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isnt-it-pretty · 3 years

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A The Queen’s Gambit inspired Sylvix fic I’ve had sitting in my drafts forever. Figured I may as well post the WIP!

TW for substance abuse, and generally everything terrible from both FE3H and from The Queen’s Gambit.

The room is silent. Hundreds of people wait with baited breath as two of the world's leading chess players fight across a wooden board. The pieces are lacquered - hand carved. Only the best for the players in Enbarr.

Sylvain studies the board, picking out his response to his opponents play several steps ahead. It's already the second day - five long hours the night previous left them both exhausted. Sylvain barely remembered to eat before crashing for 13 hours.

His opponent lifts a piece, his rook, and moves it forward. It's a clever strategy, but it won't be enough. The man across from him knows it too - he's twice Sylvain's age, but desperately trying to keep up.

They see it at the same time. A single move, and it'll be finished. There won't be a way for his opponent to come back from it. If he moves his bishop, it'll all be over. His opponent will resign, and Sylvain will be the youngest world champion at 22 years old.

It's his turn, he stares at the piece, his brain ticking into overdrive. It would be so easy, just to move to pieces. But then what? What else does Sylvain have but chess? He has no friends, has a family only in name. The media hates him, a stark contrast to being the Darling of the chess world at seven years old.

One move. And he'll win. He'll prove Miklan wrong, prove the media — his former friends, wrong.

He should have drank more before coming.

His hand is reaching for his king before he even realizes it - the words leaving his lip of their own accord. It feels right.

"I resign."

He knocks over his king, the hall is silent in shock.

Sylvain gets up, doesn't even bother shaking his opponents hand, and walks out.

...

He stops by his room with a single mindedness. His phone is going crazy, but Sylvain hasn't checked to see who is trying to reach him.

Everybody, probably.

His mother must be having an aneurysm, the media must be going insane.

He opens the door to his room and tosses the phone on the bed. His wallet too, but not before emptying out his cash as a tip for hotel staff. $500 total.

It's barely anything compared to his sizable room service charges - which is probably the cost of his room twice over. It's all paid for, he never leaves debt at a hotel.

There's an untouched bottle of whiskey on top of his mini bar. Expensive in beautiful glass. He hasn't touched it, preferring cheap straight liquor. Just because he can afford expensive drinks doesn't mean he bothers with it. He stops noticing the taste soon enough anyway.

He doesn't bother getting changed as he grabs the whiskey and heads out of the room. Somebody will come bother him if he stays there, and he doesn't want to be disturbed. Doesn't want to think.

Sylvain just threw the biggest match of his life, yet he can't bring himself to care.

The roof access is unlocked, which really should be a case for concern. Anybody with a key card could enter the stairwell and climb to the roof of the hotel - 5 stars and twelve floors. He can see all of Enbarr from up here. The twinkling of its lights remain unperturbed despite his actions.

There's a railing about a foot from the edge. Sylvain ducks under it easily, and sits with his legs dangling downward. Nobody will be able to see him from the ground. Just a spec in the darkness looming above their heads.

He uncorks the glass crystal stopper and drinks.

...

Glenn loved chess. He was pretty good at it, too. It was something he and their father used to do together. Felix would sit on his dad’s lap and try to reach for the pieces. By the time he was six, most of the set had baby sized teeth marks engorged into them

Felix never had the patience for it, personally. He never wanted to study moves or games, never wanted to sit quietly and practice it. He preferred to run around, rolling in the dirt and mud with his friends.

It didn’t stop Felix from being enthralled every time he watched his other brother play.

There was a finesse to it. A certain wisdom that Felix could never quite grasp as Glenn carefully moved the pieces. He was better than their father by ten, and was competing in chess competitions by eleven.

Felix went to every one of his games.

Even now, so many years later, Felix can remember the magic of that first game. He was seven, following behind his dad like a little duckling, his hand grasped tightly in Glenn’s. There were plastic tables with chess sets on them lining the hall of the old community centre, but Glenn didn’t care. He was ecstatic to be there. The joy didn’t fade, even after Glenn lost the second to last game.

A year later they were watching TV. There was a chess special on.

That was the first time he saw Sylvain Gautier.

Ten years old, the boy was already the darling of the chess world. His smiling was dazzling. The interviewer was asking generic questions, what was it like competing against adults, does he see chess in his future, etc etc. The answers came so naturally Felix thought the boy may have been magic.

After that interview, Glenn found every source he could about the boy. He replayed all of Sylvain’s games, tried to puzzle through the choices that were made, and why. Tried to figure out if there was a specific style to his play, something that could be used to trip him up.

In the end, there was nothing.

