“Ahh, Gleek.” She said rolling the word around in her honeyed voice as if savoring it for the first time, her brow drawn down in a little frown at the unfamiliar word as if she was trying to file it away. “Je m’excuse.” 

She followed his explanation, words, hand gestures and all with great attention. Not because she needed to learn the game, but because she wanted to know how he viewed the game. There was much information to be learned about his own techniques in his manner of explanation. The order with which he listed the rules, the ones he repeated, the things he glazed over. It help to paint a greater picture in her head and though her face remained passively curious she was grinning inwardly. She might actually have fun with this, she realized. Albeit fun that was not what anyone would expect. 

She looked up from where his hands held the deck, meeting her captain’s eyes. Eyes which seemed filled with incredulity and alcohol as he added his questions. She hadn’t anticipated that, though she should have. He was a clever man, even when in his cups. 

No, the Sun King and his Navy were not so poppish as that. That she’d met the Sun king was of no matter here, she hadn’t played Gleek with him, simply curtsied and been shuffled on. One of many country nobles gifted with a chance to meet the king. And she had played in the Navy, she’d needed to play, to blend in. Admitting that wouldn’t suit her purposes here. She did not lie by habit, it was messy and easy to confuse. But she could weave her tale around the truth.

“I was in the Navy, yes. But I was hiding as you can imagine, they do not let women in and so I had to conceal my gender. Though I did not do so well in the end.” She felt her slender surgeon’s fingers lift as if of their own accord and skim lightly over the brand on her cheek before she forced herself to stop and snatch her fingers away, her face flickering in a flash of intense anger. At herself, at the brand at the circumstances of getting the brand it would have been hard to say. She hadn’t told anyone the full story of it, but it was tale enough burned into her flesh for someone with half a wit to guess at. She cleared her honeyed throat, schooled her features and continued.

“So I played the part of the scholar and recluse and did not socialize much. I did not join in their card games, I did not join them in carousing.”

This too was not strictly true. She had joined in their carousing just enough to stave off suspicion. She’d been dragged to a brothel on more than one occasion and had with equal frequency paid for a lady’s wares. Nicki had kissed and fondled like the best of them in public and then when taken to the woman’s rooms had played the part of the fumbling boy, shy and uncertain. The women had been happy enough to take her coin and let her scuttle off. Well all but one. She had to fight a blush off at the memory of one, Marie, who had been so sweet and kind and had tried to educate poor Nicki, to make “Him” a man. It had been exceedingly awkward up until her discovery. After… Well suffice to say Nicki had gotten her coin’s worth. She shook off the memories of that particular evening and pulled them back to the moment.
 
“Perhaps that was a mistake, perhaps it lead to scrutiny and my discovery. I do not know. Had I played things differently perhaps I would not be about to lose coin to the lot of you.” She said and let her lips crook at the corner, her normal answer to a smile. 

“So thank you for your lessons in this Gleek. I am ready to begin whenever you are.”