Searching for the Perfect Plays

by Paracompact

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Drama, Original Character
Length: 4457

As an acolyte to an arcane strategy game, Meteorite learns lessons from her lifelong idol—both on and off the gameboard.

Enter Arcelot: A magical strategy board game that every unicorn in Equestria knows the rules to, but few are called upon to master. An unassuming filly by the name of Meteorite is determined to enter the rarefied world of the professional players at all costs—the only world, in her mind, that she belongs.

After winning a sweepstakes to hang out with a lifelong idol of hers during a high-profile tournament, Meteorite is closer to this world than she ever has been. Truly, it is everything she ever dreamed of... so why does it still not feel right for her?

Inspired by coming-of-age stories such as Hikaru no Go, and March Comes In Like a Lion.

Published 2021-09-20 06:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2021-09-20 06:00:00 UTC

Opening Moves

Fifty-two South Royal Lane.

Meteorite repeated the address over and over in her head.

Fifty-two South Royal Lane. Fifty-two South Royal Lane. Fifty-two South Royal Lane.

It’s not so much that she was afraid of forgetting it—at this rate, she’d probably committed it to lifelong memory. No, she just needed to confirm to herself, again and again, that there was nothing but a few Canterlot street numbers that now separated her from her idol.

She broke into a small gallop as she counted up to house number fifty-two in the distance. Her thoughts, too, began to race: How ever would her first game against her idol go? Would she succeed in at least putting up a fight? In forcing her to think hard about at least one move during the game? Would she survive until the middlegame, or even the endgame? Or would she get trounced in the very opening? Even that would be amazing, she thought. Her withers tingled with anticipation.

Meteorite only realized how out of breath she was by the time she reached the fifty-second house. After pausing a moment—just a moment—to catch her breath, she straightened up, composed herself, and rang the doorbell. A prolonged shuffle approached from inside the house, before finally the door opened and a gray unicorn mare stood to face her.

“Oh, hello,” Leo greeted the adolescent blue unicorn, in a neutral tone. She squinted against the harsh Canterlotian daylight. “They didn’t, um, tell me the time you’d be arriving. Do come in, make yourself at home.”

Leopoldine “Encyclopedia” Sage, professional Arcelot player competitively ranked #19 in Equestria, was championed in her biographies as a role model to fillies and colts everywhere who sought to become pro, despite humble origins. Over the years, Meteorite had read just about every book and article about the mare: The daughter of two apothecaries in a rural town, Leo at a young age was the victim of a terrible stammer. Suffering arrested development as well as teasing throughout grade school, she found solace only in the strategy board game of Arcelot. She spent countless inspired nights studying every treatise on the game that she could get her hooves on. When the time came that she could no longer find a fair match against anypony in person, she set out to prove herself in correspondence games by mail with mentors from the royal kingdom. As a result of her prowess, she secured an official sponsorship from the Manehattan Arcelot Society, who paid for her board and tuition at their prestigious teaching institution. Her style had been described as “frighteningly encyclopedic,” able to grasp the fundamental dynamics of even the most convoluted positions.

Slowly but surely, Leo climbed the rankings over the years, and broke into the coveted Top 20. At her age now, she had only a couple years left before her most competitive days were behind her (professional Arcelot players retired about as early as sports stars, for similar reasons). Yet to this day, her intense stare and unassailable calm never failed to strike fear into her opponents over the board.

Today was the first day of a full week that Leo would spend with one of her lucky fans, who had won the expenses-paid opportunity in a mail-in newspaper contest.

“Your house is exactly like the pictures in the magazines,” Rite said, with tremulous awe.

Rite wanted to treat her idol’s study materials like fragile works of art, but there was so much of it scattered throughout the house’s small rooms that she could hardly avoid stepping on it: game records and annotated analyses spilled over the tables; charts of patterns and hoofwritten notes plastered the walls; and multiple Arcelot boards of varying size and ornateness captured historical matches mid-game. Eager to pore over her idol’s personal notes at some point during her stay, Rite felt more than a little like a filly in a candy store.

“Sorry about the mess,” Leo said. “I would’ve, well, liked to clean up more before you came.”

Leo trotted over to the wooden dining table, and began clearing some scrolls off. She reached over at random to one of the Arcelot boards and began resetting the pieces to their starting positions with her telekinesis.

“Your expression tells me that the first thing you’d like to do is play a game.” Leo smiled. “May I first ask, what is your name?”

“It would be an honor, Master Leo. My name is Meteorite. But you can call me Rite.”

