[FF7] On Dragon Wings
FF7 - On Dragon Wings
Timeline: BC to end AC.
Warning: Spoilers.
Rating: PG-13 (here there be understated kink)
Genre: Serious, speculative
Pairings: Rufus/Tseng
For: sister_coyote
Word count: 14 x 100 + 300 = 1700.
A/N: :') This fic isn't intended to make sense. ...Well, maybe it is, but it's supposed to be abstract. For geeks and interested parties, there's a lot of reference to chess whazzums that are explained in the explanatory notes. The lack of signposting is intentional /o/. So is the 100 word limit on each segment (except for the last), and the pure-dialogue / pure-narrative alternation. It makes a lot more sense if you know the series. Or specifically, the Turks and their speech patterns.
Summary: Rufus and Tseng, wrapped up in a chess analogy. All life is a game, but the heart of another is not as easy to win as a round of chess...
White: 1. e4
Play a game with me.
“d4, d5. c4.”
“Queen’s Pawn opening. A sound opening, less hazardous than the gambits on the King’s side. cxd4 leads to a closed position, which may result in a highly positional game.”
“How very like you. A sacrifice that is not a sacrifice at all. Prelude to a slow, tortuous game.”
He smiles, dryly. “I take it you prefer e4.”
“A quick struggle for control of the center of the board, bringing the major pieces into the fray early. A fast, uncomplicated game, with endless possibility for traps.”
“…How very like you, Mister Vice President.”
Black: 1. c5
He has little time for games, in his life. Afternoons spent with the President’s son are the closest he gets to holidays, sequestered high in the Shinra tower with sunlight streaking through the windows. Rufus’ hair is gold to rival those spun threads, falling into his eyes as he stares at the board, brows furrowed. There is the rustle of cloth, and he watches as long fingers deftly pluck his black pawn from the wings and replaces it with a white one.
Tap of the clock, and the tick of clockwork fills the still air, counting the hours flying past.
White: 2. Nf3
“Check.”
“Nxf8, check. And you, sir, are a rook down.”
“And mate in 10, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“A miscalculation on my part.”
“Your strategy of constantly threatening the king with nothing to back it up often misfires. Beware of quick and dirty tactics. They will not always work against a skilled opponent.”
“Hmm. Certainly, they don’t work against you. I thought, however, that forcing the king to move wastes the opponent’s move, messes up his position, and advances mine.”
“Not when there are others to leap to the king’s defence.” His tone is bland. “As is often the case.”
Black: 2. d6
Rufus’ eyes are blue, like the sky beyond the window. They are locked onto his face, watching him instead of the board, seeking to peer directly into his mind and divine his thought. He moves, and Rufus responds immediately, so quickly that they do not need to hit the clock.
They draw.
Days later, he hauls Rufus away from his own folly - his gamble against the President has failed, his game lost. The trip back to Headquarters is cloaked in tense silence, and when the doors close behind them, Rufus pulls the old chess set from the shelf.
“Teach me.”
White: 3. d4
“Concede.”
“Persuade me.”
“You sound like my father.”
“These games are not entirely for fun. Nor are the negotiating skills you learn from other tutors entirely for work.”
“Your pawn structure is a wreck, I have a pawn about to queen on the b-file, a bishop pair to your bishop and knight. Believe me, it will only go downhill from here.”
“I do believe you are right. Congratulations on your win, sir. I do believe it is your first.”
“…So it is.”
He leans back. “What did you do right?”
“I do believe… I have learnt the value of pawns.”
Black: 3. cxd4
The orders feel like they are burning a hole in his pocket, heavy with seals and official signatures, even as he sits there, watching Rufus move a pawn. He has heard the rumours - they say that the boy negotiated for the death of one instead of the whole department.
But such a one.
His mentor. Veld.
Paper brushes his fingers under the table, and his face does not shift while he takes it.
He only reads the note later, standing in the pouring rain outside Shinra tower.
Hide him, it says.
And he knows that he has not been betrayed.
White. 4. Nxd4
“That is the second game you have lost to me, Tseng. Is something on your mind?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you feeling unwell, perhaps?”
“Not at all.”
“Then I can only conclude that you are losing your touch.”
“Perhaps you should consider the possibility that the student has outpaced the teacher.”
“Impossible. Equal, perhaps. Overtake? Hardly. Another round?”
“I am afraid that this will have to be our last.”
“Come now, you always say that, but-“
“And I have nothing more to teach you.”
A long pause. “…One more round, then.”
He loses within 45 moves, and takes his leave.
Black: 4. Nf6
Rufus’ playing style has matured. The white pawns march, rank on rank, building on a strong opening to a stronger middle game, with a crushing victory in the end game. A wise opponent does not wait until checkmate is announced; he knows when the outcome is inevitable, and bows out gracefully.
The Vice President leaves for Junon. The Director remains in Midgar, battling the threat of the Zirconiade, and there is no longer any time for games.
