[R] Chess For Dummies [Vera / Janice] [FIN]

[Ithiltari]

Vera tapped her pencil against the table as she stared down at the chessboard in thought. She wasn't very good at chess, preferring to play games like Scrabble or Battleship, but Janice loved chess. So Vera was making an effort to play, even though she knew she was going to end up losing. It was just a matter of how long it took for that to happen. They were, of course, at Janice's house, since she did not really approve of Vera's apartment, having serious doubts as to its safety. Vera had only mentioned the attempted mugging in passing, and that had been enough to set off a tirade about how unsafe Destiny City could be at night.

Of course, Janice had known precisely how unsafe the city was, and why. Now Vera did too. They were both part of it, and Vera still hadn't quite forgiven her for that. Oh, sure, she probably would have been - what had Alkaid called it? - awakened eventually, but she'd have at least known more about herself. Instead, she had nothing beyond an attack that wasn't really an attack, and...well, that was really it, wasn't it. Shaking her head once to clear her thoughts, Vera finally moved, sitting back nervously while she waited for Janice.  

[cibarium]

Janice's chess gambits were a refined art of trickery and subtlety, honed by practicing the game with a level of dedication some high school students gave to musical instruments. Where busy parents hadn't been around to occupy and encourage her, her various board games had, and the fondness she held for the chessboard in particular was like that of a favorite aunt or uncle. It was a favorite tool to stave off boredom and loneliness as a child, and today it still remained a favored companion -- almost as if she could conspire with the pieces to push the odds in her favor.

She was a ruthless, intense player; the fact she occasionally picked up a match with Gunn Killingworth made her even more so. She regarded the board with a hand loosely curled under her chin, relaxed but not unfocused, until she finally reached another hand out and plucked up one of her rooks, moving it over a few spaces.

"Something's bothering you," Janice lowly remarked, her eyes still fixed on her carefully scattered arrangement of black pawns and their superiors. "You're not playing as carefully as you usually do."

And her rook toppled one of Vera's knights, and she quietly removed the piece from the board.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera watched Janice move; there was no hesitation, nothing that she would actually consider thought. It was as if the other girl operated on reflex and muscle memory to play chess, and against a player like Vera, it was probably true.

They could play entire games with no sound save the clicking of the pieces against the board, but apparently today wasn't going to be one of those games. Vera had been worried about it, since Janice appeared to be rather too attuned to her moods, as her remark proved. "I," she started, then stopped, sighing. "I was doing some research on Vivianite," Vera continued, keeping the conversation lightly coded even here.

"There's not a lot known about it," she mumbled as another piece was finally moved.  

[cibarium]

The code was as much habit as it was precaution. More often than not Janice's home was devoid of the Drs. Fitzpatrick; Vera had met her father once or twice, stern and serious, and her mother was a bit of a fussy, sighing sort who caused Janice to bristle noticeably. They weren't here at the moment, however, busy with their work at Destiny City Memorial as they usually were.

Janice paused. Her eyes flicked up to regard Vera's, for just a second. Then they were back on the board.

"I see."

She brought her hand out again, carefully; her sharp fingertips guided a pawn in its march forward. She stared at the pawn as if she were expecting it to get up on its own and move another space. Nothing happened. Her eyes still didn't leave the piece.

"Are you worried this will affect your grade on your project?"  

[Ithiltari]

Vera was staring off over Janice's shoulder while she waited for a response. Her heart was beating slightly faster, worried about the questions she'd be asked. She really didin't know how to explain what she'd learned, except by telling the truth. And that was probably a bad idea.

Purple eyes flickered down to watch the march of the pawn. "Yes," she replied quietly, moving another piece of her own. "It's often said that school has an impact on the rest of your life." She looked directly at Janice then and smiled a little lopsidedly. "I think this project will follow me forever."  

[cibarium]

For a long while, Janice didn't answer.

They spent the next several minutes communicating solely through their chess game, Vera's delicate, smooth hands carefully handling the affairs of her kingdom of white -- her opponent, she had hands like recluse spiders, large and strange and angular; her fingers twitched flightily over the black pieces before settling on the ones she would move, somewhat jerkily. Hesitantly.

Four turns later, Janice had lost a pawn and a bishop: a pawn and a bishop she'd had no intent on sacrificing. She stared at the board some more, clenching and unclenching her jaw, one of her hands under the table, drumming its fingers against her thigh.

"So you're giving up already?"

She tapped her remaining bishop against the square it was stationed on; it was her turn, she wasn't moving quite yet. "You've... barely started, Vera, that's... not the way you should be going about it."  

