Author's Notes: I decided to give my mind a break by writing something fun and simple rather than trying to deal with the more complicated and headache inducing ideas I've been struggling with lately. Never mind the fact that this idea has been nagging at me for awhile now anyway.
Disclaimer: Although the severely warped and twisted imagination is my own, Shaman King and its characters are the property of Hiroyuki Takei.
Games of Strategy
Somehow or another Hao had ended up attempting to teach Horohoro how to play Chess. It was probably out of boredom or something, but when Hao had arranged the game board on the table between them and Horohoro had asked why some of the pieces were shaped like horse heads it became apparent that actually playing was going to be out of the question until the finer points of the game were explained to him. This involved describing the movements of the different types of pieces...
"Pawns can only move in a straight line one space at a time unless capturing an opposing piece in which case they must move diagonally," Hao demonstrated this by materializing a couple of leaf sprites to manipulate the designated pieces for him. He might have been bored, but that didn't mean he couldn't be lazy about it. "The knights can only move along an L-shaped path like so and bishops can only move diagonally, but they can go as many spaces as you want. The rooks can move as many spaces as you want in a straight line, but they can't move diagonally. The king can move a single space in any direction and the queen can move as many spaces as you want in any direction rather like a certain inn hostess."
The visual demonstration was probably what was holding Horohoro's attention throughout the otherwise mundane explanation of the workings of the various game pieces although he couldn't help laughing at that last part. He was rather fortunate that Anna didn't appear to be present for that.
"Sounds complicated," Horohoro noted once he had his laughter under control. "And the pieces look funny." He picked up one of the bishops experimentally. He rolled it around between his fingers so he could look at it from every angle and couldn't help but grin. "You know, I could probably carve these ones to look like Ren. They aren't nearly pointy enough, but with a little work they could be."
"I can see that," Hao chuckled in amusement at the mental image that presented of a miniature wooden Ren complete with an exaggeratedly angry expression for emphasis. Although, I don't think he'd like that. Hao was fairly certain the Chinese shaman wouldn't share Horohoro's enthusiasm for the idea of customizing Chess pieces to look like him. For some reason that just made it funnier.
Hao still hadn't gotten around to explaining the actual objective of the game. At that point, however, it seemed like Horohoro wasn't especially interested in learning anyway. Oh well, at least Hao had managed to get some entertainment out of it.
End