Logs:It Is What It Is

It Is What It Is
Dramatis Personae Roscoe, Tok
In Absentia Quentin, Scott	2024-07-05 “Maybe I just think the horses are the best and should be able to move however they want.”
Location <XAV> Back Patio - Xs Grounds
This patio is expertly laid out for relaxing singly or in groups. The section nearest the back door is a more or less conventional veranda, the mansion's eaves--supported by elegant white wooden columns joined with matching railings--extending out to shelter the long porch swings, rocking chairs, and a chess table from the elements. Down the stairs or the ramp from this is a fan-shaped expanse of slate flagstones populated by clusters of deck chairs and picnic tables, always changing in number and arrangement, and stone planter boxes bursting with seasonal flowers and ornamentals. The centerpiece is an elegant pavilion with a hot tub open for use year-round, even if the transition in and out may prove chilly in snowy weather. It's been a hot but rainy Friday -- thunderstorms, tomorrow -- and though the mansion is surely splendidly air-conditioned (and though there must be Indoor Chess available) Roscoe is sitting cross-legged at the stone chess table out here, nominally playing solo chess -- manning both sides, the board set up perpendicularly to him -- but, right now, just tilting his head melancholically out at the drizzle. He was in the drizzle earlier, it looks like -- bleached hair still tousled and wet, damp rained-on spots on the shoulders of his white T-shirt, his shoes and socks sitting to the side of the chair to dry off -- and the way he's looking out at the rain suggests he might go for round two soon. But after a moment, he tears his attention away, back to his chess game, with a little frown (currently, he's losing.) Tok makes their way over to the patio, not from inside the mansion but also from the outside, some place lakewards. They are completely soaked, their hair sits flat and looks longer than usual due to this, their clothes, light grey t-shirt now dark grey, and cargo shorts rolled up higher on the cuffs, are covered in various streaks of mud, along with their shoes which they carry in their hands. The fur on their tail is equally soaked, and has some mud in some of its fibers. In their other hand not carrying the shoes, they hold the edge of their shirt to form a sort of hammock to carry the significant amount of rocks they’ve found on their adventure. Tok probably looks both overjoyed, and severely uncomfortable with their current state. Like a wet cat who just went splashing in some puddles and now has to deal with the consequences. They’re about to walk past to head inside, when they notice Roscoe, and immediately shift their path towards him. They grin, “You playing chess with a ghost?” They ask, then squint towards the board. It takes them a long time to put a conclusion together, “Are you…losing chess with a ghost?” Their grin expands a little more. Roscoe glances over his shoulder as Tok nears, then leans dramatically away -- "Don't drip on me," he says, though maybe this is just for show; a moment later he sits straighter again to move one of the white rooks. "Nope," he pops the last consonant, "now I'm winning. 'sall about perspective." Tok snorts and flicks her tail lightly in Roscoe’s direction to mock throwing some droplets at him. Most of them probably unnoticeable in the current drizzle. She climbs into the seat across, and sits with one of her legs folded up underneath her and the other knee close to her chest. Her tail is immediately wrapping around where she begins to pull the mud out of the fur with her claws. She raises an eyebrow, “What’s the point of that? Doesn’t that mean you always know what’s gonna happen?” She leans forward to observe the current standings of the game, eyes darting between each piece. "Don'tchu ever rewatch a movie you've already seen?" Roscoe says, not very defensively; his lips are curling up into a sheepish, wry smile. "If I notice I'm just replaying a game I already did, then I just do something different. See if I can fix my mistakes. I've played," his eyes dart from the board up to Tok, narrowing briefly with amusement, "a lot of chess." He drops his gaze back down to move a knight. “Yes.” Tok responds immediately, “I love movies. I once lived in a movie theater ‘till I got kicked out. But I saw a lot of movies a lot of times.” Her leg bounces idly and as she leans forward, some of her rocks spilling for her shirt hammock. She quickly deposits them into the back corner