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[recreatable]

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[elsecall]

Tap, tap, tap. A fingertip, pinning the final card to the table before she pushes it across. Back to him. She can't know what he's holding back — doesn't even occur to her that he would be. All she knows is that he's opting out of an earnest answer. And — okay — it wasn't all that serious a question to begin with.

She plays along. And it's clear that she's playing along. There is no shred of her that even attempts to believe his story.

Still, dryly: "What number am I thinking of? Right now?"

[recreatable]

"You're not thinking of a number," he says smoothly. "You're thinking that I'm full of it."

😇

[elsecall]

Jasnah was absolutely thinking of a number. Some implausible and gnarly and partial number down to a fourth decimal point. But — of course — she was also thinking that he was full of it. Two things can be true at once.

"Partial marks," she decides. For being half-correct.

[recreatable]

Verso feels the inclination to tease her, perhaps to beg for an extra credit assignment to amuse her. I'll do anything to improve my grade, even read about the historical significance of the wool trade— but that is probably the type of too-familiar thing that he's already been scolded about, so he keeps it to himself.

"Told you," he says, then straightens up the deck. "Another game?"

[elsecall]

Jasnah doesn't answer. Not immediately. Instead she sits in the hollow spaces of this conversation — grappling for things that have disappeared. Lacking the vocabulary (or maybe just the familiarity with the vocabulary) to ask after them.

She thumbs her chin. Curls her knuckles against her mouth. Chews on the questions she'd intended to ask by having him meet her here tonight. No. Not ready yet.

Then — straightening and holding out that hand — she says: "Here, I'll deal this time."

[recreatable]

Verso watches that curl of her hand, eyes unfortunately drawn there even now. (He's allowed to look. It's not illegal to notice someone's long, elegant fingers.) For the third time tonight, he wonders if there's something weighing on her mind. Every instinct is to blurt out something's troubling you, to make one of those assumptions she hates so much. But she asked him here to play cards, not to comfort her; he slides the deck over to her side of the table.

"I've already won once," he says, "and you've won once." Well, they tied, but he graciously allowed it to go to her. "I suppose this round will determine the winner for the night."

[elsecall]

The winner.

Jasnah wouldn't be able to shuffle as grandly or as easily as he can even if she had access to both hands — so she makes do with some very practical cut-shuffling, steadying the deck on the sorta-webbed surface of her sleeved palm.

"Would you entertain a small wager?"

Some mild decisiveness sparks in her eyes.

[recreatable]

Verso rests his elbow on the table, chin propped in his palm as he watches her try to shuffle with a sleeved hand. It's a bit confusing to him why she won't unbutton the sleeve even now, when there's no one around but him, who's not only already seen her hand in just a glove but without it as well. There's a lot of confusing things about Jasnah, though, so he just adds it to the pile.

"What are we playing for?"

Now that they're back in civilization with access to all of their things, there are more options than the silly little wagers they made before. Money's the obvious one, although she'd have to take it out of the paychecks they still haven't properly discussed. Piano access, maybe; he wouldn't dare give it over to her fully, but she could ask to keep it in her study for a week. Something of material use, this time.

[elsecall]

Maybe, maybe if they were in a room with a door. She might then unbutton her sleeve. But the last thing she needs is some other night-chicken showing up and catching her safehand out with the Queen's Wit.

"I'll tell you when I win."

Big words! Even tone. In reality, Jasnah has plotted a route to get what she wants without (maybe) having to suffer the indignity of asking for it. And she's just shameless enough to hope his recent passivity extends to agreeing to stakes she keeps in a blind box.

Two cards for him. Two cards for her. She waits to flip her top card — at least decent enough to see whether he agrees to these terrible terms before they begin.

[recreatable]

"Awful terms, by the way."

Just so she's aware that he's aware. There is no world in which one is allowed to make a bet only after they win—except for queens, he supposes. Jasnah is rational enough that he trusts she won't come up with something truly unreasonable and exorbitant, so he turns his card over. A four. He doesn't even have to look at his other card to know: "Hit me."

[elsecall]

"Awful terms," she agrees. And feels like she's said the exact same words in the exact same tone only hours ago while discussing the Herdazian border crisis with the Mink.

Jasnah's top card is a respectable seven and she does have to check her hidden card. When all else fails, her poker face is (at least) sufficiently unreadable by now.

She offers him another card. And takes one for herself — feeling a smidge more competitive all of a sudden.

[recreatable]

Verso looks at his cards. A four, a three, and a nine. Sixteen—he'd normally be willing to take a risk here, but he wonders if there's any real need. Jasnah has been playing incredibly conservatively. It's possible, he guesses, that she's been trying to hustle him—but there's no real reason for that. Whatever wager she wants to make, she could just as easily demand it without the pretense of a game at all. No, he decides, her risk aversion tonight is real.

So, he sets them back down and says, "I'll stand."

[elsecall]

Yes, she has been playing incredibly conservatively. But with a bit of motivation — something she needs on the line — she can feel a sharpening in her ambition. By no means is it any kind of intentional hustle. Just the vagaries for her mood.

So with three cards in hand she hits again. A pause for some easy mental math and — with a nod — she lays out a pair of fives, a three, and a seven.

"Twenty," she announces. It's the closest she's come to a smile all night.

[recreatable]

"Ah."

He'd thought they might tie again. In fact, he's visibly surprised to see her hand—she started with seven, which means at some point she hit on either a fifteen or a seventeen. Unexpected, given the way she's been playing tonight. Maybe he can't read her as well as he thought, and she was hustling him after all.

