Eagre slipped the black plastic sunglasses over his eyes.
The world immediately shifted into a cool, muted shade of slate blue, softening the harsh tropical glare of the midday sun.
“Comfortable,” Eagre grumbled, adjusting the frame over his iridescent ear-fins with two claw-tipped fingers.
He stomped across the sand, his massive scaly tail dragging a heavy trench behind him, and drooped his broad upper body into the beach opposite Saira and Crabby.
The flat stone table creaked slightly under the sudden weight of the sea-god’s webbed elbows.
“Welcome to the high-roller’s table, my dear sardine,” Saira purred, leaning back in her waterlogged blazer as she adjusted her sunglasses.
“Table rules are simple: no aquatic hydro-kinesis, no summoning tidal waves to flip the board, and no biting the dealer.” “I don’t need party tricks to defeat a feral land-pest and a tiny armour-plated bottom-feeder,” Eagre hissed, his emerald eyes narrowing behind his dark lenses into razor-sharp slits of absolute, arrogance-fueled confidence.
“I have observed human naval captains playing these primitive parchment-and-bone games in sunken wardrooms for centuries.
I possess a mind capable of calculating deep-sea pressure differentials in my sleep.
This pathetic exercise in human probability will be over in thirty seconds.” Across the stone table, Crabby sat completely motionless.
Behind his miniature aviators, his hidden eye stalks remained entirely unreadable.
He slowly tapped his tiny, rolled-up palm-frond cigar against the edge of the stone, letting a speck of imaginary ash fall, before shuffling the deck of playing cards with terrifying, mechanical speed.
The plastic-coated cards blurred between Crabby’s pincers, making a crisp thrrrt-thrrrt-thrrrt sound that echoed across the quiet beach.
“Deal,” Eagre commanded, thrusting out his chest.
“And let us make this worth my divine time.
If I win, you dismantle that absurd, gaudy clam-stone shrine, hand over those ridiculous ‘architectural’ dice, and promise to never utter the word ‘spooning’ in my presence ever again.” “A heavy stake!” Saira gasped dramatically, clutching her chest.
“And if Crabby or I win?” “If by some impossible lapse in cosmic logic you prevail,” Eagre scoffed, waving a dismissive webbed hand, “I shall personally carry three ton-weight granite boulders out of the deep reef to form the foundation of your pathetic new beach shelter.” “Deal,” Saira agreed with a wicked, radiant grin.
Crabby flicked five cards across the stone table to Eagre with razor-sharp precision, followed by five for Saira, and five for himself.
Eagre picked up his cards with two claw tips, fanning them out before his dark sunglasses.
His breath hitched in his throat.
His luminous ear-fins flared wide with suppressed, ecstatic triumph.
A King of Hearts.
A King of Diamonds.
A King of Clubs.
A King of Spades.
And an Ace of Hearts.
Four of a kind-four kings-on his very first hand.
The odds of drawing such a hand naturally were astronomically low.
It was practically a divine sign from the ocean depths themselves.
“Beginner’s luck, perhaps?” Eagre mused aloud, his voice dripping with unbearable smugness as he carefully laid his cards face down on the flat stone.
“Or perhaps the universe simply recognizes superior intelligence.
I shall not even bother to swap a card.
I stand on my original hand.” “Confident,” Saira noted, swapping two of her cards with a thoughtful hum.
“Crabby?
How many cards for the dealer?” Crabby didn’t take any.
He simply tapped the top of the deck with his pincer, indicating he was standing pat as well.
“Show your pathetic hands and prepare to lose!” Eagre roared, slamming his five cards face up onto the stone table with the force of a hammer strike.
“Four kings and an Ace!
Absolute, indisputable victory!” He leaned back, crossing his scaly arms over his chest, his mouth curving into a razor-sharp, triumphant smirk as he waited for the human to weep and the crab to scuttle away in humiliation.
Saira slowly turned her cards over.
“Pair of nines.
Out of the running.” Eagre chuckled, a deep, rumbling underwater sound.
“As expected from a land-dweller.” Then, Crabby moved.
With painful, deliberate slowness, the little crustacean used his right claw to flip his five cards face up, one by one.
First card: Five of Spades.
Second card: Five of Hearts.
Third card: Five of Diamonds.
Fourth card: Five of Clubs.
Eagre’s smirk faltered slightly behind his sunglasses.
“Four fives?
Impressive for a decapod, but four kings beats four fives.
I still win.” Crabby slowly turned over his fifth and final card.
Fifth card: The Fifth Five of spades.
Eagre froze.
His pupils shrank to Microscopic points behind his dark lenses.
He stared at the five cards laying in a neat row in front of the crab.
“Wait,” Eagre whispered, his voice cracking violently.
“Five…five of spades?!
There are only four fives in a standard deck of cards!” Crabby casually reached out with his left pincer, swept the entire pot of wild mangoes, polished sea-pebbles, and Eagre’s personal pride toward his side of the table, and took a long, slow draw from his unlit palm-frond cigar.
“Five of a kind!” Saira cheered, clapping her hands together with ecstatic delight.
“The mythical High-Roller Special!
Dealer wins!
House rules dictate that five beats four every single time!” “HE CHEATED!” Eagre screamed, slamming his webbed hands on the stone table as he leapt to his tail so fast he knocked his stone seat over into the sand, his gills pumping wild purple mist into the hot afternoon air.
“HE IS USING A RIGGED DECK!
THERE ARE TWO FIVE OF SPADES ON THE TABLE!
THAT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!” “Oh, Eager, don’t be a sore loser,” Saira scolded gently, adjusting her sunglasses and patted his webbed hand.
“In high-society beach poker, we respect the dealer’s craft.
Besides, a deal is a deal!
Three one-ton granite boulders from the deep reef, if you please.
Crabby needs them for the shrine’s new eastern wing.” Crabby clicked his pincers once, lowered his dark sunglasses slightly to peer at the furious sea-god with supreme, unspoken arrogance, and went right back to shuffling the loaded deck.
Eagre grabbed his head with both hands, let out a long, gurgling howl of absolute rage, and slammed his face directly onto the stone table.