These days, early mornings were only good for a few things: breakfast, washing dishes, or feeding the kenser. All three had been done, leaving Gannon with nothing to do till customers showed up. Thus far, none had.

His breakfast—salt garmon on bread—still had his mouth feeling bitter as he played a simple single person card game his uncle had taught him when he was twelve. He hadn't slept well that night and it showed in his sluggish way of moving. He wasn't sure if Jane was up and he didn't particularly care. At that moment, he couldn't find the damn queen of rooks. That fickle woman was hiding somewhere and Gannon found it all to easy to be taken in by her teases. He could just imagine that coy wink in his head. Females were all trouble, when you boiled out the looks and the sly winks and those curves. Trouble in a pretty package. A man was far better off keeping his distance and not noticing fine hips or pretty faces or whatever else lay between and tempting. Damn distracting. He even knew he should be hunting for the jack of crows, something he knew what to do with, despite its secretive nature, but only the queen would stay on his mind.

When Vicka had woken up that morning, she'd been alone. The spokey fellow had taken off in the earlier hours at some point. Vicka had been expecting such a thing, but she still missed the comfort of waking up with Cal. If only for the warmth of having somebody else in the bed, and maybe the company. Cal had been his most philosophical in the mornings, and often posed questions that he chewed on for the rest of the day.

Vicka's only question was providing Jane with something to work with. There was nothing meat like in the larder and that made good money. She managed to get to market early and wheedled a decent price on a bit of ham out of Mrs. Tuppen's boy before Mrs. Tuppen herself showed up. Her good luck had held as she found potatoes and a few odds and ends of vegetables before the good ones got plucked out of the stalls and so on.

She pushed open the door with her shoulder. Her arms were aching from the weight; she'd never had to carry this much in a long while. It was shaping up to be a decent day.

"Mr. Oranos!" she called. "Come take this, my shoulders are about to fall off!"

Jane woke in a comfortable bed. It had only been a couple of nights since Gannon had employed her. She still woke up confused and disorientated. Jane kept having to remind herself that she was in Vienda, that was employed, and that she had a roof over her head. It was a shock, but Jane would eventually get used to it. Vienda was her home now. A rough home, but a home none the less. It was a good feeling.

Jane woke, stepped out of bed and looked out the window. The hour was early, but such was life in a tavern. Jane could already see people walking around, getting food, shopping, all early risers. Even seeing the tiny figures down below, Jane could tell the men from the gollies, the passives from the wicks. The difference was enormous, you could tell just by the way their walked. It was a normal image, and one Jane wished to strike down. Equality for all was her goal.

Jane washed her face, and tied up her hair. She dressed, and made sure she looked presentable before heading downstairs. She walked slowly downstairs, content, a small grin appearing on her face as her feet hit each step with a thud.
Gannon was already awake, sitting at a table and playing a card game of some kind. He was more disheveled than usual and tired looking. Jane didn't understand the game he was playing, or his expression, but she proceeded downstairs none the less. Her boots thumped satisfactorily as she walked on the wooden steps.

Jane was about to address Gannon with a hearty good morning (hopefully lightening his mood), until she saw Vicka struggling at the door.



Jane rush over to help. She walked over to the door, and held it open for Vicka. She took one of the many packages from her to help. She smiled and addressed Vicka as she entered the building. "Good morning! I see you've already been quite productive..."

Gannon looked up as Vicka entered and his sour look deepened. Rooks, he growled to himself. He distinctly recalled Ted babbling her message about a "pressing engagement" the night before, right after Gannon had seen her walk out the door on some wick’s arm.

Gannon made to push the chair back with his hands as he got up, but instead wound up pushing back the table, making the cards on the table wobble and loose from their positions. The queen of rooks winked up at him coyly from under the two of hawks. Gannon scowled down at her before walking to Vicka and relieving her of the rest of her load.

"Very," he grunted.

"Thank you, Jane, dear," Vicka said, heaving a sigh of relief. She shook out her arms. "Mr. Oranos. Jane, I got you some pork to work magic on, just try to make it last, please."

She looked up at Gannon and cracked a grin. It looked like he hadn't slept a wink at all. He was only slightly more disheveled. "You look like the wrong side of hell, Mr. Oranos!" she teased. "You did catch a bit of sleep, didn't you? Are you feeling ill? I have a tonic for that."

