I blinked rapidly, trying to erase the mirage before me, but it would not go away. It was actually real. I never imagined this happening on a normal day like this one. I only ever thought it would be possible when there were no more books to read, no chores which Spike would rather be doing and there was nothing but pouring rain outside. Only when there would be literally nothing to do and neither Spike nor I had any energy and the idea of taking a nap felt like too much work did I even fathom the idea that my little dragon would come to me and ask me to teach him that, as he might describe it, unimaginably boring game called chess.
I love chess. It’s a wonderful game of careful thought and planning and no two games are ever alike. When I was in school, Celestia and I would play nearly every day whenever she thought I needed a break from studying. By the time my first school year was over, she suggested I participate in a tournament and meet some other ponies my age who liked the game. That was an offer I foolishly declined. At the time, I thought it would take too much time away from my studies.
But every time I played a game around Spike or tried to teach him, he would whine and usually hold his head in one claw and nod off to sleep before I could even show him how any of the pieces moved. Back when we lived in Canterlot, and long before I became a princess, I tried for a month to get him to learn the game, but he resisted at every turn, even turning and silently walking straight out of the house and down the road once just from me picking up the board. After that, I stopped trying. If he was that dead set on having nothing to do with chess, then that was his loss.
Basically, I’m saying that it was inconceivable to me that any power in the world would ever make Spike want to learn chess. So you can imagine my surprise when, on a bright and beautiful summer’s day, that very same Spike came up to me holding a chessboard and asked me to teach him. There was plenty to be done around the castle for both me and him. My schedule was always tight but efficient and that had grown even more true the longer I’d lived in Ponyville. There were tricks to plan with Dash, parties to attend with Pinkie, apple trees to buck with Applejack and I know that Rarity would always make time for, as she called him, her little Spikey-Wikey.
Simply put, there was no reason for Spike to need to fend off any extreme boredom. Yet there he was before me, awkwardly holding up a chessboard that was almost as big as he was, his eyes just barely peeking over one of the sides. I stared down at him skeptically, my mouth hanging open as I tried and failed to form words.
“Please, Twilight?” he pleaded, his big, green, puppydog eyes speaking volumes about his sincerity. “I wanna learn how to play.”
Taking in a breath, I finally managed to find my voice again. “Why the sudden interest in chess?”
He rested the board on the floor and looked away from me as he squirmed just ever so slightly. “Well, you know… I just felt like learning it. For the sake of learning it. Yeah!”
Something was off. There must have been more to this than simply gaining an interest in a game. But whatever it was, he clearly didn’t want me to know. “Well, I’d love to teach you, Spike, but I’m rather busy all day today.”
He frowned. “What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow starts the harvest at Sweet Apple Acres. The two of us are scheduled to meet up with everypony and help out, remember?”
His frown deepened and his face began to slump as he turned his head to the floor. I felt my heart sink at the sight. I may not have known the cause of his sudden interest in chess, but I could tell well enough that he was really looking forward to it.
“But maybe I can cancel,” I added quickly.
Spike’s face lit up and he looked back up at me with a hopeful smile. “Really?”
I smiled back at him. “Sure. I’ll just tell them that something came up. I’m sure everypony can handle the first day without us. Applejack and Big Mac used to handle all the work on their own anyway.”
“Awesome!” Spike yelled, clenching a fist in excitement before catching himself and acting like everything was normal. “I mean, that’s cool.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The next day came and we began right after breakfast. I set up a small table in the castle’s lounge and waited for Spike to bring in the chessboard. As I sat, minutely adjusting the table’s position, I started thinking about what could have possessed Spike to practically beg me to teach him a game I thought he despised. I saw no signs that he had gained any interest before the previous day. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been reading anything to do with chess, just his comic books; he would have told me if this was some scheme to steal Rarity’s affection; and it had been a few years since I had brought up the game.
Spike practically ran into the room, interrupting my thoughts, the chess set firmly in his grasp. The set was nothing fancy like some of the boards that could cost hundreds of bits. Instead, we had a generic set of black and white pieces and a simple board with an eight-by-eight black and white grid. The pieces were stored in a compartment underneath. I never bothered to buy anything better than that simply because I had nopony to play with anymore. Half the citizens of Ponyville didn’t even seem to know what chess was when I first moved in.
He set the board down revealing a grin across his face. “Okay, so what do we do first?”
I lifted the board with my magic and opened the bottom to retrieve the pieces. “First, you need to know how to orient the board.” I set the board down in the correct orientation and put my hoof on the square in the right corner on my side. “The rule for the board is, the white square is always on the player’s right.”
Spike looked at the white square on his right and placed one claw on it. “White is on the right, got it.”
