Kings of the castle

[Oriena]

Her head tilted slightly at the coolness of Jaxen’s tone. Usually she would have taken that one little word as submission, and while smugness might have upturned the corners of her lips, such an effortless victory would have ultimately been dissatisfying. But ice, not defeat, coated his tongue. Ori did not balk from his cold gaze, not in order to make a point of defiance, but in blunt fearlessness. She was not meek. Nor, as most women may have been, was she offended by his brusque manner. She found confidence more attractive when it was undiluted by baseless arrogance, but his refusal to play was still disappointing.

Apparently talk of snakes had eaten away at what remained of his sense of humour. There was no knife to his throat, so why be so honest if the subject cut so deeply? Because although his confession had been blasé, disparaging Jon’s question by virtue of it being so easy a thing to answer, it had clearly touched a nerve - and spilled lingering darkness into his countenance. She didn’t care for his woes, nor to be the nursemaid tending wounds by care of alcohol. But if another drink was going to wash out that bad taste and return some fucking levity, well, she was all for it.

"That’s better. Sweetheart."
His dismissal of her sarcasm dampened nothing of her caustic sense of humour. An amused hum of laughter accompanied the clink of ice into his glass, then a flood of vodka and squeeze of lime. She pushed the drink over to him, without tease this time, though her smirk was undiminished, edged playful and sharp. If she noticed the way he looked at her it blazed little in return, not with the way his attention wavered. He wasn’t the only one with an ego.

She’d expected Jon to press her for a more definitive answer, particularly as there was no arbiter to temper such a demand - and she’d been maddeningly vague. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to know. Either way made little difference. "Yes,"
she agreed, smile self-indulgently full of secrecy and amusement. She leaned in, nudged the bottle over the glass he’d placed back down, and topped it up without asking.

After she took her own card, ignoring the poignant looks between the two men – really, did they think she was blind? To Jon's caution she laughed; genuine amusement, for once, at least in part for the expletive coming so casually from someone like Jon. It might be valuable advice if she was the superstitious sort, but Ori took the rough with the smooth; she owned the consequences her actions earned, fair and ill alike. Truthfully it was in adversity she flourished, which was in part why she’d become disenchanted with the business that kept a roof over her head. She chose thrill over security, and at her most reckless picked it even over self-preservation. Though like anyone else she had limits, and hers bore a very specific face. Which was why she was here and not in a gutter somewhere.

"Better sorry than safe."


She pushed her card to the middle of the table.

Ori's Number
Five