The dealer lays out cards onto the table's green felt. Cycelia looks at them, and tilts her head. She then looks up at the dealer, and blinks her confused emerald eyes at her.
「…Hit or stand?」
The dealer woman asks after a few seconds of silence.
「Huh?」
Cycelia tilts her her the other way in response.
「Lia… You're supposed to decide whether you want to draw another, or keep your hand as-is. Hit means you want another, stand means you're done.」
「O- Ohh…」
Straf leans in to fill in the gap in Cycelia's knowledge, and she gently nods her head as she makes a connection with what he had said previously.
「…Um. Hit please?」
Raising her palm, Cycelia smiles softly at the dealer with a lightly tilted head.
「Please tap your fingers like this if you wish to hit.」
Taptap.
The dealer taps the tips of her index and middle finger on the green felt to demonstrate, and looks at Cycelia with an expressionless face. Shaking their heads, the men on the sides of the table scoff.
「Ahh…」
Taptap.
Cycelia taps all of her fingers in front of her hand's cards, which makes the dealer visibly wince in frustration. She remains silent, and places another card in Cycelia's hand.
「Hmmmm… What should I do Straf? This is a good number, isn't it?…」
Pursing her lips a little, Cycelia asks while staring pensively at her hand's cards with her chin resting between her thumb and finger.
One of the men clicks his tongue in frustration. His hand is 17, while Cycelia's is 19. He turns his gaze away towards somewhere else in the casino.
「Just do whatever you feel like, Lia. I'd say 19 is pretty good, all things considered.」
Straf replies with a shrug of his shoulders. Cycelia looks down at her cards.
「Um… I'll, um… Stand?… Then?…」
She tilts her head at the dealer, and the woman lets out a fatigued sigh.
「If you wish to stand, please wave your hand like this…」
The dealer replies, and demonstrates by waving her hand palm-down over the felt.
「Ah. Stand.」
Cycelia quickly waves her dainty hand over the table's green felt. The woman lets out another, shorter, yet still exasperated sigh.
「You need not say that you stand, I may not be always able to hear you-」「Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah!」
The dealer explains as she moves onto the woman beside Cycelia. A gleeful scream coming from the slot machines happily demonstrates her point.
Straf, Cycelia, and the rest of the table watch as the woman hands out cards to the rest of the players. The woman beside Cycelia smirks when her total ends at 20.
The dealer then flips her card, revealing an ace to the players. With a neutral, expressionless face, she places more cards in her hand. Her total rises to 16. The two men and the woman sitting beside Straf and Cycelia all lean in, watching the dealer's hands with intense gazes. Straf's eyes remain bored as he taps his temple with his finger, while Cycelia looks at the card with an unfazed look on her face. The dealer pulls out a 5 from the stack of cards, bringing her total to 21.
「Shit!… Fuckin'!…」
Thud!
The man next to Straf abruptly slaps his hand on the table and shoots up to his feet, tumbling his stool over to the ground as he takes the rest of his chips with him.
「…Can't win in this shit fucking game!」
He grumbles as he places his hands in his pockets and angrily storms away from the table. Straf only spares him a momentary side-glance. The woman sitting beside Cycelia lets out a large, disappointed sigh, while the man next to her clicks his tongue and visibly recoils in frustration.
The dealer then proceeds to scoop the tokens from all but Straf, who smirks a little. Disappointment only sets in for Cycelia when the woman takes her black token away, too.
「You can't always win, Lia. It was a good idea to bet conservatively. Imagine you bet it all, only to lose it to a scripted loss.」
Straf casually shrugs his shoulders as his bored eyes turn to Cycelia.
「Huh!? It was scripted!? So it's rigged after all!?-」
Blinking her large emerald eyes at Straf, Cycelia perks up in shock.
「Preposterous. Such accusations are-」
The dealer takes offense, and her expressionless face finally shows a small, angry frown. A sharply-dressed waiter approaches to set the knocked over stool upright, then departs elsewhere.
「Nah. It's not rigged, it's just sometimes you're forced to lose. It's statistics, Lia.」
Straf smirks at the dealer, who scoops the cards from the players.
