Chapter Text
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Lady Luck is the lightning
Arrives in a flash,
Makes your hair stand on end,
Knocks you out of your boots,
And leaves you out on your ass.
-Plaque on the wall of the Drowning Wench-
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Act I: Wine, Women, and Song
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Captain Khrista Saragin caught the eye of the tavernkeep, raised a gauntleted hand with two fingers extended, and nodded in silent greeting. There was a certain kind of relationship that one developed with people who started to learn one’s ordering habits in any establishment, but this seemed to be even more true at a tavern. One’s drinking habits were more or less dependent on one’s mood, after all, and Khrista always figured that being able to read a mood led a tavernkeep to acquire a larger number of tips by the time the night was out. For her part, Khrista always tipped well, as she was the sort of person for whom drinks prevented worse moods than they generated.
The tavernkeep and proprietor of the Drowning Wench, a bearded man in green clothing who answered to Baderon, made his way over to her with the two drinks that her wordless gesture had indicated. When he got to her, he saw her eyeing a particular plaque hanging on the wall of the Wench. The plaque had always seemed a bit out of place to Khrista for a couple of reasons. First, it was newer than anything else on the wall, and second, it didn’t obviously originate on a ship. Baderon raised an eyebrow. “Problem?” he asked, setting the ales down on the table. He glanced up at the plaque, then at the card tables, then back at Khrista.
“Oh, no problem.” she waved a hand in dismissal. “Just, I’ve been coming here for years now and I’ve never quite gotten the story behind that plaque.” she said, nodding toward the area just above the tables. “I mean, I get that it’s a warning, but this is Limsa. You get taken in cards, it’s your own bleeding fault, right?”
The tavernkeep snorted a single laugh. “Ah, you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the Lady, then.”
“Come again?” Khrista asked, curiosity piqued.
“Lady Luck.” he said. “She’s a legend ‘round here. Nobody knows who she really is, and they say she never looks the same any two times she graces those tables with her presence. Just shows up, plays a few games, or a lot of games, but at the end of it all she takes some idiot for everything he has. When she cashes out, she leaves a single card behind, embossed in gold. It’s how anyone knows it was her.”
Khrista’s eyes widened and she actually let out a laugh. When the tavernkeep didn’t follow along, she felt her amusement slowly change to astonishment through the slight haze of the two ales. “Wait. You’re actually serious , aren’t you.”
“Play the cards long enough, and you’ll see the aftermath of the Lady yourself.” he said.
“Mm. No thanks. The sea is capricious enough without me choosing to add any more chance into my fortune. Give me wine, women, and song any day to throw my money at.” she said. Then, she lifted her mug. “Or, well. Ale and something resembling a melody. The women can stay, though.” she said with a grin.
Baderon just laughed at that. “Well, you’re about to have one more woman in your evening than you’d care to have.” he said, nodding to a space somewhere behind Khrista. A little sliver of dread formed in the same general region the ale was residing in Khrista’s stomach. She knew exactly what she was going to see when she turned her head, though she prayed to the Navigator that she was wrong for once in her life.
She turned around. She didn’t see anyone. She looked down, and saw exactly who she knew she was going to see. She put on the biggest smile she could manage and tried not to grit her teeth as she spoke to the raven-haired and uniformed lalafell that had walked up behind her. “Why hello there, Merere. Care for a pint? Or, uh, half?” she said, holding out her depleted ale mug. She hadn’t necessarily intended to make a dig at the woman’s height as that was more than a little racist, but she also wasn’t going to apologize for it either. Merere was probably going to make her very unhappy in less than thirty seconds, so it was only fair.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Tell me one I haven’t heard before and see where it gets you.”
Khrista practically beamed. “Personnel Resources?”
“If only.” Merere said. “The Vice Admiral wants to see you.”
Khrista sighed. “See, I just knew that I would want a couple drinks in me before I saw you. Turns out I was right! I really should have changed out of this uniform before I came here. Might have taken you an extra couple minutes to find me.”
Merere adjusted her glasses on her face and just looked up at Khrista. “No, it really, really would not have.”
Khrista sighed. “Fair. Okay. Let’s go, then.” she said, tossing back the last half-mug of ale and hopping down off of the barstool. As she followed her diminutive superior officer toward the exit of the tavern, she said “On a scale of one to ten, how badly am I going to regret not getting so drunk that I fell off a pier and wasn’t found until morning?”
Merere glanced over her shoulder. “Eleven.”
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