Luck rarely finds coal miners - except in cards

[tinstar]

Who: Raylan and about town | + Zoey and Fraser
What: ON THE HUNT FOR BODIES WHO ARE INTERESTED IN POKER - also gettin' his doggo and through the mine
When: Front half of July
Where: Milton, Milton mines, everything on the way and Lakeside

Content Warnings: Applicable content warnings go here.

You gotta know when to hold 'em - Milton - OTA

Raylan was out on a mission - Finding enough willing bodies to make up a good table of poker. He had talked to enough people to make up a very short list of people that might be to play poker. 'Might be' wasn't 'would' and even if it was, that very short list did not equal out to a full table. A full table was at least half of the fun of the game. He starts with the Community Hall, writing out a message and pinning it almost proudly to the board. Solid message, he thought, before looking around. It was never too soon to start the recruiting effort.

It wasn't just the hall, Raylan had no issue openly approaching people on the Streets he'd never spoken to before with as polite a- "Hey, excuse me. Raylan Givens," he'll introduce to those he hasn't met, "Yeah, can I ask you somethin' real quick?"

But it wasn't just poker that interested him. There was no dropping the conversation if someone answered his incoming questions with 'No, I don't play poker and I have no interest in learning'; he was interested in the folks that made up the community, both the people that spoke up at the town meeting trial thing and those that hadn't said anything at all. Like he hadn't said anything, expressed nothing beyond a disappointed shake of his head before exiting to avoid the rush of bodies going out. The verdicts that had come down were taken with heavily mixed result, and he couldn't help but prepare himself for the worse case scenario.

Sixteen tons, what do you get? - Closed to Zoey

The mine has been something Raylan has been working up towards since he found out it was here. The sprawling maw of darkness that sat quiet and idle in front of the un-hatted man taunted him with the memories he'd been trying to ignore, the collapse that he and Boyd had narrowly survived, the fires, the gases, the lack of oxygen, the goddamned dust - There was more to worry about in a mine than taking a poorly planned step and falling three hundred feet to your death.

That was several of a larger handful of reasons that Raylan wanted someone who'd traversed them before to guide him through. He had asked Zoey, feeling it was it's own kind of right that the lady who found him out in the middle of the cold and got him to safety would be the same luck charm of knowledge to get them through the mountain. They'd agreed to meet at the mines, and Raylan's knapsack was heavy with a few skins of water, some food, a rope and candle, flintstone and rock, and a knife on the opposite hip of his gun. He'd never been a boyscout but he packed like one. Raylan didn't have much of any kind of faith or close held superstitions, and he didn't fear much of anything. Not guns, not red-headed women or lawyers.

But mines were different. He was glad she had agreed so graciously and without any mocking jabs at his internally categorized weakness. He could have managed it alone, but he knew that madness lived under the ground as much as minerals and his resolve to 'just the facts ma'am' in this painfully specific scenario was faulty. Something about being Downstairs made him twitchy.

Who doesn't love the possibility of a man and his dog - Open around Lakeside and part closed to Fraser

Lakeside was a balm of its own sort after getting through the mine and over that damned bridge. He'd arrived with Zoey, resting at the mining cap and stopping long enough at the lake side itself to marvel at the inland body of water. At least they weren't there to fish, but there was no mistaking that there was something in the water. Raylan imagined this is what fjords must feel like. Still, the option of fishing gave him hope. Food, when his stomach still pinched a little with hunger. Maybe it connected with a river. Maybe there were salmon..

Closed to Fraser

Word of mouth had passed around the fact that new life had, in fact, come to Lakeside. It was an important thing to hear for Raylan, primarily because it proved that the animals could successfully spawn here. That nothing had gotten in the way of that part of the cycle of life, the one that was going to keep them in food, however scant.

Word of mouth had also passed along where Raylan could find the Mountie, though he was polite enough to just ask after the man by his name, but it's plenty enough to send Raylan up towards Fraser's cabin. He wished that he had something to bring, you were never supposed to arrive empty handed and on a whim, pulls out his last two cans of food. If he was going to be asking for something, he would make the nutritional sacrifice. Missing his hat desperately, Raylan knocks on Fraser's door and steps back.

