Quick preface to this story: as you may have noticed, next week is Valentines week. Last year for Valentines week, I posted a story every day and you might be wondering if I'm doing the same this year. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to write a story for every day of the week this year, so instead I've written one slightly longer than usual story that will be posted next Saturday as usual. Apologies that I can't do the full week again this year.
Anyway, this week's story is a follow up to the poker game the travelers played in Full House last year, and even better, it's spoiler free!
Taverns are never quiet for long when the travelers come along. Especially when they come bearing cards. (Full House pt. 2)
Three of a Kind
"A round of ale, my good man!" Cyrus shouted to the bartender as the group entered the tavern, travel worn to be sure, but excited for a night off to 'bond' once more. "And a jug of water for the table."
It had been far, far too long since the group had settled in for an evening of simply enjoying each others company and the local drinks. In fact, now that Primrose thought about it, the last time they'd stopped for a chance to truly relax together had been their poker game all those months ago. Which was rather a shame, for she, Olberic and H'aanit had been waiting for a chance to play each other ever since.
"What's the plan for tonight, then?" Alfyn asked, already settled into his seat at the table as the bartender brought over their flagons. "I'm not playin' your drinkin' game again, Therion."
Therion sunk lower in his chair, pulling his tankard close as he disappeared into his scarf. "Wasn't going to suggest we should."
"Really?" Tressa teased, giggling to herself as she poured a glass of water before turning to Cyrus. "Hey, Professor, how 'bout another game of poker?"
"Marvelous idea, Tressa!" Cyrus smiled, pulling his deck from the folds of his cloak. "Will the three of you be playing this time?"
"I thinken not." H'aanit shook her head, chuckling slightly as she remembered the last time. While it had certainly been enjoyable to watch Therion and Tressa lose to Cyrus and then Cyrus lose to the healers, it had also been rather loud… And there was no fun to be had playing against people who's tells one already knows.
"Oh, that's a shame." Ophilia said, a little disappointed before she smiled upon them once again. "Will you be dealing for us again?"
"Nay." Olberic shook his head, pulling an old deck from his pocket, one that was even more worn than Cyrus'. "I believe the three of us will play against one another instead."
"An excellent idea, Olberic." Primrose grinned, excited to play her first round of poker with friends. The last match with her travelling companions had certainly helped her forget the old days of poker in the Sunlands, but playing some hands against her friends herself would certainly help to remove those lingering bad memories from her mind. "Should we perhaps sit at another table?"
"No!" Tressa exclaimed with a pout, her arms crossed petulantly like a child. "It's bad enough that you wont play with us, I'm not letting you sit somewhere else as well!"
"I see." Primrose smiled on her, pulling her own deck of cards from her pouch and laying them as a sort of barrier between the two groups. "We will continue to sit with you, but the three of us will play on this side of the card line while you can play on the other."
"Not much of a card line there, Primrose." Therion snorted, watching as she laid them out flat rather than trying to make anything a little more ornamental. "Aren't you going to build some sort of separating tower?"
"Perhaps you can do that after you lose first again, Therion." Cyrus smiled on him, shuffling his deck rather crudely. "It will certainly give you something to do while you wait for the game to end."
"Give me those." Therion snapped, stealing the cards from Cyrus and shuffling himself. "I'll deal."
"Oh no you wont." Tressa snatched the cards from Therion, handing them to Ophilia instead. "I trust her not to cheat."
"Oh dear..." Ophilia chuckled lightly to herself as she cut the deck a few times. "Are you sure you don't want to deal for us, Primrose?"
"Quite certain." Primrose smiled at the group as Olberic shuffled his deck and Linde settled in on H'aanit's lap. "I suggest we order another round before we start."
"Excellent idea!" Cyrus agreed. "That way we can toast to Lady Luck that she might favour our hands."
"And I can lower my inhibitions early," Olberic mumbled, low enough that only H'aanit and Primrose could hear him. "So that I need not listen to your terrible skills all night again."
"A wisen choice." H'aanit agreed quietly, getting herself comfortable in her chair as Linde crawled and circled all over her. "Art thou not comfortable yet?"
Linde purred slightly at her Mistress before circling once more.