“And I suppose you can, well, drop the honorifics,” Leo said, still smiling.

“Can do.”

Rite sat down at the board and thought carefully about her first move, even though she’d planned ahead of time exactly which openings she wanted to play first.

“I can’t believe I’m really playing her—I mean you! You’ve been my idol since I was a little filly. Your style is just so perfect, I’ve tried as hard I could to learn it and emulate it, but I still bet you’ll absolutely demolish me this game, show me what principled play really looks like.” She levitated her first gemstone onto the board with quivering excitement.

“Perhaps,” her idol responded, lukewarm. “Let us enjoy a good game.”

The game of Arcelot hails from the Crystal Empire, thousands of years ago. The board it is traditionally played on—a standing cylinder of black marble with a variety of interconnected geometrical symbols etched onto the top surface, fitted with a large crystal Orb in the middle—together with the gemstone pieces it utilizes, was originally used by ancient crystal pony astrologists to divine the movement of the stars and the fates of empires.

Each player has access to three different types of pieces, with simple rules for how to manipulate each of them during one’s turn. Despite this, the “complete rules” of Arcelot are still not entirely clear, even to professionals, owing to the presence of the Orb. It has a whimsical temperament in relation to the pieces on the board, as manifested by its constantly changing colors throughout a game in progress. The goal of the game is for one player to change the Orb to bright red, or the other player to change it to dark blue, by arranging specific shapes on the board with one’s pieces. New shapes, and the precise effects of old ones, are always being discovered.

Orb and the gemstone pieces require a steady channel of magic in order to function, but this aside, Arcelot is a game entirely dependent on the intellect. But beyond mere intellect, the personality, fears, and desires of a player are all made clear through his or her moves. Understand and improve oneself, and one’s game will improve; run away from one’s shortcomings and frustrations, and one’s game will stagnate.

Such is the wisdom of the Arcelot greats.

Rite had been ousted in routine fashion. Her pieces lay scattered across the board in disarray, far and away from forming even the most basic shapes for influencing the Orb in her favor. Indeed, due to Leo’s strategic coercions, Rite struggled to find a single legal move that could improve her position—her forces were paralyzed. Meanwhile, Leo’s pieces were placed to exert the maximum amount of influence on the Orb, efficiently, exquisitely, and without concession.

It was as delightful of a beatdown as Rite had ever dreamed.

“It would be dishonorable to draw this game out any further,” Rite said, bowing her head. “I resign. It was very enlightening to play against you.”

Leo, who by this time had poured out tea for the both of them, levitated her cup to her lips for a sip. “Thank you. I can tell you are quite a strong player for you age.”

“Thanks, but I honestly think I’ve hit a plateau in my game lately…”

Rite put her hoof to her chin, trying to translate her nigh spiritual admiration of her idol’s technique into words.

“Your moves, they just made so much sense. You didn’t even have to use rare, fancy shapes against me, just the right tools for the job. Like the truncated triangle here, when I was trying to surround you, or the crescent-square there to effectively cordon off that whole area of the board.” Rite’s eyes were alight. “And yet, you were still so patient and cautious with me. Most ponies I play are so aggressive and blood-thirsty, and it makes the game so… ugly, in my opinion. I would much rather master the broader principles, like you.”

The master politely stifled a chuckle. “You remind me a little of myself, when I was your age. You’ll do well to master the principles, as you say, but, hm, just remember, ah…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you’ll be staying for a while, won’t you? I’m sure there will be plenty of time to explain it.” Leo levitated all the gemstones back to their starting positions with impressive speed, and then stood up. “Would you like some hay-fried rice? I went to the market just this morning.”

Rite nodded, just now aware of her rumbling stomach. As she collected the tea set and headed into the kitchen, Leo mentioned: “As you may have heard, my semifinal match for the Canterlot Summer Cup is this week, and I’m up against an opponent with a, well, rather unique style.”

Rite was very well apprised of the names and events in the pro circuit. “You mean Turbulent Gust?”

“Yes. I would like to take the time to explain to you how I plan to play against him.”

“Of course!” Rite exclaimed. “At least, if it won’t detract from your study time.”

“Not at all. It will be a great benefit having somepony to explain it to, in simple terms.”

Rite was elated. Her idol was everything she read she was, and then some. One day, Rite hoped to become half as good of a player as she was. Only then would she really be somewhere, she mused. Somewhere ponies shared her ideals, somewhere ponies wouldn’t mock her for her interests. Somewhere that Arcelot’s unique blend of intellectualism, discipline, and justice prevailed. The greedy, the lazy, the cowardly, the hypocritical, the overly aggressive—those kinds of players would be punished in their games by their own iniquities. Somewhere only ponies of the purest and most assiduous minds would survive.

