Original artwork by  Luciellia, go give her all your accolades on her post, here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22758008/

~~~

For my birthday on March 6th, my darling Amaranth, commissioned Luci for this fabulous sketchpage of Amethystine once more in the role of 'Ames Sond.' It's a part I absolutely love seeing the python play, and it has come up a number of times before:

Sssskyfall
You Know Our Names
Sssspectre

~

Previously, Ama had done them all, but she decided to outsource this year, as a surprise, and to free herself up to perform an even greater coup on my delicate - and already tenderized - gift-receiving organ (which I supposed would be my heart ; __ ; ). Every year, she has out-done herself. The even greater gift will be revealed soon!

You might not believe it, as I'm still here, telling you about it, but this sketchpage by Luci killed me (in the best possible way), because it represents this tradition between myself and Ama, and it means a lot to me to have it continue, no matter what form it takes. Of course, it doesn't _have_ to go on, she could have stopped after the first few times, and that would have been okay, but every time it's extended, it's made all the more meaningful. Unwavering has been her devotion to my cinematic fixation.

Also, it's a reminder of a major 'bond'ing experience I was lucky enough to convince my mantis to undertake with me; watching all of the Bond movies from Dr. No to Skyfall, over the course of just over a year, leading up to the release of Spectre. Regardless of your opinions of the Bond franchise, the important part is that Ama stuck with it, and with me, through the good times (Craig & Connery and half of Brosnan) and the 'bad' (Moore), the thick and thin. Excellently, she recognized how important it was to me, and did not falter, even amid the hardships.

THE last thing I want to say is:

By some stroke of luck, Nae didn't come to hate the 007 franchise after being raked over its assorted coals of varying temperatures. Even greater still, my petite mantis took an instant liking to Daniel Craig's Bond, and she fell in love Casino Royale as a whole. So, her affection for that film in particular is a source of joy for both of us, and to have this page be themed upon it - or upon the Ames Sond version, 'Casssino Royale' - made this gift all the sweeter. There was even a time when, out of the blue, she asked to watch Casino Royale again, in the middle of 2016 - you would have thought she'd have still been totally sated for Bondian intake at that point, having only concluded the watching of the series with our viewing of Spectre in very early 2016.

~

I love you, Ama, thank you so much, for everything. <3

And thank you Luci, too! :}===<

---

Now, another tradition!

I will once again transcribe a scene from 'Casssino Royale' as I have done in the past (all three of the other Bond/Sond links above have written scenes attached to them, if you hadn't noticed).

Of course, while the two films, human and anthro, possess the same general plotline and structure, there are key differences. We shall see one of the moments that exists within the Ames Sond version where it most deviates from the more well-known cinematic venture.

Last time, we saw more of Ames' and Naesper's dinner, whereas the 'real' movie skipped straight to after-dinner drinks for their witty banter between Bond and Vesper.

Herein, we will watch Sond facing off against Le Chiffre, the cold, calculating mongoose villain, who can be seen in the upper left portion of the above art.


~~~


Cards On the Table -or- When the Chips are Down -or- Razing the Stakes

~

With a soft but resounding thud, somewhat muted by the thin layer of green baize upon the poker table, the weight of Sond's Walther settled.

In that moment, all was still. The door into the rest of the casino had just shut, blocking out the sounds of merriment and carefree gambling amid the attractive and avaricious throng. The world outside no longer existed - all that mattered was the collection of criminals, international fugitives and enemy agents who sat and stood in various places around the room, caught off-guard by the shift in atmosphere.

Them, and of course, Naesper. Ames' beautiful ally was more or less behind him, he knew. He was counting on it.

All eyes within the private high-stakes lounge had focused on the python when he had drawn his weapon from the holster concealed under his dinner jacket and slowly, calmly moved to lay it down on the table, never actually placing his scaly finger on the trigger, nor ever approaching the safety.

Sond had made sure, in his choice of how to place it, to point the barrel of the pistol, already affixed with a silencer, squarely at his opponent. Despite the apparent surrendering of his sidearm, his message was clear.

The noise of it exiting his claws and dropping the final half inch was as clear as day in the sudden hush of the room. A death knell.

"That's hardly what I meant when I said we should show our hands, Mr. Sond," said Le Chiffre with a scoff and that smug smirk that the snake had come to despise.