Jane smiled. Pork! Fantastic! She clapped her hands in excitement, despite the large package she had under her arm. "Pork! That's great. Thank you Vicka!" More ingredients to work with! This day was already getting better and better.

Jane looked at Gannon as Vicka spoke and laughed in response to her teasing. Gannon wouldn't be impressed, but Jane didn't really care at the moment. It was morning, and she drowsy with the remains of sleep. She dumped the package that she took off Vicka on one of the tables and yawned.

Jane walked over to a window and opened the shutters. The new days sun shined though the dark clouds of Hamis weather. It was going to rain today, but Jane didn't mind. She liked rain. It was a sign of new life. It would help back home with the crops. She smiled a little and prayed that everything was alright at home without her. I'll write a letter later today, let them know I've got a roof over my head and a job. Yes, father would be proud.

Jane turned to the others. She smiled. Vienda was her home now. She had to think of herself now.

Gannon's shoulders stiffened at Vicka's question and his eye saw and did not see the package in his hands. He didn't to much sleeping to begin with, but last night had been particularly lacking in the subject.

"Didn't sleep all that well," he admitted, his expression looking more than sour. And then, after a moment more and another reminder from that image in his head--Vicka on the arm of that spoke, their backs to him as they hustled out the door--he turned the question around.

"You get much sleep?"

Was that crude of him? He was nearly too tired to give a rip.

"No problem, love," Vicka said graciously. She combed her hair with her fingers, always worried that it had gotten out of place, or looked strange. It was a trait she shared with both her brothers, though they were primarily concerned with their whiskers. Jane looked pleased. Well, she was a tip-top cook, surprisingly. She could be a little naive, at times, but at least she had a skill.

Mr. Oranos seemed sourer and glummer with every passing minute. She was not surprised that he'd slept poorly, but when he set the question back at her, it only took Vicka a minute to get an idea of the real question being asked.

"Oh," she said, grinning broadly. Vicka renewed her conviction that Mr. Oranos needed a Missus--or at least an obliging Miss. "Oh. It isn't so much the amount as the quality. And the company! Don't you agree?"

She chuckled to herself and trotted past, taking up her apron from behind the bar. Vicka glanced at the barroom, unimpressed with its cleanliness. "Ted didn't do such a bang-up job, did he? Teach me to skip out early. Well, I'll soon make up for it."

Smiles and grumpiness all around. Jane hadn't ever seen Gannon so disagreeable, but she shrugged it off as him being tired. She understood that. Jane was never agreeable when she was plagued by the spells of sleep. In fact, it was hard to think of any one who was. Maybe her father, but he was always agreeable, so he didn't really count. And maybe Vicka. From what Jane had seen Vicka was never ill-tempered. Ever. Although, she hadn't really known Vicka or Gannon for very long.

What the two were talking about, was a challenge for Jane to interpret. It went something along the lines of company. What company, Jane wasn't entirely oblivious to. She did remember seeing Vicka leave quite early the night before, talking to some man and taking him home. She'd seen them being very friendly earlier in the night when Jane had come out of the kitchen for some reason she could not remember. Not the usual 'May I help you?', something a bit more meaningful than that. After all this deliberately vague talk, Jane just deduced that she didn't want to know.

She walked away from her somewhat awkward position in the conversation and went through the back doors to the kitchen. Taking her apron from the hook on the back of the door, she looked in the cupboard for ingredients. Seeing hardly anything, she went back out to the main room and glanced at the bar. She'd heard Vicka mention Ted and his lack of cleaning skill. Indeed, Vicka was right. The bar was a bit of a mess and Ted didn't really do a good job at all.
"Hmm. It's okay Vicka. I should have probably wiped this down last night. Trust me to go to bed early without finishing a job." Jane laughed to herself.

"So, I'm guessing the packages are food for the kitchen? If ya don't mind me asking." She continued. She probably already knew the answer, it was all in politeness that she asked. Hell, Vicka could have been grocery shopping for herself for all Jane knew.

If anyone thought Gannon's expression couldn't get darker, they'd be wrong.

Company, indeed.

Gannon set the package in his hands down on the table with a loud thud. The cards rattled and the Queen of Rooks peeked out further. He glared at her again. Company indeed. "Company looked a little stringy," he commented, looking back at Vicka. He was so damn tired, so darn worn out, he hardly cared.

What the heck was his motivation though? Vicka was nothing to him other than a good help around the bar. He wasn't...jealous. He was.... Gannon didn't quite know what he was, other than tired.