A smile crept across my face. It was nice to see he had some enthusiasm for learning the game. And perhaps that was all this whole thing was: a simple interest in something new. I grabbed all the pieces in my magic and displayed them overhead. “Now you need to know what each piece is called; where they start on the board; how each one moves; what each piece is worth; how they capture other pieces; and all of the special movements including castling, en passant, promotion, and the first movement of the pawn.”
I watched Spike’s eyes glaze over and smile fade as he began to look right through me. I knew that look. It was exactly the same expression he had all those years ago when I tried to teach him the first time. One ‘boring’ word from me and his drooping head would smack right into the table and he would be out like a light for quite a while. There was no way that he had much interest in the game if his eyes were lacking even a small hint of curiosity at this point. He must have been hoping to get something out of learning it other than the ability to play. What that was, I had no idea.
I quickly placed the pieces where they were meant to be on the board, placing white on my side and deciding that the cliffsnotes version would probably be best. “But don’t worry about all that right now. I think we can just start a game and I’ll explain things as we play. I promise it’s much easier than it sounds.”
Spike blinked and shook his head like he was shaking off sleep. “If you say so.”
“It’s tradition that white goes first. Because each piece moves differently, the first move will always either be with a pawn or a knight,” I said, showing which piece was which. “The objective is to checkmate the opponent's king, which basically means trapping it so it can’t escape capture.”
“How come white goes first?”
I put a hoof to my chin and looked slightly up in contemplation. “I’m… not really sure. Just tradition, I suppose. If black went first, the whole game would be mirrored due to the reversed position of the king and queen. It’s probably just easier to study and remember strategies when there is a standard for which one goes first.”
He seemed to accept my explanation without any question. I quickly explained how the pawn moved one space forward, or two on its first move if the player wished, and how the knight moved three spaces in an ‘L’ shape jumping over any other pieces and made my first move, pushing my king’s pawn forward two spaces. Spike pushed his queen’s pawn forward two spaces but took it back when I explained how that would allow my pawn to capture his. We continued like that as I gradually explained things and allowed him to try moves and take them back when he was clearly just guessing.
As the opening slowly took form on the board, I again thought about why Spike would want to learn the game. It had become more than a simple nagging curiosity. I knew my little dragon ever since he was born and I didn’t think he would ever surprise me with something like this. There must have been something I was missing, some small, overlooked clue that would explain everything. I thought back to the first time he’d watched me play chess with Princess Celestia.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was the second semester of my first year as a student to Celestia that she taught me to play chess. Spike, who was living with her at the palace at the time, wasn’t even a year old. I was told that we were going to spend the day learning the game instead of having the usual lessons. Looking back, she was probably trying to teach me by example the importance of relaxing and having fun between my constant studying, something I wouldn’t truly understand until I moved to Ponyville.
When I arrived at the castle, I was led up to the small nursery where they kept Spike. Immediately, I pulled a chair up to the side of his crib to say hello as I waited for the princess. He was napping, so I just watched him until he woke up a couple minutes later.
“Hi, Spike,” I whispered.
He looked up at me, smiled and stood up with the help of the bars on the crib. He was just tall enough to peer over the top of the crib if he pulled himself up. I grabbed his favorite rattle with my magic and shook it in front of him. Giggling, he started grabbing for it. The princess came in a moment later and I jumped down from the chair, letting Spike have his toy.
“Twilight, are you ready to begin?”
“Yes, Princess. I read the whole book A Beginner’s Guide To Chess last night. I think I’m ready to start a game.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow, she was probably expecting to teach me the rules herself. Nevertheless, we started a quiet game. She took white and moved her queenside pawn two spaces forward. The move seemed unorthodox, I hadn’t read about that opening in my book. I bit my lower lip trying to think about what the best move would be and started to get nervous.
“Please relax, Twilight,” Celestia said with a comforting smile. “This is merely a game, not a test.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and moved one of my pawns. The sound of Spike’s rattle caught my attention for a moment and I glanced over to see him watching us excitedly. Seeing him happy like that put me at ease for a moment.
“So how are your studies going, my student? Your other teachers are treating you well I trust?” Celestia asked as she moved another piece.
I snapped back to attention and made a move of my own. “Yes. Classes are… difficult, but I’m doing my very best and studying everyday.”
“Everyday? Twilight, you do understand the importance of rest don’t you? Surely you’re taking a break at the week’s end?”
“Um…” I bit my lower lip again. The only breaks I’d taken were the few holidays that’d gone by. I was about to confess this when suddenly, I heard a loud thud from across the room and looked to see Spike face down on the floor in front of his crib. I gasped and jumped at the sight. “Spike!”
Before I could get up and run to him, he sat up and started quickly crawling over, a big grin on his face. It’s a good thing dragons are so resilient even at a young age; a fall like that would be very dangerous to a foal. He crawled right up between me and the chessboard, leaned on me and started gnawing on the end of his tail. I put a hoof around him and nuzzled the top of his head before continuing the game.
