Castling
Today
Royal Fork enjoyed an early advantage due to Tirek needing to adapt to the new rules for chess. The pony seemed to have realized that the centaur would not be used to such an aggressive early game, and so found some degree of boldness within him and struck out in a rapid attack, trying to end the game quickly.
But though it took a few turns, Tirek did find his footing. A hastily developed defense allowed him to hold out against the initial assault of Royal Fork’s bishops and one of his knights, eventually managing to take all three pieces. Before long, the game had moved to a methodical pace.
A thousand years of chess strategy had been rendered mostly useless by all the rule changes, but Tirek was pleased to find that he remained skilled at perceiving his opponent’s moves before they could be realized. Either that, or he was facing a true amateur. The latter actually seemed more likely with each piece moved by Royal Fork, the stallion usually seeking only immediate advantage or escape. His tactics were fine, his strategy…if he had one, Tirek couldn’t discern it.
Tirek’s displeasure at that lack was echoed, surprisingly, in the face of Cozy. She watched the game intensely, and while she studied Tirek and what he did with great interest, her interest dropped sharply at Royal Fork’s own maneuvers. Several times she winced, sighed, growled, or otherwise made that displeasure known.
Finally, after Tirek had taken one of Royal Fork’s rooks with his king – the rook not even having been able to put Tirek’s king in check – Cozy let out a loud groan.
“Come on, Uncle Fork!” She demanded. “Do you want to have all your magic stolen?”
The stallion ruffled his wings, glaring at Cozy. “I’m doing the best I can, Cozy,” he insisted.
“Well it sure doesn’t seem like it…fifteen seconds, by the way.”
Tirek stroked his beard, a chuckle rumbling from his throat. “I get the sense that you are much more than a mere hobbyist, Cozy,” he said.
The filly nodded her head vigorously. “I’m in the chess club at school! I’ve been playing ever since I was a little foal. Daddy taught me how to play when I was five ever since I beat him at checkers a bunch.”
Five? Tirek wondered. He crossed his arms. “And how old are you now?”
“I’ll be ten next month. Thirty seconds, Uncle Fork.”
“I know,” Royal Fork responded. After a few more seconds, he moved his remaining knight. At this point in the game, Royal Fork had three pawns, a rook, and a knight remaining. Tirek held both his rooks and two pawns.
Tirek grinned, moving one of those rooks up a single space, where it sat next to Royal Fork’s king – but could not be taken, because Tirek’s other rook was protecting it.
“Check,” Cozy hissed before Tirek could say as much himself. She rubbed one of her temples with her hoof, and whispered “which you could have prevented five turns ago…”
“Cozy, not now,” Royal Fork insisted.
“But daddy said that you used to play him all the time as foals! And that you even used to beat him sometimes! So how come a creature who hasn’t played chess in over a thousand years and who didn’t even know the rules is beating you?”
Royal Fork moved his king down one space, out of check. Tirek immediately moved his other rook up, putting the king in check once more. Royal Fork had at least seen that coming and wasted no time in moving his king once more. Rather than pursue, Tirek took the time to use his rook to capture a pawn, clearing the way for Tirek’s own pawn to continue its march towards promotion whenever Tirek got around to it.
“Where is your father right now?” Tirek asked Cozy, then found himself chuckling at the question. “Well. I suppose I can take a guess…”
He had been expecting Cozy to react negatively to his blithe musings on having probably drained her father of magic, but instead she shook her head. “He’s on a business trip, he’s not even in town…” Cozy’s eyes narrowed as her uncle reached out towards his king. “Really, Uncle Fork?” Having commented once, the dam was apparently burst for the filly as her uncle captured one of Tirek’s other pawns. “You could have put him in check with your knight!”
Royal Fork glared at Cozy. “What would be the point? He could have escaped it immediately – ”
“Because then he wastes a turn having moving his king out of check and then you could have moved your knight to c5! And yeah maybe he could take it with his rook but then you could take that rook with your own or with your king! You’re going to lose if you don’t do something about his rooks!”
“I know that!” Royal Fork snapped back.
Tirek tapped his fingers against his arm. “I am certain this counts as cheating,” he observed.
“No it’s not,” Cozy countered. “I’m saying what he should have done. He’s already moved the pieces and taken his hoof off of them.”
Tirek’s brow raised at the fact that this filly seemed to have lost all her fear of him so quickly. “Are you talking back to me?”
“Yes,” Cozy hissed, turning to glare up at Tirek and crossing her forehooves in front of her, “because you’re wrong.”
“I am not.”
Royal Fork reached out, putting a hoof on Cozy’s withers. “Cozy, please don’t argue with – ”
Cozy flared her wings to get his hoof off of her, but didn’t break eye contact with Tirek. “You are too wrong!”
Tirek raised a hand to gesture and opened his mouth to shout, but paused as he realized what the filly was doing, her true goal in engaging him like this. He chuckled again, looking down at the board and moving his remaining pawn before his sixty seconds could run out.
“Nice try,” he said.
Cozy’s glare disappeared in an instant. “Phooey,” she groused, then smiled sweetly up at Tirek. “But you almost fell for it, Mister Tirek! Thirteen more seconds and you would have been forced to forfeit!”
“It’s Lord Tirek,” the centaur corrected. He supposed, given the stakes, he could hardly blame the filly for her attempt at trickery there. Tirek scratched at his beard, looking at the board as Royal Fork did so desperately as well. “If he had moved his knight to check my king before,” Tirek observed, “I could have moved my king adjacent to his knight. He would have had to move it or sacrifice it to no gain.”
“No, because he could have moved his rook to b3,” Cozy countered. “If you had taken his knight, which would be in d3, you would have entered check.”
