The boy swaggered up to me. The cards disappeared into some hidden pocket deep in his robe. He had extremely light blond hair, almost white, and piercing blue eyes. He had high cheekbones, and sharp facial features that might one day be handsome. He was lithe of build. It looked like he had some muscle, but most of it was covered up by the loose clothing he wore, almost like a robe. He had a smile on his face. It wasn’t quite cocky, but it was a little smug. He seemed earnest enough, at least.

As he approached, he spread his hands placatingly.

“Had a rough day?

How observant. I wonder if it was the fact that I was covered in blood, the sweat, or the dejected posture I had adopted. While it was an easy connection to make, it wasn’t an incorrect one.

“You could say that”.

“Hey, it happens. How about you join me for a game of cards?”

At first, I thought about refusing. The last thing I wanted to do at the moment was to be the entertainment for some weird child. But what else was I going to do? Go to my room and stare at the ceiling? Waste more time meditating? It’s not like I had a whole lot going on at the moment. Perhaps this was just what I needed, and it would help me settle back down. At the very least, I could use it as a benchmark to see if I had obtained any permanent damage from the day's events.

I shuffled over to the bench nearest bench, slowly lowering myself down. The boy’s cards re-appeared as if by magic. His hands moved smoothly, easily shuffling the cards between them, before he separated a portion of the deck, passing them between us with an almost supernatural ease. What was it with people here and being elite athletes? The boy couldn’t have been 18, for God’s sake. Had he been training in the womb?

“My name’s Rydain, by the way. You are?”

I looked back up, taking in Rydain’s eager expression.

“My names Benjamin, but everyone calls me Ben”.

He shifted forwards, a wide grin creeping across his face.

“Pleased to meet you”.

I am eternally grateful that I’m not a gambling man. If I was, I would have lost. Probably everything I owned. And maybe put myself into a few years of debt. It started off innocuously enough. He won the first game. I won the second. He won the third, but it was closer than the first. It went back and forth for a while. It felt like a true back and forth, one amateur vs another. He had an advantage, of course, as he had played the game before, but I was rapidly catching up. I believed that farce for the first few games, until he started turning up the heat. I had to credit Rydain, despite my despair. He knew how to hook you in and keep you playing. The intensity got greater and greater. First, he was pulling hands slightly better than mine. By the end, every time I got a good hand, he almost got something better. I would often find myself folding, barely even knowing why. I was a puppet, dancing along his strings. Again and again, I got trounced. The sun slowly set out the window, and the few other people in the inn slowly trudged back in as the time passed.

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It took Devinda coming back to break me from my haze. The door opened, roughly, as booted feet quickly walked back in. The clumps tracked their way to my table. A hand swooped into my field of vision, snatching the cards from my hands. I looked up, outraged, but it spluttered out as I saw who had down it.

Davinda was turned away from me, racing Rydain.

“What did I tell you about doing that to people? And after the day he’s had? You better not have made him bet anything, or you’ll be back on the streets faster than you can say sorry”.

Rydain briefly looked down at his feet, an expression of shame flashing across his face, before it firmed, and he turned to look Davinda in the eye.

“Do you really think so lowly of me that you would suspect I fleeced someone after they had a day like Ben had? Am I such scum?”

Anger colored Rydain’s face now, his movements becoming agitated.

“I was trying to help him relax and get to know him! Is that really such a crime? Forgive me for trying to be useful”.

With a last angry exhalation, he turned around, stomping back up the stairs. A few seconds after he disappeared, the sound of a wooden door slamming echoed through the inn.

After a few seconds, Davinda sighed, tense posture falling into a slouch.

“Sorry about that. The kid’s a prodigy, great at everything he does, but he doesn’t know when to quit”.

With that, her shoulders rose back to their normal position, and she turned and walked into the kitchen.

Dinner was similar to the night before, a gruel served over bread and a small portion of meat, this time with a green vegetable that somewhat resembled a string beans, but with a more soft consistency, as if they had been boiled (Davinda assured me they hadn’t).

My mind wasn’t really on the meal, however. I was thinking about Rydain. Despite his somewhat smug attitude, and the fact that he had somehow compelled me to spend several hours losing to him in card games, his desire to help had seemed genuine. He may have been acting, and if Davinda was correct about his talent, I would never be able to tell, but I didn’t think so. The whole situation didn’t portray him as well as it should have, had he been planning the entire thing out.

I had finished my plate by this point, once again scraping it clean. I really needed to figure out if I could manage to get lunch tomorrow. Perhaps Tom had some extra bread or something that he could give me. I resolved myself to ask as I headed back to my room.

Opening the door, I caught sight of my messy bed, still disturbed by this morning's rough awakening. I didn’t remember whatever I had dreamed about, but obviously it wasn’t pleasant. I couldn’t really bring myself to worry about it, however. If It was going to happen again, it was going to happen. I couldn’t not sleep.

After getting into the bed, I quickly drifted off. The day's exhaustion meant that even should I want too, I wouldn’t have been able to stay awake. Surely, tomorrow would be a better day.