「Next round. Please place your bets.」
The dealer nods at the remaining players.
The man on the other end of the table angrily throws the last of his chips forward, scattering them in front of himself with a dull clatter. Cycelia and the woman beside her take a few moments to consider their options. The woman decides to split her chips in half, and slides one half forward. The dealer turns her eyes to Cycelia, and she picks up 10 of her chips, then sets them out ahead. With his mouth lightly aslant, Straf simply idly taps his temple with his finger while resting his cheek on his hand.
With a nod of her head, the dealer places another card face down in front of herself, then deals out a card each to everyone remaining. Straf looks at his 10 for a brief moment.
Taptap.
He then wordlessly taps his fingers next to the card as he turns his bored eyes back to the dealer.
「Hm?…」
She furrows her brows when she sees that she just handed him another 10, bringing Straf's total to 20. She stares at him with her eyes narrowed while he looks at the cards.
「…I know what you're thinking, but nah.」
Straf says to the dealer, and casually waves his hand over the cards. The dealer nods, appearing to be almost a little disappointed as she turns her eyes to Cycelia.
「Straf, what do I do? If I have a 7, I should hit, right?」
Cycelia looks at the card before her, blinking her emerald eyes at it, before turning them to Straf. Straf returns a faint nod with the same, unchanging expression.
With a tight-lipped grimace on her face and her gaze focused, she taps her fingers next to the card before her while looking up at the dealer.
The dealer raises her brows as she gives Cycelia another hand, and notices she just received a 10 as well. Cycelia glances at Straf for a split second, before returning her eyes to the cards before her, pensively thumbing at her lips while deeply focused, thinking for a few moments.
「…What do I do Straf? 17 is really good, isn't it?」
「Yeaaaah… It's on the lower end of good… You've gotta ask yourself one question…」
She asks. Straf shrugs his shoulders and his other hand, partially agreeing.
「…Do I feel lucky?…」
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Straf says, grinning at the dealer. Her eyelashes flutter as she breaks eye contact and turns her attention back to Cycelia.
「…Well, do ya, Lia?」
He asks, turning his head towards Cycelia. She blinks at him for a few seconds.
Taptaptaptaptap!
With a determined expression on her face, Cycelia taps her hand on the green felt beside her cards. The dealer's frustration at her violation of the etiquette seems to have ran out, and she simply hands Cycelia another card with a resigned huff out of small her nose. The dealer's head perks up at the sight of the 4 in Cycelia's hand.
「Uwa! Straf! I won, didn't I!?」
Cycelia's mouth opens when she realizes her total is now 21, and her smiling face turns to Straf.
「Mh. We'll see.」
Straf shrugs his shoulders, and turns his eyes to the other players.
「Next player, since drawing more cards would be inadvisable…」
The dealer says as she turns to the woman beside Cycelia, mostly to inform her for her own sake.
The woman receives a collection of cards until her total reaches 16. She stares at her hand for a prolonged moment, pondering what to do. She glances at Straf's and Cycelia's hands, then at her own. Her gaze turns to her chips. The stack consists of many red, yellow, and green chips, and is maybe 30 drakes worth at most at this point.
Taptaptap.
The woman hesitantly taps the green felt with her fingers. The dealer hands her a 4, bringing her total to 20.
「Yes!…」
She clenches her fist with a quiet, gleeful utterance through her teeth. Her hand quickly returns to the table to wave over her cards. The dealer nods and turns her eyes to the man.
Taptap. Taptap. Taptap.
The last player receives a series of low value cards, bringing his total to 16. He sucks air in through his teeth as he ponders what to do next.
「…Fuck it.」
He shakes his head and waves his hand over his cards, then crosses his arms as he leans back in his stool, staring at the dealer with a tight-lipped grimace expecting nothing good on his face.
The dealer turns her card up, revealing a 7. She draws another, an ace. The dealer woman then nods towards the players.
Thud.
「Fucking… Whatever the fuck…」
The man slaps the table in anger, then rapidly stands up, departing as he grumbles under his breath, shaking his head. The woman beside Cycelia smiles with glee.
