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haphazardly parked Vice Captain
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 Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 4:32 pm
i'm in a bad mood, so this should be an appropriately dark roleplay
stupidity is banned please and thank you
present tense preferred
-“How much?” is the question on everyone’s lips (everyone who matters, that is, everyone with a moral compass that doesn’t quite work and enough money that it doesn’t matter).
-“What’s it worth to you?” is Kathryn’s response, always playful or lazy or sly, because when you have all the cards in your hands, you can afford to be a condescending little b***h. And Kathryn, for all that she’s just twenty years old with a doll’s porcelain skin and charming smile and all the intimidation of a golden retriever, well, Kathryn has got everything they want.
Curiosity killed the cat, is the codephrase, the beginning of a transaction.
But satisfaction brought it back, is the set response- the one that means, what are you willing to offer me.
Because Kathryn is curiosity and satisfaction and she’s got a cat’s nine lives, too, and then some.
Lives can be measured in a pulse that registers beep beep beep or brainwaves that seem to crawl erratically across a screen, but life… Life is Kathryn’s. It’s hers to steal and hers to give away, a balance only she can push (within reason). Never from a healthy person, but the three-year coma patient, the train-wreck victims in ICU, the ones hovering precariously… Kathryn can either pull their lives away and push them over the edge, or send new life into them.
She generally prefers the former – new life, unlike taking lives, can be given to anyone. If Kathryn gifts it, it settles in their bones, a spot that registers in the mind’s eye as a bright but condensed light – perhaps even brighter for is compressed size, like the hottest of stars. It stays there, a cat’s extra life.
Kathryn’s made a small fortune in her business, enough that she doesn’t have to work and neither will her children, nor her children’s children. She goes through the motions though – a college junior, recently returned from her study abroad semester, dedicated student of linguistics and languages.
Languages that broaden her playing field, because it’s funny how even though life is Kathryn’s domain, she only feels alive when someone’s curious enough to come calling. There’s something about the - not danger, no – anticipation, maybe? It makes her pulse quicken, makes her wonder is this when my authority is challenged? Is when I’ll have to put an extra life to use?
Why she feels this way – well, that’s a question for rainy days, and today is not rainy.
It’s beautiful for an April day.
Kathryn finds herself wandering through the local park with her nose in a book, reading as she meanders along the twisting cobblestone pathways. The extra lives fizzling in her bones – there are eight of them, today – make her feel more vibrant. Of average height and build, Kathryn’s brimming with stolen lives that add a glossy curl to auburn hair, deepen green eyes ad brings a healthy color to her cheeks.
She’s supposed to meet someone today, but she doesn’t really care – even with only seven lives, the vigor settled in her bones won’t fade.
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:30 pm
Connor, dark haired, dark eyed, tall and slim Connor, slid a pair of queens across the granite topped games table. Under the shadow of a nearby elm, light from the spring sun filtered through casting a strange, golden tint on the irish man's dark green eyes as they glittered with amusement.
Across from him a seventy-something, white-haired opponent slouched over cards held by spotted and gnarled rheumatic fingers. Connor's fingers, in comparison, were smooth, slender and nimble as he played with a black, gold-trimmed chip and asked, "Well, time's up, Gunther. Time to play yer cards."
As light-natured and friendly as his irish lilt made almost everything that Connor spoke, there was no denying the ominous feeling that permeated the air around the two players once the words were spoken.
Wordlessly, the shaking hands of the aging man came forward and slowly laid two cards face up; high card, no pairs. He sat in silence looking at the spread before him, feeling nothing as he had truly nothing left to lose. At his age, the prospect of losing the years he had left was something that he gambled with every day, not just at a poker table.
Clicking his tongue, Conner looked down and shook his head. "Well now, ye have me in a tight spot wit' tha' play, Gunther. How many weeks away is your granddaughter's birthday again?" He asked, though he knew the answer was six. Before him lay twelve months. "I'll have to do what I can..."
Before the elderly man's face could fall any further, Conner slid his cards forward face down. "I fold."
"Thank you," Came the gracious response, a small light flickering behind the old man's pale, milky blue eyes as he began to rose. Conner was there beside him to help him up and patted him on the back, "Take care of your granddaughter, Gunther. Ye have the time now."
He watched the old man hobble away on his cane, swaying slightly less with each step, and was about to turn away when a young, attractive woman replaced the sight of Gunther's back with her own youthful body. She nearly vibrated with energy and life, and Connor whistled at her as she grew closer on the path. Beneath the leafy canvas, she was was almost half-fey with her reddish hair and sparkling green eyes. "What's a lovely young lass like yerself doing wasting an afternoon like this with her nose in a book? A face like yours should be smiling, enjoying the thrill of a little game or gamble, not hidden away."
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haphazardly parked Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:48 pm
"Not. Interested." Kathryn says slowly and precisely in voice sharp and cold as steel. Glancing out of the corner of her eye to see who she is warning off this time -- and when Kathryn puts a touch of her power into it, men considered themselves so very well warned they turn tail -- she suddenly snaps her book shut, straightens, and give such a charming smile her words might've been an audio hallucination.
