Fic: Chess: Odd One Out
Title: Odd One Out
Fandom: Chess
Characters/Pairing: Svetlana Sergievskaya, Svetlana/Anatoly and Florence/Anatoly
Rating: Gen
Wordcount: 180, because I cannot write a drabble
Svetlana can play chess-not on a professional level, no, but she knows how the pieces move and how the game works. She is married to a chess grandmaster, after all. How could she not know how the game works, at least?
A few years into their marriage, she’d asked Anatoly to teach her how to play chess, thinking it might bring them closer together and repair their relationship, but it hadn’t worked. The rules had been easy enough, yes, but she hadn’t been motivated enough to learn the endless gambits and tactics and strategies needed for competitive play. It simply hadn’t called to her.
She realizes now that she should have tried harder to learn, tried harder to understand his passion for the game. Then he might have fallen back in love with her. He might have stayed with her and the children, instead of falling in love with a woman who loved chess as much as he did and defecting for her sake.
She doesn’t blame Florence. She can’t blame Anatoly, either.
After all, Svetlana cannot play chess.
Fandom: Chess
Characters/Pairing: Svetlana Sergievskaya, Svetlana/Anatoly and Florence/Anatoly
Rating: Gen
Wordcount: 180, because I cannot write a drabble
Svetlana can play chess-not on a professional level, no, but she knows how the pieces move and how the game works. She is married to a chess grandmaster, after all. How could she not know how the game works, at least?
A few years into their marriage, she’d asked Anatoly to teach her how to play chess, thinking it might bring them closer together and repair their relationship, but it hadn’t worked. The rules had been easy enough, yes, but she hadn’t been motivated enough to learn the endless gambits and tactics and strategies needed for competitive play. It simply hadn’t called to her.
She realizes now that she should have tried harder to learn, tried harder to understand his passion for the game. Then he might have fallen back in love with her. He might have stayed with her and the children, instead of falling in love with a woman who loved chess as much as he did and defecting for her sake.
She doesn’t blame Florence. She can’t blame Anatoly, either.
After all, Svetlana cannot play chess.