With the decks shuffled and Lady Luck toasted, the two groups sunk into their own games. On the lighter of the table, Ophilia and Alfyn sat with their smiles and general lack of knowledge of how the game was to be played opposite Tressa and Therion whom were both simply determined not to lose first once again. At the head of that side of the table, Cyrus toyed with the handle of his tankard, watching the others as Ophilia flicked cards to the players before setting the rest of their deck firmly in the middle of the table for all to see. On the darker corner side of the table, H'aanit sat with a tankard in one hand, her cards in the other, and Linde firmly in the middle, an unnecessary obstacle for her to look around. Besides her, at the head of their side of the table, Olberic was reaching over to place the remainders of his deck in the centre of the table, keeping his cards close to his chest so that neither girl could see them. And opposite H'aanit, Primrose was fiddling with her chips, her focus at once on her cards and the other two players as she tried her hardest to figure out their tells.
Alfyn didn't know how to play the game well enough to have developed any tells; Ophilia smiled all the time, making it damn near impossible to tell what kind of hand she held; Cyrus would toy with his tankard handle and grip it tight when he had a bad hand; Tressa, bless her, was as much an open book when she played games as she was in day to day life and Therion would brute force his way through, offering the game none of the skill and silence he used when performing his profession. Primrose knew all their tells, and her own of fiddling with coins when her hand was good and her hair when it was bad – thankfully she'd mastered her poker face long enough ago that the two she was playing against might well not notice her tell – but she couldn't for the life of her imagine what the others were…
So she decided to talk to them as they played their hand, both to distract them and to try and drown out the noise of the group playing on the other side of her deck divide.
"So Olberic," Primrose asked as she picked up her fourth hand. So far, the three of them had each won a round and their chips remained roughly as they had been when they started. "Where did you learn to play?"
"The barracks of Hornburg." He replied simply, taking a sip from his tankard. So far, he'd done that at the start of every hand, and Primrose had yet to figure out what it meant. "Many hands were dealt in those barracks long before I was knighted. Many more were dealt by my hand before the fall. This deck was actually a gift from Erhardt for my birthday the year of the coup. ...I am in."
"And you, H'aanit?" Primrose asked the hunter, watching as Olberic tossed his chips into play.
"I folden." She replied, placing her cards on the table and using her now free hand to stroke Linde's ears. With Linde blocking her Mistress' face whenever she read her hand, Primrose was having an even harder time reading H'aanit. But she'd get there, she was sure of it.
"I meant when did you learn to play." Primrose stopped fiddling with her coins and tossed a few in next to Olberic's. "I call."
The pair showed their hands and Primrose emerged victorious, her two high pairs beating Olberic's two middling as he sighed and shuffled the deck again.
"Oh." H'aanit chuckled as she took her new hand, setting her tankard down as she continued to stroke Linde's ears. "I did not learnen as such. Master likened toe frequent the gamblers dens in Victor's Hollow, I learned what notten to doe by watchening him there. I am in."
Gently pushing her way around Linde, H'aanit knocked a few chips loose from her pile and pushed them into the middle.
"Primrose?" Olberic asked, watching as she plucked one coin from her tower before lowering it back down again. She supposed she should have expected them to ask her where she learnt, but that didn't mean she was prepared to explain.
"My former employer liked to make his dancers the chips of his poker games." She said simply as she plucked another coin, her eyes unfocused as she looked at the straight in her hand. "We lost clothes when the players lost their hands."
"I meant," Olberic cleared his throat, the noise on the other side of the table quieted in response to Primrose's explanation. "Are you in?"
"Oh." Blushing slightly, Primrose tossed a few coins in herself. "Yes."
"As am I." Olberic also added his coins to the pile as the trio turned their cards up before sighing as H'aanit took the pile.
"We need not playen if doing so bringens up foul memories." H'aanit offered as Linde jumped from her lap, fed up of being leant around rather than fussed, most likely.
"I will never forget the bad memories if I do not make new, better ones." Primrose smiled, both at her friend's concern and the fact that she could now see her face when she pulled her cards. "I wager it is the same for you two."
"Perhaps." "That maye be..." They picked up their cards and Primrose watched close as Olberic finished his tankard and H'aanit bore into hers up.
"Another round, please!" Primrose called to the barkeeper as she twisted a stray lock of her hair and the games continued.
It seemed as though barely any of their piles had diminished by the time the other half of the table claimed their first loser, Alfyn.
