#the chessboard

[margarita-parrot]

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

Moonlit Chessboard

Most of the time, Parabola is lit by its cosmogone sun. But some places are in permanent moonlight, colourless. This is the dream of spies, the move and countermove that controls the politics of the Surface - and sometimes of the Neath…

[houserosaire]

Prompt #29: Contravention

Silvaineaux was frowning at his chessboard when the door opened.  One could have seen at a glance that the array of pieces spread out on its checkered base was not a conventional game. There were at least three different colors of piece spread out in an arcane arrangement over the board. He had just settled a second white knight into place on the field when Honore came in.

“Are we winning?” Honore asked, coming to peer over his shoulder.

Lord Mieux, ever more direct, hopped up to crouch on the table opposite him, his green eyes fixed on the board.

“You can be there as long as you don’t touch the pieces.” Silvaineaux told him firmly and then turned to look at Honore. “That depends on what you mean by winning.” He said. “We’re playing rather a long game here and the rules can and will change at any point.”

Honore frowned. “That doesn’t seem very fair or easy. So what’s going on here. We’re white, right?”

“Yes. Mostly.” Silvaineaux said. “And really it’s all a tangle of things much to complicated to be conveyed on a chess board, but this helps me think about it. I think some of the worst of it is this damnable truce. We’ll honor it because we’re in the sort of position we have to. But he’s only honoring it while it amuses him. Him breaking it is a matter of when not if and we’ll have forfeited any advantage of actions we could have taken by keeping it.”

“I see.” Honore said. “So why are we doing it?”

“Because I didn't decide the matter.” Silvaineaux said. “But I suppose because he has the advantage either way and this means he won’t press it until he gets tired of obeying his own rules.”

“Couldn’t-”

But whatever Honore had been going to say it was interrupted by the telltale and distinctive sound of a bit of finely carved dragonbone hitting a stone board.

Silvaineaux whipped around in time to see Lord Mieux fold his paw slowly back under his chest. “You, ser, are in violation of our treaty!” He said, rising to scoop the cat up into his hands. He thrust his prisoner at Honore.

Honore chuckled. “That was naughty, Lord Mieux.”

Predictably Lord Mieux only purred as Silvaineaux turned to set the fallen knight back on his feet.

[asksavel]

“I will never understand how you are able to do that...”

“Hehe~”

- Laivan has found a Big Nugget. He gave it to Dravol. -

[dreamertrilogys]

(poem by emily leithauser) this is literally so gansey core

[asksavel]

“I know for a fact that Dravol didn’t realise that connecting them all together via the chessboard she had would cause her corruption to spread to them. I’m not even sure how that thing worked... only that as she became corrupted, so did everyone else. Originally, it was just a harmless game of chess she used to play with them... until it wasn’t.”

“The ‘mind control’ you saw, persay, was because of that. Every time Dravol’s corruption appeared, it corrupted them. By the time it took her completely, they were lost, too.”

“... she’s going to be devastated when she wakes up.”

@dravidious​ 

[asksavel]

[asksavel]