"Imma take that," Yue slurred, hands going to grab the gold pieces on the table. Across from her, Max was wringing his hands in frustration while Jake scowl/glared. "And oooooo, don't mind if I do Maxi, gimme that gold. You too, Jack."
They'd been drinking and playing poker into the wee hours of the morning, the daytime festival atmosphere having given way to more 'adult' entertainment in the evening. The De Sainte Coquille dining hall was the perfect place for their covert poker ring, made up of the De Sainte Coquille boy, his female servant, her male roommate, the fortune teller, and Yue. So she couldn't exactly remember their names - big deal - she could still drink them under the table and walk away with a months-worth of their hard-earned cash. At this rate, she would return home by the end of the month, rather than wait a year to pay off her gambling debt.
Alicia's head was slumped against the table proper, her hat a lump by her side.
"But the crystal said I'd get that one…" She mumbled petulantly. The diviner didn't seem nearly as drunk as the rest of them, though that hadn't kept her from being the first to lose.
Yue hummed in delight, hands shuffling the deck once more. The elven boy was getting more and more agitated as this went on, though his female companion remained poised. Yue dealt the cards, and so the game resumed. They continued until only Cecilia and Yue remained, their expressions void as they held their cards. The eastern merchant was maybe a little drunk, she wasn't going to lie, so she may have teetered a bit. But she couldn't be nearly as bad as the other people in the room. Alicia was finally asleep, mouth open in a faint snore. Max was drooling in his chair in the corner, while Jake tiredly looked between the two women left standing. Yue smirked, peering down at the straight flush in her hands; she could easily win this.
Until Cecikins put down her cards.
Yue's eyes practically bulged.
"Royal flush," Yue could practically feel the elf gloat silently. "You know what that means."
The merchant did, but she hadn't realized things had gotten so out of hand.
Practically all her belongings were on the table now – a last ditch attempt to raise the stakes as high as they could go. She thought she'd had the winning hand…
And now she'd lost everything.
"Unless…do you want to strike a deal?" Cecilia smiled pleasantly, her expression giving nothing away.
The pace of Yue's nodding left her dizzy. She couldn't lose her wares too. She'd be better off dead than that broke!
So, the elf pointed at what she wanted. "How about, hm, that, for all your stuff."
"But…but, you can't have that! It's my aquamarine. You can't have my aquamarine." Yue wrapped her fingers around the aquamarine pendant on her necklace. "It's the last thing my master gave me before I came here. That's my…my…" She struggled for words, "swindler - I mean," the 'merchant' faltered, "Merchant identification thingy."
"A deal's a deal, isn't it? You're a merchant and you agreed; isn't there a code you have to follow?"
Yue grumbled, taking the necklace to dump into the stone-monger's eager paws. Her honor was on the line.
As she settled back in her chair, she made three promises to herself: no more poker, no more cavorting with elves and, above all else, letting no one get a hold of her stuff. Especially her aquamarines.