Despite his inner animosity, the naga smiled genially, and replied. "Perhaps not, but even you must admit that it acts quite effectively as a trump card, Cynictis," said Sond, taking care to carefully cradle the criminal financier's real and formerly hidden name upon his long, forked tongue.

A split-second of scowling flashed across the muzzle of the mongoose before his expression returned to placidity. "You really think so? Hardly, double-oh-ess." Not to be outdone, Le Chiffre had responded in kind, with what should have been privileged information, the only newly issued internal callsign of the serpentine spy. "If you're clumsily trying to tell me that you could have and still could kill me at any time--"

"Ah, you're smarter than you look," Ames interjected.

"While your looks tell me you might just be stupid enough to think you could survive such a course of action," Le Chiffre said, visibly tiring of the verbal sparring, he leaned back, crossing his arms. He nodded forward once at Sond, and the five guards around the periphery of the room stepped forward. "As you can see, I have five kings, so to speak. I think that beats your single little ace in the hole," said Chiffre, glancing down dismissively at Sond's PPK.

Five of a kind is, of course, unbeatable, due to being impossible to achieve without cheating.

It was no secret that Le Chiffre was a cheater.

It only meant that Sond had to cheat more effectively.

The goons' stood at attention around the poker table, awaiting orders. Their weapons were as clear as day, and always had been, within their expensive but ill-fitting suits. Just as obvious were the ever-present signs that the quintet of men would have been more comfortable in fatigues, holding assault rifles - as opposed to the oversized handguns under their suit jackets.

They may have even erroneously thought that proficiency with such weapons would translate to skill with a pistol. Nevertheless, the python didn't intend to discover which of the grunts had been avid shooting range attendees and which had not.

Sond continued to run his left hand over his collection of chips, idly re-straightening the neatly stacked towers. "Relax, no matter how much I might enjoy doing so, and despite all the chances I've had to do so, I'm not here to kill you."

"Is that so?"

"My orders are to capture-- well, invite you to come with me. My employers rather thought that you would willingly become a guest of the state, considering your rotten financial luck as of late."

Sond's steady series of successes and Le Chiffre's mounting losses in the ongoing poker game were sure to be putting a strain on the scarred mammal's designs. The glorified weasel's setbacks were compounded as the game had only been devised after his recent manipulation of stocks through sabotage had become merely a case of _attempted_ sabotage and a massive loss of capital through the markets, thanks to the snake.

"It's sure to be mutually beneficial," added Ames, "they'll treat you much less roughly than I will if you refuse our generous offer."

"You said you weren't going to kill me, Mr Sond, so threats are hardly--"

"I said I'm not here to kill you. 'Going to' is still on the table, whereas 'here to' only denotes my original, ostensible task. And of course, there's the matter of harm without lethality," hissed Sond, his scales audibly rustling below the table alongside his sibilance, adding further menace to his suddenly hard tone, which had shifted from its original amicable state.

The mongoose's gaze darted around the room - his face remained calm, but his eyes were once again his tell, that only Sond, still staring at Le Chiffre unblinkingly, could see: he was shaken.

Nevertheless, after a subtle breath - which may as well have been a loud meditative sigh in the game of minuscule emotional hints, the herpestid's icy surface reformed. "I daresay you've shown your hand too soon, double-oh-ess." With that, he nodded his 'five kings,' who still surrounded the table and Sond, forward.

They took one step before they paused at the python's swift raising of a hand. They were rightly cautious of the constrictor. It took a moment for them to register that he had simply, apparently, signalled to the bartender for a drink.

"Is that your last request, spy?" Le Chiffre asked, nearly spitting the last word.

"No, I just wanted to point out that I haven't shown my entire hand. I have another ace up my sleeve. Every good barman has a price, I'm sure you know."

With arms crossed, the frog behind the bar just smiled and nodded. The five grunts looked warily between the two; reptile and amphibian. Neither were wielding any weapons. The fact that the python had smuggled his pistol into the game past the metal detectors had been surprise enough. The idea that the bartender might have some even more threatening ordinance stashed under the bar played through their minds. Did Sond really have the upper hand?

Just then, the feline woman who had been only recently eliminated from the poker game, appeared to faint. Most heads in the room turned to look, save for the most dedicated three within the quintet of guards. Had she been overcome with the stress of the situation? She hardly seemed the type.

