Criminal Prayers :: [Taggerty + Ravi]

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Criminal Prayers :: [Taggerty + Ravi] Jun 22, 2017 20:26:51 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Jun 22, 2017 20:26:51 GMT -5

[attr="class","TaggertyContainer"]

[attr="class","TaggertyTitle"]blowing shit up with
homemade d-d-d-dynamite

[attr="class","TaggertyContent"]

Smack!

Taggerty slaps a rolled up painting down onto the table, paper bills and a few odd pieces of jewelry scattering. For once a sound is as dramatic in real life as it is in her head and she has to bite the inside of her bottom lip to keep from squealing with glee and pumping her fist in the air. Miraculously, her face stays composed. It’s a concentrated effort to convey herself as someone to be taken seriously, because this is not the place for her to flail around like a giddy child chasing an adrenaline high… even though this is exactly who and what she is.

Everyone around her is probably someone Bast has oh-so-ironically warned her about before. He would be horrified to know she’d snuck into a gambling hall, but Bast hasn’t been around to stop her lately. Icarus disappeared like one of his fires going out. Thea and Caly are too busy. Maybe if she hadn’t been so bored she wouldn’t be here in search of idle trouble or… new friends? She has to fix her gaze intently on the stolen painting she’s just slapped down onto the betting pile to keep from laughing at the idea that any of the people here want to be her new BFF, as if the mustachioed man across from her shares an interest in sleepovers with diy facials or secretly reading trashy romance novels when her super badass friends aren’t looking.

Or, you know, stuff and things.

When she does look up, she simply raises an eyebrow before pulling an antique china teacup out of the oversized sleeve of her dress and balancing it precariously on top of the pile of loot. This only seems to cue confusion all around about whether she wants to be dealt in or poured a cup of freshly brewed chamomile. To be fair, she has no idea what game they’re playing, only that she wants in. If there’s trouble around, she always wants in.

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Last Edit: Jun 23, 2017 22:45:07 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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gm bourgeois decadence [aya]
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Criminal Prayers :: [Taggerty + Ravi] Jun 23, 2017 15:55:20 GMT -5

Post by gm bourgeois decadence [aya] on Jun 23, 2017 15:55:20 GMT -5

we die alone
we'll all die young
what d'you care to die for?
what d'you care to die from?

Seven hundred dollar cigar dangling from his lips, five hearts flush in his fist — this is how royalty relaxes.

A tall-backed armchair — black leather, overstuffed — is the closest thing that the dingy gambling parlor has to a throne. As he is everywhere he goes, here Ravi La Torre is the king, the emperor, the ace of spades. For the shipping magnate, businessman, methamphetamine kingpin, it is impossible to underestimate the importance of downtime — where fate is left to chance, where strategy only gets you so far. Where the worst thing you can lose is a few dozen grand. Where the biggest surprise is a good hand —

— until it isn't.

Smack!

Ravi doesn't know — doesn't care — how the feral-haired girl got in past his posted muscle. But she produces a teacup from her sleeve instead of a thirty-eight. Panem's most prolific meth mogul can only be amused. He side-eyes Subbu, side-eyes Singh, side-eyes Shoal, and stands. (His distracted detail will not like what Mr. La Torre has to say about the definition of the verb 'to guard' later in the evening.)

He unfurls the canvas oh-so-haphazardly slammed into the pot in front of them. Thirteen white souls cling to a sail — it is the sort of nautical kitsch one would expect to find at any District Four grandmother's estate sale. Except it isn't. One does not move up as far in the world as Ravi has without an eye for detail, and he knows priceless when he sees it.

La Torre calls; plays his hand; claims the pot — less the two artifacts this girl has laid out before him. A lesser businessman with an equal hand would have dealt her in immediately to claim his good fortune, but Ravi loves a good streetrat story, knows better than to underestimate someone with the balls of galvanized steel to waltz into Ravi Motherfucking La Torre's private gambling den with a long-since-pilfered masterpiece and a demand to be —

"Deal her in," he commands, snapping his fingers at his dealer. Before anyone gets cards, the kingpin lays a stack of bills — five grand, lowball — on the table next to the painting. He slides the teacup in front of an empty seat, nods at his valet. Thirty-year triple-cask whisky, peaty, subtly sweet — no holds are barred for a high roller in a La Torre's domain. "You will want something to wager in the next round, I imagine." He offers her a smile — as close to genuine as he can muster — and a handshake.

"I am Ravi," he introduces, gesturing at the vacant seat, cigar still burning between his fore and middle fingers. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"

Last Edit: Jun 23, 2017 18:56:59 GMT -5 by gm bourgeois decadence [aya]

{characters}

certified kindergartener
stranded in "beach" "city"
leader of the crystal gems

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Criminal Prayers :: [Taggerty + Ravi] Jun 23, 2017 22:43:57 GMT -5

Post by L△LIA on Jun 23, 2017 22:43:57 GMT -5

[attr="class","Taggerty1Container"]

[attr="class","Taggerty1Title"]blowing shit up with
homemade d-d-d-dynamite

[attr="class","Taggerty1Content"]

It’s been a year or two since the night the Libertines were liberated — heh — of a few choice items from their storage cellar by a bumbling girl and a thief who should have known better than to smile at her gall, mistaking idiocy for true grit. Maybe he knew all along, but she tries not to believe such an obvious truth because admitting that she’s a game to the villains she idolizes would break her heart. That night wasn’t about the magpie prize of glinting metals and tacky sailboat art, it was about the experience of her heart racing in so many directions that she could have sworn her body multiplied to chase each feeling down. She was so much and wants to be again.