“Um, about taking breaks…” I started, sounding guilty, before Celestia raised a hoof to stop me.
“It is alright, your studies are important after all. Just promise me you won’t overwork yourself.”
“Yes, Princess,” I said, as I made another move, soliciting a yawn from my little dragon as he nodded off. “Princess? I think our game put Spike to sleep.”
Celestia covered a small laugh with her hoof. “Would you like to place him back in his crib?”
I thought for a moment and decided I liked having him near me. “No. I think he’s just fine where he is.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Hello? Equestria to Twilight, anypony home?” Spike asked, waving a claw in front of my face.
“Huh?”
“It’s your turn. Are you gonna move or not?”
We were only four moves into the opening. Spike had been taking his time to think about each move and would take back a couple before making a decision. With all the waiting, I’d gotten lost in thought. I glanced at the board and noticed that he wasn’t making any daring moves. Three of his queenside pawns and one knight were pushed forward, all staying close together. Not a bad strategy for a beginner, at least he’d be less likely to put a piece in danger. I had already pushed my center pawns forward and had developed my kingside knight and bishop.
I picked up my king and held it in the air for a moment. “Alright, Spike, pay attention because this is probably the most important special move in the game. Because I’ve moved my knight and bishop out of the way, I can do what’s called castling.” I moved my king two spaces to my right and put my kingside rook to my king’s left.
“What? I thought only the knight could jump stuff.”
“That’s true, but this is a special move that each player can make only once per game and only if the conditions are right.”
“What conditions?”
“First, the pieces between the king and rook must be out of the way. Second, you must not have moved either the king or the rook previously. Third, you cannot castle while in check, neither can you castle into or through check.”
Spike was scratching his head and looking confused. I picked up a few of his and my pieces and demonstrated each condition before putting the game back to the way it was and encouraged him to try and castle. He never was one to learn something by verbal instruction or reading. It was much easier for him to understand things by doing them. It reminded me of the time my mother taught us both to cook.
~~~~~~~~~~
I was about a year away from moving out of my parent’s house and living on my own and I wanted to better learn how to prepare food, though I’d had some experience helping my mother in the past. Spike must have been six at the time and had been living with me for the past few years. The way dragons age is quite different from a pony. Though they remain young for a long time they are able to become independent quickly. Spike was still a baby dragon, but unlike a baby pony he didn’t need to be constantly looked after and was already walking and talking like a pony nearly twice his age would.
I stood with my mother at the kitchen counter and looked over a cookbook while she gathered the ingredients to bake a cake. Spike wandered by and came into the kitchen.
“Hey, what’re you doing?”
“I’m learning how to cook, Spike,” I said without looking away from my book. “If I’m going to be on my own soon, I’ll need this skill.”
“You’re leaving?” He almost sounded hurt.
“Not right now. Next year I’ll be old enough to move closer to school.”
“Um, hey, here’s an idea: how about I learn cooking too? Then I could come with you and make food sometimes and you would have more time to study.”
I looked over at him, surprised that he wanted to move with me. He held his tail and didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye.
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” my mother chimed in, making Spike relax and smile. “Twilight could use some company when she moves, couldn’t you, Twilight?”
Although I had somewhat been looking forward to a quiet place of my own where I could study in silence, I wasn’t against living with Spike by any means. He could be loud and rambunctious, as any foal or baby dragon would be, but he could usually keep quiet when I asked him to. “Sure. Pull a chair over.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I pushed the thought from my mind. Reminiscing about the distant past wasn’t going to tell me why Spike was learning chess. Our game had progressed a couple more moves and Spike was one move away from successfully castling. I pushed one of my back pawns one space, allowing him to castle on his next turn without needing to worry about any of my pieces attacking.
“So now I can do this, right?” he asked, making his king and rook mirror mine.
“Correct. Well done.”
He smiled at me, clearly proud of what he’d learned. By now, I’d shown him the value of each piece as well as how each piece moved and captured. It was time to begin an offensive. I pushed one of my pawns forward, forking one of his knights and a pawn. His smile faded as he stared at the board, trying to figure out what to do.
“So, Spike, what have you been up to these days?”
“Uh…” He was clearly focused on figuring out the best move. “You know, usual stuff.” Finally, he decided to capture my pawn and I immediately captured back with my bishop.
“What kind of stuff?”
He moved his knight out of danger even though there wasn’t much chance of me actually taking it since it was well protected. “I don’t know, just stuff. I bought a new comic book a couple days ago. I still haven’t read it yet, but I read the one before it. It’s really cool.”
“Really? What’s it about?” Perhaps that comic had something to do with chess and his want to learn it. Knowing Spike, it could easily be as simple as a character playing it in a comic and making it look ‘cool.’