Comments

[tinstar]

Raylan hasn't spoken at the Town 'Trial', but he had attended, him and his hat staying back on the walls near the doors. He'd noted everyone who stood up, who'd spoken their bit for good or ill and he was still working on getting names to attach to those faces. But Louis didn't seem put out or put off by Raylan's near door to door poker salesman act, so Raylan smiles back with that well practiced easy smile of his own.

"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Du Lac. I've heard about you; people speak well of you and your General store." Raylan could hear the Louisiana. Claudia had had it as well. Maybe they were from the same area, Louis and Claudia. "No trouble to report, thankfully, but I am tryin' to find out and gauge interest in the possibility of brinin' a poker night to Milton. Maybe once or twice a month, dependin' and if you don't mind my sayin' so, you look like a man who knows cards."

Based specifically on the fact that Louis's wool jacket wasn't too far from Raylan's though Louis's was longer if he had to guess - it put them far enough forward in the timeline of Perceived Era that Raylan was comfortable making that conversational jump.

[flambeaux]

There's Jessica as well. It seems this place has taken a liking to Louisianans, New Yorkers, Canadians, and the British Royal Navy. It's not as though Louis has met everyone or bothered with counting, but some patterns are inescapable.

Louis tilts his head slyly, eyes glittering inscrutably. He wonders if that's really all Raylan wants.

"I used to play. I'm out of practice, I'm afraid."

When he did, he played more for the schmoozing than the cards. Then when people started whispering about how he didn't age and wondered if he made a deal with the Devil, it dampened his social life. He was in a morose period anyway.

[tinstar]

True card games were always for the schmoozing, for the sake of the company, for the chance to take Doug's twenty five dollars because, like an asshole, he borrowed a lawnmower and hasn't returned it for 2 months. For a laugh.

"Puts you right on level with the vast majority of people I've managed to mention it to-" As though him running up on people on the street was just a 'mention'. "-with half a step up in bein' able to say you 'used' to play."

Card players were like alcoholics - once you played a game for enough years, it was just always with you. Recovering Card Addicts had to be a thing, one that included Grandmother's that would be able to play canasta until they passed. It wasn't an assumption yet, but Raylan liked his chances.

[flambeaux]

Louis didn't like the schmoozing, but he was good at it. He had to be to compete with the other businessmen who called themselves his "betters".

Louis was never a chronic gambler, but he does have a drinking problem. Of a sort. It isolates him. He'd rather drink blood from strangers than anyone he knows. Louis shies away from the depravity of befriending someone only to kill them. This is why he and Lestat don't hunt together.

"Achin' for company, are you? How long you been here?"

[tinstar]

Aching for normality. For an hour where he could forget he was in a frozen wasteland instead of Miami with it's sun and it's beaches and the random Mexican or Cuban music that wafted through the air with the smell of salt and sea to match it. A moment of freedom, from worry and responsibilities beyond what wrangling people that might not react to losing well might cost him.

"Around two months," he answers truthfully with a glance and nod around Milton.

"And I half expected this place to have some sort of.. I dunno - potluck, monthly bonfire, hell I'd take a barn raisin', but somethin' that let people step outta all this. Disappointed that there wasn't. Cards've been around for so long for a reason - most everyone's got some form of it. Figured it would be some common ground."

[flambeaux]

"Unless you count Girls' Night and Marché du Lac's grand openin', just Methuselah's monthly get-togethers. But those can be disrupted or sparse dependin' on circumstances. Mostly they're just for gettin' new people out of the cold and in front of a hot meal."

Louis would love to have a night where he didn't worry about freezing his toes off or getting eaten by the Darkwalker.

"If you see that boy Damian around, ask him about a barn raisin'. The old one burned down. I'm sure he'd love to put you to work."

[tinstar]

No one put that French flair where it probably likely belonged like Louisiana, he had to admit. But that confirmed what Raylan had been told - trust but verify. He nods but the name stops him.

"That a Tim Damian?" Raylan hadn't met the man yet, but the name has been given to him a few times now. Two names made a short list of guys that kept being mentioned, though Louis already had one tally in his column anyway.

"What happened with this barn? Arson or act of God?"

