Game Night
Rainbow Dash was reading in her hammock when the ship’s bell rang the ninth hour.
The sun had set sometime before, and they had strung the ship with lanterns to ward off the dark. Flying at night was dangerous, especially when you were dragging an air iceberg weighing millions of tons behind you, so they usually turned down the engines and let the ship idle in place until the sun rose again.
She set the Daring Do book on her tiny hammock-side table and stretched. Somewhere above, she knew, Nutmeg was setting out the last of the lanterns, walking along the slender spars that extended from the port and starboard sides of the Orithyia’s superstructure. The special ruby and emerald strobes identified them as a vessel to any night-blind pegasi or gryphons who might be flying by.
Nine-bells… time for cards. Rainbow Dash rolled out of her hammock and climbed the ladder onto the deck. She shivered as the first wash of cold air that welled out from the glacier touched her coat, but within moments her thick pegasus blood kicked in and the wind’s cool touch was forgotten.
“Ahoy Miss Dash!” Nutmeg greeted her. He was still out on the spar, a few final lanterns hanging from his vest. Every couple of steps he stopped and hung one from the ropes, until at last he was done and the Orithyia glowed like a Hearthswarming Eve tree. “Interested in losing some more money?”
She snorted. “Oh, it’s on. You’re getting wrecked this time.”
“Uh huh. We’ll see.” Nutmeg poked his head into one of the hatches leading below deck and emerged with the activities chest, which contained all their cards, poker chips, dominoes and other trinkets meant to while away the hours. He took a seat by the wheel, the one spot of warmth on the ship’s exterior, thanks to special charms buried beneath the wood planks. The pony working the wheel couldn’t afford to slip on a patch of ice, after all.
Rainbow Dash had never been one for card games before joining the Orithyia, but the enforced isolation and limited entertainment options available five thousand feet in the air gave her a quick appreciation for the sport. She settled down across from Nutmeg, pressing her belly against the warm wood.
“So, what’s tonight’s game? Gin?”
“Not tonight, no. We’re playing something new.” He removed the wood lid and flipped it over, revealing a white-and-black checkerboard on the underside. “Chess.”
“Chess?” She made a face that summed up all her feelings toward the game. “Do I look like an egghead?”
“No, Miss Dash, quite the contrary. You are the epitome of the modern pegasus athlete.” Nutmeg began pulling out little white and black figures, lining them up on the front and back two rows of the board. Dash vaguely recognized some of them from her times watching Rarity or Twilight Sparkle play. “But chess is a game everypony should be familiar with, especially pegasi.”
“Huh?” Her feathers ruffled unconsciously at the mention of their tribe. “Why pegasi?”
“We’re warriors, Miss Dash. Or we were, long ago. That time has passed, perhaps, but it never hurts to remember one’s roots.” He held up one of the black knights. The lanterns sparkled dimly on its ebony surface, highlighting the flared wings and visored helm the figure wore. He set it down, and the next few seconds passed in silence as he arrayed the rest of the pieces.
“Whatever.” She blew a lock of her mane out of her eyes. The damn thing was getting unruly after weeks in the skies and no barber. Maybe Nutmeg had some shears in his gear? She’d have to ask him in the morning. “So, how do you play?”
Nutmeg spent the next few minutes describing each of the pieces, how they moved, how they were captured, and how to win. The last part required some extra discussion.
“Wait, so, you don’t capture this guy?” Rainbow nudged the white king with the tip of her muzzle.
“No, you checkmate him.” Nutmeg set the king on a black square in the middle of the board, and then set a rook right beside him. “See how my rook can capture your king with my next move? That means I have your king in check.”
“Okay. Do I lose, then?”
“Not yet. But you must get your king out of check, either by moving him…” Nutmeg demonstrated by sliding the king a square to the right. “Or capturing the threatening piece.” He moved the king again, knocking the rook over and taking its spot.
“So how do you lose?”
“Sometimes your king can’t get out of check.” Nutmeg rearranged the pieces, backing the king into a corner and setting the black queen beside it. Behind the queen, several rows away, he set one of his bishops. “Try now?”
Dash frowned at the pieces. No matter where she moved her king, the black queen would still be able to capture it. So she slid the king onto the queen’s square, knocking it aside. “How about this?”
