Aeres - Perry

Good Bond



It was the stare-down of all stare-downs. They were so alike, but so different. Their differences often brought them to such stalemates. For Aeres, a well-placed jab would declare her victor, and for Perry, startling his older sister into silence was his declaration.

But this was not a startled silence. It was a thick, heavy, tense silence.

Perry dared to move first. His soft, dainty hand reached out to take the coffee cup from the table. He lifted it slowly, unblinkingly, as he continued to stare. He sipped it slowly. He could see the corner of his sister’s brow twitch. He could see her thinking. Oh, how he could see her thinking every little thought. The wheeled ticked, that little brain of hers strained over her next move. She was trying so hard to break the stalemate. It seemed impossible. Their battle was so even… it seemed impossible for either to gain the upper hand.

Her gaze broke for a moment, just barely, with ever such subtlety. She had thought of something… Interesting. Very interesting. What could she have possibly come up with that he had not?

Her hand rose, eyes fierce and unrelenting—gleaming with victory. She lifted the knight from the board and brought it down, taking her brother’s seemingly defenseless bishop. The jade-eyed man tilted his head slightly, eyes studying the new field. Interesting…

He calculated quickly, something he had learned from playing with his father. He moved his queen forward into the fray. Her onyx skin gleamed, her face sheathed by the impenetrable dark armor. She stood proudly, silently, like a beacon of blatant mockery. Aeres would not have that. Almost as quickly as his hand had left the queen, hers had slammed her castle two spaces over. He would have no choice but to remove her back if he valued her life…

Perry couldn’t help but smile. He enjoyed watching his sisters face. He relished in the way that her eyes suddenly widened, she drew in a surprised breath and her jaw clenched with sudden terrible realization.

He moved his pawn. “Checkmate.”

She was startled now. Definitely startled. Her eyes quickly dropped, searching desperately for some sort of escape. Perry didn’t doubt himself. He knew he had won. He let her panic. After a moment, she sat back. It was that startled, frustrated silence that he so enjoyed.

Normally, the aristocrat wouldn’t press his luck against his ill-tempered sister. He’d just allow himself that arrogant grin he pulled off so well and he would simply strut away, leaving her with the tab.

Perry did indeed smile, but it was something less than arrogant—maybe, empathetic. “You really too much on brute force to scare away your enemy.” Her eyes snapped up, smoldering gray-gold eyes that weren’t that intimidating once you knew her. “I rely on strategy and waiting. Of opportunities brought through patience. You lack patience. Had you not moved your castle, your King would still be safe. You lost sigh of the final goal. You wanted to crush my Queen for daring to step foot behind enemy lines. You wanted to show that you weren’t weak… not afraid.”

“I will hit you,” Aeres said flatly.

Perry laughed. “Your strategy works at times, but only because of error on my part. I sometimes underestimate your brashness. I’m constantly forced to re-strategize after you pull some pin-headed move and sometimes it takes me too long to do that…” The smile still played on his lips, “How do you fair against Father?”

Aeres twitched, “I lose. Every time.”

“That’s because he doesn’t bother to read you. He makes no assumptions. He rolls with the punches because he knows the only thing he can predicate about your strategy is that it’s unpredictable.”

“You can’t beat him either,” Aeres snapped defensively.

“No,” Perry agreed. “But I’ve managed a legitimate stalemate with him. It takes patience to exhaust each others moves… You lack patience.”

Aeres could have very well dove over the table and throttled the life from him and claimed he spoke directly out of arrogance—and she may have been right. Instead she stood, gave him a scowl and slapped the black queen from the board. It cracked loudly across the cobblestone ground before catching in one of the crevices.

“Bill’s your, twit,” she said. She turned, hair following her in a flash of black so similar to the queen laying so lifelessly on the ground.

Perry leaned over to retrieve the queen, rubbing a scratch from her surface gently with his thumb. He glanced about, noticing a few other patrons at the coffee shop staring wide-eyed at him. He placed the queen beside her king and reached inside of his pocket to retrieve a piece of paper.

He marked a line under his name. They were even now.

Fifty-two to fifty two.


[Ramirez]

A/N:
Story bond 40/81 of a project I'm working on.

Perry and Aeres are both hot-heads, but Aeres is more of a react with fists, and Perry more of resulting in words. They're both interesting to write with, but because they both know if they let their anger get the best of them it could probably end very very badly, they're sort of strained when around each other... but for some reason they enjoy each other's company anyhow :P


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