Verso turns his cards over. "Well done. That makes you the undisputed victor tonight."

[elsecall]

It's wonderful what a dangled carrot can do for one's gambling strategy. Jasnah collapses her cards together and lays them neatly on top of his.

"I want to hear you play something on the piano."

She reveals her prize — or the seed of it, at any rate. The true flow chart goes a little something like: she hasn't slept in days — she hasn't got access to stormlight to help alleviate what so little sleep does to a person — not even her own chambers feel safe if she found what could be evidence of a spy-hoardling — she might-just-might get away with having a little midnight nap in his room. Drifting off to his music...well, it worked well enough while they were away.

[recreatable]

Verso raises both of his eyebrows. "Rather a wasted wager, I think." Not that he's complaining; he really loses nothing here. That's why it's such a strange wager to make, though—

"I was under the impression entertaining you was part of the job description." She didn't need to wager for it, is his point. She would be well within her rights just to tell him to do it. "Although admittedly you haven't yet provided one for me to read."

Would probably be helpful.

[elsecall]

If only there was a job description. Maybe all of this would be easier. Regardless, she chafes under the (logical, correct, accurate) criticism of how she used her wager. But how can she explain that what she's asking for is extracurricular? How can she explain that she's shied back from taking what's rightfully hers to take because of the too-exact way he's executed on it thus far?

What are the words she needs to use to ask-order-command to feel safe again like she did when she knew he was sitting shoulders against the edge of the divan? Right there.

It would have felt better had she won it. Earned it. But now it feels all hollow again.

"I'll draw one up and have it delivered before the end of the day — tomorrow."

[recreatable]

Verso gets the sense, somehow, that he's said the wrong thing. Maybe he did. Maybe it's offensive to suggest, however obliquely, that he's unhappy with this arrangement—despite the fact that he is. He shakes his head, trying to recover from the blunder.

"Just a joke," he says, light. "Don't worry about it."

Really. Don't. The only thing that could make him feel more like the help would be reading over a contract.

"Sure, I'll play. When?"

[elsecall]

Jasnah pushes her chair back from the little table. Even now, there's a stiffness in how she rises to her feet. Nothing so notable that she'd need help — and maybe someone who didn't know about her injury wouldn't clock it — but she takes observable time and care in how she stands.

After a beat of silence that drags on a little too long, she ends up ignoring his question altogether in favour of one of her own.

"Was it really?" She chews her bottom lip. "Just a joke?"

She knows jokes; she's not a humourless idiot. She'd like to think she isn't, at any rate. But the things he explains away as jokes...! They don't feel all that funny to her. And it can't simply be a conflict of culture.

[recreatable]

Verso hasn't been helping her move for over a week now, but he still shifts in his chair a little bit when she rises, like he has to suppress the urge to reach out and assist her. Despite all the careful untangling and stowing away he's done of his emotions this week, he still cares about her. Of course he does; he'd held pressure on her wound as she gushed blood over his palm, his fingers. It's not so easy to completely sever that string tying him to her.

He doesn't actually get up, though. She's been on her own for a while now, and helping her stand certainly isn't in his job description.

Speaking of— she shoots that question his way, and he visibly waffles, searching for the right answer. Sometimes, talking to Jasnah feels like traversing a minefield. He always seems to say the wrong thing somehow, even though he tries so hard to say what she'll want to hear.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say here," he finally admits.

[elsecall]

They've been here before. Circling this line in the sand — the one that she keeps coming back to, again and again, in her head. The line that is (perhaps) never quite fair to draw. The truth, Verso. Always the truth.

Or, if not the truth, then at least some answer that doesn't feel like it was soulcast especially for her. Purpose-built. Bespoke.

"I'm trying to determine what was supposed to be so humorous about it — even allowing for if it had simply been a very bad joke." She shrugs. "So I wondered whether it was less joke and more deflection. Which brings me to the present question: was it really a joke?"

Sometimes, she wants to grab him and shake him and hiss — explicitly — that countless others don't get the privilege of such detailed, careful explanations. Not from her.

"And what I want you to say," she lands on giving specific and actionable feedback, "is whatever helps me understand whether I should be putting something in writing or not."

[recreatable]

A series of possible responses emerge in his mind—

An earnest no, I don't want you to draft up a contract and make this feel even more clinical than it already is. Or maybe a passive-aggressive I think you can do whatever you want. After all, you are the boss. Or even you seemed much more fond of my humor before we came back here.

"Not every joke can be a winner," he says with a shrug.

[elsecall]

"No," she says. "I suppose not."

Hers is a thoughtful disappointment. He indicates that he'd like some direction. She gave him that direction — so specific and so actionable — and he ultimately meets her with yet another deflection. Is there anyone, anywhere, who could actively listen their way out of these traps?

"I meant tonight. Now, in fact."

Looping none-too-gently back around to the fact that he'd asked when.

[recreatable]

"Oh."

A sudden panic runs through him as he thinks of what his room looks like right now. Bed unmade—it's never been made, in the past week—and curtains drawn for maximum brooding, pillow on the floor where he left it because he hasn't yet managed to get reaccustomed to the mattress enough to sleep on it after the weeks curled up beside the divan like a dog.

"Do you want me to conjure the piano in your room?"

[elsecall]

"No."

Quick. Decisive. It doesn't even occur to her he might not want her to visit his room.

"I assumed you'd prefer not to move it. Even," a sweep of her hand, "magically."