Letters arrive, with no official letterhead. 1. e4 they all read, in the postscript.
He does not return any letters of his own.
White: 5. Nc3
“Yo, boss. They say that th’ Prez is dead. Speared right through the gut by Sephiroth’s masamune, believe it or not…”
“I heard. I was under the impression that Sephiroth was dead.”
“Well, not as dead as we would like, obviously.”
“And the Vice President?”
“The Prez you mean. Rufus is fine and dandy. Orders you to come back to Midgar straightaway, by the way.”
“Sephiroth is a threat to the Company. Tell him I am in pursuit and will be handling that matter personally.”
“But he ordered-“
“I know what he ordered, Reno.”
“You’re disobeying?!”
He hangs up.
Black: 5. g6
His companion’s hair is almost the same shade of gold, but Scarlet is not Rufus, and he is wearied of her already as she picks the ruins of the Gongaga reactor. She makes a jab at Heidegger, but she is wrong: Heidegger is not his boss.
He has no superior now; his oath to the previous President not renewed with the new one. He acts for Shinra as a matter of courtesy, but he has other missions.
Aeris. Sephiroth.
His phone beeps once, and he frowns, checking the message.
“1. d4,” Rufus’ message reads.
And something twists in his chest.
White: 6. Be3
“1. d5.”
A startled intake of breath. “I-“
He bows. “I received your summons, sir. I apologise for the delay.”
“…2. … c4.”
“dxc4.”
“… e3. It has been… a long time. I believe I may be rusty.”
“It has been a while, indeed. b5.”
“a4. Sit down, let me get a board, and we can do this properly.”
“c6. Do you not have other duties to attend to?”
“…I can always spare time for you. axb5.”
“cxb5. …Then I am at your disposal. Mister President.”
“Welcome home, Tseng. It is good to have you back.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Black: 6. Bg7
When Elena tells him the news, the phone drops from nerveless hands to hit the board. Pieces fly, while he stands frozen.
He reaches at last for them with shaking hands, but there is a long crack in the side of the crystal, and as he touches it, frosted shards slice through skin. He stares at it, mind a million miles away in a long forgotten temple.
In his mind’s eye he kneels besides Tseng’s fallen form, cursing, screaming, rejecting utterly the fact that the infallible could topple.
He pulls Tseng close, and black and white meld into endless grey.
White: 7. f3
“It is a pleasant surprise to find you alive and well, Director.”
“How is the President?”
“He was caught in the blast to the Shinra tower, as you know-“
“And rescued. What of his injuries? His chances of survival?”
“…He suffered extensive brain trauma. We do not know if he will ever wake up again. And even if he does…”
“He will.” He is too stubborn to die.
“…It may be kinder to let him go, Tseng. He will be crippled, Shinra Company is gone…”
“He will overcome, doctor.”
The game is not over until the king falls.
Black: 7. 0-0
When Rufus falls, it feels like Tseng’s heart falls with him. The relief that stabs through him as Rufus hits the nets and stops, suspended safe above the asphalt, feels like Sephiroth’s masamune through his gut again.
Reno pulls him free, and they stand around him, their white king, as the rain washes away the black rot in his skin.
They walk back together, white and black, and Tseng asks, very softly, “Are we still your pawns, Mister President?”
Rufus’ smile is like light breaking over the horizon at dawn. “Pawns who reach the end of the board become queens.”
White: 8. Qd2
“e4.”
“c5.”
“So predictable, Tseng. Nf3.”
He moves the pieces for Rufus, the clink as they hit the board loud in the drowsy silence of the afternoon. “Nc6.”
“d4. Perhaps this is why you always lose, these days. If you would but play something new…”
“We are playing something new, are we not?” Tseng shifts Rufus’ white pawn. “After you decided to accept a handicap. cxd4.”
“And so you’re keeping it predictable for my sake? That was hardly the point. Nxd4. We’ve played this opening a hundred times.”
“A thousand, perhaps, Nf6.” His eyes fall on Rufus, leaning back in the tall armchair with an air of absolute and perfect ease. The very same position he takes at the start of every game, except there is a slight smugness to his smile, as he reaches up to tug the blindfold over his eyes.
“Nc3.”
“Are you cheating, sir?” Tseng’s voice is soft as he moves to intercept Rufus’ hand, wandering around to the back of his chair to catch the other wrist as well. “g6.”
“Cheating? Hardly. I daresay the Turks know how to tie a blindfold. Be3.”
“But of course. Bb7.” Rufus has tilted his head backwards, and Tseng finds himself moving to trace the lines on his neck where bandages once covered. Rufus shivers lightly under his touch, and Tseng’s smirk grows.
“More distraction techniques?” Rufus’ voice is breathy, and the low rumble of it sends needles up Tseng’s spine.
“Turks do not play fair.”
Fine golden strands tickle his face as Rufus tilts his head back further. “I should have known. f3.”