Somewhere, Rite hoped, that she might one day belong.

Player Sinister

Turbulent Gust, a jade-green pegasus pony whose ranking could swing from #25 to #55 according to his stylistic caprices, was a fan favorite not only for being one of the few non-unicorn Arcelot professionals, but for his highly novel playstyle, as well. “If only he would conform to a more traditional playstyle, or at least stick to and master a specific style of his own instead of experimenting so often, he could easily break into the Top 20,” alleged the player who had beaten him in last year’s Crystal Circuit quarterfinals. “But that pony’s mind is simply focused on greater things.”

“It’d just seem b-boring, you know, creating the same shapes every game,” the ever-soft-spoken Gust had said in an interview. “I really don’t think I could play any sort of game but this, even if I tried…”

Rite, for her part, wasn’t so enamored with Gust’s style of play. Although she had to admit he was a strong professional—and would wipe the board with her about as easily as Leo had, if they ever played—she couldn’t help but notice an unspoken pattern in how Gust won his matches: He would fall behind slightly with every “novel” move he made, only to turn it all in his favor when his opponent succumbed to a subtle miscalculation in an unfamiliar position.

Whenever Rite lost a game in this fashion to a self-proclaimed adherent of the “Gusty Method” at the club or a local tournament, she would feel frustrated and embarrassed; her opponent had not won with finesse and strategy, she would contest, she had merely lost by stepping into one of the many traps her opponent had—often inadvertently—set for her. After one such loss, a peer even had the gall to remark, “What good’s all that fancy shape study, Rite, if you can’t even handle a little curveball like that?”

Suffice to say, regarding the upcoming semifinal, Rite certainly had a horse in the race.

Rite observed from across the playing hall as Masters Sage and Gust approached opposite sides of the Arcelot board, gave each other the ceremonial crossing-of-horns (although the pegasus could only imitate the gesture), and sat down to begin. Gust, with the red pieces, was to move first. Owing to his lack of magical endowment, he was accompanied by a unicorn assistant who would interpret his moves onto the board and through the Orb. After a quick whisper in his ear, the unicorn interpreter made the opening move, which was relayed onto a large demonstration board behind them.

“Facing off against an unorthodox player like Gust is a little like boxing against a southpaw,” Leo had explained to Rite the previous day.

“How’s that?”

“Well, if you’re used to boxing against other right-hoofed opponents, you’ll inevitably feel out of your element. Not so for the southpaw: Most of his matches are against right-hoofed opponents, too, after all. As a result, the unconventional player possesses an inherent advantage, in boxing as in Arcelot.”

“But you’re a really traditional player, just like me,” Rite had responded. “That doesn’t sound fair. How are you supposed to overcome that?”

“Nothing unfair about it; just a fact of the game. As for what I’ll do, hm, there’s no denying that I’m going to be thrust into unfamiliar circumstances. All I can do is drag Gust in with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to play strange moves, just like him. Well, not just like him; hopefully, strange moves even he’s never seen before. Archaic opening theory developed by the crystal ponies, thousands of years ago before they disappeared. There’s certainly bite to these kinds of moves, but almost nopony encounters them anymore. Chances are Gust hasn’t, either.”

“Will you really play out of your element for the entire game?”

“No, in fact I’ll probably fall behind for each archaic move that I play. After the opening, I’ll return to my fundamentals. The only difference is, we’ll be playing on a board that’s unfamiliar to both of us. And that’s how I’ll catch up and overtake him.”

The semifinalists’ early moves were played out on the board at a slow, deliberate pace, but Rite was watching so intently she had to remind herself to blink. At first her master’s moves perplexed Gust; with careless abandon, Leo was committing to moves and shapes that were patently obsolete. Still, her stare cut through him, compelling him to check and double-check every move he played. For once, he was being made to look like the orthodox player, Rite thought. She noticed him fidget his wings uncomfortably.

A total of ten minutes went by, then fifteen, then twenty. By the time thirty minutes had passed, there had been twenty-one moves played, and Rite had a vague picture of the lead that Gust was edging out. The Orb—a murky brown sphere with trace trails of crimson—was starting to reflect it. But if even Rite could see it, surely Leo was feeling it that much more. How much longer would she continue playing like this? Could she really recover? When was she going to start punishing Gust’s moves like Leo said she would? Like they deserved to be?

