Nothing's Changed [Open]

[vissernone]

Who| Eva and open
What| Eva plays chess in the park.
Where| Park in the Capitol
When| Week 7
Warnings/Notes| Description of cuts.

The bruises have faded into the sick yellow of urine. The cuts haven't healed yet, and wearing the bandages and stitches - old-fashioned medicine, less than what a Panem Victor could usually expect - is something of a scarlet letter. No one's forgotten that she was cavorting with a would-be assassin, but the Capitol's seen fit to remind them anyway, and unless she spends the next few months indoors Eva's damned to carry the message on her face.

She somewhat appreciates that the hook-shaped slash on her upper lip has pulled her mouth into something of a perpetual sneer. It fits her mood, lately. The cuts along her arms and cheek are a little less thematically appropriate.

The sunlight wafts down to her like steam. Her palm rests on a book in the park, her eyes strolling lazily over the words of a poem she's read a hundred times before. The other hand rests in her lap, on the demure grey fabric of a dress that could blend into any background. Eva doesn't need to accessorize; here, the white bandage around her upper arms and the patch of gauze on her cheek are eye-catching enough.

A chess set sits on the small marble table in front of her. The pieces are arranged up perfectly, each slit in the bishop's hat forming a perfect line. She looks out at the park, relatively unoccupied for a Sunday afternoon what with people watching the final week of the Games, and waits for someone, anyone to come challenge her.

She loves chess. It's just yet another game where no one has to win.

Comments

[vissernone]

"You expected he'd win? He doesn't really seem to be the type." She searches his face, not bothering to be covert in her interest. Nothing motivates people better than their loved ones - she should know.

She castles, idling as she watches for whatever play style will emerge.

i have no idea how to play chess, forgive me

[alldeduction]

"There's a difference between expectation and hope." He says, flatly. His relationship with John was not something he was trying to hide.

"If it were down to survival, he would have no trouble winning."

He made another move, intentionally careless. Ripe for the picking.

let me know if this is infomody

[vissernone]

"By his own hand or by yours?" Eva raises her eyebrows. "I know the Sponsors very well, Holmes. I've known most of them for many years, and intimately. They talk to me about their more...amiable Tributes."

She opens a hole in her defenses - not a fissure, but a leak.

nope! you're fine c:

[alldeduction]

"... Sherlock. Please." He said, his clear grey eyes locked on her under heavy brows. "No tribute here wins solely by their own grace," He pointed out, evenly. "John is a survivor, but even the survivors here need help from the outside."

He moved, pushing through that fissure with too much force - intentionally striking too hard. Willing her to move into open war.

Re: nope! you're fine c:

[vissernone]

She skirts around him, instead, prodding for openings and letting him poke at the wound he's drawn in her own battle lines.

"I notice you aren't looking for help for yourself so much as him." Her eyes narrow slightly. "I could use that."

[alldeduction]

"Could you." He said, flatly, watching her rather than the board as he makes his next move. Staying the course.

"And what, exactly, could you use it for?"

[vissernone]

"Self-preservation. Surely an intelligent Tribute like yourself realizes that the battle hardly ends once you leave the Arena." She tilts her chin upwards a bit, into a proud bent. "I have a District to care for, and I know better than to think that the Capitol cares for their best interests."

[alldeduction]

He looked at her, finger poised on a rook, stroking the top of it almost absentmindedly. His gaze was unblinking.

"I've never even been to my district, and I'm not particularly known for my empathy."

[vissernone]

"I wasn't speaking of your obligations. I was speaking of mine. I think we could be mutually beneficial, Mr. Holmes." She laces her fingers together like a thick net and rests her chin on the valley of them.

[alldeduction]

"Do you." He leaned back, letting the game pause. "Your obligations and mind don't exactly overlap." Or at least, at first glance, the didn't seem to. "The benefit would have to be fairly high for me to consider something 'mutual'."

[vissernone]

"Don't they? I want to protect the Tributes here, even if I prioritize my own over the other Districts. You want to protect your friend. A man of your mental caliber should be able to see quite the overlap."

[alldeduction]

"A man of my mental caliber also has a long memory."

He offered her quite a cold smile, and made a move. A brazen, foolhardy attack.

"I've seen just how well you protect your tributes."

[vissernone]

"Ariadne," Eva says, lingering on the word as her fingers hesitate over her piece, "was not one of my Tributes. And I did right by them to turn her in."

She attacks, using his own as an opening to take a rook.

[alldeduction]

"So explain the line, to me."

His rook fell but he pressed his attack, recklessly, taking nothing more than a pawn, leaving his bishop open.

"Was it because she was not from your district? Or because she had one? Or because she had crossed you?"

[vissernone]

She takes his bishop and folds it into her palm. "Because when it comes to the life of a rogue Mentor and the possibility of getting the current crop of Tributes 'canceled', and ushering in 96 new faces to suffer the Games, I think the balance of evils is obvious."

She raises her eyebrow. "Believe me, I didn't enjoy it."

[alldeduction]

"Oh, I'm not arguing the moral necessity of it," Sherlock said offhandedly, fingers hovering over his queen, several options before him.

"But I've never been particularly ethically minded. Certain lives I consider a great deal more valuable than others, and I would rather know at what moment you would consider them rogue enough to require enabling into terrorism and then sacrificing them."

[vissernone]

"I was only 'enabling' her because I couldn't bear to turn her in until I was sure, nor sacrifice the chance of finding my son." Her tone is clipped; her teeth are bared. "The moment I consider them rogue is the moment they threaten my charges."

[alldeduction]

He smiles. Not teeth, and it never reaches his eyes, but he smiles.

"I see," He says simply, before dropping his eyes and moving his queen. An obvious sacrifice, no strings attached. "Then I do believe we may have something in common after all."

[vissernone]

She ignores the queen, moving to put him in check. "Desperation makes strange bedfellows, they say."

[alldeduction]

There are approximately 8 different moves he could make, that would save him from the check. 2 of which would would give him check in two turns.

The smile doesn't diminish, as he reaches for each piece - about to move them into the blocking space, but each time he retreats and puts them all back. He displays each and every option he has to counter her.

And then he carefully, and quietly, knocks over his king.