"Dammit," Alfyn mumbled as Therion claimed his winnings. "I'm just no good at this."
"Perhaps you will be better at building a card tower?" Ophilia gently teased, swapping seats with him so that he was closer to Primrose's dividing deck.
"Maybe I will!" He exclaimed as he picked up two cards, placed them so that their tips touched and watched as they fell down again, ignoring Therion's laughter as he picked them up to try again.
"Nothing if not determined, that one." Primrose mumbled under her breath as she sighed. "Fold."
Her tower of chips was starting to get dangerously low by the time she figured out Olberic's tell. Tressa had just fallen out of play and taken a seat next to Alfyn as they figured out how to build a card tower and Therion was doing suspicously well over on that side of the table. Over on her side, H'aanit was winning by a fair margin, mostly because the other two players were yet to suss out her tell. Olberic took a big gulp from his tankard when his hand was bad, a regular sip when it was okay and no drink at all when it was good, Primrose's fiddling had been quickly discovered by her observant fellow players and yet… H'aanit was inscrutable. It was almost as though there was no rhyme or reason to any of her actions, she simply acted as Linde slept at her feet.
"Hang on." Tressa mumbled as Ophilia went all in against another of Therion's bluffs. "Primrose, is this a full deck?"
"Yes." She nodded, her attention momentarily torn away from her game as they watched Tressa count.
"It's missing two cards."
And so all eyes fell on Therion who had been playing suspicously well all night. "Bugger."
"Cheater!" Tressa shouted at him, attracting the attention of everyone else in the tavern with her shrill shout.
"Okay, fine!" Therion mumbled, throwing the two cards from Primrose's deck back to Tressa. "Can't just win one game, can I…?"
"Well, Ophilia my dear," Cyrus smiled, toying with the handle of his mug. "It appears it is just you and I."
"It does, doesn't it?"
"Would you rather call it a tie and build towers while we watch the masters play?"
"That sounds lovely." Ophilia chuckled as she handed Cyrus his deck.
"Fantastic," Primrose mumbled as she took a swig of her tankard. "Nothing like an audience."
"Mighten I suggest," H'aanit hedged as she took the winnings of the round once again. "That we maken this hand our last. Whoever winnens, claims victory?"
"As you wish." Olberic agreed, slightly tired and definitely a little intoxicated as he threw his cards to the two ladies.
"A wise idea," Primrose yawned theatrically. "I could use my beauty sleep."
"It's barely even 10." Therion pointed out to the group as they took their hands.
"Even the wicked need rest once in a while." Primrose yawned, genuinely this time, as she toyed with her chips. Three sixes and two fives staring up at her from her hand. Besides her, Olberic was yet to touch his tankard and the smile on his face certainly spoke of a strong hand – no one could have enjoyed her joke that much.
Across the table, H'aanit had picked up Linde and held her close to her chest as she regarded her own hand. "Are thou ready?"
"Full house." Primrose shared her hand.
"As am I." Olberic said slightly incoherently as he showed his three fours and two fives.
"Whaten are the chances..." H'aanit flipped her cards over, revealing three sevens and two eights.
The three of them erupted into laughter as the other half of the table stared at their cards in awe. Completely shocked, Alfyn knocked his magnificent card tower down with his elbow.
"Oh shucks." He swore, gathering the cards together before handing them back to Primrose.
"Who wins?" Tressa asked as the trio cleared their side of the table, congratulating each other.
"From a mathematical stand point, I believe H'aanit wins." Primrose said as she took back her deck.
"I could not discover your tell." Olberic confessed to H'aanit as they group started to stand.
"I knowe." H'aanit grinned as she held her sleep leopard close. "Liken I said, I learned by watchening Master and correcting his mistakes. Master has many tells, I haven none."
"Right…" Primrose rolled her eyes. "It's to do with Linde, isn't it?"
"...Aye." H'aanit chuckled. "I scratchen her when mine hand is poor, and stroken when it is good."
"No wonder I didn't pick it up." Primrose laughed. "I'll beaten you next time, though."
"Aye, me too." Olberic nodded enthusiastically.
With a hearty laugh as the group left the tavern behind, H'aanit turned to all seven of her travelling companions as she stroked Linde's sleepy head. "I welcome thee to try!"