Then another of the less-than-legitimate patrons of the casino, one of the players who had not yet been cast out of the game, with his palm to his forehead and another steading paw on a side table, collapsed. Le Chiffre glanced away for a split second, but returned almost instantly to glare at Ames.

"Keep your eyes on the overgrown worm," sneered the mongoose, commanding his lieutenants.

One by one, all the other players fell, the last to fall was the African rhino, even his considerable constitution being overcome by whatever had obviously been slipped into every drink the hidden-ace bartender had made.

"One pair does not beat five of a kind, Mr Sond. My men did not partake of anything, by design."

"Of course they didn't, no good soldier would. I'm just tying up loose ends. Thank you for the inspiration, by the way," said Sond, harkening back to the tetrodotoxin in his drink the night before.

Naesper, in her elegant amethyst dress and silver choker, stepped cautiously behind Ames and put a hand on his shoulder. Her nervous look around the room was calmed by the contact, then even moreso by the feeling of the python's large hand enclosing her smaller digits.

"You're quite welcome," Le Chiffre said, smiling insincerely. For a moment, he held the cruel mockery of polite civility, then his face fell as he came to a decision. "Enough of this. Take him."

As the five enforcers took their first step forward, encircling Sond all the more tightly, their hands swiftly moving toward their poorly hidden sidearms, Ames blithely said, "You should have asked what my third ace was," as he slipped with serpentine smoothness, under the table, with Naesper tucked close to his side.

At the same time, Le Chiffre was yanked violently downward by the snake's tail, his jaw cracking loudly on the ornate wooden lip of the green baize-surfaced furniture.

A much louder eruption of noise sounded in the split second after the snake, the mantis and the mongoose had darted downward. A sharp, resounding detonation; but not devastating, not deafening, perhaps not even loud enough to be heard through the thick, sound-proofed walls of the private poker lounge.

Sond was counting on it, not wishing to draw the attention of the muscle outside.

The explosion was centered within the stack of casino chips that Sond had been so meticulously arranging throughout his conversation with Le Chiffre. A tiny packet of plastic explosives with a similarly non-metallic remote trigger, was set off by the snake.

A flurry of improvised shrapnel lanced outward in all directions; the opulent, golden filigree details upon every chip and the thin wafer of gold that formed a disc in the middle of every chip kept the plastic from total disintegration and turned them into dozens of gleaming, circular daggers.

It was only effective at close range, of course, but the python always knew he would be surrounded.

The five kings were laid low, if not outright killed.

All others in the room - be they conscious or not - were safe as they all rested below the all-important dividing line between kill zone and safe haven: the height at which the surface of the table sat, atop the lounge's raised central area.

Dragging up the dazed, so-called mastermind by his neck, Ames resumed his interupted explanation. "That was the third ace. Maybe you thought I had a queen in my hand, but she's my fourth," Sond said, embracing Naesper in his spare hand, holding her to him. She smiled and pressed into the large python's side.

"And the fifth?" sighed Cynictis.

"You, of courssse," hissed Ames.

The mongoose, whose hands gripped weakly at the snake's wrist, who had seemingly been working himself up toward a fight, squirming in Sond's grip, fell limp.

He appeared to have given up the ghost, seemingly admitting defeat.

But then, his head rose again, and he spoke from behind blank eyes and with a voice not entirely his own.

"If you think you've won, you're not fully aware of the game we've been playing, Mr Sond. You may find the contents of your hand are not what they seem."

He fell silent again, and Sond was left to glance at Naesper.

"Mindgames, Ames," murmured the mantis, into the naga's tuxedo-clad shoulder. She leaned up to kiss his cheek.

Sond said nothing, and escorted the nearly limp mammal out through the bartender's concealed service entrance.

~

The python and the mantis were soon flying back to England with their bagged mongoose in tow.

A nagging feeling haunted Sond throughout his return journey. Namely, that he would need to return to the casino that lay in the shadow of the black mountain. The luxurious facade was sure to conceal much more than even his sharp eyes had seen.


~~~

(Of course, we all know that this is only roughly half-way through 'Casssino Royale' and that the true villain is yet to be revealed, and yet other revelations remain to be discovered. But, more on that later.)

---

Amethystine/Ames Sond © to Amethystine.
Asazaki Nae/Naesper Lynzaki © to Amaranth.

James Bond 007 and related IP © to Ian Fleming, Albert R Broccoli's EON Productions and MGM.

.