“0-0. King-side castle,” Tseng replies automatically, even as Rufus’ teeth find his ear lobe.
“Qd2.” Rufus’ breath ghosts over the shell of his ear.
And Tseng decides that chess can wait. More …pressing… matters call.
--
END
--
Explanatory notes:
“The Sicilian Dragon is a fierce weapon in the hands of the Black player. If you are not afraid of a fight, love tactics, enjoy decimating your opponents, enjoy taking risks and love to attack, then the Dragon is the opening for you!” - http://amchesscoaching.com/Lessons/learn_to_play_the_sicilian_drago.htm
This is a website which allows you to follow the moves in the Dragon, for those of you who are interested. It is, however, a different game, and the order of moves varies slightly in the middle, with white losing quickly on a blunder after the opening. However, sequence aside, the moves are the same until Qd2.
This entire fiction is structured around a chess analogy, with the players playing games that mirror events in the FFVII timeline. (Unfortunately, it would take too long to explain chess notation, but if you do a quick google search, you should be able to find a page that lays it out for you.) Broadly, Rufus is playing white. In the first ‘move’, “White: 1. e4”, we are told that Rufus is the e4 player while Tseng is the d4 player - the first line of the conversation is Rufus revising the opening that Tseng is teaching him, the second is Tseng explaining it.
e4 is an opening that moves the king’s pawn 2 squares. Generally, these openings lead to ‘tactical’ games -- generally, play would focus on the pieces instead of the pawns, which generally leads to a large number of piece exchanges, clearing the board relatively quickly. Emphasis is placed on ‘tactics’ rather than positions - e.g. by sacrificing pieces to obtain a checkmate, finding combinations to win a piece without losing one of your own, etc.
d4 is the corresponding Queen’s pawn move. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 cxd4 is known as the Queen’s gambit - where White apparently sacrifices a pawn without gaining anything back. In reality, it is easy to regain a pawn from black, hence a ‘sacrifice that is not really a sacrifice’. This has later implications at the Temple of the Ancients. Broadly speaking, d4 openings are ‘positional’, with greater emphasis on how moving one’s pieces can lead to a formation that is advantageous later in the game, rather than looking for a quick fix. Few pieces may be exchanged, leading to a cluttered board that may appear complicated.
Young Rufus favours the e4 opening, which is an analogy for the impatience of youth and desire to win quickly, instead of engaging in long, drawn out battles.
Black: 1. c5
Tseng’s response is called the ‘Sicilian’. The most common response to Rufus’ 1. e4 is e5, which has many possibilities, but generally leads to the ‘open’, tactical positions that Rufus is attempting to obtain. e5 challenges the most important squares in the game at this point - the middle squares - while preventing white from advancing any further and gaining more space and more advantage.
Tseng denies Rufus an open game by using a more subtle challenge to the center - by moving an off-center pawn (the c pawn.) This has a myriad of possibilities - there is the ‘open’ Sicilian and the ‘closed’ Sicilian. Since Rufus prefers open games and Tseng prefers closed ones, he essentially punts the choice back to Rufus to decide once more which type of game he would like to turn this into.
2. Nf3 Nc6
Predictably, Rufus chooses the open Sicilian. These two parts represent the events in mid-BC. In the game, Rufus, looking for a quick win, attacks the king without calculating correctly, and loses the game. In real life, Rufus attempts to overthrow the President. The Turks throw themselves in the way, and Rufus loses.
3. d4 cxd4
White is dictating this game, and the fight for the center starts in earnest, cementing this as an open game. Three years after the events in move 2, Rufus has learnt the value of a more well-rounded playing strategy, relying less on tactics. He learns the value of his pawns, an analogy for the Turks, as he moves them against Shinra. These parts represent Veld’s defection from Shinra; the President orders him executed, Rufus intervenes under the table (quite literally!) to order Tseng to save him and fake his death instead. And scores his first victory, in chess, and in Tseng’s eyes.
4. Nxd4 Nf6
His job of training Rufus - not just in chess, but also in life - complete, Tseng leaves. The reasons for his doing so are left to the reader to decipher, but the author’s take is that, wary of Rufus and who he has become, and fearful that they are becoming too close, Tseng chooses to distance himself. In addition, other duties call. The letters that Rufus sends in the 2nd part are an attempt at correspondence chess.
We snap out of BC events here and move towards in-game events. This segment is mostly plot development; white equalises by taking black’s pawn, and black advances his development.
5. Nc3 g6
The death of the President. At this point, the further development of the game depends largely on black’s response - black can play a variety of moves. Similarly, the ball is in Tseng’s court.
By playing g6, black plays the Sicilian Dragon. A nod to Tseng’s Wutai heritage and the traditional association of Chinese and/or Japanese culture with dragons; it also represents the highly charged and dangerous game that they are starting to develop. The title of the fic stems from this defense.
g6 moves a pawn off to the side of the board - symbolic, perhaps, of Tseng’s indirect approach, soon to be followed by up Bg7 (bishop to g7), attacking along the diagonal rather than down the middle.