of her own chair, and leans back forward to study the game. “Who taught you chess?” Roscoe lifts his eyes again, brow furrowing slightly at this anecdote, pinching down in his forehead. "I always wanted to go to a theater and just stay all day," he says. "Doesn't seem like a nice place to live though. Eating popcorn and candy all day every day." He says this like it's a bad thing. After a long moment gnawing at his lower lip, now back to considering the board, he huffs, moves a pawn, immediately captures it, then moves a knight into the vacated spot. Too much excitement at once -- he's shifted to kneel up on one knee in the chair, elbows on the table and hands clasped under his chin, like he can make better choices with a bird's-eye view. "My sister," he says, not lifting his head, "but I'm way better at it than her, she never wants to play anymore. At my last school I was in chess club for a while." Tok shrugs, “They had hotdogs too.” She says, as if that fixes things. Tok can’t stop the smile that lingers at Roscoe’s sudden excitement in the game he’s playing against himself. She snorts, “I thought chess club was only in movies.” Her claws pull distractedly at the collar of her drenched shirt, trying to relieve the sensory feeling, then at the fabric of her shorts, and then she goes back to pulling mud out of her tail. “If you want a partner, I can play the winner after this one. I’ve got a twenty step plan to become the greatest grandmaster pro elite chess gamer of all time before the school year—the official one.” "There's a chess club here!" This might have been intended as encouragement but in Roscoe's voice it sounds more offended; he's tapping one finger at his jaw, deep in thought, though a moment later he brightens -- "Shoot, you can play the winner now, me and that asshole go way back we can rematch another time. I didn't know you play chess." This has a vaguely, probably unintentionally reproachful tone too; Roscoe is already rapidly resetting the board (just the black pieces, on his side, now orienting the board more traditionally in front of him.) "What's step one?" Tok raises her hands in mock surrender, “It sounds like a movie thing! There’s always a chess club in the movies.” She watches Roscoe begin to reset his side of the board, and her ears pin back and her leg bounces faster. She hesitates, then begins to set up the white side, much slower than Roscoe and definitely referencing his side often. “Quentin showed me! I’m no good—apparently.” She pauses when she has to set up the king and queen, referencing Roscoe’s side and back to her own side, “Maybe I just think the horses are the best and should be able to move however they want.” “But Quentin said—“ Tok sits up straighter and says in a not too bad Quentin impression, “Uh…Serious people play chess. It’s a workout for your…intellect? Something something.” Tok slouches again and waves a hand, “I dunno! So I guess first step is playing a bunch. Second step is winning a bunch. Then when I play him again I’ll be super good.” She finishes her side, then immediately moves one of the horses as her first move. Roscoe blows a short, amused raspberry, rolling his eyes -- "Sounds like something Quentin would say." He is more deliberate making his first move, scootching a pawn out into the middle of the board with one finger, right into easy striking distance of the knight. "I'unno, that sounds like you don't have a twenty-step plan," he says. "'Sides, first thing you're supposed to learn in chess is 'plans change.' You're only in control of half of the board." Tok huffs and blows a soggy piece of hair out of her face. “That’s why I left the next 18 steps blank! So I can just fill’em in later.” She’s about to move a different piece, the other horse, but upon seeing the possible steal she immediately switches back and snags the pawn. She grins, seeming very proud of this move, and her tail has begun waving back and forth. “So uh, why were you sitting out here? The asshole you were playing against have a thing against AC?” She rolls the pawn she stole in her fingers before placing it down on the table. “This chess set fancier? Feels fancy.” Roscoe captures Tok's knight, "Great plan," and sort of smugly rolls it around in his own fingers, mirroring her movements, before he sets it off to one side. His gaze wanders slightly away from Tok, eyes flickering narrower for only a second before they relax again. "Naw, I like this spot, I like being outside, I like weather. All air-conditioning all the time gets really old