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// Chess and Dessert 
// Story: Oh! You Pretty Things 
// by Cosmic Dancer 
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“Pawn to ‘E’ four,” said Trixie, and the illusory white pawn slid across the board like smoke crawls on glass. The unicorn aloofly reclined in his seat while his mare, sat opposite him, decided on what response might be most entertaining for the evening.

After some deliberation, Twilight amusedly announced, “Pawn to ‘E’ five.” It was a Double King’s Pawn Opening. Against a lesser mind, Trixie would have played pawn to f4, but chessmaster Twilight could humiliate him whether the King’s Gambit was accepted or rejected. She was more than wise to those tactics.

“Knight to ‘F’ three,” said he, and the half-realized appearance of the piece wrenched through the air and onto the square called. This was an opening that he had played with some success against his special somepony. She would normally play Nc6 in response, to which he would play Nc3 — and he had never lost a Four Knights Game. But Twilight eventually stopped taking the bait, and started playing Bc5, to which Trixie had yet to formulate a response.

With a smug, knowing look, Twilight said, “Pawn to ‘F’ five.” Trixie’s heart sank. She only played these exotic moves when she knew for certain that she had his strategies figured out. Only humiliation could follow.

Putting on her best impression of the haughty baritenor voice Trixie used to boast, Twilight said, “The Grypho Countergambit! Didn’t expect that? But, how could you? Or did you forget that you’re playing against a champion?” 

Trixie shot her an annoyed look, and she giggled.

“You know,” he started, “I’m beginning to think there’s a reason I’m the only pony who will play chess with you.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Twilight stood up from her chair, looking as though she were about to go somewhere. “You’re the only pony smart enough to play against me,” she said, more to placate her stallion and his injured ego, than out of arrogance (though there was an indelible tinge of arrogance in the statement). She pecked him on the cheek and asked, “I’m going to get a slice of cake for dessert, would you like some?” Trixie nodded. “Anything to drink?” she asked further, nuzzling him.

“A glass of the coffee I have chilling in the refrigerator, please,” he answered.

“M-hm. And that coffee is decaf, right?” Twilight asked, carefully watching the stallion’s response.

“Yeah.”

“No, it isn’t,” stated Twilight, not-quite-scolding but not sweetly, either.

“How did you know?”

“I can just tell when you’re lying, Trixie,” Twilight nuzzled him so he wouldn’t pout. “Come on, it’s too late for caffeine, and you’re already getting a lot of sugar with your cake. How about a nice, cold glass of milk, instead?”

“Fine,” he said, like an ingrate. Twilight planted another kiss on his cheek and vanished downstairs.

Trixie dropped his façade of indifference once she left, and began to intensely scrutinize the tactical makeup of the game, determined to make his move before she returned. His calculations were strained by the sound of the mare’s racket in the kitchen, and eventually by the sound of she and Spike speaking to one another; but his desire to win the chess match far exceeded his natural inclination to eavesdrop, so he did his best to ignore the noise and focus on the game.

The whelpling had probably been performing one of his chores, or ogling the grotesque tableaus in his homoerotic comic books downstairs when Twilight entered the kitchen. 

Spike had, according to those superliminal social cues which develop in domestic arrangements such as these, come to understand that if Trixie and Twilight were in her bedroom, he probably shouldn’t be. (Even so, every night Spike would still creep in and lay himself in the cushioned basket at the foot of Twilight’s bed, unless he was sleeping at somepony else’s home. This annoyed Trixie to no end.)

Reining his thoughts back onto the game, Trixie decided that he would accept the countergambit, and moved his Knight to e5, taking the pawn. He leaned back, slouching against his seat and trying resume the appearance of a lackadaisical magician. Downstairs, Twilight had stopped speaking to Spike, and Trixie intuited she would be back in only moments. 

He didn’t know what it was about chess that brought the hubris out of his otherwise (needlessly) humble special somepony. When she called herself a ‘champion,’ she was alluding to several scholastic tournaments played during their time at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She won them all, of course, with Trixie cheering her on from the audience. She was taught and trained in the game by her father, Night Light, who was a grandmaster and had also won several tournaments. Night Light used to say, and probably still did say, that ‘chess ran in their blood’ on account of their descent from Eventide Coruscate, some mediaeval astronomer who wrote a famous textbook on the game and its theory.

Night Light also taught Trixie the basics of the game, but, as a colt, he never much cared for chess — preferring to play pretend, even into adolescence. 