“And then?”
Cozy paused, looking to the board, then back to Tirek. “That would be cheating. Fifteen seconds, Uncle Fork.”
The stallion was shaking his head slightly. Even if he was only a rank amateur, he had to know the same thing that Cozy Glow had likely deduced long ago: that a knight and a rook were not enough to win him this game while Tirek still had both of his own rooks. That, barring a miracle, his defeat was a mere matter of time and patience on Tirek’s part.
Tirek held up his hand just before Royal Fork made to make his next move. “Pause a moment,” he said, and looked to Cozy. “How would you like to take over for your uncle, Cozy? It is clear that your talents are significantly beyond his own.”
The two ponies both started at that. “What?” Royal Fork demanded. “No – no, I’m not – yes, Cozy is very talented but she’s still only a child, and…”
“Gee, I don’t know if I can win at this point,” Cozy intoned, looking over the board. “I’m sorry, Uncle Fork, but even if I did take over there’s no way that Mister Tirek – ”
The centaur grunted. “Lord Tirek.”
“ – could lose at this point unless…” she trailed off, staring at the board, eyes glancing over the spaces, and the pieces. “I mean, maybe, but there’s no way that…hmm…”
Royal Fork looked at the board, then to Tirek, then to Cozy. He was sweating, and still trembling. “Cozy,” he said, his voice dry, “if there is any way…”
Cozy tapped her hooves together, then looked up to Tirek. “Would it really be okay? You’re a whole bunch of years older than me and I might be pretty good at chess but I’m starting from so weak a position…you’re not just doing this to torture my uncle, are you?”
Tirek shook his head. “No, Cozy. I am honestly certain that your uncle’s odds only improve if you…” he considered, and grinned. “If you castled him.”
Cozy matched Tirek’s gaze, a slow smile spreading on her features. “Okie-dokey!” She exclaimed, hopping up from where she sat and prancing over to her uncle’s seat. After another moment of consideration, Royal Fork all but fell away from his seat.
The filly wasted no time, reaching out to her knight and moving it to where she had said it should have gone previously – to where it could threaten Tirek’s king.
“Check,” she said. “Your move.”
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Really liking Cozy here. She already has such good chemistry with Tirek.
I like the slow shaping of Cozy: a filly who was aware of how her uncle sought to use her and, upon learning of power of the magic of friendship, tried to make friends (i.e., using them) in order to protect herself.
There's a reason why, as much as I love the show and its conventions, I just really wish that once--just ONCE--they emphasized the magic OF friendship, rather than the more literal interpretation that friendship IS magic ... by which I mean, I wish they would've won once because friendship is just that wonderful for bringing people together, rather than friendship powering the rainbow lasers. Which is still awesome, but a break now and then would've been nice.
this is good
Royal Fork, just... go away now. :p
10194140
No that never happened in show. Had she done so it might have given her a much needed element of immediate danger. Had they gone that route, her being sent to Tartures might have made at least a little more sense.
I love the depth Cozy is gaining without losing sight of the fact that she is very sincerely dangerous.
10197024
She was on a team with two ancient megalomaniacs and the only thing that made her valuable was her intelligence, which both of them had a degree of. Cozy is the one to be scared of on that crew and I remain unconvinced that Tartarus would have even held her. Even outside its Arkham-Class security.
Like, on a meta-level I wish they'd committed her to an asylum where she could get actual help, but I'm tired of people low-balling her just because she looks like Shirley Temple. She is satan. That's what even makes the cutsie design work.
10197236
I actually love Cozy for a variety of reasons. But as much common sense as she possess, she's not all that good of a liar or a long term thinker. She is quite simply, too inexperienced, too obsessive, and too emotional.
Consider when she signs her name to the letters she sends to Tirek (presumably because she wants him to know who conquered Equestria) never dreaming that the Main Six could escape. Or when she feels compelled to gloat to Starlight exposing her true goals to Sandbar and the CMC. Or when she gloats about her ultimate aim to Neighsay. Or when she explodes at Twilight, revealing her intentions to everyone in school.
Also when she lets her frustration at not being leader prevent her from uniting the villains in Freniemes. Or when she fails to use Rusty Bucket's chivalry against him, when he basically tells her his job is to protect ponies, even though she could have easily made up some story about a lost friend possibly further up the mountain, instead of blowing a fuse like she did.
Or when she charges into battle in Ending of the End Part 1 with nothing but Alicorn Magic and Grogar's Bell against three Alicorns and who know's how many guards and "surprise" gets captured. Or when (in that same episode) she grows to gigantic proportions, and yet it never occurs to her to simply use her massive size to simply bully her cohorts into submission.
I think Cozy has a real ability for picking up and learning various talents and skills. Also, because she's not nearly as much of a diva as the other villains, she doesn't make the same kind of mistakes that they tend to make. I think she has some pretty sharp insights for a kid her age. Great planning skills on the other hand? Not so much, at least in cannon.
10196606
I agree. This works great as a story on how they first met each other.
10198757 That's an interesting point, when your son the crown prince is messing around with dark magic, clearly he's going to coup you at some point.
I always wondered about Discord being present at Vorak's court as well. That was ignored by most people after we saw it, because it doesn't fit with a lot of depictions of Discord. But then at the series finale where he actually needles Tirek about his daddy issues with Vorak, it really brings a lot of that comic together.
10196650
To be fair, when they did that in the season 5 finale it ended up sparking even more complaints. Mostly on account of how they still treated it as a cheat code instead of actually bothering to make sense.
10276661
Everybody knows that a twilight speech wins allhehe
10196650
Well, the finale was kind of both, wasn't it? Everyone came together to help, and then came the rainbow laser.
Almost had him.