Whiskey and Philosophy

[Eralam]

Stang.

She was sitting on something good. No one bet like that after getting creamed two hands in a row unless they had something good.

Oh well. Life was too short, even for a Shard, to play it safe all the time.

"Call."

There was a secret in the pot already. The Shard idly wondered what he'd lead off with if she won. He doubted she'd be happy with old news, but there was one bit she'd likely find intriguing, a secret so utterly erased that no one left alive knew it, save him. It was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but so deeply personal he had let the ebb and flow of the tides of history wash it away.

A part of him felt a sort of sick thrill at the prospect of finally unburdening to another living soul.

That didn't mean he'd throw away the hand. If she wanted it, she'd have to take it, dammit.

10 of Spades, 9 of Clubs, 4 of Hearts

 

[Sinistra]

"So tell me something..." She started as she poured herself another drink of the fine liquor from a decanter left on the table.

"You obviously know what I am and what I believe in order to hold that title. Where do you fit in that spectrum?"

It was an honest question, she wanted to know where he fell on that expanse of beliefs. He knew what Sith cherished. She knew he was an iron knight at one point but no longer, what was he now? What was his perspective?

"And I raise a lie."

 

[Eralam]

Double stang. She was definitely onto something good. Two pairs was fine, but it could be better.

He'd go along with it for now.

"Call."

Next card was 2 of Hearts.

The question though, that was something normally would save for the bet. But what the hell, he was up, and it wouldn't hurt to give her a little something.

"I've got a perspective a bit outside the realms of brain chemistry. Once you step outside, Light and Dark are what you organics make of the Force. The Force doesn't much care. It is the Force, and that's the only side I care about."

 

[Sinistra]

"So neutral. There's nothing worse than someone who won't pick a side."

She was baiting him, of course. She wanted to see how strongly he held his convictions. He had emotions, no matter how much he might eschew the organics, he was not above behaving like one when it behooved him.

"Is it your bet or mine?"

 

[Eralam]

The Shard shrugged.

"It's human nature to assume that everything as a side. The Force doesn't actually care. You see two sides of a coin, I see a glass of water. You can use that water to make tea or coffee, sure. But you can also use it to make lemonade. Or hot cocoa. Or whiskey, for that matter. You drink it, you pass it, and before long it's just water again. It doesn't care if you use the vitality it gives you to go for a healthy jog or blow up an orphanage for blind crippled kids. It's too busy wearing away mountains and carving canyons to care what one little human does with it."

Going off topic had distracted Eralam from who's bet it was. He actually had to rewind the scene for a moment to check.

"I believe it's your bet."

 

[Sinistra]

"I see. Prgamatic, I suppose. Irrelevant for organics as you call us, but suited to you as it were."

She contemplated the bet a moment with the glass in her hand. There was arch to her eyebrow as she weighed her options.

"A lie."

 

[Eralam]

"Call."

King of Spades

Well, Eralam was sitting on two pairs. That wasn't bad, all things considered. He'd won on worse hands, but he'd lost on better.

Lady Luck was still on his side at the moment, so he wasn't worried overmuch about the outcome. Either he'd win and get a few juicy tidbits, or he'd lose and have to spill some of his own.

"Your bet."

 

[Sinistra]

"I bet a question."

She said suddenly grinning, her fingers curled around the bottle of Black Cask and pouring herself a drink. Nothing physically had changed about her, but there was certainly a different feel as though the carefully constructed cool that she had been radiating suddenly vanished.

She took a sip and looked him up and down, her eyes squinting.

"Back to the metal chassis. Huh. Interesting."

She looked around the bar again, then pulled out a different pack of cigarettes from a different pocket and lit one.

 

[Eralam]

Eralam looked at his cards, looked at the table, looked at Sin, looked back at his cards, and chucked his hand face down on the table. Either she was bluffing, or she had one hell of a good hand, whereas his was on the high side of mediocre.

"Fold."

Now that was an interesting turn of events. He has felt the shift too. Something had changed.

"Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Not that I minded the parts where it got all hot and heavy, but there's no place for any of that here."

 

[Sinistra]

"Yeah, yeah, you'd say that."

She shook her head at his fold, chuckling to herself as she set the cards aside.

"Still buckling like a shoe to strong women. Nice to see some things never change."

She got quiet a minute, a glass of whiskey in hand, a smoke burning away pressed between her fingers and a simple smile on her face.

"I missed this."

 

[Eralam]

"Only the ones I like," he said wryly. "The others can go kark themselves for all I care."