In part 2, Tseng is pursuing his own agenda. Sickened by the fall of sector 7, guilt-ridden by his betrayal of Aeris, he chooses instead to act for himself. But his pursuit of Sephiroth is, perhaps unknown even to him, driven by his desire to protect Rufus from afar.
In an attempt at correspondence, Rufus switches from e4 to d4 - from his to Tseng’s opening, to a game style that Tseng prefers. Perhaps it is an effort to see things from Tseng’s point of view; but clearly, it is a subtle request for Tseng to come home.
6. Be3 Bg7
Bishop moves, more development without actual clashes. Tseng returns without warning, addressing Rufus as President for the first time, acknowledging his status. And is dispatched shortly thereafter to the Temple of the Ancients. Rufus believes he is dead, and for the first time, the drabble is written from Rufus’ point of view. The fracture of the chessboard - the shards and the blood - are a subtle nod to that old cliché of Rufus Shinra never bleeding or crying.
7. f3
f3 features Tseng’s return, after the Shinra tower has fallen. Rufus, heavily injured, is in a coma and in danger of lapsing into a vegetative state after suffering extensive brain trauma. The doctor hints at euthanasia, Tseng rejects it: all other pieces may be sacrificed, but not the king.
0-0 represents the king side castle move: the bishop and the knight between the king and the rook on the h-file have moved out, leaving empty space between the two. The king moves two squares towards the rook (to f8), and the rook moves two squares towards the king (to e8), swapping sides and eliminating the space between them in the same move. The king is now better protected, and the rook now has more access to the critical center of the board, making it more useful.
Needless to say, this represents the sudden shift in Rufus and Tseng’s relationship. This segment is based at the end of AC. If Tseng is the queen, the Reno is the Knight, Elena is the Bishop, and Rude is the Rook.
This is developing into the Yugoslav Attack. According to www.chessgames.com, in 468 games from 1938 to 2007, white wins 43.8% of the time, black wins 28.6% of the time, and they draw 27.6%. Advantage to Rufus, if he can follow through.
8. Qd2
Rufus offers to play blindfolded to give Tseng a handicap, since the inability to see the board requires you to memorise all the moves and the locations of the pieces. Tseng attempts distraction techniques, which backfire quite spectacularly, but one suspects that he doesn’t mind at all.
Qd2 is one of the last, established opening moves, and from here it moves on out into the middle-game, where anything is possible, and is left to the players’ imaginations. Most chess games are won or lost in the middle game. Aptly, it is also white’s first Queen move.
As befitting a fic about chess that is not actually about chess, the last installment features them moving away from chess, a subtle hint that life, and the relationship between these two, is not about the game and all it represents - conflict, winning and losing, fixed rules and pieces and roles and strategy. As such, the last segment (which is 300 words long, exactly) also breaks out of the rigid 100 words per segment form, mixing dialogue and narrative.
Naturally, they play the Sicilian Dragon.
Author’s Notes:
It amazes me how this fic fell into place. I wanted to write something to get rid of writer’s block and get back into the groove, I needed a Rufus/Tseng for sister_coyote, and with the prompt being as much UST as they could handle, and I didn’t want to do the clichés of Tseng looking after bratty Rufus, or Rufus pining over Tseng.
Everyone writes chess fics. It definitely ranks high up there in the author’s-favourite-analogy-to-use, almost alongside sakura petals. Which is why I wanted to keep it centered around the concept of a game, Rufus and Tseng dancing around each other and never really showing their true feelings until Tseng gets stabbed and Rufus hovers over his unconscious form in hospital. I still want to write that, since it got left out in this fic.
Somehow, I started on the first installment, and everything fell into place. I’ve always wanted to write a drabble series, so it was quite natural for it to turn into one, and since I’d started out with solid dialogue, it made sense to alternate dialogue drabbles and narrative drabbles. After I named the first drabble after a chess move, I knew that it was going to be something quite, quite different.
The choice of the Sicilian Dragon was natural - because of the name, and because it’s recognized as one of the sharpest openings in chess. The analogies all flooded in after that - Rufus as white and Tseng as black was, again, obvious, but don’t ask me where the others came from. High school literature, I think.
It definitely wasn’t as easy to write this as it was a normal fic, but it has been my greatest pleasure to do so. It is the first time I feel like I’ve really done something different with my writing - it’s almost like mixing prose and poetry, and now I see why poets get such a sense of satisfaction from their works.
But while I squee like a magpie over a shiny at pulling it off, I do, however, want to expand on it. The beauty and the problem of drabbles is that they contain so much in so little. I like the idea of Tseng leaving Shinra, (not wanting to be subject to the whims of a bratty President whom he thinks is unworthy of him), because it’s something that is quite unlike the traditional fandom Tseng, who is always there, even before you realize you need him…
…Anyone who wants to see a proper fic written about that, say ‘aye’.
