scene xxv

[encored]

ACTION;
A) [In the morning, Charles can be found living up to his actual age, being an old man and setting up a chessboard in the park! Someone save him before he starts feeding pigeons and wearing sweater vests. He doesn't seem to have a partner to play with. Not until you walk by, that is, at which point he smiles and gestures to the other side of the table.]

Why don't you take a seat? Let's have a match. [SUSPICIOUS... No, he's just that bored and in a rare social mood.]

B) [Or maybe you catch him a little later on, after he's packed away his chess set and is out walking his, uh... Horace. The giant beast actually seems pretty tame, all things considered, only stopping to sniff moving things (like you, whoops!) and occasionally making gross growling noises and drooling on the ground. So majestic.

For the unfortunate citizens, these two losers can also be found in much less docile situations - Charles trying to shoo his droolbeast away from a drone it's attempting to gnaw on, or perhaps Horace lolloping down the road with a few geese in its mouth.]

PHONE;
[And carrying on with the trend of being utterly unruffled by everything that happened over the weekend, Charles will pick up his phone in the early evening with a question for the masses.]

I'd like to know your opinion on concerts. Proper orchestral performances, I mean. Who here enjoys them? If something with that sort of music happened to be available in the city, would you attend? [His little fancy cultured self is starting to feel more deprived than usual okay... Having at least one other star performer now, all that's left is to gauge the interest of a potential audience.]

Comments

[kinship]

...You can't be serious?

[He's thinking on his feet, eyebrow raised in surprise. He can't admit his ignorance, he would rather try and lie his way through.]

Those rules went out of date decades ago.

[encored]

[don't mind him then, he's just going to prop his elbows on the table and rest his chin against laced fingers because he has a feeling that this is going to be good...]

Is that so? How strange for the rules to be rendered obsolete over the course of a few decades when they went largely unchanged from the fifteenth to twenty-first century. Pray tell, what have they been altered to in the future?

[kinship]

[Darn it, why does he do this to himself? He is doing a remarkably good job of looking relaxed and like he's knowledgeable about all of this.]

It's quite a complex game, are you sure you have the time to want to learn it today?

[encored]

I've been playing chess longer than you've been alive. I think I can handle a quick run-down of a new rule set. [why is he even playing along with this why are they both such hopeless losers...

he really is curious to see if Cain will mention any of the actual chess rules as he knows them, though.]

[kinship]

Then I'd be more than happy to show you.

[Of course not, he has no idea how to play chess.]

These pieces... [The pawns.] ...are called the doorknobs, and can only move diagonally.

[encored]

[he's caught between wanting to slam his face into his hands and wanting to burst out laughing...]

I see, I see. What of these? [holding up a rook]

[kinship]

[Noooo, his genius reputation is ruined in one afternoon. RUINED.]

Clearly they're the forks.

[encored]

[HE TRIED SO HARD... holding up a knight...]

And this?

[kinship]

[It's a true tragedy, he should cut his losses before it gets too bad, but...]

The Prancing Pony.

[encored]

[he can't cut his losses now, charles is finding this way too amusing...

he places the knight back to its original spot and holds up the king and queen pieces.]

These two should have remained the same, at the very least. Is that the case?

[kinship]

[That must mean that they are the most important pieces, and they must come as a matched set if Charles is holding them both up at once. His mind is immediately running through the pairs of whatever they could be. In the end, he strikes lucky because of the tiny crown shape on the king's head.]

Of course, the king and queen.

[Please be right.]

[encored]

I'm surprised! You actually managed to get that one right. You ought to be able to come up with the proper names for most of the other pieces now that you know that much, yes?

[yeah the whole prancing ponies and doorknobs thing didn't fool him for a fraction of a second, but Cain will be awarded points for trying so hard...]

[kinship]

[Oh no, he's been rumbled! He totally never saw it coming at all, it's such a surprise... He has the gall to look indignant as he folds his arms.]

Just because you don't know the current rules, Just Charles, there's no need to lash out so childishly.

[encored]

[cain why... but he is so amused by the descriptions he can't even work himself up into irritation over it just yet. putting the king and queen pieces back into their rightful spots, he rests a finger on the crown of the king.]

