Pretty short story and something I've already posted up elsewhere, tho I still think should at least see the light of day.
Where the king has forsook the queen, and the said most powerful unit is left in utter vulnerability.
"Don't you ever get tired of it?" Her hand pauses in mid-air as it briefly brushes over the board game piece just a touch away from her grasp. Rachel responds to him with a calm, unperturbed gaze in the molten gemstones of her eyes and for a while, Patton takes his time in making out his reflection in them from his position by the door of Global Command's main chamber.
A shadow of a smile graces her lips. "I suppose I should now, shouldn't I? It's been a year and playing chess by myself like this must be getting weirder if not, old."
His eyes momentarily veers to the broad desk positioned in the middle of the room, with his memories still accustomed to the throne being occupied by the preceding Supreme Leader.
A year since he'd betrayed them all,
— a year since he'd left her like this.
"Nah, not really." He forces the train of thought to dissipate and instead, chooses to ease his form on the contours of the door frame. Patton watches as she hums softly whilst switching over to the side of her non-existent opponent, and witnesses how the laid-back simper on her features had gradually straightened out to an inflexible line. And that's when his eyes followed the direction of her hardened gaze on the checkered board, move left unfinished with the piece encased in her grasp surely to injure her calloused fingers if she'd held onto it tighter than the way she was already gripping it then.
He exhales a heavy breath before peeling himself away from the wall fixture and allowing the automatic doors to shut with an acknowledging 'thud'.
"It's just that, it can get pretty boring, you know?" He ushers on the continuation of his response and walks over to where his commanding officer had seemed to be glued on her spot on the floor. The inky-haired boy kneels down to her crouching form where he could jolt her disoriented eyes to stare back at him instead, and smiled in confident reassurance. Patton swipes the chess piece from her unforgiving grasp and playfully waves around the game component slightly above his head with his thumb and forefinger. "Think you could use an actual human to play with from time to time. Or even interact with. Remember, sir, you're not alone. "
Her eyes had grown dumbfounded, entirely caught off guard in the midst of the havoc that had almost previously consumed her mind. Rachel watches the enemy king caught between the Drill Sergeant's fingers, having it seized with so much ease that the distress she'd felt upon holding it then seemed like complete and utter ludicrousness. Slowly, a smile once again lights up her expression, now with the solace shining through like a lit up bulb. "This is why I choose to take this out when shift's over and barely anyone's around, 'cause playing with imaginary people isn't really the norm." Her vision shifts to the queen left untouched and unharmed on her side of the playing field, sitting entirely pristine and undeserving of the intense stare she'd darted upon it minutes prior. "...But you know, I guess I don't mind taking up the offer."