He shook his head. “Do you see my bishop? It’s guarding the square the queen was on, meaning you can’t move your king there either. This is called checkmate, and it means you lose.” He reached out to tip her king onto its side.
She snorted. “Hey, I didn’t lose. That was just to learn the rules.”
He smiled a small smile. “True, true.” He picked up the fallen pieces and set them back into their rows. “Shall we have a practice game, then? White moves first.”
The first game ended early in a rout, as did the second and the third. By the fourth game Rainbow had learned to slow down, taking several seconds before each move to actually consider what moves Nutmeg might make in response. By the fifth game it occurred to her that he was doing the same thing before each of her moves, so in order to plan her moves she had to anticipate his moves in anticipation of her moves, which was… which was giving her a headache.
“This game is complicated,” she mumbled.
“It is!” He grinned. “But you’re doing exceptionally well for somepony who’s never played before.”
“I am?” She glanced at the sideboard, where a few of his captured pawns were lined up against both of her knights, a rook and a bishop. This game was already starting to look like a lost cause.
The next few games passed quickly, rarely lasting more than a dozen moves before Rainbow Dash insisted on resetting the board after some mistake or other. They were several moves into their tenth game when Nutmeg stopped her, just as she touched the tip of her hoof to a pawn.
“Why are you moving already?” he asked.
She removed her hoof. “What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you think for a bit about what will happen after you move that piece?”
She frowned down at the board. It was an obvious move, one she’d seen as soon as he finished moving his knight. “If I move it like that, I can use it to attack your knight next turn.”
“Yes, so what do you think I’ll do in response?”
“You’ll have to retreat. Probably to… here.” She indicated a square two ranks back.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s play that out.”
Rainbow Dash nodded and moved her pawn, just as she’d planned, and Nutmeg retreated with the knight, just as she’d expected. Success!
“Now what?” he asked.
“Uh…” She frowned. “Look for other things to attack?”
“Sure, sure, but look what moving that pawn did.” He pointed to the broken array of pawns on her right flank, no longer neat and orderly and guarding each other. “Pawns are weak and it’s very tempting to toss them away on a quick attack, but that’s not what pawns are for. Pawns are your front line; together they dictate what part of the board you control. And worse, they cannot retreat. Once you move one to attack a knight like that, it opens a hole in your defense that is not easily closed.”
“It’s just a pawn, though. They’re only worth one point.”
“Don’t think about points. There’s no score in chess.” He indicated her rook with the tip of his wing. “This poor fellow is exposed now.”
The next few moves were instructive. Out of nowhere Nutmeg’s queen, an onyx alicorn, swept diagonally into Dash’s back ranks, capturing her rook, knight, and several pawns in short order. It was a massacre. Frustrated, she tipped her king on its side.
“This game is dumb,” she declared.
Nutmeg raised an eyebrow.
A few seconds passed. Rainbow Dash frowned and glanced out at the lanterns hanging from the Orithyia’s spars. A nice, safe direction to look.
“I’m dumb,” she mumbled.
Nutmeg remained silent.
“It’s true. Everyone knows it,” she continued. “Oh, there’s Rainbow Dash. She’s the dumb one. The jock. Bright as a bag of rocks.”
Nutmeg slowly reset the board, not meeting her eyes. Not that he could have – she was still staring off to the side. When he was done he rotated the board, taking the white pieces for himself, and advanced his king’s pawn.
“You believe that?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s true. Don’t you?” Rainbow Dash scowled at the black pieces, then pushed her queen’s pawn two spaces forward.
“Well, I admit you’re still learning how to play chess. But I’ve met very few ponies who could play this game well on the same night they learned how to move the pieces.” He pushed his queen’s pawn forward a single space.
Dash pushed her king’s pawn up one space, mirroring his side of the board. “Yeah, but I’ll never get better. This is a game for smart ponies.”
“Mhm.” He moved out his queen’s side knight. “Tell me, Miss Dash, how much do you know about flying?”
“Everything.”
He blinked. “That’s an audacious claim. And I think flying is more complex than chess.”
She shook her head. “No, flying’s easy. It’s, like, totally natural. Something I was born to do, right? Of course I know all about it. It’s not all sciency.”
“Ah.” He slid his bishop out in a wide flanking maneuver, almost within reach of her pawns. “I know some ponies who would disagree. Can you explain why it’s harder to fly in hot air than cold?”