It struck Vicka comical to hear Gannon criticize the fellow she'd left with. She laughed. Birge had been no different from any other wick she'd taken a turn in bed with, they were all a little on the lithe side; it was just the way it was. She paid no heed to his sourpuss; she just supposed it was lack of sleep. Mr. Oranos looked that way, sometimes, after a night of shooting whiskey with the clientele.

"Well, they can't all be big strapping humans, can they, Mr. Oranos?" she said gaily. She winked. "Though I wouldn't say no to one of 'em. I married one, didn't I!"

Vicka chuckled to herself and found the broom, propped into a corner. She began to sweep up, rather industriously, clucking at the crumbs and crud Ted'd let build up in the space of a night. She addressed Jane then, as if an afterthought. "Yes, love! Those are for the Stag."

Ignoring the conversation the two were having was proving harder than it seemed. Its references to love, marriage and... company, made Jane a little uneasy. Back home, she hadn't really had anything to do with the boys in her village. True, she lived with two men, but Jane never talked to the boys. They were all idiots in her mind. Bumbling idiots one and all. Drunken men only interested in who can hold who in a choke hold the longest. People married early in the farmlands - Jane was quite an oddity not marrying at the age of sixteen. In all honesty, Jane wasn't interested just yet - she had the whole world to see, a father to care for, and a brother. A brother who was just as idiotic, but tamer, thanks to Jane intervention. She had no time for the stupid idiots of her country town and her brother wouldn't become one of she had anything to say about it. She hoped city gents were a tad tamer. So far, she hadn't seen any improvement.

Nodding shortly at Vicka, her hand on her hips, Jane went over to the table where she dumped one of the packages earlier. She picked it up, and tucked it under her arm. Walking behind Gannon and where he was standing behind the table, she also took the second package under her arm. Her gaze lingered at the disturbed card table. Jane took a long look at the table and the cards, her hand on her hip. She neatened out a few of the cards and made a move. After studying the game closer, she recognized it. Her father would play it when his joints hurt too much to work.

Her move probably wasn't wanted, and Gannon may have taken offense in his grumpy mood, but she didn't care. Jane hardly had a care in the world right now. "Hmm" she said, glanced at Gannons storm cloud of a face and walked into the kitchen, a slow smile creeping on her face.

While in the kitchen, she opened the first package. Indeed, as Vicka had said, it was a lump of salted ham. It certainly wasn't the fresh quality Jane was used to, but it was meat, and she was glad for it. The other package was an assortment of vegetables and such. It certainly filled the cupboards and the bellies of customers. Jane clapped her hands and began on a stew. It would keep her busy for an hour or two, away from the impending customers and somewhat disturbing conversation. Something an ignorant seventeen year old farm girl didn't particularly want to hear.

I'll be...didn't see that one...

Gannon peered down at the card game. He actually hadn't seen that move. Seemed as the girl knew the game, and was a fair hand at it too. Hmm. Gannon made two more moves off Jane's, though he soon found out he wouldn't win the game without that Queen....

She was getting to him, he knew she was....

"Didn't...didn't know you'd married a human, Miss Vicka," he replied, looking up from the cards. A small bit of sincere concern touched his expression as he regarded her anew. He really hadn't expected it, though he admitted to himself he'd not really considered it. He'd presumed 'Mr. Eskett' had been another wick. One typically tended to marry into their own kind. His aunt and uncle were odd exceptions, apparently along with Vicka.

Though.... Gannon looked back down at the card table and studied the hand.

"I wouldn't trust many a' th' types what come in here as far as I could throw 'em, Miss. Vicka...." Gannon blinked, suddenly seeming to realize what a bad analogy that was.

"Oh, but Mr. Oranos," Vicka countered with a smile. "I think you could've thrown that kov pretty far. Don't you fret your pretty head about me. The mona're good for more than healing, believe it or not."

She didn't use them for much more, but Vicka could cast a reliable Push. As she swept, she chattered, apparently realizing how little her history her boss and Jane knew. It was unusual to her, a fallacy that needed to be corrected. Everyone knew these things about her; at least everyone in her wide range of kin and kind.

"Mr. Eskett was a human fellow, and he had a job that wasn't in a factory," she recounted. "I liked him well enough, so I married him, just before my mum died. I must have been, oh, a few years younger than our Jane."

