[OPEN Mini-Log] After the Storm

[witheredpeonies]

Who: Annabel Lee (witheredpeonies) & You
What: Clearing her Mind
When: After the Gala
Where: Oak and Iron Tavern
Warning(s): None yet, threads will carry warnings in subject lines

The Gala had been eventful, and now Annabel Lee is tempted to close herself up like a fan. A dangerous thought, given she genuinely does need allies, given the danger represented by everyday life in Pumpkin Hollow. So she figures out a way to be out in public without feeling vulnerable: she brings her personal chess board to the Oak and Iron, sets it up, and begins playing openings for herself, while offering a mild smile to anyone who walks into the room.

Care for a game?

Note: Annabel Lee is a very good chess player; she's defeated every potential suitor for several years in a ruthless manner. While it's not impossible to beat her, many characters will not.

Comments

[somebodychildofanyone]

It's a grinding loss, but a comprehensive one. River's momentum dries up, and the tide is so easily turned once that happens.

Her response to checkmate is a long, steady exhalation, followed by turning the board around so they can set up on opposite sides.

[witheredpeonies]

And Annabel does just that. Still not speaking. Her attention is on the pieces, rather than River herself. She's very good at paying attention to the board first.

[somebodychildofanyone]

Black is the more advantaged position, to the experienced player; the ability to react, to counter, is so precious.

River ignores that opportunity entirely in favor of trotting her knights out from behind the pawn line, seemingly intent on seeing how long she can go without breaking her front ranks.

Steady breathing. Steady hands.

[witheredpeonies]

The thing about playing like that is that it leaves the king boxed in, nowhere to go when you attack that front line, focusing on the pawn in front of the king's bishop. Bring everything to bear on it, and you have a blitzkrieg while River's playing with the ponies.

[somebodychildofanyone]

To River's credit, this trap she perceives quickly. Too late, but quickly.

Her little kingdom falls, with another exhale.

She orders a new pot of coffee, a plate of eggs, and then sets her hand on the corner of the board.

It could be turned around again. If she's welcome to play.

[witheredpeonies]

Annabel Lee's gaze lingers on River's hand on the board. "Who taught you to play?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"...First? The priests of Red Troth, father of strife, god of victim and victor. They almost always travel with boards, and ministering soldiers over a game is traditional. But I only got into the habit after I was adopted. My sister, Brianna, plays a lot."

River's ears twitch, droop ever so slightly. Bri would have had such good advice...

[witheredpeonies]

"She's good, isn't she? The person you're used to holding yourself up against?" One finger taps against her lips a couple times gently.

"Set up the board again. We're going to talk through a game."

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Bri'd deny it to your face, but I get the feeling she's comparing herself to people even better."

River turns the board, and sets up patiently for white. She's not in a rush. "...Bri loves the game as a way to get to know people, to teach sometimes. When she's just playing-playing, just for fun, she's this little goblin about it, loves confusing board states where she can pounce on you out of nowhere. Bullies her poor husband endlessly that way."

Things River's said before, but it feels...important, to say them again now.

[witheredpeonies]

"I can't remember the last time I was able to play for fun." Annabel shakes her head, bouncing her curls. "Alright. So why was this the square I attacked? Why is it uniquely interesting?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"...Hrmm." River frowns in deep thought, the solemnity of her expression ruined nearly entirely by the way her ears seem to be attempting flight. The problem, really, is that she sees the game like she would a battlefield, and while chess may be a simulation of war, this rectangle is not a square.

"...Troth's blood, yeah, no, I see it. I knew something was up when you were focusing it down but nobody else can come save the twink when I've got him boxed in like that. Once he's threatened he's gotta do his own murdering and then your backup takes him out. Check and mate."

[witheredpeonies]

"Mhm. So, how do you deal with that situation? Castling is one of the classic ways, but not the only one. Using your knights to defend that square can help. And, of course, pressing the attack so your opponent can't keep coming for your side of the board."

[somebodychildofanyone]

"...I don't castle much. Feels like I'm giving up momentum I could be using to seize better ground."

A pawn forward, to free her ship.

"...I hope you won't take this as poor sportsmanship but I wasn't trying to win that game very hard. I was hoping to get a handle on the knights so I don't end up behind the woodshed at their hands again."

[witheredpeonies]

"There's a path a knight can take, one move at a time, to travel the entire board. All sixty-four squares. Trace it out sometime. It's not an arcane sigil, but it does give you a feel for their motion."

She nudges a pawn forward as well.

[somebodychildofanyone]

The far pawn on the same side, the queen's, freeing River's rook.

"It's interesting to me, that you study a shadow of war, of all the games to let into your heart. I'm sure you noticed that battle isn't this polite."

[witheredpeonies]

"You're right. Battle isn't this polite. This...rhythmic. This calculated. I can't tell where an actual enemy will be in 'three turns', because turns are wholly meaningless on an actual battlefield."

More chess-playing happens here.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"There's no terrain, your troops always follow orders, nobody found the footmen hung over an hour before the fight..."

River grins. Her approach this game is...open. Not chaotic, not random, but favoring creating empty space.

[witheredpeonies]

"It's bloodless. It's abstracted."

Annabel Lee pauses, gesturing to show the choice she has in pieces to move, and which ones are going to cause River more problems.

[somebodychildofanyone]

River considers the offered information for a long time, doing nothing louder than drinking her coffee. Her eventual move is against Annabel's knight; deny the resource she doesn't understand, try to put the game on her terms.

Quietly, so quietly: "...We don't get the courtesy of abstraction much, do we?"

[witheredpeonies]

"No, we don't. Life is too real, too visceral. We experience it wholly, whether we'd like to or not." Annabel allows her knight to be taken. But she's positioned her bishops to be deadly weapons this game, like a pair of scissors.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"We are all of us condemned to live, and then to die."

River moves a rook, to meet the trap head on. She's ready to bleed.

"...We both walked off that dance floor bleeding, Annabel."

[witheredpeonies]

"What surprised me was how many other people wanted to bring bandages and kindness. To make it okay. To fix the situation--for both of us." Even if it couldn't be fixed that night.

The rook vanishes under Annabel's hand. Under one of the bishops.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"People will do that to you. Kindness is part of who we are." River's losing momentum again, playing to eliminate threats instead of advance her victory. "You've got a fierce friend in Zelda."

[witheredpeonies]

"That's not my experience of the world." That comes out quiet, soft, uncertain. She doesn't move a piece right away, studying the boardstate for a long moment.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"...Yeah. It hasn't sounded like you've gotten much kindness." River closes her eyes, and goes for it.

She's ready to bleed.

"...Zelda made a claim in your name, when she tracked me down. But I wanna hear it from you."