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English
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Published:
2024-10-06
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850
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1/1
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Queen Me

Summary:

Chess is a surprisingly polarizing topic in the big top.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

There's a surprising amount of downtime in the digital circus. Pomni figures she probably shouldn't be too amazed by that- it takes time to render new environments, generate the dialogue and plot details, and whatever else code needed to be loaded in- but it seems that, even in Hell, there is waiting rooms. It takes Caine approximately three days per trip, and that time is usually spent tucked away with Bubble, whispering ideas at each other in a voice just loud enough to be overheard. They weren't the subject of gossip, but they clearly wanted to be- wanted them to spitball with each other what dastardly schemes they were coming up with this time. It was just... too much work.

Pomni spends a lot of time outside her room, and so does everyone else. Being alone in this place just felt... wrong. Everything about the funland screamed buddy system. Even Jax, known hater of vulnerability, could only manage to stalk off for an hour or so before returning to them. Pomni isn't used to this togetherness; but it's not all bad, surely. She's learned a lot of strange things about her new family that way.

One of those things was chess.

Caine had been factory set with games, they'd explained. It's a playroom, after all, and board games are fun for the whole family. Every room came stockpiled with Uno and Jenga, plastic rings, and those terrible magnet fishing games that come off of random hanging plastic hooks in the grocery store. And no play area is complete without a chessboard. These games never disappeared, never lost any pieces, and they'd slowly whittled down their sanity on everything else. You can only listen to the Operation buzzer so many times.

Pomni learns a lot about chess, almost completely against her will.

"King me."

"Aw," pouted Kinger, giving his queen a hug goodbye. The pieces in the pillow fort seemed to be specifically for children and made of Styrofoam. The pieces came up to Pomni's hip. The board was patchworked with a puzzle to put it all together, flattened unnaturally from rendering, and it reminded her eerily of a kindergarten teacher's room.

Kinger reluctantly replaced her black pawn with the queen. He liked to keep the piece in his lap while they played, rubbing it for good luck. He blinked, one eye after the other, and shifted his knight to block off a rather tasty bishop.

"You jerk," Pomni muttered, gnawing on the fabric of her glove like it were a wayward nail.

The only real downside to all the closeness was that she rarely got any privacy, and this was certainly one of those inopportune times. The pillow fort was larger than it looked on the outside, and Kinger tended to stick close to it to keep what little remained of his mind. Ergo, it was a sort of ducklings following their mother situation- Kinger was oldest, Kinger was safest, so they all hung around Kinger. And they all had opinions about her playing style.

Jax leaned his fuzzy head over her shoulder, eyes drooping lazily. He'd been half-asleep next to them, snoring in a rare moment of peace. "Oooooh, looks like Kinger has you pinned. You gonna take that, Pomni?"

Pomni pointedly gestured to her pieces. "I'm working on it."

"I see a juicy little queen with your name on it."

She grimaced. Kinger also had a habit of viciously guarding his queens, and Jax knew it. "Nice try."

Ragatha pushed some yarn hair behind her ear as she examined the playing field. She tended to wander in and around, swinging her arms to stim. Pomni would be damned if she saw the woman sit for more than a meal. "You've still got plenty of pawns, Pomni! Maybe consider moving one of them?"

Pomni let out a petulant whine. She liked castling, and breaking that early on wasn't smart. She chewed harder on her glove. She had a pawn halfway across the board, but moving it required getting close to a knight, and she had nothing to back it up. Moving her queen to eat the bishop would put her in range of yet another knight. Moving her other queen would put her into check.

She'd learned early on that no one ever won against Kinger, but she was under the distinct impression that he was playing better than usual after their mansion run. Maybe he was feeling a bit more himself. Maybe he was just annoyed she took his queen. Pomni really couldn't say.

"This is taking too long," Jax decides, reaching outrageously long arms out to grasp both their bishops by their crosses and sending the pieces skittering across the board and pillow fort with two quick sweeping motions. He unceremoniously chucked the fuzzy pieces away, hitting Gangle and Zooble. "I win."

"Jax," sighed Ragatha, not surprised but disappointed.

"What? They were taking forever."

"It's alright," said Kinger, chipperly, as his hands grabbed scattered soldiers with the same gentleness he gave beetles. "I think I remember where everything went."

"Yer killing me, here," Jax said, dead serious.

Notes:

Every word of this felt like acid. GOD it reads so clunky. You can tell it's my first TADC piece.

Anyway, this was mostly a chance to try my hand at writing these goofs! Also, chess. I actually really like chess! I am. Terrible at it! But I have a lot of fun playing. I really recommend learning to play- chess dot com has free lessons that go piece by piece and you can learn really easy.

-Mandaree1