What is the point of this game in the future, then? The end goal? The meaning behind it? The current rules have surely preserved that much, yes?

[kinship]

[He should just admit he doesn't know. He could still save face by making a joke of it all, say he had been teasing Charles. But he won't do it, he hates admitting ignorance, even in little things.]

There is a complex meaning behind this game, but I would be interested to hear what it was in the past first.

[encored]

[he almost wants to say straight up "cain stop trying", but miraculously refrains from being quite so harsh.]

Are you certain you can't figure out the meaning from what you already know? It's not very complicated, after all.

[kinship]

[He bristles internally at Charles' tone, as though he is being spoken to like a stupid child. Not that he shows his annoyance.]

The meaning may have changed over the years, along with the rules, I'm interested to know how you perceive it first.

[encored]

[this problem would have been avoided if he had just sat down to learn a fun game!! Charles isn't a very bad teacher all things considered, okay, but now he's just going to be a smug asshat...]

It's a game of strategy, of course. It used to be a common game among war generals, who would practice their skills in matters of the battlefield by playing chess. [he taps the piece his finger is resting on] The king and queen are the most important pieces, and the game is over once the king is captured.

[kinship]

[Perhaps he will be defeated this time, but Charles better believe Cain will become a chess grandmaster just to defeat him next time.

His eyes are lighting up with interest, that... actually sounds pretty fascinating, and he has to wonder why he wasn't at least taught this game considering the skills it promotes.]

Unfortunately, it's no longer such a common game among strategists. Even the greatest military minds often haven't played it.

[Ego +12]

[encored]

[someone at this table has issues when it comes to competition!!

but wow he's starting to question whether or not Cain is actually bluffing... THE FUTURE IS BLEAK.]

I'll believe it once I see it, but it doesn't sound impossible. After all, they discard their roots and traditions when they become inconvenient, so practical and useful things like chess are bound to be lost. Rushing toward progress and the future as though they'll find the perfection that's so far out of their grasp somewhere within that... [shaking his head and muttering:] The mentality behind Đổi Mới is standard no matter the year. It's truly pitiful.

[kinship]

[It's totally Charles, he's so competitive... it's sad, really. He had been about to reply with an observation that much agreed with the other boy for once, he has no love for the 'progress' that causes pain for so many people, but he's stalled by that phrase he doesn't recognise.]

I assume 'Đổi Mới' means progress? I know it must be Vietnamese, but I'm afraid that's one of the languages I'm unfamiliar with.

[encored]

[so competitive he'd make up an entire fake history and rulebook for chess, yes, that's Charles for you.... and man the lifeboats, the world is clearly ending if Cain actually agrees with him on something!]

It means renovation, actually. It was a term used specifically to reference the start of economic reforms in Vietnam after the war. [he sighs and tips his king to its side in an idle gesture before setting it upright again.] But the thought behind it is obviously the same as any other movement of its kind. Renovation and progress are just pretty ways of saying they're intent on uprooting everything that has come before because it doesn't fit into whatever they're currently trying to create.

[kinship]

[He idly plays with the king as he listens, twisting it between his fingers with his eyes fixed intently on Charles.]

Uprooting the old isn't always a bad thing, depending on what the old was. Some practises, even ones that have been around for centuries, are damaging and pointless... replacing them is sensible and beneficial. Unfortunately, most people seem to believe that 'progress' and 'comfort' are synonymous, and so they give the highest priority to achievements that will improve their immediate quality of life, without much thought for what went before or what will come after.

[encored]

[he leans back in his chair, looking thoughtful. it's obvious he's more seriously invested in this topic than any of the previous ones.] Some, perhaps, but a great many are tossed aside for foolish reasons, and at the cost of the lessons they might have taught in the future.

Either way, I suppose that's about as much as one can expect from their kind. They were designed to do things with the least amount of effort, you know? It's in their biological wiring.

[kinship]

[How interesting... though not really surprising, Charles makes no secret of how much he dislikes the human race or how trapped in the past he is.]

Do you think so? I don't believe that it's biologically encoded into them, I think it's more an indoctrination of the social norms. Nurture rather than nature.