Authors Note: 2nd in the series (so far). If I have any facts off, I'm sorry, I didn't pay a lot of attention to timing in the game (stupid me). Oh yea, I apologize to anyone who doesn't like Tseng's character, but this does take place approxemently 10 years before the game. For anyone interested, I put Rufus at about 10 years old, but hey, you decide on whatever age you like best.
"I don't want life to imitate art, I want life to be
art."Postcards From the Edge
"Check."
Rufus' eyes snapped back onto the table. "Hm?"
"I
said: Check."
"Oh, oh, yea," His white gloved hand rose silently and
tapped aside the equally white piece. He looked back to the floor, lost in
thought.
Across the table his opponent watched, slightly amused, while
his rook retreated to the black side of the board. He waited calmly for the
blond boy to come back to himself.
Rufus idly watched his shoes swing in
the air an inch or so above the carpet, the chair was tall, and he was on the
small side for his age. Not much of a surprise, considering how little he had
eaten the first few years after his mother's death. The boy sighed, and leaned
his elbows on the table, "My turn?"
The young man across from him
nodded.
Rufus slid a pawn forward, making it an easy target for his
opponent's bishop. Then settled his head on his hands.
The bishop
claimed the pawn, and stood safe, in the middle of the board. "You seem more
distracted than usual today, Sir."
Rufus looked up, "I'm pondering your
lack of personality." He said, smiling to show it was a joke. "And please don't
call me sir, its, well, its weird." Not that he was particularly 'normal'. He
smiled serenely across the board at Tseng, youngest of the Turks, and his
'bodyguard' for the day. "None of the others call me sir," he
added.
"None of the others are assigned to protect you."
"You mean
baby-sit me." His father had made sure someone watched him at all times since
his eating had dropped off three years before. Rufus' small size didn't upset
the man, quiet the contrary, it made Rufus even more appealing to the cameras.
However, if the boy starved himself to death, or into a hospital, it might draw
more negative attention. And they couldn't have that, now could
they?
Rufus moved a knight next to Tseng's bishop.
Tseng smiled
and slid his bishop along the black tiles, letting it rest against the board's
edge.
Rufus leaned forward and moved his knight one space up and over
three. To land neatly on a black rook. Then watched as Tseng's remaining rook
moved forward, and into the white knight's line of attack. "Is this like war,
Tseng?" He asked, moving his knight away from the rook, and the trap lying with
it. "Sacrificing one thing to destroy another? Is this what's going on in
Wutai?"
"No. In war your Queen is shot by a pawn from another board, and
your King is held hostage by the white bishops." The bitterness in the turks'
voice surprised him.
"Oh." He moved his queen back. "Then why do we play
it? If not to learn strategy?" he rolled the 'r', in a mock of the way his
father pronounced the word.
"Because-" Tseng smiled, and something about
the smile twisted Rufus' stomach. "Because its fun. Destroying something in a
fair and civil manner."
"Oh," Rufus said again, "Is that why?" He sat for
a moment, seemingly lost in thought. He pictured Wutai, the way it looked in one
of his books, green and quaint, with great mountains in the background. He
pictured the buildings burning, and the villagers fighting against each other
while the Shinra soldiers invaded.
Rufus frowned, his eyes darkening.
And, never once looking at the chessboard, reached out and knocked down his
king. "I like things to be as they are."
The ivory king fell silently,
and lay, sacrificed by its god on the black tiles.