Timeline: BC to end AC.
Warning: Spoilers.
Rating: PG-13 (here there be understated kink)
Genre: Serious, speculative
Pairings: Rufus/Tseng
For: sister_coyote
Word count: 14 x 100 + 300 = 1700.
A/N: :') This fic isn't intended to make sense. ...Well, maybe it is, but it's supposed to be abstract. For geeks and interested parties, there's a lot of reference to chess whazzums that are explained in the explanatory notes. The lack of signposting is intentional /o/. So is the 100 word limit on each segment (except for the last), and the pure-dialogue / pure-narrative alternation. It makes a lot more sense if you know the series. Or specifically, the Turks and their speech patterns.
Summary: Rufus and Tseng, wrapped up in a chess analogy. All life is a game, but the heart of another is not as easy to win as a round of chess...
White: 1. e4
Play a game with me.
“d4, d5. c4.”
“Queen’s Pawn opening. A sound opening, less hazardous than the gambits on the King’s side. cxd4 leads to a closed position, which may result in a highly positional game.”
“How very like you. A sacrifice that is not a sacrifice at all. Prelude to a slow, tortuous game.”
He smiles, dryly. “I take it you prefer e4.”
“A quick struggle for control of the center of the board, bringing the major pieces into the fray early. A fast, uncomplicated game, with endless possibility for traps.”
“…How very like you, Mister Vice President.”
Black: 1. c5
He has little time for games, in his life. Afternoons spent with the President’s son are the closest he gets to holidays, sequestered high in the Shinra tower with sunlight streaking through the windows. Rufus’ hair is gold to rival those spun threads, falling into his eyes as he stares at the board, brows furrowed. There is the rustle of cloth, and he watches as long fingers deftly pluck his black pawn from the wings and replaces it with a white one.
Tap of the clock, and the tick of clockwork fills the still air, counting the hours flying past.
White: 2. Nf3
“Check.”
“Nxf8, check. And you, sir, are a rook down.”
“And mate in 10, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“A miscalculation on my part.”
“Your strategy of constantly threatening the king with nothing to back it up often misfires. Beware of quick and dirty tactics. They will not always work against a skilled opponent.”
“Hmm. Certainly, they don’t work against you. I thought, however, that forcing the king to move wastes the opponent’s move, messes up his position, and advances mine.”
“Not when there are others to leap to the king’s defence.” His tone is bland. “As is often the case.”
Black: 2. d6
Rufus’ eyes are blue, like the sky beyond the window. They are locked onto his face, watching him instead of the board, seeking to peer directly into his mind and divine his thought. He moves, and Rufus responds immediately, so quickly that they do not need to hit the clock.
They draw.
Days later, he hauls Rufus away from his own folly - his gamble against the President has failed, his game lost. The trip back to Headquarters is cloaked in tense silence, and when the doors close behind them, Rufus pulls the old chess set from the shelf.
“Teach me.”
White: 3. d4
“Concede.”
“Persuade me.”
“You sound like my father.”
“These games are not entirely for fun. Nor are the negotiating skills you learn from other tutors entirely for work.”
“Your pawn structure is a wreck, I have a pawn about to queen on the b-file, a bishop pair to your bishop and knight. Believe me, it will only go downhill from here.”
“I do believe you are right. Congratulations on your win, sir. I do believe it is your first.”
“…So it is.”
He leans back. “What did you do right?”
“I do believe… I have learnt the value of pawns.”
Black: 3. cxd4
The orders feel like they are burning a hole in his pocket, heavy with seals and official signatures, even as he sits there, watching Rufus move a pawn. He has heard the rumours - they say that the boy negotiated for the death of one instead of the whole department.
But such a one.
His mentor. Veld.
Paper brushes his fingers under the table, and his face does not shift while he takes it.
He only reads the note later, standing in the pouring rain outside Shinra tower.
Hide him, it says.
And he knows that he has not been betrayed.
White. 4. Nxd4
“That is the second game you have lost to me, Tseng. Is something on your mind?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you feeling unwell, perhaps?”
“Not at all.”
“Then I can only conclude that you are losing your touch.”
“Perhaps you should consider the possibility that the student has outpaced the teacher.”
“Impossible. Equal, perhaps. Overtake? Hardly. Another round?”
“I am afraid that this will have to be our last.”
“Come now, you always say that, but-“
“And I have nothing more to teach you.”
A long pause. “…One more round, then.”
He loses within 45 moves, and takes his leave.
Black: 4. Nf6
Rufus’ playing style has matured. The white pawns march, rank on rank, building on a strong opening to a stronger middle game, with a crushing victory in the end game. A wise opponent does not wait until checkmate is announced; he knows when the outcome is inevitable, and bows out gracefully.
The Vice President leaves for Junon. The Director remains in Midgar, battling the threat of the Zirconiade, and there is no longer any time for games.