Finally, Leo snapped down a piece with real conviction. Rite could recognize by the very virtue of the move that the time had come for her master to sow order from the chaos. And at the same time, to overthrow the lead that Gust had established.

The next hour of play was a painstaking process for both sides. Leo had to carefully—not too fast, not too slow—climb back out of the hole she had let Gust bury her in, while Gust had to watch as his ordinary intuitive style proved increasingly futile in the face of Leo’s keen sense of balance. In a position that was so foreign to him, he couldn’t muster the creativity necessary to play his usual novelties, but instead held on with costly, passive, platitudinal defenses.

So it appeared to Rite, at least.

At one critical point, when it appeared Leo had at last succeeded in recovering from the opening, and they were approaching the languid ending phase of the game where even the smallest leading margins would crown the victor (Leo was well known for the ruthless precision of her calculations in this phase), Gust became like a statue. He spent several minutes in morose concentration on the board, not lifting his eyes, not drinking from the cup of water beside him, not stretching his tense wings, not engaging his opponent’s eternally severe stare. So long did he remain immobile, in fact, that Rite thought at any moment he might declare that his position was lost and resign. What else could he be ruminating so intensely, after all, this late into the game?

Instead, Gust slowly, coyly leaned over and whispered something of length into his unicorn interpreter’s ear. The interpreter seemed confused, pointing at the board while whispering something back. Gust nodded his head and uttered a few syllables in response. The interpreter reached over and played one of the most ridiculous moves Rite had ever seen.

Gust had just simultaneously disconnected three powerhouse shapes on his own side, while placing into jeopardy one of his most central pieces. Rite couldn’t see the sense in it, and worse, she couldn’t even see a trap in it. What was his plan? Was this a final attempt at confusing his opponent, knowing how futile the endgame was for him?

Leo, characteristically, showed no change in expression. After a few moments, however, she reached for her water and wiped her brow. Several more moments passed. She guzzled what remained of her water, and an attendant replenished it from a pitcher. Moments turned into minutes, and by now Leo seemed to be imitating her opponent’s bout of paralysis. Rite heard whispers break out all around her.

“You’re quite the well-read player, aren’t you, Rite? Not many ponies your age have studied the canonical lines of Withersome’s Defense so many plies deep. Heh, I even know some colleagues whose opening books you could contribute to.”

On the day prior to her match with Turbulent Gust, Leo had just completed another casual game with Rite. Casual destruction, anyway; despite her best efforts, Rite had not once—not in this game, not in any of the previous—been able to gain the upper hoof against her idol. In Rite’s eyes, it was impeccably high art with every move. Her only regret? That Leo had to share the canvas with an amateur like her.

“Thank you for the compliment,” Rite glowed. “I’ve heard you call Pastern’s Opening Theory a favorite of yours back when you were a young player, so naturally I’ve read it cover-to-cover more than once. He shows off the Withersome’s quite a lot in there, as you know.”

“Ah, I think I recall.” The master stirred some sugar into her seemingly omnipresent cup of tea. “So, tell me a little bit about yourself, Rite. I was never one for proper introductions, either, but I’m curious to learn what draws you to the niche world of professional Arcelot.”

“Mhm. I guess I’ve always done well in school academically and all, and the careers that teachers introduce us to are always interesting, but I feel like I never worked well with other ponies. It’s like, everything in life feels like a competition, you know? Or like a test, with right and wrong answers?”

“Hm. In my line of work, I can’t say I don’t relate.”

“The counselor at school told me that with my grades I could work in some sort of scientific field. But my dad is a technician at this lab, and from his stories I know there would be cliques and social politics in all of that, too. I feel more comfortable competing with somepony over the Arcelot board than I do collaborating with them, I guess that’s just the truth.”

“I see. So you feel that Arcelot is the only fit for your personality.”

“Yup. I’ve poured all my heart into it. And if I get accepted at an Arcelot school this coming semester, I can finally drop out of ordinary high school and focus all of my time on improving my game.”

Leo betrayed a conflicted expression as she stared into her tea. “Hm. Well, with the graduation rate at game schools being what they are these days, with how competitive they are, it can be good to have something to fall back on. It was a grueling experience at the Manehattan Arcelot Society, climbing the ranks.”

“I know I know,” Rite said, waving her hoof in good nature. “I know it’s not easy to make a living out of playing an old board game. But that’s all the more reason to buckle down and study even more, isn’t it?” Rite tapped her book of written game records beside her. She was sure she would study these most recent pages for the rest of her days to come. “Speaking of which, are you up for another game?”

