blueacid

Sometimes, Maria’s friendship with Alina is like their chess games - complicity, movements in synch, and always, at the very last moment, Maria caving and letting her win.

For the longest time, they were the only two players - old board, same rules, familiar habits. But when Alina came into wealth, she expanded the game, increasing the stakes and introducing new players - no, new pawns. Pieces that she moved with dexterity.

Maria watched her put on the board a salmon-colored piece that looked like it came straight out of a children's game, and suppressed a wince when Killian moved unwisely, yet too close to the white queen for her liking.

She then observed her add a crimson rook, draped like a queen but advancing straight and confidently. Wendy was guarded, forthright, efficient. She could have been a good opponent, if the viciousness of her strikes and her vermilion brilliance hadn't clashed with the carefully arranged black-and-white game that was Maria and Alina's relationship.

As the rules changed, so did the setup. The tea house and Seam's Good's old backroom gave way to speakeasies, hotels and casinos. The usual quietness of their meetings, too, yielded to the glamour of Alina's new socialite life.

Maria couldn't be anything but glad for her friend's latest status. And yet, on more than one night, she mourned the days when it was just the two of them, playing with cracked wooden pieces on the cheapest chessboard they manage to find.

~

"Yes, she's lucky enough to down tools and escape that prole life. And I only wish I could join her," she hears herself tell the bartender one December evening, slowly swirling a glass of tomato juice and vodka.

Here, in the basement of a bookstore, surrounded by books and people from various backgrounds, she feels a little more at home than she did in the Jubilee lounge. Perhaps that is why she allows herself to confide, emboldened by the alcohol and the bartender's encouraging smile - and why, when discussing chess or her fondness for Alina, she lets slip a few words about her envy or what she makes of their new acquaintances.

The person behind the bar always listens, studying her with the knowing eyes of someone who heard Alina's confessions too.

~

For all she loves about the Nightcap, she often wonders what she's actually doing there - especially after hours chatting with Killian and Wendy in the comfy seats that have strangely become theirs.

As always, Alina pulls the strings. Maria sees everything, sees the strategy unfolding - Alina's moves, Alina's goal. Her tactics for inserting herself into this elite world, her fear of falling from her brand-new throne. No one can understand better than she why her friend does not wish to return to the frugal lifestyle they once shared - although understanding doesn't mean she approves of visiting places where alcohol is served, or flirting with men whose only appeal is their money and position in society.

She voiced her concerns on several occasions, told Alina about her reservations regarding her love life. An unfair advice, maybe, which left a sour aftertaste on both sides. As frustrating as it is, this time it's not her plan to make - and once again she retreats as Alina is conquering the board with ivory pieces much newer and more expensive than anything she will ever own.

She rises with a smile, leaves the group to fetch herself a cocktail - tonight she's willing to answer questions about Natalia Reed's death if it means she can have a Femme Fatale, and escape Killian's unrelatable stories for a few minutes.

~

Only when they are alone can she breathe. The Last Drop had shut down more than ten days ago, and Maria feels like it's the first time they've been able to drink together. Leaning on the counter, with only the discreet but encouraging presence of the Nightcap bartender for company, they can finally vent about Wendy and her insensitive remarks, about Natalia who really was no better, about everything that went wrong.

It's a meeting between two players who are solely committed to each other. Maria consumes Alina's presence like a flower soaks up the sun. She revels in her light, laughs by her side, and rejoices every time she remembers that she and Alina are still on the same wavelength - that her friend is not changing, but plotting.

The magic ends when Alina grabs her glass and heads off to join the others. Maria watches her settle into an armchair, regaining her place in front of her new chessboard, then decides to follow suit - toward a life that is not hers, but has become Alina's.

"A people pleaser," she described herself when the bartender prompted her to talk a bit about herself.

"Send me a postcard," they had said - to which Sandra Fischer had laughed, both light and regretful. It was one of the last times they saw her - a few more nights, a confession, then the case was wrapped and she was gone.

And then, nothing.

The Nightcap did not close immediately. Patrons continued to drop by, drinks continued to be served - until the day when the only signs that Sandra had ever been there were Vincent's guilty eyes, Peter's occasional worried frown, and Hugo's whispered admission that she should have had enough time to escape the country.

Only the bartender's conflicting feelings remained, like the last drops of alcohol forgotten in a glass - sour, and no longer fresh.

Weeks later, something is waiting for them in their mailbox. A rarity in itself - their whereabouts are a piece of information that, until now, only two criminals have managed to find.

It’s a postcard.

There is no name, no return address. The stamp is not Bukovian, yet the landscape pictured is too indistinct to determine exactly which city it might come from.

A cocktail recipe is written on the back.

Suddenly the aromas swirling in their heart explode, iced with relief and balanced by the sugary knowledge that she’s safe, she’s safe, she’s safe.

Or at least, that she made it.

Sandra Fischer made it.

