Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 106 - Action Chess

Hunter

I've never really seen the appeal of playing chess.

It's too calm and quiet. You're not allowed to talk, and you have to do a lot of thinking. For some reason, it is frowned upon to make special sound effects and have your pieces wrestle the other person's pieces when you're taking them off the board. Oh, and it is so not on to have chase scenes between your knight and the other guy's pieces. Don't even get me started on what happens when your knight kidnaps the opponent's queen.

I'm not allowed to play for the school team anymore...

My dad still plays with me. He doesn't mind me talking and making sounds and patiently waits, looking a little confused while I let my queen have a bit of sexy time with one of the rooks. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but when I was a kid, my dad bought me this really cool set to trick me into thinking it was a fun game. All the pieces look like real knights, horses, ladies and things. The rooks are these gnarly look-out towers with hunky swordsmen guarding them, and I see the way that frisky queen is always looking at them.

The only thing worse than playing chess for a team where you need to shut up and play the game is watching serious matches... where you need to shut up and watch the game. I think it is the shutting-up part that gets to me the most. Right now, my old chess set is being used on the coffee table in our living room, and I'm totally enjoying watching the potent match being played between Jake and Ronja.

It is fraught with tension, and this time, it is not the queen flirting with the rooks causing that tension. I really thought that Ronja was a shy, quiet girl, but I guess I just met her at a rough time in her life. The fact that we were strangers also played a part, and then there is the language barrier.

Right now, there's nothing shy or quiet about her, and all barriers have been demolished. She'd just taken Jake's knight off the board, using one of her bishops, and while she was doing it, she made the kind of sounds I often hear in the Star Wars movies. I'm totally going to buy myself a Star Wars chess set and invite her over to play with me so we can make those sounds all the time.

It's going to be seriously fun!

Jake is giving her that condescending look he always used to give me when he was still willing to play chess with me, but unlike me, Ronja doesn't just grin and tell him to lighten up because he's going to develop premature baldness due to high blood pressure. No, she is lowering those thick lashes of hers, peeking seductively at him and... she just blew the dude a kiss!

I'm dying!

Paisley is chuckling happily, clearly enjoying this match (the third in a row) as much as I am. Ronja won the first game (we are all still vibrating with shock) and offered Jake a re-match, which he won, and this is a re-match of their re-match. I don't think Jake just let Ronja win the first one. It's not in his weird-ass set of ethics to ever let anyone win anything against him; they have to work for it. He is not allowed to play any games against Emmy anymore. 

The tribe has spoken!

I smile at Paisley, where she's snuggling with Ash on one of the beanbags. It's good to see them both bright-eyed and happy for a change, but it will take some getting used to since they're not usually this open about how they feel about each other.

Still, I like it.

Except that it's making it hard for me to be near Willow without trying to take her hand and stuff like that, which is why I'm snuggling with Dex right now. Well, snuggle might not be the right word. We're lounging on opposite ends of the couch, our game controllers lying forgotten next to us. The sexy chess match distracted us, and our avatars have died and spawned a million times on the TV screen, but neither of us cares all that much at the moment. Our online teammates probably care...