One On None (Echo)

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Mei's hair was straight today. As it was yesterday, and the day before. She rarely felt like wearing it any other way, though there were occasions where she'd feel the impulse to wear it more natural. As in, with slight waves. Mei toiled at straightening her hair every morning, a task which took her most of the morning. Then she'd spend the rest of it picking out which shade of black she wanted to wear that day. Make-up came next. All-in-all it took her a good hour and a half in the morning to get ready for school or for whatever it was she had to do that day. At least she wasn't as bad as her sister. Only slightly better, though. Maybe.

They were sisters, after all.

But when the day was done, Mei liked to wind down from the stress of being forced through classes and crowds and the thoughts of thousands of students by settling down with a book in the library. Or sometimes, she'd take her laptop to the library. Or, sometimes, she'd take the chess or go board to the library. Mei spent a lot of time in the library. It was quiet and people were less likely to disturb her there. Surprisingly, she was disturbed a lot less at the library than in her own dorm room, which was infected with the asinine thoughts of her roommates. Just because there was a wall between them didn't mean it blocked them out. Mei could always put up her mental shields, she knew, and she did often, but sometimes it was just too much trouble to bother with. Often times. Mei would rather just be somewhere where she didn't have to be wary.

The minds of library-goers tended to be focused on whatever it was they were doing. Quiet too. Maybe it was the atmosphere where one was expected to never speak above a whispers, and thus that steered their thoughts in the same direction. Whichever it was, the library was her sanctuary, a favorite place where she spent her afternoons while not at club meetings. Or out for dinner. She wondered if she should go out today, pensively picking up a the white rook and moving it several spaces across the board. Mei let her fingers separate from the chess piece. It was black's turn. Mei looked up at the empty seat across from from, trying to predict the 'person's' next move. After several minutes of staring, Mei plucked up a black pawn with dainty fingers and settled it down two spaces further from where it started. The move was....just as Mei 'predicted'. She nodded, and silently thought through her next move.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo had woken up as she always did-- at 6:59 sharp, which gave her a full minute to sit on the edge of her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Until her second alarm went off-- at 7:00-- which launched her into her ironclad Morning Routine. 

Which in turn launched her into her ironclad Daytime Routine, which ended promptly at four in the afternoon, and had once began her least favorite part of the day-- that time in between her last class, and suppertime. For the longest time, she wasn't able to fix a good schedule for that small time. Sometimes she needed to study, other times work on a paper, other times she didn't need to do either of those things, and she had "free time".

Thankfully, she'd found a workaround, it just took a little seeing ahead. Which was what Saturday was for-- See Ahead Day. Planning her Pre-Night Routine for the week. This week, Thursday was library day. Which meant going around the library making sure everything was in order, then settling down to read the book for that week-- The Throne of Fire, which was all about Egyptian mythology.

And that was her word of the day-- mythology. It was definitely a good word.

She clutched her notebook tight against herself as she walked into the library, that magical place that put order in such high priority. She smiled to herself, then spotted a small stack of books that someone had left on a table. Her first mission. She gathered the books up, which gave her a good armful, and wandered off to shelve them.

During this, she noticed a girl sitting by herself. That wouldn't have been weird, but this girl seemed to be playing a game by herself, one that was supposed to be for two players. Definitely weird. She finished shelving the last books, then sidled over to the girl, watching for a moment before flicking her notebook open and scribbling, "That is a two-person game." and holding it out to the girl to read, frown tugging at her mouth. This was an old girl-- she should know better. 

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If she did that then that ‘person’ would do that…. or would they do that…?

Mei couldn’t decide which would happen. It all depended on this ‘person’s’ personality, and Mei…Mei hadn’t quite decided what kind of personality her opponent had yet. That made her scowl slightly and glare at the empty space where her invisible opponent was. Her imaginary opponent. The one she made up ten minutes ago to play against her. Why not, she could create character well enough, so it wasn’t too hard to create an opponent and play ‘against’ them.

