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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:29 pm
Summer was a haze of hospital visits and shoving around youma by this point; fall was fast becoming a haze of school and shoving around youma. Janice had buried herself in her schoolwork more than she ever had somehow, going so far that she had probably read through the entirety of each of her textbooks at least once apiece. And then she'd buried herself just as neck-deep in her Negaverse work: if she wasn't eating or sleeping or at school or chewing through homework, she was training in the subspace.
It was inevitable that one day she'd stop in her tracks and realize that it had been a long time, a terribly long time, since she had last been to a good coffee shop.
Coffee shops were always tinged with memories that she felt she was better off ignoring -- but there she was sitting at a table by the window. It felt like it should have been raining or something. It wasn't. Instead the weather was sort of ignorably average, and Janice sipped at her coffee and busied her thoughts away from her surroundings by splitting her attention between an assignment sheet and a chess board.
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:35 pm
He'd stopped in for Chai, nothing else, just something to take his mind off everything else. All the complicated little details of life, yoma, and homework. The last two mixed poorly on the best of days, never mind when you added in horrid words like 'relationships' which were their own brand of trouble.
He'd seen her when he entered, and he'd meant to just walk out, but the chess board she was dividing her attention with, was what drew him in. After all what else was there to say... Hi there killed any good civilians lately?
"... Is this game taken?" He asked approaching her and standing at a 'respectful distance'. After all you just 'never knew' about coffee drinkers.
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Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:25 pm
One point to Zac for social graces, at least. It definitely would have been more than a little awkward to walk up to the table talking about Negaverse business in general, and if Janice had known he'd thought about it, she would have been grateful he didn't. Instead she just regarded the unusually shorter boy with the same muted interest that she did with anyone else she vaguely recognized as a Negaverser before pushing the chair across from her out with a leg.
"I can reset the board," she replied. "And we can talk about that mineralogy project we're supposed to be working on."
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 6:57 am
He nodded briskly and his eyes skated over the board that she had already laid out... "Very nice..." He said quietly.
He sat down carefully in the chair she shoved out with her foot and let his bag slip off his shoulder to rest beside him, the normal assortment of notebooks and pens peeking out from within easy reach that he might take notes of the oddest kind at a moments notice.
Mineralogy, he smothered a small chuckle since no one who knew what school he attended would believe he was working on a project with a girl, even a 'questionably effeminate' one.
"Black or white?" He said tipping his head.
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Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 6:51 pm
For all onlookers who knew what school Zac attended, he might as well been sitting with a fellow Hillworth student... Janice could certainly pass off as one, as she was dressed far from girly unless piano ties were suddenly a hot fashion commodity amongst the ladyfolk.
On Zac's question she pondered a bit before quickly putting the pieces back in their place with a few lightning-quick strokes of her hands -- this was clearly something she'd done a lot of. "I have no preference today," she responded, into a long sip of her coffee. "So you can pick, or we can flip a coin or something."
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Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 6:56 pm
"Black if you don't mind then..." He replied, he had no true preference for the color, he just hated coin flips. They were tedious and not as strictly random as they were hoped to be, after all there was a greater chance that the coin would land on one face than the other strictly due to the design of the coin.
He did nod though quite impressed at the speed with which she rest the board, he was -thrilled actually.
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Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 7:00 pm
"Fair enough," replied Janice, and she scooted the board forward a few inches so nobody would have to do much stretching to reach across it. So, the game had begun, and she had the first move.
"Tell me," she started, sliding her first pawn forward with her fingertips. "What do you think... of those sailor senshi?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 7:06 pm
He glanced at her piece and moved his own with a small thoughtful tightening of his lips.
"I wonder how many of them there could be, and if they act as individuals or if there is some greater mind behind their actions." He said evasively, more for 'public consumption' than for personal opinion... in lower towns he added "They fascinate me..."
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 8:52 pm
"Interesting answer." Slowly but surely they continued their gambits in between words, moving pieces and sipping at their drinks. Janice gave Zac a look of muted interest as the first of her pieces was removed from the board, and a ghost of a smile almost tugged at the corners of her mouth -- it had been a while she's she'd played against someone with some level of experience.
Besides herself, anyway.
"You don't know for sure what they're up to?" she mused. "But you have a point, some of them seem like they know what they're doing... a lot of them don't. Whoever's been giving them direction hasn't been doing a very good job."
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:03 am
"I find some of their attempts at justifying the morality of their own actions to be... fascinating." He said watching the board with deep pleasure. This... this was fantastic...far better than abusing amateurs at the park for a few dollars.
"Many seem to subscribe to a sort of 'the end justifies the means' but isn't that just what they frown upon?" He gave a small shrug. "Had they less among them that acted as 'rogue elements', primarily going out on their own rather than organizing into a viable unit I think I might think better of them."
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:32 pm
And with a practiced flick of the wrist, one of Zac's knights was captured away from the board. Janice steepled her fingers under her chin and leaned forward a bit as she considered both the game and the conversation. "It's all madness with them, isn't it? And each one has a different method to it."
Zac made a move. Janice slid another piece another few spaces. "They're up to something, they have their own goals, I'm sure. But they seem to have no real leadership to move them towards it, and you know what happens when you have an anarchic state running around in the streets."
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:35 am
With a flick of his own fingers Zac took one of her towers, it put his other piece in a not un-respectable place either, not perfect, but he was not expecting to win this.
"Chaos... self interest over the interest of the whole. I wonder..." He mused as he studied the board as much as was sizing up his opponent.
"I wonder... if some of them can take orders at -all-, it will surely hurt them in the long run. I don't know how they could not -see- that. Acting strictly as a rogue agency, with no logic and little but brute force or... 'magic' on your side' is a long term invitation to be killed or discarded... perhaps both. Don't you think?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:05 pm
"Who knows," she replied with a shake of her head, "who really knows. All I know is that the city would be a lot better off without them." Janice's eyes refocused on the board, paying careful attention to the artful arrangement both she and Zac had given their respective pieces. There were subtle signs of a trap waiting to be sprung on both sides... it was just a matter of who would wander into whose first.
"They've definitely caused me enough grief," she sighed, plucking her remaining rook out of danger's way. "Checkmate, by the way."
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Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:29 pm
Zac's eyes glittered with approval and interest as he took in the board, the ways it could have gone. He was at least not rude enough to whip out his note book then and there to take notes.
"Well done." He said quietly. "And agreed, thank you for the game and the conversation...I may have to follow up with you about it soon." He nodded and stood, wishing her well with her studies and her future games.
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