how about a round of cards
Defeat is a bitter thing - it weighs heavy on his tongue, sliding down a parched throat to blend with the drink and regret that simmers somewhere along the pirate's middle. He's nursing old wounds, licking the blood left from ghosts that haunt him, when Regina's voice cuts through the room - loud, jarring, unwanted. It's delivered as an easy thing, a challenge between old friends who have spent the worlds over straddling the line between allies and assassin.. and for a brief moment, the pirate wonders if she's as bloody ignorant as she's pretending to be.
"Apologies, love, but ... " Ringed fingers lift the half empty glass that sits before him, blue eyes studying the amber liquid within as if trying to determine whether or not it might make such a venture tolerable. Their last escapade of a friendly challenge had ended in disaster. The Evil Queen was as poor a loser as such a moniker might hint, cries of cheater! answered with the single declaration of pirate!... and Hook had tried for one last barb, a dagger slid easily between ribs (aye, he's forgotten it now .. something about being as inept at cards as she was at motherhood .. it will come back when he needs it ) that had led to the instruction to lie low until their illustrious mayor had cooled off. "...I'd rather kiss the bloody dark one."
The smile he gives her now is an easy thing, slow and easy but with a hint of threat underneath, like a mouse that knows its toying with a cat three times its size. " Besides.. aye, I thought the latest town meeting was all about how us denizens shouldn't threaten your fragile ego." One eye flickers momentarily in her direction, brow quirking upwards and lips shaping into a carefully orchestrated frown. "Bloody hell. They hadn't told you yet? Surely you knew the story about needing you to defeat some trolls was as daft as the dwarf telling it. A successful effort it seems, a winning attempt to make our Regina Mills feel like a hero.. like someone who's wanted. Where's that boy of yours? With his mother?"