[Ithiltari]

Vera hadn't said anything - she rarely said anything to Janice that was unasked for, and the verbal dance they were doing was actually rather unusual. The coded references to the Negaverse was ingrained habit at this point, and it gave the pink-haired girl an obscure sort of satisfaction to dance around the main point of her thoughts.

The capture of Janice's chess pieces was a surprise, and Vera spent some time studying her friend while she waited for her to move. She had obviously struck some kind of nerve, there, though she wasn't quite sure why. Hadn't Janice wanted her in the Negaverse?

"Giving up?" she responsed, somewhat more sharply than she'd intended. "I said nothing about giving up." Vera's arms were folded across her chest and she stared at the chessboard because it was easier than looking at Janice right now.  

[cibarium]

Vera's tone was uncharacteristically, unexpectedly sharp: across the table there was a sudden intake of breath, Janice's jaw clenching again, her grip faltering around her bishop. She moved it hastily, unthinkingly, into a position of obvious vulnerability.

"Vera--"

-- she started, and stopped. Her eyes stayed fixed on the board, except then one of Vera's hands crawled into view and chased her gaze away so she was looking at the edge of the table.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera moved to capture Janice's bishop almost mechanically, not really paying attention to what she was doing. There was something wrong, and as annoyed or angry as Vera was, she did not want to hurt Janice. At all.

"Janice," she said, very softly, still staring at the chessboard, "I'm sorry." Vera looked up and sat back from the table, folding her hands in her lap. Her purple eyes were shadowed and serious and it was a long moment before she spoke again. "Is there something you want to talk about?"  

[cibarium]

"You shouldn't be apologizing," Janice said, and her eyes were all over the place; flicking up to Vera for a second before falling back down to her hand over a pawn. "You didn't... you haven't done anything." She sank in her chair a few millimeters, her pose decompressing a bit with a soft exhale. The pawn moved a space forward. With her other hand, she pushed a lock of her plum hair up away from her eyes.

Vera had always been able to read her like she was a children's book. She was obvious. She knew that she was, they were both obvious. The tension in the air was obvious; it was an elephant trampling around the Fitzpatrick home and wrecking all the furniture, trashing her parents' competitive tango trophies.

"No," said Janice.

"I'm fine."  

[Ithiltari]

Vera knew that Janice was lying, just as Janice would know if she was lying. Especially about something like this. Huffing out a short, sadly amused laugh, she stared at the chess board some more, idly tapping a pawn against the board as she thought. There wasn't really anything to say, but she wanted to say something to ease the tension between them.

"If you say so," was all she could come up with; she didn't want to push Janice, and Vera was not really very good at conversational anything. She still hadn't moved. "I shouldn't have brought it up."  

[cibarium]

Janice wrung her hands a micrometer from where they were hidden away under the table. She had lied. Maybe she had technically lied to her before, back before -- but not quite this, never so bold-faced and straight about it, not to Vera Valentine. Part of her was aware that she was lying to them both. Another part of her that didn't want to be aware of this fact made it impossible to for her to backtrack, reopen the topic, say she was kidding and what was on her mind.

"It's not a big deal," (she lied again.) "Did you want to do something else, you're probably bored with chess."

She realized that she was not very good at talking to Vera.

Her eyes were locked on the pawn, Vera's soft and slender fingers tapping it against the board over and over; Janice almost expected her to twirl it like she did with her pencils, every third tap, a rhythm you could play a song to. Always perfect and always the same.  

[Ithiltari]

The pawn continued to tap while Vera thought; whether or not it was about her impending move was a toss-up. She didn't seemed perturbed by the fact that her friend was lying to her, or even that she knew. Her face was serene in it's blankness, her purple eyes not focused on the board in front of her.

"I think we should finish this game first," Vera said, finally placing the pawn for her move. "I wouldn't want to leave a game hanging." There might have been another meaning to her words. Then again, there might not be. It was occasionally difficult to tell, with Vera. She was usually unaware of any layers to her words, but she was learning, which made her slightly harder to read, even for Janice.  

[cibarium]

Janice quietly cleared her throat in response, her murky gaze regarding the checkered game board and the arrangement made by all the remaining pieces. She scanned the current setup once, and again, an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth quirking in a curious expression, raising a finger to draw imaginary lines over everything before settling her arm back down on the table.

"That's not going to happen, though," said Janice, leaning back in her chair and bringing her hand up again to rest the backs of her fingers against a cheek. "Checkmate, Valentine."

"I lose."


[FIN]