It was fairly lonely, though. Not that she liked people or wanted people to come up and talk to her, but it was just…

Pathetic was a word she thought of. Frequently. She could hear her mother condemning her already, in that dark, judgmental voice of hers. The one that came from both her mouth and her skull.

Distracted, Mei almost didn’t notice the feeling of another head of whispers slinking up next to her, and momentarily shifted her eyes to the girl when she stopped to observe the board, then quietly returned to her game against herself. The goth girl blinked when a notebook was suddenly shoved at her, and she leaned back in surprise, her eyes taking a moment to pan over the scribbled words, her lips slightly parted as she read. When done, Mei lifted her eyes to the young girl. "I’m a telepath", she explained in thought at the girl. "Other players don’t normally like playing against me." Mei turned her focus back to the board. "So I play against myself." Surely it wasn’t that hard to understand, right?

[Echo Waverly]

Echo blinked at the other girl as she spoke through thought. Weird. Not as weird as her, but still. Of course, most people here were weird. But it explained why the girl was playing chess by herself, at least.

She shifted to write in her book again, but paused as something occurred to her. Much as she disdained her chameleon-ing, maybe it'd actually be good for something now. She reached out and poked the other girl, then frowned as her mind itched. Or something. She wasn't sure what the right word for it would be. Something between an itch and maybe being stabbed? She set her notebook down on the table and rubbed her temples for a few moments. All the weird little whispers-- sort of felt like she was in one of those horror movies she'd snuck in to see.

"Does it always feel so crowded?" she wondered. Then wondered if she had sent that thought, and if she had, if she had sent it just to one person, or to everyone. She frowned. Maybe the telepathy thing was more complicated than she thought. It wasn't as if she'd worked with it much at all. What a pain. She wrinkled her nose and picked her notebook back up, hugging it close for a moment before starting to write. Just to be safe.

"Why don't you play with other telepaths then?" she wrote, being a little more mindful of her penmanship this time. She couldn't review her conversations later if she couldn't understand what she wrote.

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Mei had a silent wish that this little girl would just go away and leave her to her game. She didn’t feel like being judged today, not for playing by herself or for using her telepathy to communicate instead of spoken words. Even worse was that this judgement was coming from a girl several years younger than her and who apparently communicated via writing in a notebook herself! Who was she to judge?

Mei didn’t think that out loud, did she? Probably not. Hopefully not.

The older girl flinched as the younger one poked her and her eyes went wide with a very clear, exasperated ‘what are you doing??’. Who just reaches out and pokes a stranger like that?? But then she watched as the girl rub her temples as though she had a sudden headache. When the girl ‘spoke’, Mei gave her a confused stare of three seconds before she replied, a careful knit in her brow. “For noobs, maybe.” Somehow, Mei didn’t quite like that her power was just suddenly stolen like that. “You could have asked first.” That was a gross invasion of privacy, in Mei’s opinion. She cared a great deal about privacy, hers and other’s. It’s why she worked so hard to keep her mental shields up as much as possible. Though, of course, Mei was still learning herself and could only keep them up for so long. Isolation was a quick cure for that.

Mei closed her eyes and tucked her chin down lightly, taking a slow breath, before opening them again with a regained composure. The girl was a child. Impudence must be forgiven, she told herself. Whoops, hopefully the girl didn’t hear that either, Mei nearly forgot that the girl was a telepath now. Temporarily, at least. Mei kept her posture perfect and straight, as her mother had taught her. “I don’t make friends easy,” she explained. It wasn’t said to evoke sympathy from anybody. Simply fact. “Why do you write your words in a notebook rather than speaking?” she asked with a tilt of her head, her long black hair swaying with the movement

[Echo Waverly]

Echo grinned. Apparently her attempt at telepath-ing to the girl had worked. Even though the other girl didn't seem super happy about it. Why didn't she? It wasn't like she was the only one who could telepath, so it wasn't her power. Maybe she was just mad Echo had poked her. She guessed that made sense-- she'd be mad if someone poked her without asking first. Should she apologize? The girl didn't seem too mad about it, so maybe not. However, just to be safe, she offered, "I'll ask next time." Even as she sent the sincere thought, a thrill of excitement flitted through her. She kinda liked this new form of communication. It was way easier than writing.

