Reach Out (Carleigh)

[Andreas Ivaring]

Today was a very... boring day.

The hustle and bustle that Hammel usually carried was replaced, instead, by a gaping emptiness, a quietness. Andreas appreciated it, but at the same time hated it. To pass the time, instead of flicking on the TV, he sat with a chess board. It was antiquated, faded mahogany wood with a marble face. The pieces all clacked when they were placed with any amount of force. It was the very board he learned to play on, back when he was at home.

All of the pieces were assembled, lined up properly. They were ready to do battle, yet he didn't have an opponent. He was never a really extroverted guy, but right about now, he wished for an opponent that he could stomp. He'd even suffer through the basic small talk in order for it to happen. There was a slight... Joy he got in actually winning. It didn't matter how easy the task was. It was that sense of glory, greatness... Oh, damn his father.

He practiced in his lonesome, moving the pawns forward, then the knights. It was as if he was playing against someone but, well, that someone else was his right hand. He didn't see how people practiced like this. It was never for practice, it was to pass the time. You couldn't challenge yourself if you knew exactly how to work yourself out of the situation from the start.

At this rate, someone else just walking in and blaring the TV didn't sound like such a bad scenario, only when he realized how pathetic this was.

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carrying a pink tumbler full of coffee, Carleigh walked into the main floor of the dormitory, her other arm holding a notebook and math textbook. She was going to settle on the main floor, hoping to do some homework and maybe catch someone in her class to help her with homework. And by help, she meant copy the already complete work. Was that too much to ask for?

Unfortunately, today the institute was dead. Everyone was probably either cooped up in their dorms, hiding from the snow or off campus doing something else. The blonde was really hoping to find someone to beg for the homework. On the first floor, she only saw one kid, who was sitting there playing chess, by himself in the quiet room. The only sounds seemingly came from his chess... checkers... no chess pieces. She frowned, her eyebrows furrowing together. How could he be okay in such silence? Carleigh would go insane, even after a minute!

Carleigh decided to go sit down in front of the coffee table, on the ground. She crossed her legs and set aside her homework, also setting down her mug of coffee. It made a sound, hopefully grabbing the boy's attention. "Hello." she greeted cheerfully, watching him continue to play. There. Now he had to notice her. "Just playing by yourself there?" she asked, stating the sort of obvious.

[Andreas Ivaring]

He mulled over the choices. Not so much the strategic value of them, but why he was continuing to make them. Clack, clack, clack. He set the bishop three diagonal squares from where it had started. And then the opposite bishop came to block it, and the pawn in that section of the board. If either of them moved, it allowed the black side an open---

That tumbler. It made plenty of noise on his own. Well, there was a silence breaker. He didn't look to see who it was, not immediately. But, as it turned out, unbeknownst to him at the time, he wouldn't have to! The blonde girl, older than he, spoke to him. A greeting. She must have been in his situation, bored out of her mind, unable to really talk to anyone at the moment.

And /lucky him/. He was in the line of fire. "Hello." He replied, his tone about as dull as a knife that cut through sinewy meat and /stone/ on a day to day basis. It was odd how his mind worked in these situations. He didn't want to talk to her, but at the same time, it brought about liberation from his boredom. He'd talk to her until he got bored of it, or until she got super pushy.

"Yes, I am. In case you couldn't tell." Though not inherently venomous, the statement could be construed as rude. "It's pretty quiet here."

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carleigh picked up her tumbler to take a quick sip of the warm drink, setting it down more quietly this time around. She watched him, unphased by her interruption. At first, anyway. She waited in the awkward silence, patiently.

His tone suggested that he wasn't in the mood for talking. She stayed silent, afraid to even breathe a little too loudly. Her chest heaved with each constrained breath. At this point was when the blonde usually gave a nice, departing remark and went on her way but she was bored. And nobody was on campus anyway.

Jeez, just making small talk. Carleigh's smile faltered for a moment, but continued to radiate. "Yeah, it is quiet around here today." she commented, watching him continue to play himself in the game. "Play for awhile?" she asked, making small talk.

[Andreas Ivaring]

He had to think over what she said briefly. "I'm going to assume you either are asking me for a match, in which case, be my guest, I guess." She didn't seem like the sort to really be in to chess, though. Always judgmental, he assumed that she was the person who sat on her phone, playing Flappy Bird or something to that effect. But, he continued, not so much as re-setting the board.

"Or you mean 'Have you been playing for a while', in which case, yes, yes I have been. When other kids learned Go Fish because they had a lot of siblings or friends, or whatever, I played this. With Dad, my Aunt." This was already a whole lot more than he usually divulged. But really, something he couldn't help was a lingering sort of boredom in his tone. So stale sometimes, it could be taken as boredom, or as disinterest. It really depended on the person.

Usually he wasn't one to ask about other people, but he knew, he just /knew/, that this girl was a venus fly trap. And in this case, he was the little fly, buzzing around, trying to mind his own business. He was swallowed up in this conversational engagement, and it was worth just going prone, steeling himself, and army-crawling through it.

"How about you, have you ever played Chess before, or are you more of a 'Game of Life' girl?" It was his awkward attempt at some sort of humor. He didn't understand how it worked or what made people laugh a lot of the time. Eh, it was charming in its own way.