Now everyone knew that part. That was the easy half of the story, the one she knew all the twists and turns to. She paused for a moment, holding the broom still. Vicka stared straight at a scuff on the wall, remembering.

"I say he died, you know, but there never was a grave with his name on it," Vicka said, at last. "The Seventen came for him one night. It's common knowledge in my circle, but I can't see how you'd know. I suppose you ought to. And I suppose you, too, Jane."

The kitchen door was propped unintentionally open. It was handy though, Jane could hear every word that Vicka said. Every word of her sad story.

Jane was just as surprized as Gannon was that Vicka married a human man. Inter-racial marriages were few and far between. Not frowned on... but strange. And she was even more surprised that she had married so young. A few years younger than me? Gods, that's young.

Popping out her head out of the kitchen, Jane was stirring something for the stew. She leant against the door frame, bowl in her arms and continued to stir, while saying, "A few years younger than me? That's young Vicka, even for farmland standards."

At the mention of the Seventen, Janes eyes widened. The Seventen took him away? Suddenly, she was full of questions. Why did they take him? Was he part of the resistance? Did he know the resistance? Did Vicka know the resistance? Jane refrained herself from asking so many questions that were plaguing her mind, but she couldn't refrain asking one.

"The Seventen? Why'd they take him away? He sounds like a decent enough bloke." Jane smirked. "Well, you did marry him"

"Well, thanks. For telling us, that is."

Something in the big human twisted up a bit, and it wasn't his stomach.

Gannon had nothing in reply to Vicka's outpouring of words. Anything he said he figured would sound insincere and hollow. He was also very bad at outward sympathy. As a man who expected nothing of the sort, he had very little experience with what it looked like or even how to go about it. Comfort wasn't anything he knew how to do. Fending for oneself in Vienda made one like that, he supposed.

Instead of say anything, he looked away from Vicka. Back to his cards. He sat down and looked back at the Queen of Rooks. Looked back at Vicka, then to his cards again. Gannon picked up the card like he was handling a feather or an eggshell. Like something that could snap with the right pressure, but only in the right spot. Maybe right in that familiar winking eye.

Silence persisted for a long while.

"This game's been giving me hell...." It was a half-hearted grumble and it was fogged by something other than annoyance. "Darn Queen a' Rooks usually does...."

Vicka smiled at Jane, easing back into her typical self. She shrugged. "I was an early bloomer, I suppose. I've had time to mend, love, so don't worry about me. I reckon it was for his possession of radical materials; I told him he ought to get a license, but he never listened to me. Said he didn't want to be on a list. Happened while I was out, tending someone."

She went back to sweeping. That last was a lie. Vicka remembered very clearly closing up the front room, she remembered commenting on the lack of patrons, and Cal's even response that things would pick up soon. He was like that, very patient man. She remembered the knock on the door, a big booming sound that echoed in her mind and a voice--she recalled clearly wondering what Cal had done, and him pushing her into the kitchen, pointing violently to the door, mouthing "find my sister . . ."

Vicka glanced up at Mr. Oranos' card game. She leaned on the broom, grinning. "Oh, Mr. Oranos, it wouldn't be a fun game if it was easy, would it?"

Jane went and put the bowl back on the kitchen bench. When she came out again, Vicka started to talk and she listened intently. Early bloomer huh? She lent back on the door frame and yawned. She couldn't really thing of anything to say. All her questions seemed dangerous and stupid. Vicka had lost her husband, and she didn't know why. It just seemed heartless to go and ask so many questions. She seemed fine, like she'd already gotten over it, but the ring around Vickas neck showed that she still misses her husband. Something that Jane could never connect to, but felt Vickas pain none the less. It was awkward.

She had nothing to say. Suddenly a wave of homesickness came over Jane. It was like she was being toss in a tide, pulling her toward Vienda and home simultaneously. She smiled a little to herself and tried to imagine what was happening right now at home. Probably Kaid was already up and working. Father would probably still be asleep, knowing him. She missed them. She'd never been this far or this long from home.

When Jane heard Vicka talk to Gannon about the game, she went over and sat in the chair opposite to Gannon. She looked at the game. She folded her arms on the table and placed her chin on her hands.

"You can't win without the Queen of Rooks you know..."

Of course Gannon knew the Queen would win the hand, knew it well. But he didn't have to like it. He held the single card in his hand. Darn thing wouldn't leave him be.