“Haggella, the evil unicorn corrupted by darkness, wants to take over Las Pegasus by controlling the weather. When the hero, Pony Ranger Y, tries to stop her, she fires a magic beam that bounces around the city and hits an ant making it grow as big as a skyscraper! That’s where the first one ended.”
Well that had nothing to do with chess. “Sounds… interesting.”
A couple moves later, Spike pushed one of his kingside pawns forward to challenge my bishop. The move was somewhat bold as it opened a potential weak spot in the defense of his king. I decided to try and lure him into opening that weakness a little more and moved my bishop away one space. After a few moments of thought and probably realizing that he didn’t have much room to move, he took the bait and moved another kingside pawn two spaces to challenge my bishop again.
“What else has been going on? Surely you’re up to more than just reading comics.”
“Hmm… Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo asked me to help them get cutie marks for the fifth time last week.”
I didn’t even know there had been a first time. “What kind of cutie mark did they want to get?”
“Dragon taming,” he said flatly.
I started laughing. Spike just looked at me seriously, his brow furrowed, and I tried to hold in my fit of giggling. “Oh come on. It’s funny. It reminds me of when you were little, you used to build a city out of blocks and pretend to be a big, scary monster walking through it.”
Spike scratched his head. “I did?”
“All the time,” I said, finally getting hold of my laughter.
“I don’t remember that at all.”
I looked at him with a smile. “It was cute.”
Spike crossed his arms and frowned at me. “I’m not cute.”
“Of course not,” I said slightly sarcastically as I moved another piece. It was nice being able to catch up with him; the two of us didn’t always have the time. When he didn’t have chores to do, Spike always had his head in a comic or was out doing something or other with Rarity or, apparently, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
He made another move, pushing one of his bishops forward. It was clear he didn’t have much of a plan and was reluctant to make any bold moves. I took a moment to think about how to proceed. I wanted to do something bold and move my queen into play. If I utilized my knight or bishop correctly, I would likely be able to capture a pawn and possibly more while putting his king in jeopardy. Even though Spike was a beginner and would likely not see the attack in time, I didn’t want to make a mistake from being a bit rusty.
“So, what have you been doing lately?” The question broke me out of my thoughts. “Read anything new lately?”
I pushed a knight forward, threatening his bishop. “I’ve been pretty busy adjusting to the whole princess thing. There’s so much I have yet to learn about… being… royalty.” Saying that out loud left an awkward taste in my mouth. “I haven’t really had the time for new books.”
“You hardly have time for anything anymore,” Spike grumbled under his breath as he pulled his bishop back to safety.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
I pushed my queen forward on the queenside, lining up a subtle attack on his king. He pushed a pawn closer to my queen, not really doing anything substantial. What did he mean I had no time for anything anymore? I always made time when I needed to. Heck, I was making time now. I captured a pawn with my queen, putting him in check. He panicked a little and moved his rook to block. I moved my knight in, allowing it to be sacrificed to wrench open his position.
Ever since Spike was little we had spent time together, almost all of our time together. He was family. A few quick moves on the board later and my queen was beginning to take piece after piece after piece. He was fully panicking now, throwing anything at my queen to scare it away, but nothing worked. I practically raised Spike from an egg and yet he thought I didn’t have time for him?
I stopped capturing pieces on the board. I didn’t make any move at all. All he had left was his king, a knight, a bishop and a few pawns. I thought back to the last time Spike and I had hung out together, just the two of us. It had been years. The last time was probably before we moved to Ponyville. We spent time as a group with Dash, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack, but not just with the two of us. I captured his bishop, putting him in check.
Spike’s shoulders slumped and he frowned at his lonesome king. “I lost, didn’t I?”
I knew why he asked me to teach him this game. All Spike wanted was to spend time together by any means necessary. Even if it meant putting himself through this. I reached over and gently tipped his king onto its side. “I think it’s safe to surrender now.”
“Aww, that sucks! I thought I was doing good.”
I smiled, walked around the table and gave him a quick hug. “You weren’t bad for a beginner. We can spend time doing something else, we don’t have to keep playing if you’d rather not.”
He looked up at me slightly wide-eyed. Perhaps he knew I’d figured him out. “Um, actually, that was kinda fun. Can we play again?”
I looked at him for a moment and saw genuine excitement in his eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I lost, but when you came in at the end and just started destroying everything… it was awesome!”
I was a bit taken aback. Most new players wouldn’t consider a loss like that to be awesome. “Well, alright, if you want to.” I walked back around the table and started setting up the board again.
“I call white this time!”
I giggled and turned the board around. “If you insist. But I’m not going easy.”
“Alright! I’m totally gonna win this time.” He hovered his claw over his pawns for a moment, considering each one before looking up at me. “Uh, what was the first move you made last time?”
