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Fiddle's alarm clock went ignored, its harsh beeping muffled by thick walls and her intense focus on the action happening on screen. Sleep, while certainly necessary, had seemed like a less productive use of time than online gambling. It had been maybe eight hours since she had started and in that time she had played approximately 800 hands (assuming she hadn't deviated too much from her hourly average of a hundred), winning just under half of them. She could have boosted this number of course using any number of the strategies peddled by supposed card sharks and numbers wizards but that would have diluted most of the fun.

Blackjack was a game of pure numbers, an example of random chance that had been carefully prodded at and quantified by centuries of experts. The odds were always the same each time you played: the house edge was about 2% (when she wasn't bothering with basic strategy of course) and she won about 48% of hands played. If she had been keeping track Fiddle would have found that of her 385 odd wins 19 of them would have been through being dealt a blackjack meaning that the remaining 366 were the result of standard hit-hit-stay play.

The money that won and lost (she just about broke even, having lost 4160 dollars and winning 3850 back) was entirely secondary. Fidelity got her rush just from experiencing the odds. If she had her way she would have spent another eight hours sitting there at her desk surrounded by empty energy drink cans and stale beers she had forgotten to finish. But while the incessant blaring of the mechanical clock could be ignored the two biological ones were much harder to brush off.

Turner and Basker, the best and brightest parts of her hectic and confusing life, had come to rescue their mistress from herself. There was nothing the little lady could do when her boys tugged her out of her seat except to reward them with pats on the head. [color=red]"I know boys, I know. Breakfast time.[/color] They eat better than she did, the hounds devouring the steaks pulled out of the fridge for them while Fiddle contented herself with pain medication and cold pizza from the previous day.

Showering was the next step, an ordeal that required two stools. One was to sit on and the other to prop up her gimped leg. Back home her parents had one of the staff on hand to help her, an embarrassment that she was very much glad to be done with. All the babying and concern over her "disability" had been little more than an poor apology for their previous negligence. She had gotten along fine her whole life without them, she didn't need them to start paying attention while she scrubbed down.

Her body rinsed free of soap and her hair more or less combed she set about getting ready for the day, slipping on clothes, watch and leg brace and grabbing her bag. The alarm was finally silenced with a thwap of her cane, a short whistle calling her best boys over to be dressed in their little harnesses. The first time someone accused her of faking it had been enough to guarantee they would never go unemblazoned. With cigarette in mouth and keys in hand Fiddle slipped out of the penthouse inherited from her cousin, beelining for the stairs.

There was a much greater risk of her dying on the steps even if she hadn't been hobbling. The chance of an elevator suddenly collapsing was quite literally infinitesimal, a freak accident less likely than being struck by lighting and winning the lottery in the same day. Stairs on the other hand killed about a 12,000 people a year, of whom the majority had full mobility. The odds couldn't have been more lopsided and yet she still made the "wrong" choice every time. Stumbling down eleven flights seemed like less of a middle finger to the cosmos than riding up and down in the same little box that killed her cousin.

Descending was a deliberate process. Her cane never left the ground at the same time as her feet, keeping her grounded as her stronger leg touched the next step followed by the weaker. Once both were on the same level her stick could be moved ahead, the click of it against the stairs an auditory warning to anyone else insane enough to cling this far. Stronger, weaker, [i]click[/i]. Stronger, weaker, [i]click[/i], all the way down.

And then once she was at ground level it was little more than a mile to Thame's Edge. Easy.

Not at all but Fiddle managed anyway. Her cane and her dogs made sure that no one got too close, giving her a solid circle of space to work with at all times. People tended to ignore her anyway thanks to the combination of her small stature and her obvious injury. Most people just scanned right over her and those that took a second look usually just wanted to gawk. Gawking was fine. She had been stared at and regarded as an object of curiosity ever since she had been chauffeured to little league games. 

The cigarette was stubbed out against a wall and flicked into a trash can, Fidelity pushing open the doors to the university for her furry bodyguards before bringing up the rear. Honors Business, year three. Her last year of fucking about with no goals besides slow motion self-destruction, or at least fucking about with no goals while being funded by both parents. Once she had her degree she'd pick one of them to work for at random and likely never see the other again.

There was still time to kill before class and there wasn't really a better option than hunkering down in one of the common areas. She picked the closest one out of respect for her limited mobility, parking herself next to a much taller (who wasn't?) blond that she might have seen around before but wasn't going to rack her brains over.

[color=red]"Howdy, how ya doing?"[/color] 

With her light drawl and the way she rested her weight on her cane she could have been some Southern gentleman fresh off the plantation, a waved head signalling for the four hundred pounds of pup beside her to sit. Turner and Basker both looked up at the stranger as if sizing him, quietly panting as their mistress made small talk. 

[@LetMeDoStuff]