a second miracle

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ A small tea table is just right there, in the middle of the plane. A solitary figure sits at it, and atop it is a chessboard. All of the pieces are scattered across the table except for Bernkastel's and the pink, blonde witch on the other side of the board. Every now and then, she'll take a sip of her tea and maybe rearrange her pieces in a certain way that only she understands, but scatters them again.

Directly in the middle of the board, Bernkastel takes the pieces of the little girl swinging a purse, and sets her in the middle. ]

You can be a stand-in piece.

[ Eventually... she notices a piece that should not be on her game board. She takes it and lifts it up behind her, as if there was someone who would take it from her.

The stars behind her have been disguising thousands of pairs of cats eyes, and finally one large cat emerges from the scenery to sink its teeth into the piece, messily gnashing it to bits until there's nothing. ]

Thank you.

[ Back to her game. ]

Comments

we can always use more creepers :)

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ And yet, she continues to play. ]

awesome :D

[cruxified]

[He's not sure whether he should bother approaching. His mana senses are going haywire every time he looks at her. She's obviously more than she appears.

Probably trouble.

And yet, some part of him doesn't care. If he dies here, yes, someone will be disappointed, but... he finds himself stepping closer anyway, drawn by some curiosity he can't quite explain.

He stops just out of reach and peers at Bern from the other side of the table, noting her tendency to switch things around, then destroy them.]

If anything is to change, you need an opponent.

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

That does seem to be my biggest problem.

[ And she keeps shuffling pieces around. ] Finding one is as well.

[cruxified]

[Heh. He should run, really. But...]

It has been a very long time since I played, but I can try.

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

Black or white? [ She's very to the point. ]

[cruxified]

[So is he.]

White.

[And this is where Kratos might sigh at his mun for not knowing how to play herself, haha.]

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ HAHA I don't remember the rules too well myself, so we can just handwave it as they play. ]

[ She turns the chessboard around. ]

You take the first move, then.

[cruxified]

[WORKS FOR ME. I used to know and then I forgot.

Anyway, he studies the board for a moment, and then moves a pawn closer to the center. He doesn't seem to be too interested in anything at this point, though. Lineface vs. lineface.]

This is a unique set...

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

Magic can make an interesting set out of mundane pieces. [ she moves her first pawn as well ]

[cruxified]

They're very realistic.

[It's just an observation. He wonders if she likes to play games with real people, too.

Despite moving first, Kratos' positions are rather defensive. He's not someone who takes risks.]

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ She plays offensively, sacrifices pieces that are of no use to her, and rather brutally. Chess is a good reflection on one's personality. ]

It's based on a game I used to play.

[cruxified]

Used to?

[Wow, this looks painful. Kratos reluctantly lets his pieces fall only to attempt to trap hers across the board. She can certainly see that he moves with purpose and patience, and every piece-- even a lowly pawn-- has a use. Kratos has been a soldier for most of his life, but also raised as a knight and a noble, so he knows something of strategy.

But can he really hold up against a wrecking ball of an opponent?]

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

Used to. Now I play it as chess.

[ She continues to play aggressively, using pieces as trump cards later in the game, planning her moves strategically but also still quite brutally. She's going for a fast win and a clean win. ]

[cruxified]

[Kratos loses a few more pieces in the process, but his traps are solid. He also seems to have a grasp of multiple things going on the board at once. While he's defending against that attack, he's sending in his own attack to take one of her trumps.

He's losing, but not by much.]

I see.

[Not really.]

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ She's starting to set more and more traps with those few pieces she's deeming as expendable for their movement on the board. In two turns, she's aiming for check, then mate. ]

You're not bad.

[cruxified]

[Damn. He's running out of pieces. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly at the new trap he's found himself in. That's when he sacrifices his queen, a last minute gambit to checkmate Bern's own king. But he lacks the support.

If he had seen that earlier...]

Hmph. I'm out of practice.

[mirakill.livejournal.com]

[ She moves the final piece into checkmate. ]

I'm merely vicious.

[cruxified]

I'll consider that next time I play. [He could've had it in two more turns, maybe one. Ah, well. He hasn't played for at least eight hundred years.]