Echo chewed on the end of her pencil, thoughtful as she considered the other girl's comment, and following question. Friends were hard to make. Mostly because a lot of people were annoying. Partly because her schedule didn't really have a lot of space for friends, let alone make new friends.

"Because I like writing," she replied. "Why do you telepath your words instead of talking?" She imitated the other girl's tilting of the head as she studied her.

Speaking of which, she needed to come up with something to remember her by than "the other girl". She fiddled with her pencil as she thought. Library-Telepath-Girl? Asian-Telepath-Girl? No... Something more unique. Her attention wandered to the table and the chessboard laid out on it. Library-Chess-Girl. Well, that would work for now anyway. Now for another important question--

"What is the verb for telepath-ing something?"

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It might not have been her power exclusively, Mei knew that other people had telepathy…but there was a difference between someone else having the same power as you and someone else copying it from you. It was basically stealing. Mei didn’t like it. Whatever, what’s done was done, and there was nothing she could do about it now. Mei nodded at the apology. “Thank you.” And that settled the matter.

People were annoying, and this little girl was no exception. At least it was only one person and she was being….somewhat respectful of Mei’s personal space. While Mei would still prefer to be left alone today, if she had the choice between communicating with this girl via pure telepathy and attempting to make actual conversation with any other nosy person, then she’d have to choose the former.

”I don’t like talking,” she said simply. Nothing good ever came from talking, especially when she had a tendency to stumble over her words trying to find the right ones. If she just thought them, then she didn’t have to work too hard in that process of putting thought into comprehensible words. Though, that tended to make Mei seem even more unsociable.

Watching the young girl, Mei could hear her ‘whispering’ about something in her mind, so she figuratively listened a little bit closer. Her lips turned downward at the corners. “My name is Mei,” she said, irritated, clearly not appreciating the nickname. If she wanted to use it, still, that was her business. “And the verb would simply be ‘thinking at’, or if you want to be more technical, ‘transmitting’ or ‘communicating’ would be fine too.” To be honest, Mei hadn’t really thought about the specific verb for speaking via telepathy before. She’d have to ask Dr. Neville about that next she saw him.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo pondered the other girl's reply. Didn't like talking. She briefly considered asking why didn't like talking, but decided that was obvious. Talking put yourself outside too much. It put her thoughts outside her head. Unless she said things that weren't her thoughts, which was lying, and lying was wrong. So yes, it was obvious-- talking was too special for just anyone. Only special people should hear a person's thoughts. Too bad not everybody agreed with that. She didn't want to hear everybody talking their thoughts. Or lying. Or expecting her to answer. She frowned and pulled out of her thoughts, refocusing her attention on the chess girl. Another good thing about people who didn't talk too much-- she didn't have to worry about forgetting to listen and missing something that might actually be important.

Just as she'd decided on a nickname for the other girl-- Library-Chess-Girl, or LCG for short-- she was informed that her real name was Mei. Echo hm'ed and squinted her eyes, considering it. It wasn't a bad name, she guessed. Mei. She shrugged and wrote it in her notebook: "Library-Chess-Girl = Mei"

Also: "Telepathing = Transmitting"

That taken care of, she turned her attention to the chessboard. Frowned at the mixed up pieces. Restrained the urge to rearrange them so they matched each other. But she could feel that irritable prickling going up her back to her neck. Ugh-- they looked horrible. She looked up sharply and plopped herself in the chair across from Mei-Chess-Girl. "How does it work?"

Maybe if she knew the reason behind the mixed and muddled pieces on the board, it would calm down that dreadful itching. And then she would know how to organize something new. She looked up at the other girl, expectant, a little excited. She seemed good, so she would show her, right?    

