Mona frowned and tugged at her corset, pushing at her chest in the hopes of getting something that even vaguely resembled cleavage.
Unfortunately the family curse didn't give her much to work with. Aadhira and Selena might still be barely young enough to still be waiting on normal growth, and one couldn't tell through the armor Luna always wore if she didn't already know; but Lucine's creative use of ruffles and lace couldn't entirely hide the fact that she suffered from the same lack of geography as Mona.
Instead the expanse revealed by Mona's plunging neckline remained stubbornly uncontoured.
"Fine," she grumbled. Even if there had been something she could do about it, she was out of time. Hurriedly she adjusted her dress to look like she hadn't been obsessing over it and touched Cassandra's shoulder.
"Cass," she said. "It's time to go."
Cassandra mumbled something incoherent as she got up, and Mona helped her to the door. "You're going to have to walk the rest of the way by yourself," she whispered in her ear. "Can you handle it?"
Cassandra's whiskers twitched and she forced her eyes open, and a foot forward. "I think I can manage," she slurred out. "Talk to me."
And so Mona whispered in her ear her instructions for the upcoming game, which mostly amounted to taking catnaps until she was called in to make whatever plays she felt like.
Then they were at the door to Room Three. Mona looked herself over one last time, raised her nose slightly, and tried to think arrogant thoughts.
*Knock knock*
The door slid open a few seconds after she knocked, and she stepped in without being invited.
"I hear there is a game of Tides in here," she announced to the room. "I will be joining."
Aside from the man who had opened the door for her, there were six people seated around the table at the center of the room.
At the far side of the table sat a balding, heavyset man in simple yet fine clothes. He had a serious air to him that reminded Mona of some of the Masters from the Academy. Behind him stood a man in leather armor, head shaven.
To his left were Vilim and Aadhira. They gave no indication that they were aware of her entrance, instead arguing about something on the table in front of them.
Sharing their side of the table was a man in a black cloak and pants, with long black hair and goatee. He glanced in Mona's direction as she entered the room, then returned his focus to his steepled hands.
Next to him was an actual, real live dwarf! Locks of red spilled over his leather overcoat: both loose in back, and braided in front, where they were frosted with foam from the ale he didn't bother looking up from.
An empty seat was next to him, sharing a corner with another.
The last seat was taken by a young man in finely tailored light blue, with blonde hair and full beard. His eyes met hers, and she saw in them the same shocked recognition that she felt: Adrian Brower was the son of a local noble, a few years older than herself, whom she had not seen in a year or two, yet whose face remained indelibly etched in her memory.
Mona would not have expected him to be in town, or to encounter him if he was.
Mona knew it was a bad idea, that no good could possibly come of it, and she was already berating herself internally even before she did so: but her eyes flicked, just for a moment, over to Aadhira; and when her gaze returned to the nobleman, he was eyeing her sister with a considering gaze.
The man who had opened the door was saying something. Mona forced herself to listen.
"...okay? Milady? Are you okay?"
The man, clean shaven on top and all the way around except for a strip covering the middle of his chin, looked genuinely concerned.
"You turned white as a sheet!" he exclaimed when he saw that he had her attention.
"Yes, I – I'm okay," she replied weakly. She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether some version of the truth or a lie would serve her best. She noticed Aadhira's hand on the table, twisted into some thieves' hand signal, but she could not for the life of her remember what it meant.
Adrian ended up saving her from making a decision. "It's my fault," he said. "Neither of us were expecting to see a familiar face tonight, I think." He rose and stepped over to her, extending his hand. "Though I forget how I should be addressing you?"
Mona noted, as she put her hand elegantly into his, that he did not claim to have actually forgotten her name.
"You may call me… Alys," she said haltingly as he leaned over her hand. "I'm sorry, if my presence here is in any way unwelcome–" it was all she could do not to jump as she felt his lips brush her skin.
"Not at all!" Adrian said, waving his hand dismissively. "In fact I welcome your presence. It inspires memories of things I would just as soon not forget."
When Mona remained motionless, a complicated expression on her face, he ventured, "Of course, if you feel uncomfortable…."
Mona slowly shook her head. "No. You're right. Perhaps certain memories are better remembered." Aware of every eye in the room on her save the pair that were trying unnecessarily to pretend not to know her, she carefully took her seat – next to the dwarf, not the noble.
"Are we… ready to begin?" she asked nobody in particular.
It was the man who had met her at the door who answered. "We were intending to seat a table of eight," he said gently.
"You should make her buy in for her servant there," Aadhira said, according to the plan that Mona had suddenly lost confidence in.
Every eye in the room turned to her.
"Are you daft?" the dwarf asked, half coming to his feet. "This poor girl has clearly had some history dredged up, and ye are trying to squeeze her for extra gold?"
Aadhira, for once in her life, seemed speechless.
"No, it's okay," Mona said mechanically. She tossed a belt pouch onto the table.
The man from the door quickly counted out one hundred gold, looking up at her quizzically when the amount turned out to be exact.
"It almost seems like you were counting on her buy-in," he muttered to himself, taking a quick glance around the table.
He took the seat next to the balding man across from the entrance. "Shall we begin?" he asked, and dealt the opening hands: five to each player, two up and three down; and a Tide of three.
It was an unusually subdued game that followed. Even the dwarf failed to live up to his race's boisterous stereotype, instead opting to sympathize with the obviously distressed girl who had completely forgotten to play the bitch.
There were two exceptions: the young lord, obviously suffering under the same unspoken circumstance as the girl, tried to lighten the atmosphere at every opportunity. His efforts were largely ineffective, but not unappreciated.
The other exception was a certain redhead who was clearly trying to pull something, to the extent that she didn't realize that the mood of the table was against her.
If it hadn't been for the fact that she was waiting for the map to be wagered, she very well might have been caught and ousted.
As it was, the first hand went to the man in black, after filling a Tide of eight with a nine and washing away everything except his run from seven to nine.
The man from the door took the second hand, after floating a King in a boat of three fives on the corresponding Tide.
The third hand went to Adrian, after an exchange that would have been rather exciting any other night, what with three separate full Tides washing away all but him and the balding academic.
This loss prompted the scholar to raise with the treasure map halfway through the next hand. He tried to pass it off as worth thirty gold, but Aadhira talked him down to twenty, much to the enlightenment of everyone else around the table.
When she then risked everything to force a position that allowed Cassandra to take the hand without needing to wake up for it, glances were exchanged among everyone who hadn't already been aware of her relationship with "Lady Alys".
Cassandra, for her part, accepted her winnings with all the consciousness she could muster, and then promptly planted her face on top of them.
When Cassandra then proceeded to play the fifth hand with her position never even changing as much as it had before taking the map, the knowing glances being exchanged began to turn into grins. Levity was beginning to return to the table as a full half of the table simultaneously made the decision that thwarting the scheme of the redhead and her also redheaded brother was to be their entertainment for the night.
Which is how, by the time the sixth hand was nearing its end, the scholar, Aadhira, and the dwarf were all all-in, the man in black and Mona had folded after putting in half their gold, and the table was watching a bleary-eyed Cassandra stare uncomprehendingly at the three cards whose corners she was holding up.
Her eyes moved from the hidden values to the Tide level, to the revealed cards still in front of the players who hadn't folded. And… back to her cards, to the Tide, to her opponents… and again…
And then the door slid roughly open with a bang at the end of the track, and two burly men in leather armor preceded a finely dressed man and woman into the room.
The first man pointed at Vilim.
"I told you," he said loudly, "be careful where you spend my master's gold."