Letters arrive, with no official letterhead. 1. e4 they all read, in the postscript.
He does not return any letters of his own.
White: 5. Nc3
“Yo, boss. They say that th’ Prez is dead. Speared right through the gut by Sephiroth’s masamune, believe it or not…”
“I heard. I was under the impression that Sephiroth was dead.”
“Well, not as dead as we would like, obviously.”
“And the Vice President?”
“The Prez you mean. Rufus is fine and dandy. Orders you to come back to Midgar straightaway, by the way.”
“Sephiroth is a threat to the Company. Tell him I am in pursuit and will be handling that matter personally.”
“But he ordered-“
“I know what he ordered, Reno.”
“You’re disobeying?!”
He hangs up.
Black: 5. g6
His companion’s hair is almost the same shade of gold, but Scarlet is not Rufus, and he is wearied of her already as she picks the ruins of the Gongaga reactor. She makes a jab at Heidegger, but she is wrong: Heidegger is not his boss.
He has no superior now; his oath to the previous President not renewed with the new one. He acts for Shinra as a matter of courtesy, but he has other missions.
Aeris. Sephiroth.
His phone beeps once, and he frowns, checking the message.
“1. d4,” Rufus’ message reads.
And something twists in his chest.
White: 6. Be3
“1. d5.”
A startled intake of breath. “I-“
He bows. “I received your summons, sir. I apologise for the delay.”
“…2. … c4.”
“dxc4.”
“… e3. It has been… a long time. I believe I may be rusty.”
“It has been a while, indeed. b5.”
“a4. Sit down, let me get a board, and we can do this properly.”
“c6. Do you not have other duties to attend to?”
“…I can always spare time for you. axb5.”
“cxb5. …Then I am at your disposal. Mister President.”
“Welcome home, Tseng. It is good to have you back.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Black: 6. Bg7
When Elena tells him the news, the phone drops from nerveless hands to hit the board. Pieces fly, while he stands frozen.
He reaches at last for them with shaking hands, but there is a long crack in the side of the crystal, and as he touches it, frosted shards slice through skin. He stares at it, mind a million miles away in a long forgotten temple.
In his mind’s eye he kneels besides Tseng’s fallen form, cursing, screaming, rejecting utterly the fact that the infallible could topple.
He pulls Tseng close, and black and white meld into endless grey.
White: 7. f3
“It is a pleasant surprise to find you alive and well, Director.”
“How is the President?”
“He was caught in the blast to the Shinra tower, as you know-“
“And rescued. What of his injuries? His chances of survival?”
“…He suffered extensive brain trauma. We do not know if he will ever wake up again. And even if he does…”
“He will.” He is too stubborn to die.
“…It may be kinder to let him go, Tseng. He will be crippled, Shinra Company is gone…”
“He will overcome, doctor.”
The game is not over until the king falls.
Black: 7. 0-0
When Rufus falls, it feels like Tseng’s heart falls with him. The relief that stabs through him as Rufus hits the nets and stops, suspended safe above the asphalt, feels like Sephiroth’s masamune through his gut again.
Reno pulls him free, and they stand around him, their white king, as the rain washes away the black rot in his skin.
They walk back together, white and black, and Tseng asks, very softly, “Are we still your pawns, Mister President?”
Rufus’ smile is like light breaking over the horizon at dawn. “Pawns who reach the end of the board become queens.”
White: 8. Qd2
“e4.”
“c5.”
“So predictable, Tseng. Nf3.”
He moves the pieces for Rufus, the clink as they hit the board loud in the drowsy silence of the afternoon. “Nc6.”
“d4. Perhaps this is why you always lose, these days. If you would but play something new…”
“We are playing something new, are we not?” Tseng shifts Rufus’ white pawn. “After you decided to accept a handicap. cxd4.”
“And so you’re keeping it predictable for my sake? That was hardly the point. Nxd4. We’ve played this opening a hundred times.”
“A thousand, perhaps, Nf6.” His eyes fall on Rufus, leaning back in the tall armchair with an air of absolute and perfect ease. The very same position he takes at the start of every game, except there is a slight smugness to his smile, as he reaches up to tug the blindfold over his eyes.
“Nc3.”
“Are you cheating, sir?” Tseng’s voice is soft as he moves to intercept Rufus’ hand, wandering around to the back of his chair to catch the other wrist as well. “g6.”
“Cheating? Hardly. I daresay the Turks know how to tie a blindfold. Be3.”
“But of course. Bb7.” Rufus has tilted his head backwards, and Tseng finds himself moving to trace the lines on his neck where bandages once covered. Rufus shivers lightly under his touch, and Tseng’s smirk grows.
“More distraction techniques?” Rufus’ voice is breathy, and the low rumble of it sends needles up Tseng’s spine.
“Turks do not play fair.”
Fine golden strands tickle his face as Rufus tilts his head back further. “I should have known. f3.”
“0-0. King-side castle,” Tseng replies automatically, even as Rufus’ teeth find his ear lobe.
