Racist nutbars of Nys

After stowing their luggage in their cabin on the airship, Gen and Madds proceeded to one of the common areas. They'd agreed to meet Dorien and Misery in the aerial pub for a game of cards. In spite of the overshadowing pall of grief that should by rights have brought the family closer together, the trip had suffered from undercurrents of opprobrium seeping largely from the senior Voclains. Through solidarity the cousins sought to fend off the bulk of the unspoken disapproval.

"Poker again or something else?" Gen asked, as she shuffled the deck.

"I don't suppose anyone here knows how to play Foxwood Bluff?" Dorien asked with a smirk as he looked out the portside window onto the gently rolling green fields below. He was mostly joking. Although he was more than familiar with the rules, the game was not one generally played in polite company.

"I'm fine with whatever. I'm just glad to be moving again. The sooner I get back to the city the sooner I can relax."

"Foxwood Bluff?" Gen asked, curious. She hadn't ever heard of such a game. "How do you play?"

"I would have thought you'd have run into it in the army, at least," Madds said with a smile. "Maybe your commanding officer had higher standards though." He took a sip of his drink, then slid it over to the side to make room for the cards. "But whatever you want to play is fine with me."

"I... somehow doubt it. As a matter of course, I generally tried to avoid spending time with my commanding officer. Outside of inspections, drill, and receiving orders, that is. So I don't really know." Gen's lieutenant had generally turned a blind eye to things the Red Squadron did, and to harassment among the soldiers in his platoon. His leadership style had been nothing like Madds', and Gen had not shed a tear when he died. "But with that rather dubious endorsement, perhaps we ought to play something else. It's too bad; I rather like foxes."

"Poker is fine," Dorien said with a laugh, "Besides, there's not any actual foxes involved. Well... I suppose there could be depending on the bluff... but even I've never seen a game go that far."

"Poker it is, then." Gen dealt the cards and pulled out her coin purse, ready for the betting. So far on the trip, none of the bets had been extreme amounts. At most the winner ended up with enough coin to buy everyone a round of drinks. Not that Gen had been drinking... much. "You and Misery went out last night, didn't you? I've passed through Nys a few times, but never spent any time there. What was there to do?"

Dorien flinched slightly at the mention of the previous night. He'd been genuinely scared that someone was going to jump him all the way up until he got on board the airship. Spending a year as a drug dealer tends to increase one's sense of paranoia substantially.

"The usual. Drinking, dancing, getting verbally assaulted by crazy racists. All the trappings of a fun night out."

"Don't forget the part where you punched him in the face," Misery added helpfully.

Gen was somewhat alarmed, and glad that her cousin hadn't been charged with physical assault in Nys. She wasn't sure what to say. "Sounds... charming," she blurted out eventually and not with a little irony.

Dorien shrugged.

"I think he might've been a little goofy, to be honest. He was talking about Serkan coming back from the dead to get rid of all the Shadar Kai. I almost feel bad for punching him. He was an asshole, but he probably belongs in a sanitarium."

"I rather thought Serkan was more interested in getting rid of all the Aveyronnais..." Gen mused dispiritedly. With some difficulty, she pulled herself back from thoughts of her former life in Psyra and all the hopes she'd once had for a fulfilling life as an olive farmer. She returned her attention to Dorien and most especially Misery. "I'm sorry that you experienced that."

Yes, she was Aveyronnais, but she was Psyrene, too.

Another disturbing thought occurred to her, and she turned to Madds. "He is dead, isn't he?"

"As far as I know. I suppose stranger things have happened, though. Theoretically it's possible he survived somehow... or even came back... but i that's the case, I doubt some random Nys hillbilly asshole has a direct line to him. The simplest solution is ussually the best. To wit: He's a crackpot."

Gen glanced back at Dorien, smiling wryly. "Well, I'm some random Psyrene-Aveyronnais rustic gentleman farmer's daughter and somehow I have a direct line from a divine entity or entities in the Centre... So you'll forgive me if I'm a little more open to the preposterous. Perhaps that makes me a crackpot, too.

"The war was chaos; if no one saw his body, then Serkan might not have died. I was stuck in the infirmary by then, and even if I hadn't been, I wasn't near the battlefield where he reportedly was killed. I don't remember anything about a funeral or memorial service. I might have been unconscious still when that news came through. I never thought to question it until now. Madds, do you know if he really did die?"

"We were told he did," Madds said more seriously. "At the battle of Saarzevar. They had his position surrounded, and the sorcs had laid down a bunch of spells to keep him from just teleporting away or whatever, like he usually did. When they fought their way through, they found him dead - like his bodyguards had killed him rather than letting him be captured. At least, that's the way I heard the story. They destroyed the body, so he wouldn't have a burial spot where people could rally around."

"Well, as long as they tested to make sure the body wasn't a simulacrum of some sort, we're golden!" Gen joked, relieved.

Madds shrugged. "I don't know how they examined it - I'd assume they used maybe a Speak with Dead spell, or some other magic, but I can't say for certain. They kept it all pretty quiet, apart from the news that he was dead, of course."

Gen smiled fondly at Madds. She'd been joking but he'd responded seriously and it was strangely endearing.

"Well," she cleared her throat and glanced down at her cards. They  weren't very promising. "Shall we get this round underway?"

Dorien lifted the edges of his cards and looked down. A two of clubs and an arch of Diamonds. Pretty typical of his luck, he mused to himself.

Ah well, he thought, he'd made do with worse hands.

"Check", he said, starting the betting, "Let's hope he's good and truly dead. The last thing the empire needs after the last few months is for something to flare up again out here in Psyra."

Misery eyed her cards with disdain. "Why don't they just let it go, if the people here want to be separate so badly?"

Dorien shrugged.

"That's how empires work. If one territory breaks away, what's to stop others from doing the same? In twenty years or so we'd be nothing more than a couple dozen feuding city-states. The system we have might not be the best, but it's better than that."

"Or so the heads of the system would have you believe, anyway. If the cost to keep it is a war every generation, I'm not sure that it's a system worth maintaining."

She laid a few coins on the table, then frowned. "Dorien, weren't there some Psyrene soldiers in the First World when we were there as Vreel and Drenio... or Clovani... or whoever you were...?" Her memory was vague and growing vaguer.

"I think so..." Dorien said uncertainly. He vaguely remembered something like that. His memories of the experience had never been that great even when they'd first gotten back.

"Do you think maybe Serkan escaped there and somehow found his way back?"

"I don't know if it would have been Serkan. Hopefully not. Hopefully he really is dead. But they were coming for Eranthis' queen, Thyatera, who is an historical Psyrene queen..."

Madds looked up from his cards, frowning. "Psyrene soldiers in the First World? The war's been over for a year, someone should let them know..."