Kathryn sees the extra vibrancy in this man - he is a balance, like her, but his is more time with an aspect of life rather than life with a bit of time. Still, though the shine is not so bright as hers it's true that there's a shimmer all his own.
"On second thought - I am. You're Irish, aren't you?" Kathryn asks slowly. Flipping her book so the title was up, she tapped the binding of it with her other hand. "A book of mythology, see, for a class I'm taking. We recently covered Gaelic devil-figures, see. We've read about, oh, the Gambler, a man who tosses dice for years of peoples' lives. Have you ever been told stories about him?"
She keeps walking as she talks, staring sideways with a sly look in her eyes as she babbles like a breathless teenage girl just falling in what she thinks is love for the first time.
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:07 pm
A cat's grin settles over Connor's features, raising a dimple in each cheek as he chuckled. "The Gambler, ye say? Sounds like a man after me own 'eart." Gold catches the sun as his flips his black poker chip, end over end, into the air high. "It's said we all got a bit o' a devil in us, though some more 'an others I reckon."
Connor winks at her then and steps to the side, waving at the recently vacated seat. The table is set for two players again, chips neatly piled in sorted columns.
"Why not learn from doing, miss. If ye've got the Gambler on your mind I'm sure you'd be more than a little tempted to play the game yerself."
Of all the things in this world that Connor had expected to see strolling down the well-trodden path of a city part, Kathryn was most definitely not one of them. Though what exactly she was yet he had yet to determine, he was nothing but curious; piqued by her exquisite nature and charm.
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haphazardly parked Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:19 pm
"Oh, I shouldn't," Kathryn demures with something like a wistful sigh - a hint of it, not too much. And then - eyes flashing with something dark - her own code. "But I suppose... Curiosity killed the cat." The beginning of a transaction, one that is void from the inception. Years can not be taken from Kathryn, because she has lives. At the same time, though she is not certain it would be quite as easy to take life from the gambler, even if he is at death's door. Perhaps even impossible.
She will play the game. "What are we gambling on," she asks lightly, teasingly as she takes one of the empty seats. "Opinions?" she suggests. "Because I simply can't imagine the devil in anyone."
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:27 pm
"The stakes are anything you name, my lady," Connor tipped his head and stood behind a chair, pulling it out for her invitingly as he continued. "We could gamble on the colour of your hair, or the sparkle of tha' fetching smile. It could be a gamble of wits, of charm, or even beauty," The smile never left his face, "but, ah, t'would be amiss of me to think of taking anything like tha' away from your lovely face."
"Why don't we gamble for secrets, then, aye?" His fingers tapped the back of the chair lightly, "I'm sure those lips of yours are just a' tremblin' with a few of yer own."
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haphazardly parked Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 12:45 pm
Kathryn laughs, the sound pleasant and humming with life (with lives) but the stone cold look in her eyes belies merriment and whispers that yes, Kathryn is a young woman with secrets worth keeping. Secrets worth stealing as some would see it.
She takes the seat offered, stretching her hands put onto the table and leaning forward as if eager. Lightly, almost absently she traces the raised design on the chips with a finger as she comments, "I hardly think that would be fair." There's a decidedly sly twist to her smile now - because even when maybe you don't hold all the cards she's still a sly b***h and almost even footing doesn't change that.
"Seeing as I already knows yours."
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Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:35 pm
"Nae, there's tha' catch now, ain't it? Nobody gambles when they don't 'ave nothing ta' lose." Apparently completely nonchalant, Connor runs a quick hand through thick, dark hair and smiles wistfully at the breeze, at the sunlight, at life itself. It's quite a wonder at happening upon a creature such as this one, and he wonders if it isn't fate.
"A' do know something you don't, girl," He continues, a caress in this not-what-it-appears-to-be game of theirs, "Ye don't get anywhere in any amount of lives acting like ye know everything there is ta' know."
Taking his own seat, the Gambler picks up the deck of cards and shuffles lightly, not too quickly and not too slowly, before setting them down before Kathryn.
"Now be a good girl and cut the deck. A' know ye sat down at this table fer a reason an' it wasn't ta' smile pretty with that cheshire smile 'o yers."
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haphazardly parked Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:40 am
Kathryn shrugs lazily, cutting the deck before gesturing to the book of mythology she's set on ground beside her feet. "Oh, I wouldn't dare claim to know everything," she says with eyes full of feigned innocence. "I'm still only a student, after all - learning new things every day." She watches as the gambler handles the cards, seeing a soft light twining around his hands and the cards in them before fading away.
She catches a wink of it here and there, still.
"But some things I consider myself something of an expert in."
Kathryn leans forward, ready for the game. To see what secrets she'll reveal, what secrets she might learn - because even if she knows what is probably his biggest secret, that doesn't mean it's automatically the most interesting. That doesn't mean he doesn't have other things he'd like to hide.
"Secrets it is, then," Kathryn agrees. "Now, what's the game."
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