GODLY AUDIENCES - ZOE MURPHY

[divus]

Comments

[requiemed]

So... That's kind of a yes, then.

[With a sigh, she moves forward.]

I don't know much about chess, but - do you want to try?

[divus]

[...oh. He looks up from the board, unsure of what to say before he shrugs.]

Somebody left it as an offering, I can probably teach you how to play if you're got nothing better to do. It's a time-killer.

[requiemed]

Sure. Let's go for it.

[She takes a seat.]

[divus]

What color do you want? I can flip the board. [But he's busy moving the pieces back to where they belong.]

[requiemed]

Hm... Let's go with black. You can be white.

[divus]

Cool. White starts first, so we can go over how to play. I'll even go easy on you. [And so he moves a pawn.] What do you think your next step should be?

[requiemed]

[Hm.]

Uh... Don't move anything too important, and don't go for the one you just moved since it's pretty minor?

[She doesn't make a move just yet.]

[divus]

Good strategy. Open up the board a little bit to give both of us some options, something to make us think of what we're doing.

[requiemed]

Okay.

[And she moves a pawn of her own, not very close to the one he's put forward.]

[divus]

Good. [He moves another pawn in a third position. Eli don't make me play chess, I'm going to be vague about this help.] The point of chess is to protect your king. Sometimes to protect the king, you have to sacrifice some smaller players. But in the end, those pieces are still important and will still be there later.

[requiemed]

[it's fine we can just stick with philosophical bullshit--]

You know, some people would say it's important to keep as many pieces around as possible. Maybe you could do that and still protect the king.

[divus]

You could, but you ever hear the term "stalemate"?

[requiemed]

Maybe one of the rules should encourage the pieces having friendly discussions and changing colors afterwards.

[oh my god]

[divus]

Zoe...[He shakes his head.] If only it was that easy, huh? [They're still playing though, so there's that.] What if friendly discussion isn't possible?

[requiemed]

I've had plenty of friendly discussions with other - pieces.

[divus]

You mean other alignments. [There's a low whistle as he moves a piece.] How do you know they were all friendly?

[requiemed]

[She frowns, shifting one of her own pieces as well.]

They're not, but most people aren't going to try to... remove me from play just because I try to talk to them.

[divus]

Maybe not, but that's why you have to fortify yourself. Make sure you're surrounded by enough space to move and keep you in play long enough to reach the goal.

[requiemed]

And it gets easier to do that if you bring more people over to your side, right...? And it'll be tougher to do that if you're not trustworthy.

[divus]

Doesn't always work like that either. You have people on your side, sure, but what happens when you have to sacrifice them, too, to reach the goal? Could you do that?

[requiemed]

[She's in the midst of moving a piece, but she glances up towards him as she does.]

You never have to do that.

[divus]

Then what would you do instead to advance across the board? [Is this about chess or is this about war? We don't know.]

[requiemed]

You move towards the other pieces. You have a nice talk with the other pieces. You either bring the other piece to your side or just... move along past the other piece. The person who's talked to the most pieces and convinced the most pieces to come to their side wins.

[divus]

[He rolls his eyes when she can't even see it.] Negotiations are a whole other thing. Especially when those pieces talk to one piece and decide that's it. That's the end of the line. That's why you keep those pieces moving in multiple directions, even if it means sometimes losing them.

[requiemed]

Maybe all the pieces who are interested in only talking to one piece can stay on the edges and let the other pieces do what they want. There's no board that doesn't have enough spaces for every player.