Eralam leaned back and took another sip from his glass, which had somehow refilled itself. He didn't look worried at the prospect of paying up.

"I've missed this too. It's nice to be back, if only for a moment. So whats's the damage?"

 

[Sinistra]

"You don't expect me to keep track of that stuff, do you?"

She rolled her eyes thinking back, too much stuff crammed in her head now to process clearly for a moment. She took a drag, and ashed it in the tray on the table.

"Looks like you were at between a secret and a question. So what'dya fancy? Call it 2 secrets and you're even?"

She sipped the whiskey, rolling it around in her mouth.

"It's kinda nice not to be in charge. I could get used to this being a nobody thing."

 

[Eralam]

"No shit. It's nice not having to worry about upholding the lofty standards of the Whills or High Council. I'm just a nobody, after all."

Two secrets. She was probably cheating him somehow, but Eralam didn't much care. It would take too much effort to go back and count.

"One: I'm planning on stirring up trouble soon. Two: I suspect it's a good thing I don't have the flesh suit, because I'm getting a lot of really weird urges relating to you and that pool table and maybe an ice cube. Any idea what that's all about?"

 

[Sinistra]

She gave a guilty, guttoral laugh as she looked at the pool table and flashed her eyebrows up.

"Yeah, yeah I do." She laughed again in the fashion of one who knows way too many dark and powerful secrets before she shuddered suppressing a memory. "Anyway.. yeah, so trouble. Color me shocked. Neither of us never finds trouble. I'm certain you're an iron-clad angel. I can see the wings from here."

The sarcasm was pretty thick by the time she got to the end of the sentences. She did miss the flesh suit, but the far more missed connection was the feeling of camaraderie that they had cultivated over time. There was just no replacing that.

 

[Eralam]

"Glad one of us does," Eralam grumbled. "I'm fairly certain I don't want to know, especially the part with the..."

His voice trailed off.

"You know, I have a theory. When we enter this room, the walls of the universe grow thin. Other versions of us have been here before, in one way or another. I think we can keep certain parts of it. Maybe not the bits that involve riding crops, but there was more to us than that. The friendship, real friendship, with trust. No posturing or trying to backstab. We were like that before, I can feel it."

 

[Sinistra]

"We were like a lot of things before."

She looked at him then around the room, squinting her eyes at the power contained therein. She could trace the lines of it, see the pulses of it traveling through every fabric of existence. She nodded as she turned her attention back to the surfaces and things, rather than the atoms behind their makeup.

"It's possible. I can also reinforce it with an incantation, if you want."

She didn't bother to wait for an answer, summoning a sickly green magic disc that rippled across its surface before it washed over both of them and faded from view.

"There, right as rain. They won't carry our memories but they will be unavoidable comrades. Until the spell breaks, but by that point, they will have forged a true bond on their own and won't need the extra help."

 

[Eralam]

Eralam nodded in approval.

"That's some strong stuff."

He refilled his glass and relit the pipe. Once again the tangy-sweet smoke filled the air.

"I believe it's your deal now?"

 

[Sinistra]

She pushed the cards away from her, shaking her head.

"I don't karking think so. If these two want to be dumb enough to play cards for secrets, let them. I see no draw or appeal in that."

She slid out of the booth, and headed for a pool table, selecting a cue from a rack off the wall. The music turned to something bluesy, and morose and she pointed to the balls sitting in the opening on the bottom of the table.

"Rack 'em."

 

[Eralam]

There was something of a grin about Eralam as he popped a couple of cred coins into the pool table.

No matter how how nice the joint, there wasn't a bar in the galaxy that wouldn't charge for the pool table.

"Yeah, it's kinda hard to get behind all this skullduggery stuff at the moment. Still, it wouldn't be fun without a wager of some sort."

He carefully arranged the balls, then, once he had them in place, took the rack off the table.

"I reckon you wanna break? Giving you a big stick and a target seems to solve a lot of problems."

 

[Sinistra]

"I'm not wagering squat with you. The last time we did that, we ended up in bed, all hell broke loose and the Emperor of the Sith starts acting like a lovestruck teenager who's never been told she can't have something."

She looked down the line of the lastest cue in her hand, nodding at the straight perfect of it. This would do nicely. She chalked it up, and set the cue ball off of center and lined up on the space between the first two rows of balls. With a powerful thrust, she sent the colored balls bouncing all over the table, sinking the 10 and the 3. She squinted her eyes as she examined the carnage.

"Solids."