“Qd2.” Rufus’ breath ghosts over the shell of his ear.
And Tseng decides that chess can wait. More …pressing… matters call.
--
END
--
Explanatory notes:
“The Sicilian Dragon is a fierce weapon in the hands of the Black player. If you are not afraid of a fight, love tactics, enjoy decimating your opponents, enjoy taking risks and love to attack, then the Dragon is the opening for you!” - http://amchesscoaching.com/Lessons/learn_to_play_the_sicilian_drago.htm
This is a website which allows you to follow the moves in the Dragon, for those of you who are interested. It is, however, a different game, and the order of moves varies slightly in the middle, with white losing quickly on a blunder after the opening. However, sequence aside, the moves are the same until Qd2.
This entire fiction is structured around a chess analogy, with the players playing games that mirror events in the FFVII timeline. (Unfortunately, it would take too long to explain chess notation, but if you do a quick google search, you should be able to find a page that lays it out for you.) Broadly, Rufus is playing white. In the first ‘move’, “White: 1. e4”, we are told that Rufus is the e4 player while Tseng is the d4 player - the first line of the conversation is Rufus revising the opening that Tseng is teaching him, the second is Tseng explaining it.
e4 is an opening that moves the king’s pawn 2 squares. Generally, these openings lead to ‘tactical’ games -- generally, play would focus on the pieces instead of the pawns, which generally leads to a large number of piece exchanges, clearing the board relatively quickly. Emphasis is placed on ‘tactics’ rather than positions - e.g. by sacrificing pieces to obtain a checkmate, finding combinations to win a piece without losing one of your own, etc.
d4 is the corresponding Queen’s pawn move. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 cxd4 is known as the Queen’s gambit - where White apparently sacrifices a pawn without gaining anything back. In reality, it is easy to regain a pawn from black, hence a ‘sacrifice that is not really a sacrifice’. This has later implications at the Temple of the Ancients. Broadly speaking, d4 openings are ‘positional’, with greater emphasis on how moving one’s pieces can lead to a formation that is advantageous later in the game, rather than looking for a quick fix. Few pieces may be exchanged, leading to a cluttered board that may appear complicated.
Young Rufus favours the e4 opening, which is an analogy for the impatience of youth and desire to win quickly, instead of engaging in long, drawn out battles.
Black: 1. c5
Tseng’s response is called the ‘Sicilian’. The most common response to Rufus’ 1. e4 is e5, which has many possibilities, but generally leads to the ‘open’, tactical positions that Rufus is attempting to obtain. e5 challenges the most important squares in the game at this point - the middle squares - while preventing white from advancing any further and gaining more space and more advantage.
Tseng denies Rufus an open game by using a more subtle challenge to the center - by moving an off-center pawn (the c pawn.) This has a myriad of possibilities - there is the ‘open’ Sicilian and the ‘closed’ Sicilian. Since Rufus prefers open games and Tseng prefers closed ones, he essentially punts the choice back to Rufus to decide once more which type of game he would like to turn this into.
2. Nf3 Nc6
Predictably, Rufus chooses the open Sicilian. These two parts represent the events in mid-BC. In the game, Rufus, looking for a quick win, attacks the king without calculating correctly, and loses the game. In real life, Rufus attempts to overthrow the President. The Turks throw themselves in the way, and Rufus loses.
3. d4 cxd4
White is dictating this game, and the fight for the center starts in earnest, cementing this as an open game. Three years after the events in move 2, Rufus has learnt the value of a more well-rounded playing strategy, relying less on tactics. He learns the value of his pawns, an analogy for the Turks, as he moves them against Shinra. These parts represent Veld’s defection from Shinra; the President orders him executed, Rufus intervenes under the table (quite literally!) to order Tseng to save him and fake his death instead. And scores his first victory, in chess, and in Tseng’s eyes.
4. Nxd4 Nf6
His job of training Rufus - not just in chess, but also in life - complete, Tseng leaves. The reasons for his doing so are left to the reader to decipher, but the author’s take is that, wary of Rufus and who he has become, and fearful that they are becoming too close, Tseng chooses to distance himself. In addition, other duties call. The letters that Rufus sends in the 2nd part are an attempt at correspondence chess.
We snap out of BC events here and move towards in-game events. This segment is mostly plot development; white equalises by taking black’s pawn, and black advances his development.
5. Nc3 g6
The death of the President. At this point, the further development of the game depends largely on black’s response - black can play a variety of moves. Similarly, the ball is in Tseng’s court.
By playing g6, black plays the Sicilian Dragon. A nod to Tseng’s Wutai heritage and the traditional association of Chinese and/or Japanese culture with dragons; it also represents the highly charged and dangerous game that they are starting to develop. The title of the fic stems from this defense.
g6 moves a pawn off to the side of the board - symbolic, perhaps, of Tseng’s indirect approach, soon to be followed by up Bg7 (bishop to g7), attacking along the diagonal rather than down the middle.