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The girl’s thought weren’t incorrect. Talking was too special for her. Only people others wanted to listen to deserved that privilege, she’d learned. If people didn’t want to hear her say anything, then why do it at all? If she really needed to get a message across, she had her telepathy. At least that was something they couldn’t ignore.

Mei kept her eyes on the girl, watching as she scribbled in her notebook. ”What is your name?” she asked with only mild interest. She wondered briefly how much longer the girl was going to be lingering. Mei wanted to get back to her game against herself. She was winning, after all.

However, the girl instead claimed the seat across from her, surprising the goth girl. Mei looked down at the pieces on the chess board. ”You want to learn?” she asked, slowly lifting her eyes again. If so, Mei could teach her. But was now really the best time? On the one hand, Mei felt a small bubble of excitement at the girl’s apparent interest in learning the game. On the other hand, Mei hadn’t finished the game against herself yet and she yearned to know what that outcome was.

Mei sighed silently, leaning forward to arrange the chess pieces in their starting order, with the pawns on the second line, and the other pieces in their proper symmetrical positions behind them(save for the king and queen, of course, they weren’t the same piece and therefore couldn’t be considered a mirror of one another). ”This is how it starts,” she began. ”White always moves first.” The current orientation had Mei as white and the other girl as black.

[Echo Waverly]

My name is Echo, she transmitted, distracted by the board and its pieces. All the pieces probably had names, too. Names were weird. They didn't usually really describe the person they named. Sometimes it was better with animals, like if someone named a puffy hamster "Fluffy", or a dalmatian "Spot". People didn't do that with other people, though. In fact, a lot of times it was insulting if you did. Like the time she'd called one of her teachers "Baldy", back before she'd learned what was really the right way to say things to other people.

She stared across the board at Chess-Girl-Mei. Of course she wanted to learn, why else would she have asked how it worked and sat down? Maybe she thought Echo was being sarcastic. Sarcasm was weird too.

As Chess-Girl-Mei began rearranging the chess pieces, Echo watched closely, somewhat enraptured by the process. The line-up made sense-- the pieces mirrored each other, with all the white on one side, and all the black on the other. All the little pieces that were identical in front, and all the other pieces organized behind. It was good, how they were lined up, like a wave, with the little castles on the ends, the slightly bigger horses next to them, then the even taller pointed ones, and the tallest two in the middle. She nodded in approval, paused, then tilted her head to the side and frowned. The middle pieces weren't mirroring each other across the board. Chess-Girl-Mei was saying this was how it started, but it couldn't be. There must be a mistake. And she had to point it out quickly, before the game started for real.

She shifted in her seat and leaned to point at the two king and queen sets. They aren't right.

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”Echo,” she repeated with a slight nod. She’d try to remember that, though Mei didn’t often bother remembering names. Or people for that matter.

Mei was very familiar with the art of sarcasm as she used it very often herself. Mostly against her sister, Fleur. As for Echo, Mei simply couldn’t believe that she was honestly interested in learning the game. It was a rare request to get from a girl her age, and strangely enough, filled the older girl with a sense of nostalgia…it was hard to describe, in truth, but Mei wasn’t against the idea. She just wanted to finish her game.

Though, once the telepath got started, she was focused, barely leaving any room for random unrelated thoughts to escape her mind. Mei looked up when Echo pointed out the configuration of the kings and queens. She nodded and smiled briefly before explaining. ”This is the queen,” she explained, pointing to the white piece placed on the white square. ”The queen is always placed on the most central square of the same color along this line. The king…” She pointed at the other white piece, set on the black square. ”Goes on the remaining square. That essentially means that all the pieces on this side of the board are in the service of the queen, and the pieces on the other side are in the service of the king. They each get one rook, one knight, one bishop, and four pawns.” Mei pointed out the pieces as she named them off. “Does that make sense?” she inquired softly, her voice as thin as a wire.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo listened quietly as Mei-Chess-Girl explained the arrangement of the pieces. She still wasn't sure she liked that they were uneven, but figured it wouldn't matter soon anyway, because all the other pieces would be out of order too. She sighed a bit, but nodded. She understood, despite disliking the small inconsistency.

