The Bard's Ha'p'orth Bet

"I'm in a gambling mood."

Terror floods the arena, arenas perhaps, as The Bard pulls out a coin. Someone speaks up, an attempt at a rebuke coming out as a desperate plea.

"What kind of madman risks a coin flip at a juncture like this?"

The Bard, already growing cold but doing his best to keep dancing for the sake of the hope of honest observers remaining, musters a response that comes out as horrifyingly heartless.

"I would imagine there are two kinds. Those who imagine the outcome might mean their salvation, and perhaps think they've seen how it ends well enough to stack the deck in their favor."

Silence falls and The Bard creaks to a halt, as if frozen. Hearts shake and then pound as hardly a breath is heard anywhere. Stuck between the agony of not knowing and the risk of finding out, someone finally asks.

"What's the second?"

"Those who realize it doesn't matter in the slightest. God's plans do not fail and are not delayed."

The Bard flips the penny high in the air and snaps his fingers at the apex, once again running back the story of the tiniest and highest hopes finding refuge in the castle, safe through The Catastrophe, though finding the details shimmer on page as if many iterations thread through, what might be called externally, a single pass. From elsewhere can be heard echoing through halls of dream, thresholds, and all manner of spaces between "Since when do castles float around?" "Why are there so many places called 'Earth'?" "Who has the audacity to keep speaking about themselves in third person?? Oh..." amongst the many other questions heard in the voices of children, and children grown.

The penny falls to the stage, landing all the same, though The Bard had turned to stone. The arenas do not celebrate at their enemy removed from the equation, however, knowing full well midnight approaches, all the same as well, and midnights yet still. And even though The Bard is here mindless, what he indicated is to happen, still will.