In part 2, Tseng is pursuing his own agenda. Sickened by the fall of sector 7, guilt-ridden by his betrayal of Aeris, he chooses instead to act for himself. But his pursuit of Sephiroth is, perhaps unknown even to him, driven by his desire to protect Rufus from afar.
In an attempt at correspondence, Rufus switches from e4 to d4 - from his to Tseng’s opening, to a game style that Tseng prefers. Perhaps it is an effort to see things from Tseng’s point of view; but clearly, it is a subtle request for Tseng to come home.
6. Be3 Bg7
Bishop moves, more development without actual clashes. Tseng returns without warning, addressing Rufus as President for the first time, acknowledging his status. And is dispatched shortly thereafter to the Temple of the Ancients. Rufus believes he is dead, and for the first time, the drabble is written from Rufus’ point of view. The fracture of the chessboard - the shards and the blood - are a subtle nod to that old cliché of Rufus Shinra never bleeding or crying.
7. f3
f3 features Tseng’s return, after the Shinra tower has fallen. Rufus, heavily injured, is in a coma and in danger of lapsing into a vegetative state after suffering extensive brain trauma. The doctor hints at euthanasia, Tseng rejects it: all other pieces may be sacrificed, but not the king.
0-0 represents the king side castle move: the bishop and the knight between the king and the rook on the h-file have moved out, leaving empty space between the two. The king moves two squares towards the rook (to f8), and the rook moves two squares towards the king (to e8), swapping sides and eliminating the space between them in the same move. The king is now better protected, and the rook now has more access to the critical center of the board, making it more useful.
Needless to say, this represents the sudden shift in Rufus and Tseng’s relationship. This segment is based at the end of AC. If Tseng is the queen, the Reno is the Knight, Elena is the Bishop, and Rude is the Rook.
This is developing into the Yugoslav Attack. According to www.chessgames.com, in 468 games from 1938 to 2007, white wins 43.8% of the time, black wins 28.6% of the time, and they draw 27.6%. Advantage to Rufus, if he can follow through.
8. Qd2
Rufus offers to play blindfolded to give Tseng a handicap, since the inability to see the board requires you to memorise all the moves and the locations of the pieces. Tseng attempts distraction techniques, which backfire quite spectacularly, but one suspects that he doesn’t mind at all.
Qd2 is one of the last, established opening moves, and from here it moves on out into the middle-game, where anything is possible, and is left to the players’ imaginations. Most chess games are won or lost in the middle game. Aptly, it is also white’s first Queen move.
As befitting a fic about chess that is not actually about chess, the last installment features them moving away from chess, a subtle hint that life, and the relationship between these two, is not about the game and all it represents - conflict, winning and losing, fixed rules and pieces and roles and strategy. As such, the last segment (which is 300 words long, exactly) also breaks out of the rigid 100 words per segment form, mixing dialogue and narrative.
Naturally, they play the Sicilian Dragon.
Author’s Notes:
It amazes me how this fic fell into place. I wanted to write something to get rid of writer’s block and get back into the groove, I needed a Rufus/Tseng for sister_coyote, and with the prompt being as much UST as they could handle, and I didn’t want to do the clichés of Tseng looking after bratty Rufus, or Rufus pining over Tseng.
Everyone writes chess fics. It definitely ranks high up there in the author’s-favourite-analogy-to-use, almost alongside sakura petals. Which is why I wanted to keep it centered around the concept of a game, Rufus and Tseng dancing around each other and never really showing their true feelings until Tseng gets stabbed and Rufus hovers over his unconscious form in hospital. I still want to write that, since it got left out in this fic.
Somehow, I started on the first installment, and everything fell into place. I’ve always wanted to write a drabble series, so it was quite natural for it to turn into one, and since I’d started out with solid dialogue, it made sense to alternate dialogue drabbles and narrative drabbles. After I named the first drabble after a chess move, I knew that it was going to be something quite, quite different.
The choice of the Sicilian Dragon was natural - because of the name, and because it’s recognized as one of the sharpest openings in chess. The analogies all flooded in after that - Rufus as white and Tseng as black was, again, obvious, but don’t ask me where the others came from. High school literature, I think.
It definitely wasn’t as easy to write this as it was a normal fic, but it has been my greatest pleasure to do so. It is the first time I feel like I’ve really done something different with my writing - it’s almost like mixing prose and poetry, and now I see why poets get such a sense of satisfaction from their works.
But while I squee like a magpie over a shiny at pulling it off, I do, however, want to expand on it. The beauty and the problem of drabbles is that they contain so much in so little. I like the idea of Tseng leaving Shinra, (not wanting to be subject to the whims of a bratty President whom he thinks is unworthy of him), because it’s something that is quite unlike the traditional fandom Tseng, who is always there, even before you realize you need him…
…Anyone who wants to see a proper fic written about that, say ‘aye’.