She shifted to scribble in her book for a moment, making a quick outline of the board--

RNB KQ BNR
PPP PP PPP

PPP PP PPP
RNB KQ BNR

That done, she picked up one of the little front pieces-- pawns, she reminded herself. "These go straight with small steps...?" Her tone hovered somewhere between a statement and a question as she demonstrated, moving it forward a square.

She'd seen chess played before, but often lost interest after a while. Pawns moving a square at a time had been one of the few things she'd picked up. That, and that queens were really, really strong, and it was a bad thing if the other player got her.

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Mei couldn’t decide if this girl was interesting for being so meticulous in her attempts to understand, or irritating that she would have to go so far to understand something that should have been very simple. Mei herself enjoyed structure and logic, she disliked having things out of order in her room, but it wasn’t so much a compulsion as much as it was a preference. Otherwise, she might become the overly-strict kind of person her mother was, and that just wouldn’t do.

Mei loved her gothic fashion, however unruly they may seem to that woman.

Back to the girl in front of her. The girl named Echo. She was quick to pick up what she was taught, at least. Mei nodded. “They can only go straight, and only one space at at time, except for their first move out of starting position.” She demonstrated by picking up the pawn on her side and placing it two squares forward. “When a pawn is moved from starting position, you may move it forward either one or two spaces.” She took a pawn from the other side of the board, and moved it two spaces forward as well, such that it was diagonal from the first one she moved. “The only time a pawn may move a direction other than straight forward is to attack. If this were a real game, this would be a poor move because now my pawn can attack diagonal and ‘capture’ yours.” Mei moved the pawn on her side diagonally into the space occupied by the other piece she moved in place. “Does that make sense?”

Explaining the rules one at a time was going to be tedious. Unfortunately, there was little other way to learn them short of simply reading the rules. Teaching like this was more interactive, in Mei’s opinion, and made the rules stick much easier.

[Echo Waverly]

Echo nodded as she absorbed the information, and made a note in her book. Getting everything explained would take a long time, and she wouldn't want to go through it again. So, everything would be written down during this first time, so she could look everything up later and remember.

Setting her pencil down, she moved a different pawn up two spaces, before doing the same to one of Mei-Chess-Girl's, putting it into position for the attack. She mimic the diagonal move to capture the piece, and set the captive to the side. "What are pawns?" she asked. Knights made sense, so did queens and kings. And rooks were birds-- there was a card game named after them that she'd played with Yvette and her family before.

Barely giving the other girl time to answer, she picked up the queen and moved it forward. "She gets to go anywhere," she stated, demonstrating by moving it in various diagonal and other directions. After this, she'd have to stop making these comments, because that would be the extent of her knowledge. But Mei-Chess-Girl seemed like a good teacher, so she wasn't too worried.

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Mei watched as Echo mimicked her action with her own pawn and nodded in approval, the smallest of smiles on her lips. Yes, that was the way. ”Pawns are the pieces on the second line,” she said, floating her finger over the line of pawns that now missed one. ”There are eight, can only move forward, and only attack one space diagonally.” Questions were good. It helped Mei know what the girl was understanding and what she wasn’t from her explanations. Mei liked to think she was a good teacher.

Another smile appeared when Echo continued to explain what she did know, and Mei nodded. ”Yes, that’s right. The queen can move in any direction - forward, backwards, diagonal, and side-to-side - for as many spaces as she wishes until she hits the edge of the board or your opponents piece.”

Mei leaned in, resting her arms across her knees. ”What else do you already know?” she asked. It’d be good to know this so she didn’t repeat anything unnecessarily…or so she could correct any false impressions Echo may have about the game. She didn’t seem the sort to do that, though. Very open to learning things the right way, she observed.