Aleatory, Among Other Things

[Arbor Nolan]

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[Jethro Harker]

Almost immediately a hand plunked enough tickets for three tries down on the ring toss stand's counter. The hand belonged to an arm, which in turn belonged to a smiling young man wearing a pair of black teashade sunglasses. The glasses reflected Arbor's face back at her and hid the young man's eyes completely. The rest of his face was sharply defined and strong with a mop of brown hair that still managed to be unruly despite having been hacked back recently.

It was obvious that he was a Hammel student, she had likely seen him in the halls at some point but a direct meeting had never occurred. Hammel was not big enough for there to be any real strangers running around. Everyone seemed to be on everyone else's periphery.

He seemed to be alone at the moment. Although, with the number of young folk running around at the field day, there was a fair chance that he would run into someone he knew eventually. Whatever was going on behind those teashades, it was obvious he was indulging himself today. It was as though he had shown up here merely to chase off Arbor's cynicism and ruin her attempt at gaining a little passive aggressive glee.

"I'll take three shots, kid," the young man said without losing his grin. He was oddly confident about his chances at this game, although exactly why was a mystery. The ring toss was one of those games that was always thought to be rigged with some unknown method to prevent that all important last shot from letting you win the game and take home whatever large fluffy prize was offered.

[Arbor Nolan]

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[Jethro Harker]

He followed her orders, taking his place behind the white line. Jethro tested the weight of his first ring in his right hand and judged the distance with a practiced eye. With a casual flick of his wrist, he sent the first ring spinning through the air. With a clink it bounced off the neck of a bottle in the first row. An inauspicious start, certainly, but Jethro continued undaunted.

He took his time with each shot but the next ring clattered in the midst of the bottles without managing to loop itself around any of them. The third and final ring bounced off the top of a bottle and flipped end over end to land in the nearby grass. Three misses was usually enough to dissuade the causal player from wasting any more tickets on the game but Jethro's smile was still fixed firmly in place.

He pulled some more tickets out of his pocket and put them on the counter. It seemed he was determined to ruin Arbor's fun. "One more try," he said simply, holding his hand out for another ring. It certainly seemed he knew something that she did not, that easy-going grin betrayed that much about him. He seemed to have one final trick up his sleeve.