the front of her blouse. He paused by Essa’s elbow as he made to leave, leaning on the table, nodding to something on the dealer’s left.

“You enjoy that tavern, now,” he murmured, too low for the dealer to hear. “You and your pet.”

Essa sat up straighter in her seat. The dwarf laughed and pushed off the table, wandering towards the exit. The crooked man raised his eyebrows. Essa shook her head.

“Never you mind, Demetrius,” she said. “Leave the worries about amiable losers to me. Fantastic game, as always.”

“I’ve come to admire your dependably good luck,” Demetrius observed as he bridged the deck between his hands. Essa laughed as she stood, using the small commotion to cover laying her hand on the table by his left side.

“The mother country loves a Varisian girl,” she said. Demetrius snorted his own laugh and, out of his sight, a slick black spider crawled onto the back of Essa’s hand. She gave the dealer a hearty punch in the shoulder with the other one. “See you around, you crooked fool.”

She edged past the card games still in-progress and a pen where exuberant gnomes laid bets on a cock fight to find a quieter table to sit down at. She’d just flagged down a barmaid for a fresh tankard when she felt a tugging on her sleeve. Fayr crawled into her lap as she turned to look, huffing a deep sigh into her mother’s shoulder.

“You seem tired, pet, what’s wrong?” Essa asked.

“I hit someone with a dart and they said I couldn’t play anymore,” Fayr admitted. Essa bundled her closer and pressed a kiss into her hair.

“Boo,” she said. “That’s no fun. Borred wouldn’t let you pet the puppies?”

“Two of them died in fights,” Fayr mumbled. She buried her face against her mother’s blouse. “I wanna go home. Did you make enough?”

“Oh, more-than, sweetheart, more-than,” Essa assured her. “Where’s home, then? Do you want to go to the inn here, or ride a little to the one on the river?”

“The one with the courtyard with all the purple flowers,” Fayr said. Essa frowned and pulled the folded parchment out of her blouse to read over as she thought.

“I think that was back in Absalom,” Essa said as she unfolded the paper. The seal of the Sandpoint Mercantile League at the bottom shimmered, wax mixed with gold dust and stamped with the anvil of Abadar. “That’s a bit of a ride for one night.”

“Okay,” Fayr said. Her voice slurred as she started to drift off to sleep. “Don’t care, then.”

Essa pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she skimmed the text of the deed. She rocked Fayr absently, even though the girl was getting much too big to be scooped and coddled up anymore. Essa looked away from the deed to the roots of her hair, at the gentle spiral pattern they grew in, one she’d traced as she brushed the girl’s hair for years. She’d be entering a new time in her life soon. Essa remembered those years, lumps and all. She tapped the parchment against the table as she chewed on a thought.

“How’s this? We’ll stay in town tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll go see about a house of our own,” she proposed. Fayr sat up out of her doze abruptly.

“You said houses were for boring people,” she said, the picture of surprise. “You said you were born in a cart, and the only way to live was to keep moving.”

“I mean, the thing about the cart is true, but—”

Fayr got more fervent. “You said we couldn’t make any money if we stayed in one place, that we’d go broke and have to eat our shoes.”

“Now, look, must we go through everything I’ve ever said?” Essa protested. She cupped her daughters face in her hands and gave it a little shake. “You know I say a lot of things. We also try a lot of things, so, let’s try this.”

Fayr still looked dubious, so Essa racked her brain for a more persuasive thought.

“We’ll make a guild!” she suggested. Fayr’s eyes widened and Essa spun the thought out. “We’ll run it, and have all sorts of adventurers come over and work for us. We’ll make money, and when they come back from their adventures you can hear all about it, just like the stories you love!”

Fayr shook with excitement. “Like what you used to do, with Sir Gwinn, and Kor the Knife, and, and—?”

“Sure, yes, just like that, shhh,” Essa agreed hastily, glancing around at nearby tables for any interested listeners as she hushed Fayr. “It’ll be great fun, just like traveling, except you can grow your own garden instead of visiting somebody else’s, or trying that… bag of pots thing you did, again.”

“That sounds really nice,”Fayr said, quietly. “We can do that?”

“We can do anything we like, darling, with a sufficient application of stubbornness,” Essa assured her. She winked down at the girl and tapped the rose tattooed on her shoulder, just under Fayr’s nose. It burst into sudden bloom and made her laugh.

“‘And a little magic to grease the wheels,'” Fayr finished, reciting her mother’s old saying from memory.

Essa smiled and held up the deed to the tavern. The back of the hand holding it was tattooed with an intricately stylized black spider. “Just so, baby. Just so.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 1/24/2017 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024