Over the following year, the postcards keep coming - sometimes three in a month, then nothing for an eternity. Places and countries change, but the content bears the same invisible signature. After a while, short sentences join the mixology suggestions - "the most vindictive can't always handle the alcohol they ask for," "dim lighting in a bar corner is the perfect setting for secrets," "music can soothe the hearts as much as gin."

It's her, it's her voice, thousands of miles away, sharing bartender insights as if she's at the Nightcap, perched on a stool.

They keep every single one of them. Soon, the little postcards from all over Europe start replacing the clues and photographs pinned to their investigation wall, while the red wool is used to recreate Sandra's journey across the continent.

Knowing she is free is their greatest joy - realizing that she has no place to call home yet, their deepest sorrow.

One morning, it is not a postcard that awaits, but an envelope - closed, secretive. The sender's identity leaves no room for doubt, however, as they could recognize in their sleep her handwriting, the curve of her U, the way she dots her I's.

They tear it open, heart warm and hand trembling.

Greed lurks in every corner of the kingdom.

It shines in Leg Eater's clutching hands, repairing at a cost while dreaming of a crown - in Sly's covetous eyes, hidden in his shop and always raising prices.

It lies in a banker who steals, a fool who fights, a merchant who demands payment in a ruined land where trade no longer makes sense. In forgotten chests, brimming with riches when their owners have long since passed on - avarice, it would appear, does not prevent one's end.

This urge to possess and want more reflects everywhere - a desire for knowledge lost in the electrified mist, a bug's pursuit of immortality at the top of the Sanctum, the dream of a fallen King.

Yet it often ends up being about Geos.

Perhaps it is a similar yearning that compels a voiceless knight to attempt one last jump - to grab the meagre reward left behind by a vanquished foe, six Geo that cannot be ignored. Its vision blurred, its mask cracked, dripping black liquid.

Its Shade, shape of a past, mark of a previous death, awaits him in solemn silence at the other end of the cavern. Caution would suggest reaching it first - but what of those six Geos to collect along the way.

A misstep, a fall. A skull fracturing on spikes. A spirit dissolving, ready to reappear on a bench.

A little further away, the Shade closes its white eyes and evaporates forever - and with it, three thousand two hundred and sixty four Geos. All lost because a wounded knight could not turn away from six more.

Higher beings, they should inscribe on some new stone, these words are for you alone. One much wants more, all loses all.

"Why did you fight, you troublesome child?" A mother's voice rises above the village colourful cacophony, angry and reproachful. "And for what? I told you - two wrongs don't make a right!"

Your eyes fall on the Mimic's Toe you've just collected, stinking and all waiting for you next shenanigans.

The maternal quarrel is soon lost in the crowd, and your thoughts wander - millers to help, a glamour to prepare, a Hawk surely about to be wronged. You briefly wonder what your own actions will achieve.

For the victims, they will bring revenge. From the Goat, they will deliver punishment.

You? You don't care much - you're in it for yourself, bound by a contract vanished from your memory - but you certainly don't feel like you're committing an injustice. Any doubts you may have harboured at first have dissolved when confronted with the Ram's intransigence, the Leech's cruelty, the Fish's greed.

You don't know what will become of your soul, but theirs surely deserves it.

Your footsteps leave the bustling streets and head towards the grey mist of the cemetery, where your missing ingredients lie. As you pass the tavern, you remember a young huntsman who is also waiting for you, hidden and trembling in the dark dampness of the Swamp. To save them all, you'll have to work fast.

A joyful laugh echoes behind you - another child, another mother, perhaps. It's a nice sound to carry with you, compared to the haunted moans awaiting you. And it's to ensure moments like this last longer that you don't feel the slightest bit bad about fulfilling the Goat's will.

Two wrongs don't make a right, they say?

There's an echo at the tip of her tongue.

Harsher words directed at Six, secrets not entrusted to Tapi, thoughts shared with Huang - all different, all a notion of what she could have said, could have done.

She first mistakes it for wariness, believes this assessment of possible answers to be the fruit of her own wit. She's not, after all, as reckless as people assume. To survive, she has learnt to navigate through life as seamlessly as she sails in the Nebula, to read people as one deciphers glyphs.

Yet these whispers in her head - caution is not what they seem.

This echo, she fears, tastes like memories.

When she refuses to take Yazi to the dig site, watching him with cold eyes even though he's pleading, she does so suspecting the kind of trouble he will bring. When she hands the crown to Mayari, grazing its steel one last time, she recalls passing it on to kinder, more gifted hands. When she doesn't attend Renba's funeral, she can still guess what was said, and who was there.

She doesn't like that. At all.

Glimpses of a past life, knowledge of the future - it all screams of nothing but the Loop.

That's why she can't always obey Six, when he tries to prevent her from doing something unwise, something risky. She stopped counting all the "Please consider it one more time, mistress" and "I'm asking you to think before you act, as I won't be able to hopper you" she's let loose on the wind - every second of weighing up her options means facing a sense of déjà vu she doesn't intend to acknowledge.

So be it her choices or the gap the robot warns her against, Aliya no longer looks.