14 Years Ago...
"Hey mom, can I go look?" A young boy who couldn't have been more than six years old asked this to his mother.
The mom looked at her son who tugged at her shirt. Normally she would tell her kid to stop being rude and let adults finish their conversation, but no young kid wants to listen to a boring conversation between their mother and grandfather.
"Oh go and let the child have a bit of fun. Kids their age can't stand being still this long, you sure didn't." Mentioned the mom's father and the kid's grandfather.
"Oh fine, but don't break anything, O-K?" The mother relented and gave her son permission to go play.
"Yea, thanks!" And so the kid dashed off to one of the corners of the household.
"Hey, don't run in your grandfather's house!" Yelled the mom.
The grandfather simply laughed and brushed it off. "Don't worry, kids need to be energetic."
"That's the problem. He's a bit too energetic. Oh, he said something funny the other day."
"Hm?" Curious the grandfather grunted in acknowledgement.
"He said he wanted to get a mansion one day and have a few maids and butlers. I asked him where he would get the money for such a lavish life and he mentioned something about winning the lottery or robbing a bank."
As if acquiring an interested thought, the grandfather raised an eyebrow. "That'll take some work."
"Tell me about it..."
...
In the other side of the grandfather's house, the young child was already playing with fragile heirlooms. One of the heirlooms was a figurine of a wolf; it was currently engaged in a ferocious battle against a similar figurine in the guise of a hawk.
Eventually the champion was the wolf and he proceeded to higher ground to fight deadlier foes, otherwise known as the attic. The child, whenever he went to his grandfather's house, always went to the attic if he could. There were many interesting things to look at and play with in the attic. The child didn't know what his grandfather did for a living, but it apparently allowed him to collect various artifacts and relics like an antique dealer.
Plus when he did go into the attic, he was able to meet his friend who was only able to play with him in that area. The boy stood in front of an odd mirror that would seem out of place in the normal suburban home. He reached out to the mirror and pulled out the hand of his friend.
"Hey, what should we play today?" The kid enthusiastically asked his friend.
This friend was a girl with strange animal ears and tail, but the boy didn't question or care, in fact, he thought it was pretty cool. He especially liked that her animal ears and tail resembled a bird of prey and a wolf. Because of that, he made his favorite animals an eagle and wolf respectively.
The girl was fairly quiet compared to him, but she always played with him no matter what, as if she was compelled to do so. "I will play whatever you wish." It seemed the girl tried to sound mature and formal, but her voice was still fairly high.
"Okay then, how about chess! I learned to play from gramps, he even told me about a super secret legal move!" The young boy pulled out an antique chess set with a board and pieces made of ancient oak. The pieces were individually and intricately designed and the board was still giving off a polished sheen.
The boy and girl arranged the pieces on the board. "You want to be black or white?" The boy asked. "I can be whichever color you want."
"I can be either." The girl replied somewhat idly.
The boy frowned. "Hey, come on, you gotta have some opinion of what you wanna be. Well, I'll be white then." The boy and girl sat on opposite sides of the chess set in the attic and began playing. "Go forward my knight!" Whenever he played chess, which wasn't often, the boy always had a habit of randomly choosing one of his knights to move forward first, then his pawns. "No going easy on me!"
"Yes..." The girl nodded and her tail twitched upright as she decided on her first move. She moved the pawn linear to the knight forward one square.
Turn after turn passed until strategies, elaborate even for these two young children, came into play. It wouldn't be far off to say that both of these kids had capabilities to become professional chess players, but neither had that sort of desire. In fact, what both of these children wanted correlated in some strange way...
The boy talked with the girl about many things, though she rarely spoke back. He told her about his weird dream to own a mansion and have numerous servants to be with him. He told her about how much he loved eagles and wolves. He told the girl how pretty she looked with an old silken headband they had found in the attic, to which the girl blushed and kept it in her hair for the duration of the visit.
"Taking my bishop, are you? Counter!" The boy just had the first of his bishops taken by the girl's pawn.
Right now the girl had an impenetrable line of defense with her units, though she suffered some losses in setting it up, she now believed she would win no matter what. The cornerstone of her defense was her queen. If she lost her queen, it was unlikely she could win at this point. It was now a war of attrition for her.
And her predictions were right. There appeared a chance to take the boy's king. She moved in her queen and said, "Check."
However drastic the situation was, the boy showed no hint of anxiety, only the thrill of challenge. He moved his second rook to a position near the queen, but safe from harm before relinquishing his turn over to the girl.
