asgardeventide | video // first gamble

Entry tags:

video // first gamble

[He's been here for a little while already, just trying to find anything useful to getting home, but upon finding nothing he's decided it's finally time to say something over the network.] Well, then. I suppose I can play the gods’ game for a little while. Perhaps it will provide a bit of fun – more than sitting in that stuffy old workshop does, anyway. For now, however, how about we play a game that I have more experience in. A gambling game.

[He holds up the dice he usually has with him to show whoever it is that’s watching.]

It will be fun, and it seems as though this place needs plenty more of that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Watson is interested -- no, no, he reminds himself firmly. You've given that up. Still -- just asking won't hurt, will it?]

What did you have in mind?

A game called Hazard. I only learned it recently, but I like it well enough. Are you interested, messere?

In watching perhaps and playing a friendly game, but my gambling days are behind me.

What fun is a life without gambling? Join me for a game. You will not regret it.

You should call it a competition instead, that way it's not illegal. [She pauses for a moment before adding:] Well I guess it's not illegal here...

What type of game is it? Poker?

Illegal? Why would having fun be illegal?

I was thinking of a game called Hazard. Are you interested in playing?

I don't know, exactly. I just know back home daddy had to be careful to not make playing poker into a gambling thing, as that made it illegal.

I've never heard of it before. What is it? How do you play?

What a pointless thing to make illegal. What harm could come from a bit of gambling?

All you have to do is roll the dice and aim to get them to land on certain numbers. It is easier to explain with a demonstration.

I think it's because people tend to go overboard gambling, and then other people like to take advantage of it...

I don't know if I want to play, but I'd definitely like to watch.

[That's certainly different, and far more interesting right now than anything else anyway.]

What kind of gambling game then?

It is called Hazard. It is still fairly new to me, but I think it is enjoyable enough for now.

[He's heard of that, but...]

Quite an old-fashioned game, a~n. I don't believe I've ever seen one play it in action.

Perhaps it is old, but it is still fun once you get into it. If you would like to play just say so. There is always room for one more.

And what would we gamble on? You may have to freshen up my memory for the rules.

Whatever valuables we have on us. Since it seems earnig money is a slow process here, betting money would not be a very good idea.

Depending on what exactly we're betting about, we'll see just how valuable a piece we'd put down for it.

As of late, there seems to be very little fun. [there's a smile that could almost be a grimace along with the words. it's been bad, lately, and it's hard for Leonardo to listen to everyone on the network being in pain and not be able to do anything about it.]

If you are good at danger, perhaps.

[Everythig Leonardo says goes completely over his head when Salai sees just who it is that's speaking to him. Recent events had left him extremely worried for his master and the sight of him clearly healthy and alive is too relieving for him to think of anything else. Of course, along with him clearly looking healthy and alive he also looks-- young. Extraordinarlily so. He'll focus on that later, though.]

Maestro! Have you been here all of this time?

[there's something extremely comforting about being greeted almost normally. maestro-- he doesn't mind the title, and it's worlds better than the million other things people have called him since he arrived. he's never minded being famous, before he arrived here, so the knowledge that he's with someone who whom he's a little less famous is -- comforting. familiar.

...even if he has no clue who it is. he looks a little confused, but offers Salai a more genuine smile and a nod.]

Sì, I have been here for a few weeks now.

Weeks? That is not-- that is not possible! How could you have been here for weeks already?

[He had been pretty out of it while he waited for Ezio to rescue Leonardo, but he knows that he wasn't so out of it that weeks could have gone by.]

[Leonardo frowns. Salai is speaking as though he keeps tabs on Leonardo's whereabouts on a regular basis-- but Leonardo is certain he doesn't remember the boy. He might be absent-minded on occasion, but he rarely forgets faces, particularly if they are of interest to him... and Salai's face is certainly interesting, in Leonardo's opinion. He would enjoy painting it.]

Time passes at strange rates, in this place. There are people here from times and places completely different from our own-- entirely different worlds! [it's a serious conversation, and Leonardo doesn't like the idea that he's forgotten (or never met) someone who knows him, but he can't keep the excitement from his voice.] It is all quite fascinating, if occasionally... troublesome.

It seems as though it would be far more troublesome than fascinating. [And of course he realizes that this could mean that Leonardo doesn't know him yet and he doesn't like the idea of that at all.] Tell me, what time are you from?