really fast. Didn't the movie theater get old?" Tok’s tail stills mid-wave at the capture, “Noooo my horsie!” She grumbles and moves another piece. Is she setting herself up for one of the fastest checkmates in chess? She just might be. “Mmm…maybe?” She tilts her head side to side in consideration, “Eh. I knew it wasn’t gonna be forever anyways. Everywhere is just a matter of time, Y’know? Guess that helps keep things from getting old too quick.” She says, unbothered. She idly tracks over to where Roscoe was looking, then grins after a moment of realization, “What’s Mr. Summers doing? Polishing his glasses collection?” She asks jokingly, nodding her head towards where Roscoe was looking. "I guess that's the glass-half-full way to look at it." Roscoe leaves his queen where it is, and prods another pawn out to join it, his distant expression very serious; this meshes somewhat discordantly with his rained-on bleach job. "I've just been in too many boring places for too long, that's all." His eyes dart back to Tok, narrowed in a squinty frown -- "What? Why would I care what he's doing? I'm not creeping." Tok considers, “I guess if you’re stuck someplace boring, that would get old. I knew I always had the option to leave. I think I’d lose it if I didn’t.” She moves her pawn in front of his queen, maybe to try and catch the pawn beside it? At Roscoe’s narrowing, Tok’s eyes dart up, surprised. “I don’t actually think you’re- oh oh.” She seems to put something together. She opens her mouth, then closes it. “Sorry.” She says instead. A purely nervous laugh rises out of her, “Was making a joke. Bad joke.” Her face scrunches in a wince, and her hand comes up to tug at her soaked shirt collar again. She scratches at her neck near the exoskeleton patch, “People ask you that kinda thing a lot?” "You'd be surprised what you can get used to," says Roscoe; as grim as this could have sounded, his tone is blase. He takes the pawn with his own pawn, his expression and his posture both easing off a little at her apology, giving Tok an embarrassed, faintly apologetic grimace (though he doesn't actually apologize.) "People think my power is pervy," is not really an answer to this question, as he lines the pawn up next to the knight at the sidelines. "I mean, it could be. I have morals though." Tok’s tail begins moving again, and she quickly brings another pawn forward, one right next to his pawn. Another soon to be sacrifice surely. She grimaces sympathetically at his explanation, “Yeaahh I wasn’t even thinking uh…About it like that.” She’s now gone to fidgeting with one of the rocks she brought with her earlier, rolling it between her fingers, “That sucks though. I get it,” she shrugs, “Kinda.” Roscoe drums his fingertips on the table, tilting his head at the board, before finally sliding his queen sideways out of danger. "I know, I just meant -- it skeeves people out. Nobody wants to be spied on." He pulls his hand back, folding his arms on the table -- "It is what it is. This is why they make us all take that hippie-dippy Ethics of Being a Mutant Freak class." Tok goes quiet, for once. She finally shifts her eyes away from Roscoe and uses her now open queen to take the pawn in front. She screws her face in concentration, maybe it’s at the move she just made. “It is what it is.” She echoes idly, less like an agreement and more like she’s mulling the sentiment over in her head. She tilts her head, “S’like you said earlier, one of those things you got used to.” She taps her claws against the rock in her palm. Roscoe pulls his mouth to one side in a tiny frown down at the board. "I mean. Aren't people skeeved out by you?" Tok hesitates, “Yeah.” She says, simply. She shifts the rock in her hands, “People act weird about it all. Got all kinda issues with it. Think I’m gonna mess up their pretty little faces or something. Or that I’m gonna-” Her face scrunches, briefly, and she swallows. She breaths out, and her tapping on the rock continues, “S’whatever. I’ve stopped trying to figure out what it is about me people have issue with. If they’re gonna think the worst, might as well stop trying so hard to please’em.” She looks at Roscoe and smiles in a lopsided fashion, “It is what it is right?” She asks, bringing a shoulder up in a half shrug. Roscoe blows another raspberry and moves another pawn out of his lineup -- "You'll fit right in here," is his verdict. Tok grins full of sharp teeth, and steals a piece, opening herself up for a checkmate in the process, “Hope it lasts longer than the movie theater.”