Story:Raising the Stakes
Raising the Stakes
Written by MigeYeFoxe
Fremont Palace, Las Vegas, April 3, 2015
“Come on, just a little more. Don’t fall on me now,” A feminine voice speaks up, talking not to a person so much as a thing.
Kresta had once again snuck into the visitor’s locker room the night before a home game. But this time, instead of just hiding decks of cards in the lockers as an attempt to steal their luck she took things a bit further. Painstakingly, and with having had to redo parts of it a few times Kresta was almost done building her house of cards. It had taken her several hours, much longer than she had anticipated but at last she had managed to get it done. She had almost outdone herself. In front of her, on top of the main table was a display easily three feet tall. It was a three dimensional pyramid that she had chosen to build, making row upon row of levels as a base, then using one less row the next tier up. And now, after all this time had passed she was just about to finish if she could only get those last two cards to behave. She holds her breath while doing so on the off-chance that her breathing might knock it over. But it does hold and she takes a step back to look at her handy-work.
And then to save it she leans over and grabs at a plastic case she had brought for just this reason and places a few chairs together so that she can stand on top of them without risk of tipping over and climbs up. She takes a deep breath and holds it, just in case her breathing would mess things up as she very gingerly lowers the case on top of the house. Once in place she lets go very, very slowly and gently removes her hands, just in case. After stepping down from the chair and taking a few additional steps back she finally lets out her breath in a silent heave. When the Summit come in to dress up they’ll certainly have quite a surprise waiting in store for them. Kresta knows that everyone just thinks she’s super superstitious but luck is a very important thing. Skill can take you to great heights, but sometimes luck is necessary. Bad luck can make shots you think will go in bounce out. Luck can make someone just happen to end up in the best or worst possible position for that particular moment. Luck is why before every game she could not set one foot onto the court until it had seen her kiss her headband and why she couldn’t do that until just before the start of the game. And with the Wildcards in as dire a situation as they were, luck is why she did this.
It is not something she would normally do. Normally she would be content enough to just leave decks of cards in their locker room to steal a bit of luck but desperate times call for desperate measures. A yawn overtakes her and she raises a hand to block the space in front of her mouth, more by habit of politeness than anything. Once the yawn has finished she shakes her head a bit and then looks at the clock on the wall, frowning.
“Yeah, I’m not doing that again. This takes way too long to do. I won’t have time to really get any sleep today before the game. Oh well, guess I might as well just go get some coffee and do some warm-ups before the practice.”
The game went well enough or so it seemed. Lack of sleep was definitely catching up with her. There were several times when she went to pass the ball it seemed to go badly and down a path that probably should have been intercepted and she was far more reckless in getting rebounds, causing a few fouls even on top of a few that probably should have been even more fouls. And yet the effect of her display is carrying through to her. Those passes that should have been grabbed managed to get through somehow. And her shots were going in with a lot. So clearly the house of cards was helping, it’s just that it was only helping enough to barely counteract the issue of playing on no sleep. And then as it must her luck ran out. Sometime early in the third quarter she got knocked in the jaw. Clearly an accident and if she were more alert probably something she would have been able to avoid. But it split her lip pretty bad and so they pulled her off the game so as to not track blood all over the court and to make sure that nothing more serious was there. She didn’t mind, she was assured, after all, that if needed she could go back in. So she popped the standard painkillers they gave for situations like this and sat down and watched the game. But try as she might as the third quarter ran on, Kresta found it increasingly difficult to pay attention to the game.
Kresta is startled when she finds someone gently shaking her leg. Half jumping she quickly looks to see what’s going on. The game had apparently ended. Las Vegas lost. She didn’t even remember the fourth quarter starting, let alone ending. But, sighing, she stood up and followed the team back to their locker room in defeat. The house of cards just wasn’t enough. It didn’t steal enough luck to get them the victory. Perhaps if the entire team did it?
Featured Characters
Kresta Renstill The wikipage input value is empty (e.g. <code>SomeProperty::, [[]]</code>) and therefore it cannot be used as a name or as part of a query condition. The wikipage input value is empty (e.g. <code>SomeProperty::, [[]]</code>) and therefore it cannot be used as a name or as part of a query condition. The wikipage input value is empty (e.g. <code>SomeProperty::, [[]]</code>) and therefore it cannot be used as a name or as part of a query condition. The wikipage input value is empty (e.g. <code>SomeProperty::, [[]]</code>) and therefore it cannot be used as a name or as part of a query condition.