Leo gave her best smile. “Always am. Let’s, ah, just remember to some have fun along the way.”

The whispers around the tournament hall grew, a continuous cricketing of shoptalk and question marks. They were becoming more and more doubtful of Leo’s positional advantage in face of this quizzical play from Gust. The move posed a question which seemed soft at a glance, but which, on closer inspection, had no satisfying answer. However Leo handled it, she would be leaving one of several pernicious weaknesses behind.

Gust sat across the table, absentmindedly massaging his wings in a nervous tic as he awaited Leo’s response. Finally, without ceremony or hesitation, Leo calmly played a move. To Rite’s eyes it was innocuous, even irrelevant to the matter at hoof. Gust soon responded with another move, almost as bizarre as his first. Only a moment’s contemplation this time, Leo offered another response. A sequence of exchanges was made in this way, without pause, but also without urgency; both players had simply calculated these moves many minutes ago. In a very mysterious way, Rite became aware of an intricate battle being waged all across the board, and the Orb cycled unpredictably through many obscure colors.

Over time, Gust’s pace of play slowed to a crawl. His concentration faltered, and he began fidgeting once more. In the midst of a conflict Rite was still struggling to perceive, Gust announced:

“I-I re-… I resign. Thank you for the game.”

Cameras flashed as the masters stood up, shook hooves, and exited the room.

The master and her tagalong apprentice claimed an empty table in the Canterlot Arcelot Society’s lobby. Rite was eager to hear, first-hoof, Leo’s impression of the match.

“That was such a great game to watch!” Rite started. “Everything went exactly as you’d planned it.”

“It followed the outline I’d had in mind, yes. As well as could be expected, at least.”

“You fell so far behind in the opening, I was worried whether you’d even be able to catch up. But once you switched into gear, there was nothing Gust could do to slow you down.”

“So far behind in the opening?” Leo echoed, a bit confused. “I thought it was more or less even. Perhaps, hm, you underestimated the flexibility of that ancient style of play.”

“Huh,” Rite wondered aloud. That wasn’t exactly how she recalled it. “In that case, you must have really built up a winning position by the late middle game, yeah?”

“Early middle game, perhaps. Late middle game, not at all. I greatly underestimated Gust’s ingenuity when he’s up against the wall.” Leo smiled. “You should know: There’s no game that’s easier to lose than one that’s already won.”

“So you’re saying there was a point where you almost lost?” Rite thought back to the bizarre, counterintuitive move Gust had played, the one that had made her master wipe her brow.

“Indeed. At one point, late in the game, I played a move too hastily, and only after did I consider more carefully an interesting response that I had dismissed as ridiculous. Naturally, Gust found it, played it, and all Tartarus broke loose for me.” She stared at nowhere in particular, a dreamy look in her eyes. “It was an absurd brilliancy, hiding in plain sight.”

Rite had not discerned anything of worth in that play, but trusted her master’s judgment. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand that move.”

“Me either. Much less will I ever understand the complicated fighting that broke out as a result. I was winging it, and I think Gust was, too—er, no pun intended. It was his final bid at regaining control.”

“That’s really neat. My perception of the game was totally different from yours.”

“Hm, yeah, that’s quite common in higher-level play. I imagine Gust’s perception would disagree with mine, too, and that an even stronger player would in turn disagree with all three of us. We’re all right and we’re all wrong, in our own ways.” Leo craned her neck, surveying the spacious lobby. “Speaking of which, hm, I wonder if Gust would be in the mood for a post-mortem discussion of the game.”

Rite followed her master’s lead and looked around, too. She spotted him first, obscured behind a large crowd of ponies, and pointed him out.

“Oh, I see he already has his hooves full with the reporters,” Leo said. “Maybe another day.”

Rite noticed that their own surroundings were deserted. “Don’t reporters usually want to interview, you know, the winner of a game?” she asked, with more indignance than confusion.

“Normally, yes. But as you know, Gust is very popular among the press, seeing as he’s, well, not a unicorn. He’s so recognizable to Arcelot outsiders that even him losing a semifinal makes bigger news than somepony like me winning it.”

Leo explained it so matter-of-factly, without a hint of disdain. “Isn’t that a little unfair?” Rite probed. “It’s like…”

“Maybe,” Leo cut her off, “but I don’t really think so. Fans can cheer for who they want to, and reporters can interview who they need to. It’s just the nature of these things.”

Rite wasn’t so sure she bought that justification, but held her tongue. She decided to change the subject: “So, when is the final against Silver?”