Ryou sighed, drooping slightly, and letting his head fall into his hands. He felt like the new animal in the zoo. /Be thankful for it./ Bakura's thought trickled into his mind like water, fluid and changeable, drowning his own lesser thoughts in its flow. /You could be the evil creature that came here to eat their babies./ The amusement in that statement only heightened the sense of danger Bakura conveyed to him.
He was right. Ryou sighed, and pulled out his cards again. "Want to start over?" he asked Anzu tentatively.
"Yeah, sure," Anzu sighed, then giggled. "There isn't really much else to do, unless you want to keep sitting here trying to blow the door down."
Ryou blinked at her for a moment, and then laughed shakily. "I wasn't that bad!" His protest would have had more force if he hadn't been laughing as he said it. He watched interestedly as Anzu shuffled his deck before they switched decks again, and he pulled his first card. He admired the graceful way Anzu placed her cards. Comes from being a dancer, I guess. /Or a thief./ Bakura interjected, watching the play interestedly. /That's the way a good fighter moves. No wasted motion, just smooth, graceful, slow-looking movements. It's actually faster, but the economy of movement makes a good fighter look he – or she's moving in slow motion./
"Huh!" Anzu looked a question at him, and Ryou hurried to explain. "Bakura said that you move like a fighter."
Anzu laughed nervously. "Well, that's a surprise. I thought I moved like a dancer."
Ryou scratched his head nervously. "Uhn, yeah. I think it was meant as a compliment." He floundered mentally, reaching for something to say.
/The game/ Bakura prompted. Oh, right. Thanks. Ryou sent a wave of gratitude through their link, setting down a card. "I play the Haunted Mirror."
Fortunately, Anzu turned her attention to the game, giving up on the embarrassing line of questions. Ryou breathed a silent sigh of relief as he concentrated on strategy. He had been winning their last game when the man with the aura of respect had come in, but that didn't mean anything. A game of Duel Monsters wasn't won until it was over.
He wondered who the man was. He was almost certainly a leader of the community here. He was, Ryou thought, the first person here that was definitely in charge of something. The old man had seemed wise, but not the sort who ordered people around, and all the others had been following orders, not giving them. At least the man who was in charge didn't seem antagonistic.
Everyone here had been polite as far as Ryou could tell, but they hadn't stopped watching him as if he was the strangest thing they had ever seen. It didn't make sense. They didn't look at Anzu that way, and she was much prettier than he was. What was there about him that attracted attention? His thoughts went immediately to the Millennium Ring, but it was under his shirt against his chest as usual. The feel of the warming gold against his skin was comforting, and he would have noticed if it had been missing.
There! Ryou laughed triumphantly as he played his final card, taking Anzu's life points down to zero. Anzu made a face at him, and gathered up her cards.
"I'm not letting you get away with that!" She announced. "Best two out of three." She leaned over to switch cards, keeping her face determinedly cheerful. Ryou matched her expression, wondering despairingly whether they would ever get out of here, or whether they would sit here playing endless games of Duel Monsters until they died.