Gannon looked back at Vicka and sighed, looking quite bedraggled. "Well I suppose I should just leave offa' such game. They're tiresome when yer..." Gannon looked back at the Queen and growled. Gannon got up from the game of cards and popped his back. It cracked rather loudly.

"You g'wan an' take over," he grumbled to Jane. "If y' know it. I'd probably better clean up some, I'd wager I look pretty..." Gannon huffed as he fished for the word. "Scroungy." Gannon slid a look to Vicka. "No one's much for a scroungy cards, I suppose, specially when the next hand looks a sight better.... I suppose some cards just come a bit too...coarse?"

Jane raised her head from her arms and looked at Gannon. Had she offended him? Or maybe he was just fed up with the game. Jane didn't know. So, she stood up and lent over the cards before going around the table to get a better look. May as well see what all the trouble was about.

She pursed her lips. Indeed, the game was in a bit of a mess. A few moves here and there would okay, but it looks like the base moves were all jumbled. The card game wasn't going to be easy to repair. Gannon must have been either really tired or drunk when he started the game. Maybe both. Either way, Jane adopted the game as her own. She picked up one card - five of swords - and moved it across the table as she tried to salvage the game.

Jane didn't pick up what Gannon said. It all sounded a like loaded language to her. Loaded with what, she didn't know. After about halfway through sorting Gannons game, Jane realized that she left the stew on the stove, and that she hadn't gotten around to finishing it.

Walking past Gannon and Vicka, behind the bar and into the kitchen, Jane picked up the bowl that was left on the bench and continued to make her stew. She poured all the ingredients in a massive pot, and left it to simmer, lid on with a lowish heat, before returning to her card game, twenty minutes later.

Vicka smiled, and kept sweeping without comment until Jane nipped off into the kitchen to look after that stew. Poor Mr. Oranos. She felt a great deal of sympathy for humans, who spent a lot of time telling themselves what to and not to do about these paltry things. As a witch, Vicka had never felt anything but complete freedom to act as she chose, without judgement from any of her peers--save perhaps her mother-in-law, who turned a blind eye to liaisons after her son's apparent death.

"You need to stop fretting, Mr. Oranos," Vicka said, softly. Now that their pure little Jane was out of earshot, she didn't feel the need to metaphorize her words. "You're a fine looking kov, and when you ent beating the living tar out of folk, or having it beat out of you, you've got a good heart and it's more or less in the right spot."

She chuckled. "And you've got a business. I liked Cal just fine on his own, but let me tell you," Vicka said. She winked. "Women love a man with his own establishment."

Gannon was at the bottom of the stairs when Vicka spoke such interesting...unexpected things. What had she said? He replayed the words in his head and he tried to make logical sense of them.

And when you ent beating the living tar out of folk, or having it beat out of you, you've got a good heart and it's more or less in the right spot.

The big human carefully looked the witch's direction as he paused--hand on the banister and heavy foot on the first step. He didn't know if he was more shocked to hear such words or more shocked to hear such words used in context with himself. Gannon blinked at her a moment and then looked at her broom.

"I'll...be right back from upstairs. I'm...sure my face could use a scrub...."

Gannon nodded to Vicka shortly and headed up the stairs.

Vicka shook her head, amused by the funny nature of humans. Where did they invent all these rules? And why bother to play by them? While Jane and Mr. Oranos had both left her alone, she swept her way to the cards on the table, and moved a few so that whoever picked up the game next would find the Queen of Rooks, sitting obligingly in reach.

Then, as if she hadn't done anything at all, she continued to sweep, humming a little as she did.

When Jane came back to the game, twenty minutes later, someone had moved something.

First, she looked at the game with surprise, then peered at it a bit closer. Someone changed the cards. The Queen of Rooks was now able to be moved. Only a few more moves would win the game.

"Viickaaa.... Did you mess with the game? Hmm?" Janes voice was laced with mock suspicion. Her eyes slid over to Vicka, and she smirked. She knew exactly who changed the cards. She heard Gannon go upstairs, so it couldn't have been him. Vicka was the only one in the room. It was like a mock mystery story, only obvious.

She moved the last few cards, and Jane smiled at herself. The card game was done. Resurrected from Gannons beginnings, Vicka helped, and Jane ended it. It was as simple as that. Jane wished that other things the Stag were that simple.

"Where's Gannon been scared off to?" Jane asked, now lacking of anything to do. She sat down at the card table and lent her head on her hand, a bored expression on her face.