“Hot air isn’t as dense as cold air,” she replied instantly, automatically. She squinted at his bishop, and decided it posed no threat at the moment. Instead, she advanced her other knight into the middle of the board. “It generates less lift on your wing surfaces, so you need to be moving faster to stay aloft. Hot air also contains less oxygen than cold air, so you’ll wear yourself out with less effort.”
Nutmeg paused, his hoof held an inch away from from his bishop. Eventually he nodded, and retreated the piece to threaten her knight. “And you must know a little bit about the weather, too.”
“Uh, yeah? Hello, weather pony here.” She slid a pawn forward to guard the knight.
“So you claim. Can you remind me why low-pressure systems rotate counter-clockwise?”
“They rotate cyclonically,” she corrected. “Which just happens to be the same as counter-clockwise. And they do it because low-pressure systems draw in air from the surrounding regions, and that air has angular momentum thanks to the planet’s rotation. Angular momentum is preserved, so air moving into the low pressure system from the equator will begin to move in the direction of the planet’s spin, while air moving into the system from the poles will retreat. Acting together, this causes the system to rotate.”
He was quiet for a little while after that. Rainbow Dash studied the board.
“Some ponies would call that a fairly technical answer,” he said. He slid the bishop two spaces to take one of her pawns.
She captured one of his in response. The center of the board was starting to open up. “Eh. It’s basic stuff.”
“Perhaps it is.”
The next few moves passed in silence. Eventually his bishop did take her knight, and one of her pawns took the bishop in revenge. The entire sequence took nearly ten turns, all focused on just those two pieces and their eventual demise. In the end, however, the game concluded as all their previous matches had, with Rainbow Dash’s king tipped on its side. She picked it up between her primaries.
It was one of the weakest pieces on the board, and its design echoed those limits. An earth pony, smaller and shorter than the alicorn queen, with a simple black crown.
“Why is the king so important, anyway?” she asked. “Why isn’t it the queen that matters?”
Nutmeg shrugged. “It’s an old game. I’m not sure if there used to be a reason, or if it’s just to make the game flow a certain way. Not everything has to be symbolic.”
“Huh.” She glanced up at the sky. The moon was hidden behind the Orithyia’s envelope, but she knew it was nearly at its zenith. “It’s late. I think I’m going to turn in.”
“Very good. Thank you for the games, Miss Dash.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She helped him put the pieces back in their spots, then stood and stretched. “Maybe we’ll play again.”
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
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Poor Twilight is never going to find those books, is she? Not when Rainbow Dash is busy reading them. And damn, I wasn't expecting this story to get all personal with Rainbow Dash so soon. Great stuff, looking forward to more.
This, in my opinion, is the best chapter so far, really getting into RD's character.
6761605 and then she saw Rainbow Blitz and seriously considered dumping Dash for Blitz
Excellent chapter, CiG. I'm really enjoying this story so far.
I feel Dash's pain. I never win at chess either.
Seems Dash is smarter than she thinks.
So, in Equestrian chess sets, the queen is an alicorn, obviously; and the king is a crowned Earth pony. And the knights are pegasus knights, obviously. What about the rest of the pieces? I'm imagining the bishops as unicorn mages, and the rooks as heavily armored Earth ponies. But what about the pawns? My immediate thought was that they're runty Earth ponies like the king, only without a crown. But that's a bit rude, in the modern day...
6765614
The pawns are sheep.
Am I the only one who wants to know why Nutmeg is never seen flying?
6766198
I like that!
6766277 Nope.
6765614
No reason the rook can't still be a castle.
One of the moments I love of chess is when you are planning seven movements ahead and realize you forgot the first, second, and third movements of your plan.
The problem with chess?
A computer can win it.
Yet a computer can't explain what its favorite color is or why.
Logic only takes thought so far.
But your planet doesn't rotate, Dash. Celestia raises the Sun, remember? Your planet is filled with crazy illogical magic! RULES DON'T EXIST!! IT'S ALL MADNESS!!
Dash is here actually doing good against someone in chess, and then here is me not able to beat a computer opponent on easy.
I'd LOVE to see RD become GOOD at chess then one day while visiting home, she challenges Twilight to a game of Chess and wins, giving Twilight a BSOD.