The dealer hands out the winnings to the players, doubling their bet, and doubling Straf's single black chip to two. She scoops the cards, and realizes that she's at the bottom of her deck.
「Shuffling for the next round. Please place your bets.」
The relieved woman places a portion of her winnings as a bet, while Straf casually slides the black chip he won right back towards the dealer.
Clack!…
Encouraged, Cycelia promptly bets half of her stack.
「Isn't that a little sudden?- Ah, whatever… Have fun.」
Straf asks, but then dismissively shrugs his shoulders and stops himself.
「Please cut the cards.」
The dealer says to Straf as she places the shuffled stack in front of him. Moving his hand towards it, he lifts the top half of the stack up, sets it aside, then places the bottom half on top.
She nods, takes the stack of cards back, places a card face down in her hand, then deals a card each to Straf, Cycelia, and the stranger woman…
…
Less than an hour later…
「Wooo!」
Cycelia raises her hands high above her head, then claps them in joy as her dragon hoard of chips grows. The dealer slides over a large stack of chips to her, which has approximately gained a quarter of its original value since she and Straf started playing. The woman next to her had a mixed streak of wins and losses, but is overall net positive, at least ever since they had arrived.
「Nice one, Lia… If you weren't the empress, they'd ban your ass right about now.」
Straf nonchalantly remarks with a smug smirk on his face from beyond his enormous stack of black coins.
「Ah?」「Huh!?」
The dealer and the woman beside Cycelia both turn their shocked eyes to her. The dealer's expressionless face finally cracks as her and the woman's jaws drop.
「E- Empress?…」
The dealer utters out, blinking in disbelief at Cycelia, who is now awkwardly smiling back.
「I'm- I'm so sorry, your majesty! I didn't take a good look at your face!-」
「Nonono, it's okay… I'm here to have some fun with Straf. There's no need to be formal… We're just playing a game together, right?」
The woman next to her apologetically bows her head, but Cycelia quickly interrupts her, waving her hands in front of herself, and shaking her chestnut head left and right.
「…Right.」
Krkkkk…
Straf nods in quiet agreement as he pushes all his chips forward.
「N- New round… Bets please… Your highness…」
The dealer stutters, and points her hand towards Cycelia's betting zone with a low nod of her head.
「There's no need… Ahh…」
Cycelia briefly tries to protest, but then sighs and decides that the best protest is simply betting half of her dragon hoard again…
…
A few moments later…
「Eh!?」
「…I'm sorry, your highness.」
Cycelia's eyes perk up in shock as the dealer adds another card to her hand, adding up to 20.
Both Straf and the woman beside Cycelia have 21 each. The woman reached her total through a series of numerical cards, however, unlike Straf's joker, queen, and ace. The dealer apologetically bows her head as she pulls away half of Cycelia's dragon's hoard, with visible dismay on Cycelia's face.
「…That will be it for me, your highness. It's not much, but I know when to take my winnings. You won quite a lot too, didn't you? I'd just take it… Farewell, your majesty.」
The woman next to Cycelia stands up, scoops her chips, the stack of which nearly doubled in size, and departs with a polite bow of her head, smiling softly.
「Want to hit a poker table now, Lia? You won't have fun at blackjack with all this loss aversion now.」
「Yes…」
Straf asks, and Cycelia nods her head with an upset pout. He throws his gigantic stack of tokens into his [Portable Storage], which is then followed by Cycelia's shrunken stack.
「Let's go… Blackjack is kind of predictable, anyway. Poker's fun 'cause it's PVP.」
He stands up, and nods his head towards one of the round tables surrounded by players. Cycelia stands up and quickly follows, but not before politely nodding her head towards the dealer.
「Pi?…」
She tilts her head with her brows furrowed, rejoining his side.
「It's against other players, Lia. That's why it's fun. You rob scrubs of their money. Let's watch one game so you learn how to play first…」
He replies, and nods towards one of the full tables with a game ongoing.
「Okay…」
She nods her head, still pouting a little. The watchful waiters-cum-guards stand by the poker tables to ensure none of the spectators are enabling cheating…