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carleigh stared at the chess board, half in horror, half in wonder. She'd never played the game before, and didn't want to embarrass herself. But at the same time, Carleigh was hesitant to admit her lack of experience. She figured it was too little, too late as he set up the board. "Oh... well... I've never actually played before. So I'm sure that would be a bore for you." Carleigh nodded, a small smile on her face. "Fun fun." Well, not so much for her. But he played with his family, which made the blonde a little jealous. She never spent time with her parents, and even if it was just playing a game of chess, it was better than nothing. Carleigh bit her lip, to hold back her hostile words against her family.

She brought up her knees, resting her chin on them and wrapping her arms around her legs. Carleigh shook her head. "As I said before, never play. You, uh... wanna show me some pointers?" She wasn't expecting to become an overcome expert but hey, learning a new game might be fun! Carleigh chuckled at his joke. "Played it a few times, but no, not really been a board game kind of person."

[Andreas Ivaring]

Show her some pointers? Ah, why not. He was already doing a whole lot more for her than he would for anyone else. He just hoped she didn't figure it was some vanity reason. Nah, he honestly couldn't care less about the fact that she was an older girl. She was there, and she started talking to him. And all of the perfect little factors in the universe just so happened to line up in a way that brought about this... game.

He started to move through the pieces, giving them sample movements. "This one is the pawn. For his first move, he can go two squares forward, or you can do just one. After that, though, only one at a time. He takes pieces that are one piece diagonally in front..." He tried to make it not sound like a droll lecture from Nova Science... So he paraphrased, moving through all of the pieces, telling her the function.

"I don't blame you. A lot of them are pretty boring. 'Oh, let's do the same thing over and over with no strategy mixed in.', like, play it once, and you've seen it all. And Monopoly takes like five years to complete so forget that." If it hadn't been gleaned, he really reveled in his strategy games.

"Anyways. The goal of chess is to get a checkmate, where the king can't move anywhere without being taken by something. Easy enough?"

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carleigh watched the stranger go through each piece, nodding at each explanation. Gosh, there were a lot of different pieces with a lot of different functions. How could he remember all of those? Her intelligence definitely took a hit in its self esteem compared to the younger boy's skill level. This was probably going to be the quickest chess game in the world.

Monopoly always did take a long time to finish. "I always got bored after half an hour into a Monopoly game." she admitted, chuckling. Chess seemed to be the king of board games, one that took actual skill instead of basing it around luck. Unfortunately for her.

"Yeah... easy." Carleigh hesitated. "This will probably be the quickest game you'll ever play." She figured the boy knew she offered no real competition, but felt the need to apologize anyway.

[Andreas Ivaring]

Andreas twiddled his little chess piece, in this case, one of the pawns with the shiny black knob on top of it, which really resembled a little marble. It was on the left hand side, and he moved it one square forward. When she'd made the remark about a lack of competition, inside, he knew it was a way to easily wrangle superiority. On the outside, however, he played it fairly cool.

"Eh, don't worry about it. It's to kill time, right?" He /hoped/ it was. God(s) forbid she actually wanted to sit here with him, and continue this small talk forever. One would expect for the small talk to be a two-party series of questions, but besides the one about the board game, he didn't really ask anything else.

Truth be told, she didn't seem /interesting/, to him. Another teenage girl who, as far as he cared, was part of the dime-a-dozen rule: that extroverted, and, for that reason, popular girl who everyone couldn't get enough of. Except that this one didn't seem to be malicious.

/Seem/. He knew inside they were all acidic.

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carleigh mirrored his movement, except on the right hand side of the board. If he made the move, it had to be an okay one right? Unless he was setting her up... her fingers were still wrapped around the white pawn, before finally deciding to release it. Nothing to lose, as she didn't stand a chance of winning anyway. "To kill time." she echoed him in agreement. Sure, the girl was outgoing but even on most days the boy seemed.. a little young and a little too quiet for her usual liking.

Silence fell between the two, and Carleigh sighed. Should she make conversation? He didn't seem like to type to put in an effort. She licked her lips, watching the board and waiting for her turn.

[Andreas Ivaring]

Well, that just left things a lot more stale than they should have been. But at least that gave him a really good trump card, in a sense. There was so much that someone could do or say to play off just why he was so detached. If he ever needed a friend like this, he knew just what to do. She was too nice for her own good, but, unlike other people who called themselves 'manipulative', he wouldn't do it for no reason. He wasn't a /bully/.

When he noticed that she mirrored him, he decided to go for plays that would, in the long run (Or, well, short run, given how she confessed that she wasn't good at chess), screw her over. A few more pawn movements were top on his priority, then he could start working the knights and bishops. He knew he'd get the first piece, and from there, it'd all fall apart.

Well, what the hell. They were in the game anyways. "We both picked the worst day to be out and about if we actually planned on doing anything. So... You're a junior, senior?"

[Carleigh Davidson]

Carleigh continued to mirror all of Andreas' moves, as she clearly didn't understand the game. It was confusing and she had forgotten all of the pieces' purposes. Oh well. "You can probably tell this is my first time playing." she said with a small laugh. Part of her was embarrassed but the other part of her didn't care, for once.

"No kidding." Carleigh added with a frown. "Campus is dead today." She continued moving her pieces after him. "Junior. Wish I was a senior." Carleigh chuckled. Three more semesters to go... hopefully. So long as chemistry went well. "How about yourself?" He looked roughly like a sophomore, maybe an older looking freshman. She couldn't tell.