The man with the cigar sizes her up and she straightens to the challenge, toes wiggling nervously in her combat boots as the rest of her pretends she knows exactly what she’s about. Only her hair dares to defy her, flinging itself into her face until she huffs a breath up to blow it back out of her eyes. Not slick. Oh well. Too late. Oh my god please don’t shoot. “Deal her in.” She can’t help grinning like a fever-crazed lunatic, an almost subtle skip in her step as she moves to take the seat granted to her. The leather is worn soft and sinking into it feels so good that she doesn’t realize how much smaller she feels in it until she finds herself looking up at every person at the table, wishing she had a booster seat. “You will want something to wager in the next round, I imagine.”

She has no idea if he’s talking to her or the other players in this game, but she reaches down and pulls a silver candlestick out of her boot just in case, quietly setting it down next to her tea cup. Maybe it’s part of her bet or maybe it’s just a thing she put there as another kind of backup… here’s to hoping someone can tell her because moment by moment, Tags is beginning to realize just how out of her depth she is. Straight into the deep end and well over her head. Sympathizing with the panicked men on the boat in her wagered painting, she’s glad she has someone here with her who feels the same, even if they lack her questionable level of reality. “I am Ravi,” is the only lead she gets to go off of, “it is a pleasure to meet you, Miss…?”

“Tags —“ Uhhhhh… “Taggerty. I mean, it’s Tags, um, Miss Tags?” No. “Well, it’s Eames, but actually Tags, if you know… what I mean.” They do not. In an attempt to cover her fumbling and regrets about how she doesn’t have a badass codename yet, she picks up the drink that’s been poured for her and takes a sip. It burns like wildfire in her mouth and if she weren’t already dying then she would have made a face to match, but instead it slips past her tongue without a flinch.

The cards are dealt and Miss Tags finds herself with a hand full of painfully low red cards — two, six, three, five — and a single queen of spades. She looks like a tough broad and Tags hopes it’s enough to protect both of them, realizing she has no idea what game they’re playing or whether it’s actually bad that all her cards are small. It can’t be good. Everyone else is laying a card or two down and so she plucks the queen from her hand and places her onto the table like a shield. “This is pretty good,” she says, nodding at the amber spirits in her cup. There’s a pleasant warmth in her belly that lends truth to the words as she glances around for hints as to what she’s supposed to do next. Make them smile at her gall, maybe. Except this time that doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough.

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Last Edit: Jun 23, 2017 22:44:38 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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gm bourgeois decadence [aya]
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Criminal Prayers :: [Taggerty + Ravi] Jun 24, 2017 22:04:49 GMT -5

Post by gm bourgeois decadence [aya] on Jun 24, 2017 22:04:49 GMT -5

snow glistens on the ledge
whisky on the bed
shake it out and light a cigarette

Eames, then. Miss Taggerty Eames.

There is something so earnest in her introduction that Ravi can't suppress the small smile that peaks out from under his mustache. By the time she's drawn the — ah, candlestick — not revolver — from her boot, the kingpin decides that giving the young woman a seat at their table was the most interesting course of action that the evening could have taken.

If she is here to con him, all the better. Scoundrels and scammers have come to trick away Ravi's trinkets and treasures — or at least they've come to try. But nobody cheats Ravi La Torre and lives to tell of it. (At least, as far as Ravi will admit to. Some accounts differ — but you'd be an imbecile to bring the Caivano buisness up with the drug lord.)

How does a man who can make all of his dreams come true with a wave of his wallet keep out of boredom? Were he thirty years more foolish, Ravi La Torre may have been the one to stare down the barrel of a flare gun in a game of his own making. With no reward unattainable, the only thing that thrills Ravi's heart is risk.

Ravi's new hand is almost unbeatable — but absent a queen, entirely worthless. Ten, Jack, King, Ace, all in spades, and he's one lady short of the best hand he's held in years.

Tags throws Ravi's lady away. Even a poker face as practiced as La Torre's can't keep perfectly still under the circumstances. With a sigh, he discards his ten and the four of diamonds. A different night, a different pot and he'd be just as likely to fold and retire. But in his heart of hearts, Ravi La Torre is a gambling man, and he can't walk away when the stakes are priceless. He'll bluff his way to victory if he can't pull a pair out of the deck.

He draws his two replacement cards and pushes another ten grand into the center.

"Miss Eames." Since her arrival, the newcomer has had his undivided attention, her curios piquing his curiosity. "Tags." He sips his own whisky, clears his throat, hard stare fixed unblinking on his guest. "We do not get visitors down here very often. I am curious: what gave you the sudden interest in a game of five-card draw?"

He offers another small smile, none too sinister, and glances at his hand again. Perhaps he won't have to bluff all the way to victory — but even on his days off, Ravi La Torre can never quite bring himself to put his faith in luck.