Two years later, Felix accompanied Glenn to a small competition in Fhirdiahd. Dimitri and Ingrid went along, if only to provide support. Both Ingrid and Dimitri were shaping up to be pretty good chess players themselves, but even working together they still couldn’t hold a candle to Glenn.

The competition was held in a high school gym. Rodrigue dropped them off and said he’d pick them up after.

It was a shock to everybody when Sylvain Gautier showed up to play.

Felix remembered seeing him walk up to the people running check in. Remembered seeing two college age students choke. Sylvain didn’t even smile at them. Didn’t even remove his sunglasses.

He just said his name like everybody in the building didn��t know who he was, picked up a sheet to track his moves, and went into the gym.

Even years later, it was probably the most surreal experience of Felix’s life.

Glenn won every game, ascended through the ranks just like Felix knew he would, until he was sitting across from a celebrity of the chess world.

Sylvain was twelve at the time, but even that seemed so much older to Felix, who was small even for a ten year old.

Glenn smiled and held out his hand. Sylvain shook it, and they played.

As expected, Glenn lost. Dramatically, in fact, but Glenn didn’t mind. He was fifteen, was planning on what to do when he graduated high school in a few years. He enjoyed chess, but he simply didn’t have to love or dedication to play professionally, or the natural born talent. Their dad always said that the best chess players had a mix of both.

Sylvain flashed Glenn a smile, a little different from the one Felix had seen on TV interviews and magazine covers. Suddenly, it hit him. Sylvain had seemed bored in every game he played, but not Glenn’s.

"You're pretty good," he told Glenn when it was all over. 21 moves total - it was savage. “Did you study Loog’s games?”

Glenn lit up. “I did! I, um, studied your games a lot too. I figured it may be a good counter to your strategy.” He looked over the board, over his dramatic loss. “Guess that didn’t pan out.”

Sylvain just shrugged. “You’re not the first to try it, don’t worry about it.” He checked his phone, typed something, and slipped it back into a pocket with a sigh. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go. Good to meet you Glenn...”

“Fraldarius,” Glenn answered, a little flustered. Felix knew he’d never hear the end of this day.

“Fraldarius,” Sylvain said. He shot Felix a smile too, before heading out of the building.

In the end, Glenn got the prize money - apparently Sylvain insisted. Said Glenn likely would have won, if he hadn't shown up.

Felix was only ten, but he found himself following everything Sylvain did after that.

...

The first time Sylvain played chess, he was five years old. Small and prone to illness, he wasn’t allowed to go outside like other kids his age. Instead Sylvain was kept indoors, where it was safe and controlled. He spent several days a month ill in bed, wrapped in soft blankets as nannies brought him juice and borth. His childhood was marked by books and quiet toys, things he could do without bothering people, or over exerting himself.

One day his tutor, an older gentleman named Mr. Hanneman, took out the chess board in some lesson or another. He said it would be a good way to pass the time. It was quiet, thought provoking, and could be played from a sickbed, as Sylvain so often found himself.

Miklan, seven years older and already pissed at the world, barely paid attention to the rules, but Sylvain was enthralled. The chess pieces were beautiful, they all had rules about how they could move and act - just like him.

He took up the game with a single minded focus, wanting to know everything about it. He got Mr. Hanneman to bring him books and help him read them. Days which before had passed in a boring feverish haze were instead spent reading chess books, or replaying famous games.

By the time he was six, Sylvain was playing eleven board simultaneous games and winning all of them. He started competing soon afterward.

His parents were thrilled. It was the only time they'd ever bothered paying attention to him. Whenever he won, they’d make time to go out for dinner, or watch a movie with him. His mother read him stories at night. It felt good. So he kept playing, kept hoping they would keep gracing him with small smiles at his wins. Kept chasing the feeling of affection.

Other people, he came to find out, were just like chess pieces too.

In chess, one can estimate an outcome to a specific move. Can anticipate a reaction, and have a response already prepared. People are much the same.

He learned to read situations and people, how to act a specific way to get the outcome he thought would be most desirable. It didn’t always go his way, but like chess, it often did. He learned to smile; dazzle crowds and interviewers. His poor health was a well kept secret.

By eight years old, Sylvain Jose Gautier was a renowned name within the chess world. A prodigy. A future Grandmaster. He was on the cover of almost every chess magazine at least once, and was invited for photo ops with professionals.

Miklan hated it of course. He tried to play chess, desperately wanting what Sylvain had, but he was never very good. He got even more angry, and when angry, he lashed out. Sylvain was an easy target.

Sylvain never told his parents, but he knew that they were already aware. There was simply nothing that could be done without impacting the family. So he dealt with it, learned how to sleep to not aggravate bruises, learned to make himself silent, a shadow in his home.

It wasn’t hard, his parents did always like a puppet for a child.

#my writing #Sylvix #wip

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