Chess, chess, chess, a board game played by two people that pit both players in the role of commanders of two respective armies; black and white, a game that stimulated the mind and, for all intents and purposes, was a game of intelligence and wits. The victory was virtually guaranteed to the person that made the best moves, to the person who's perception was greater than his opponent's. It wasn't a game that Avery tended to favor, but if someone out there was willing to pay her money for a game of chess, then who was she to say no? She'd probably lose, especially if the employer was actually a professional player, a young prodigy from the sounds of it, but that didn't matter if her coin purse would become just a little bit fatter by the end of the day. She entered the Hargeon park with a neutral expression on her face, and could see many things in the distance, of course, the thing that she was looking out for was the area where people, mostly senior citizens and even a few teenagers, played chess on the chessboards that had been built into the area.

It was an amenity that not many people took advantage of, but her employer for today, the young boy who went by the name of Bart Decker was one of the few who used this government given facility of built in chessboards. Avery, herself, was the kind of person to simply ignore this kind of thing and was actually quite surprised that she found herself here today, getting ready to play a game of chess with a guy who was almost a decade younger than she was. It wasn't really her idea of a hot date, but it was normal to have days like this too, wasn't it? At the present moment, not to anyone's surprise, the chessboard area was completely empty save for one part which was occupied by a young boy who was quite obviously Bart Decker. The elderly people were all probably heading home at this point and it was still too early for the shy teenagers to come out for their nightly game. Bart himself probably wouldn't even have been here himself if he hadn't been expecting her to show up and play against him either.

She took the seat opposite him on the chessboard and looked at the chessboard that was laid out in front of her. It looked like she was sitting on the black side, which meant that he would be given the grace of making the first move; she didn't really think this had any bearing on the game though, or was it true that depending on whether you go first or second in a game of chess, you would have the advantage or be at a disadvantage? She might have read something like that once upon a time a long time ago, but it didn't really matter now.

She waited for him to make the first move.

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"I have two brothers, you know. Two regular brothers. They're not movie stars or anything, and they're not being attacked by grannies that are also in the movie or any Mexican armadas or anything strange like that. They're just regular brothers. They're pretty good at what they do too; better than I could ever be probably. My parents want me to be like them. I'm not sure if I can," the boy spoke these nonsensical words while moving his rook, and while those words were definitely nonsensical and would have sounded nonsensical to most people, Avery knew more or less what it was that he was talking about. He felt inferior to his elder brothers, he didn't know whether he could be as good as them or even be in the same league as them. He probably didn't feel like they'd acknowledge him if he wasn't as good as them, and the pressure from his parents probably did nothing to help that either. Generally, you'd be happy to have a reliable elder sibling but when you're constantly compared to him and fall short every time, then it was only to be expected that you'd become incredibly stressed. Avery felt the same, or at least had the same opinion although it probably did nothing to comfort the boy since Avery didn't actually have any siblings that she could be compared to, and even if she did, she would probably have been her father's favorite.

"And? Who cares if you're not as good as them?" she moved her pawn; not a very good move probably, but she hadn't been thinking and was mostly focusing on talking to the boy who was clearly insecure about his worries that he was inferior to his elder brothers. Avery probably could have taken advantage of that to win the chess game, but she probably wasn't doing him any favors by winning the game. In the end, after a reasonably long game of chess, the boy proved himself to be a true prodigy by wedging Avery's king between two of her pawns and only giving her two possible moves. If she moved forward, the king would have been caught by the knight but moving backward would have meant her king would be in the sights of Bart's rook.

In other words, it was checkmate.

Even though the game had ended with Bart's victory, he did not celebrate or even leave his seat as he spent at least another five minutes sitting down pondering about something. It was probably something about what was going on right now and what they had just talked back as opposed to the very conventional game of chess that they had just played. Eventually, Bart sighed and gave Avery some money, mentioning to her that he had intended to pay up regardless of how the match turned out. In the end, he had no intention of playing a serious chess game (since he did not believe there was anybody who could defeat him fairly), but had just wanted some good company for a while.

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