The effluvial dweomer of the illusory chess pieces gleamed against the lantern light shining in from outside. Twilight had won the board in one of the tournaments at magic school, and it was designed to be used by students of magic, who would have to concentrate their imaginal faculties on the board to maintain the illusion of the pieces. The idea was to teach young unicorns to maintain concentration while still being able to think critically. For magicians as gifted and powerful as Twilight and Trixie, though, this was hardly a consideration.

“Here’s your dessert, Trixie,” Twilight had snuck in while Trixie reminisced, and levitated a second table over to the one on which sat the chess board. She set Trixie’s and her own plates and drinks down and gingerly took her seat.

“Oh? Um... Thank you, Twily,” Trixie mumbled, mistakenly using Twilight’s old childhood nickname, and saw the mare smile as if she had expected it, somehow.

Trixie took a bite of the cake, which was a leftover from one of Pinkie’s parties (he didn’t remember which) and Twilight took a sip of her own glass of milk, before moving her Queen to f6. Trixie moved a pawn to d4, Twilight a pawn to d6, and they continued playing in silence for awhile, eating dessert as they did.

(From turn five to turn thirteen, the game played out as follows. Turn 5: Nf3, fxe4 6. Ng5 d5 7. Nc3 Bb4 8. Be3 Ne7 9. Qd2, Black castles kingside 10. a3 Bxc3 11. Qxc3 Nbc6 12. White castles queenside, h6 13. h4 hxg5)

By turn thirteen, both players had castled and Twilight was in control of the center. Twilight’s pawn had taken Trixie’s knight the previous turn, and she could sense his nervousness — and he could sense that she could sense his nervousness.

“You’re a very good chess player, Trixie,” she said, reassuringly.

“Thanks,” a quiet, dejected mumble.

“I bet you played against some real champions, when you were a traveling magician, huh?” she asked, trying to alleviate the stress he was feeling. Twilight had undoubtedly overheard him boasting to some kids or townsponies about his made-up exploits and acumen in chess. Maybe she thought giving Trixie the opportunity to brag would lift his spirits, but he only felt worse for being reminded of his ‘tall tales’ (bald-faced lying).

“No. I only played against Master,” he said, taking the pawn at g5 with one of his own. “He taught all of his apprentices how to play chess, and he said that since I was his last, I had to be the best. But I was never able to beat him.”

Twilight didn’t move any of her pieces, nor even contemplate a move. She said, bittersweetly, “Well, he must have been very good.”

“Oh, he had to be the best. Of all time,” said Trixie. “When I was learning how to divide my consciousness, he would help me learn by playing a game of chess against each fragment of my mind. I would use that old spell, Silver Star’s Mirror Images, to make three different bodies, and put a part of my mind in each one — then he would play three concurrent games against me, and even then he would always win.” 

Twilight moved her Queen to g6, and opted to do so through magic instead of calling it out to the board. She forced a smile at Trixie’s story, even though they both knew how she felt about his ‘master’.

Trixie continued, “He wouldn’t even look at the boards, he would just construct three different games in his imagination and keep track of all the pieces as I called them out.” Then Trixie moved the f1 Bishop to e2, which was a particularly inspired moved, surprising even to himself.

Twilight looked conflicted, not about the game, but the story, and even Trixie could see it. “What?” he prodded.

“Did Cosmic Dancer ever get angry at you for losing a game?” Twilight asked, trying and failing to sound nonchalant (but Trixie didn’t notice, anyway).

“Not if I made it interesting for him,” he answered. “Of course, in the beginning I wasn’t very good at chess — not compared to Master, anyway — so he would zap me with magic, or just give me a wallop after each game.”

Twilight’s reassuring expression melted into one of tender concern. After a long pause, she delicately asked, “Do you suppose… that could be the reason you get so anxious when you think you might lose?”

“Who’s losing?” Trixie adeptly avoided the point of the question. “If anypony’s losing this match, it’s you. Now quit trying to psyche me out and make your move.”

Twilight contemplated pressing him on the matter, but remembered something Cadance told her once about ‘picking your battles,’ so she quietly sighed and played Bf5.

The rest of the game was played quickly, and in silence.

(From turn sixteen to twenty-six: 16. Rh2 Qe6 17. Rdh1 Ng6 18. f3 Rae8 19. g4 exf3 20. gxf5 Rxf5 21. Bd3 Qxe3+ 22. Kb1 Rxg5 23. Bxg6 Rxg6 24. Qc5 Rg1+ 25. Ka2 Rxh1 26. Rxh1 Qxd4)

The game ended with Trixie’s resignation, as opposed to checkmate, when he saw that he’d been outplayed and no good moves remained.

Afterwards, Twilight hugged and kissed Trixie, and told him it was a good game.