It was the year 1488. [When he says it, it's almost cautious-- he is afraid of having forgotten someone he's never met; afraid of causing harm to the youth that he does not know, but knows he should care about, regardless.]

[1488. That number hits him hard. Salai was eight at that time. Eight and still with two years to go before he'd be apprenticed to Leonardo and two years before anything he really cares to remember would happen. Suddenly, he hates 1488. Why does a time before he was with Leonardo even exist? Why should it have been possible for him to be taken from a time where Leonardo wouldn't know him? It's not fair. It's not fair, at all.

It almost hurts when Salai swallows. He's pushing down the anger and the sadness that threatens to spill out the moment he opens his mouth. He should be happy that Leonardo is okay, considering what the situation had been at home, but that thought is miles and miles away and all he can think of his how angry he is at whatever supposed gods are responsible for this. Do they think themselves funny? What is the point? Leonardo is one of his most important people, if not the most important person (and, really, there's no doubt that it is the latter) in his life and they had to go and make it so that he wouldn't remember anything of heir time together? One of his hands curls into a fist, shaking in anger, but also sadness.

There's a lot of that in him right now. He is angry at the gods for what they've done, but where the gods aren't concerned there is only sadness. He'd been so worried, been looking forward to spending more time with Leonardo, learning to read, and maybe even cleaning up his act a little because that would probably make his master happy, right? But what's the point? Doing that now would make little difference. Leonardo doesn't remember him. Doesn't remember any of their time spent together, any of his promises, any of the things that Salai had done. He can't very well do those things and expect to make Leonardo happy when he doesn't even remember that they'd be a change from the norm. He can't do anything for Leonardo now, can he? It feels that way. He doesn't know if these thoughts are possibly an overreaction. He does tend to let his emotions get the better of him in distressing situations and he's doing exactly that right now. He doesn't recognize it as such, though. He's too distracted.]

I see.

[It's all he can manage to stay and still keep himself from showing a great amount of distress.]

[Leonardo has always, always hated the feeling that he does not know important things. Latin, politics-- he navigates around the things he does not know and mitigates them with the things he does, and he is always learning, always trying to achieve more knowledge because then he can help more. Right now, he is certain that there is a world of knowledge that he does not have access to, a world of thought and information that he cannot even grasp at, and it culminates in a meaning that simply says: you cannot help him.

There is the taunting voice in the back of Leonardo's mind that informs him that it is clearly Leonardo's own fault for not remembering; he should, obviously, and it is his own failing for causing this youth pain. Leonardo can see the pain as clear as day, written on Salai's expression-- because who couldn't? Someone who had spent years studying facial expression and the human body could no more overlook the pain and anger in Salai than they could overlook a horse riding through their window.]

Mi dispiace, I...

[Leonardo does not know how to fix this. There are no solutions to grasp with his hands, no plans to draw, no prototypes to make, and so he lowers his eyes. He can only do his best, now, and hope that it is enough.]

Whatever I have forgotten-- [not experienced yet; not lived yet. a life half-lived and his death seems to be more prominent in so many minds--] please, speak of it. If we have met once, then we can meet again, si?

You have nothing to apologize for. It is not your fault those gods [He nearly spits the word.] took the last 18 years of your life from your memory.

I've spent 16 of those years apprenticed to you. How could I even begin to speak of everything that has happened in that time? [And even if he could, he's afraid of what Leonardo's reaction would be. Would he still want the same sort of relationship? Would Salai get some detail wrong or not remember some important thing and change the whole dynamic of everything? He wants to tell Leonardo about everything, the same way he told Salai about everything before, but he's afraid he'll somehow acre that up.]

My apprentice? [well, that changes things up a little. If Leonardo was expecting to hear anything, it wasn't that this boy was his apprentice-- but he accepts it without question; without argument.]

Well! If I have lost 18 years, then we will simply have to make up for them. If you have been my apprentice so long, you may have things to teach me!

[Leonardo carries on, as he always does, with a smile and good cheer-- because while he doesn't know that he can fix this, doesn't know how to make it better, he knows he can make it more tolerable.]

Workshop?

[Now he's interested.]

Yes, a workshop. It is the place where my master did all of his inventing and painting at home.

[Oh.]

Not here?

None that I know of, but I have yet to meet with him in person. It is possible that he has one that I do not know of at the moment.

[Well then he cannot ask if he could maybe use it for a little while...]

Will have one myself shortly, he can come if interested.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

video // first gamble

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

text

text

text

text

text