[flambeaux]

"Ask him." He shrugs. He suspects they're brothers or something similar, but he hasn't pried. One day, one of them will pry into his business more than they have already, and there a lot of things Louis wants to keep subtle. Louis suspects the same of Damian.

"I don't know about the fire. Hard to see with all the smoke and what with me bein' averse to dyin' in a barn fire. I arrived when the fire was roarin'. Tried to save what I could with Mr. Yegorovich--" That's his patronym and not used right, but Louis doesn't know that. "--who may just tell you to call him Vasiliy."

[tinstar]

"Guess I will then." Once he runs into more mystery people with only a name to go by. It'd all be by chance, save for him going up to the barn. Supposed he'd have to post that note to the community board like had been suggested.

"Why save it? What's a barn providin' anyone save for another structure to post up in? Unless someone's hidin' cows and horses around here that I'm not aware of." His stomach grumbled hungrily at the thought. Who wouldn't love a steak right now. He wasn't trying to be offensive to the idea of saving the barn, he just is wondering about value and importance.

[flambeaux]

"There have been small livestock efforts here. We quickly realized that livin' as hunter-gatherers wouldn't do. The woods are dangerous, especially at night."

His bright green eyes rest on him. "Do be careful at night, Mr. Givens. That's when the Darkwalker attacks, and we have not found a way to prevent the deaths. The wolves are overly aggressive as well."

[tinstar]

"If only we had cattle," he breathes out, almost wistfully.

Raylan keeps a steady expression, unswayed by Louis' warnings or the way they made the hairs on the back of his neck rise in a much more primal kind of warning. He was wrapped in his comfort in the laissez faire cloak he wore over himself for so much of his life. Despite the truths that he already knew were in those words, showing any kind of fear around it or anything else was unacceptable.

"I'm always careful. My gun works just as well when reason isn't an option. Though I have been informed it'll be little good against the Darkwalker. You got any opinion on what it is?"

[flambeaux]

He could really use a smoke right now. Instead, the fingers of his right hand flex restlessly. His nails are glasslike and pointed. Even so, Louis prefers to appear collected when he's rattled.

"There are a lot of things in the dark. I don't know too much about what goes bump in the night, just that it comes only at night."

Like him. Like now. The sun isn't great for Louis's skin.

"It's taken several armed and capable people from us. Walls don't stop it, and everyone else is paralyzed with fear when it comes. It leaves no mark, no destruction, just the bodies. Unnatural."

He stiffens like a gentleman hearing about things not fit for drawing room conversation. He's a vampire capable of wanton violence, but he doesn't like being outclassed by another apex predator. It's hypocritical, but he can't deny the knot in the pit of his stomach.

[tinstar]

If he preferred to appear collected, those fingers and the way he stiffens was something he should probably work on. Not that Raylan was going to mention it out right. Manners and all, and having been raised in the South, he knew the rules.

"Most everythin' dangerous comes durin' the night. Half surprised we're not all takin' night shifts and sleepin' durin' the day." He wasn't going to say vampire - he wasn't that deep into pop culture and frankly, no one had suggested the idea that vampires were here and so, he didn't consider it.

"Outta sight, outta mind doesn't really work that well on it all, huh. Wish anyone had any idea what drew it. Why it hasn't descended and consumed us all yet." Raylan's was a dark mind and had been since he was young. Since he first really learned about the horror of Man.

"Nothin' to do but keep livin' while we can, right."

it should have been "Robin" up there, not "Damien" i completely forgot to tell you

[flambeaux]

Perhaps in 200 years Louis will have gained enough experience and lost enough humanity to control his tells. Perhaps he will be like Lestat. Ugh. At any rate, he doesn't mind showing a little of his unease. To appear unbothered by the Darkwalker would be more strange, and Louis does not want to be thought of as strange.

Strange is cousins with unnatural, which is a short leap to kill the monster with torches and pitchforks.

"Night shift is... me, I suppose. I do have the honor of runnin' a store that's open most hours. I used to own a club back home. Guess bein' nocturnal stuck. Daytime's for sleepin' off the previous night's damage."

He flashes one of his charming smiles. This used to be a joke that he fully believed in. Now it just feels hollow.

"And I suppose it hasn't killed us all yet because it ain't hungry. I don't know if it's feedin' or territorial killin', but it all comes down to resources, doesn't it?"