“I don’t understand.” Lunelle blinked.
”What do you mean you don’t understand? What do you not understand?” Ares asked, genuinely baffled.
“How can the knight move through the other pieces like that?”
“…It’s a board game.”
“Is this common in other board games too?”
“I… I guess?” Ares scrunched his eyebrows completely dumbstruck by her questions. “Have you not played any other board games before?”
Lunelle shook her head. “I had no idea they broke the laws of physics!”
“What did you do for fun as a child then?”
“I played with dolls, threw tea parties, and knit. Is that so strange?
”No. Not at all.” Ares shook his head. She was a stereotypical 1940s Canerian child after all. “What did you do before we arrived here?”
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”I was a model.” She beamed. “And what about yourself?”
”I was an engineer. Or going to be an engineer, anyway.”
“Oh! Are you the one who started the northeast’s restoration?”
”In a way, yeah. I taught Thea everything she knows.”
“Interesting. Why aren’t you helping her anymore?”
“What’s the point?” Ares tightened the knight in his hand, nearly crushing it in the process. “Whatever we do, we can never hope to restore it to what it once was.”
“But Thea hasn’t given up. It might be pointless, yes, but isn’t that part of the fun?”
”Fun…?” Ares narrowed his eyes, his mouth in an indiscernible shape. What part of wasting time was fun?
Lunelle giggled at his confusion. “What’s the difference between inventing things that may never be used and this game?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Neither are particularly productive. You can use your inventions to spend time and bond with Thea!”
“But… This game is actually fun.” Ares shook his head.
“Fun is subjective, isn’t it?” She smiled. He couldn’t help but melt a little inside any time she did. Her smile was warm, bright, and inviting. She always saw the positive before the negative making her smile that much more common. It was for that reason he had invited her to play chess with him to get to know her better.
”Yes, I think you just proved that. You have a weird sense of fun. Knitting? Really?”
”Oh, come now!” She playfully swatted Ares causing him to laugh.
He wanted to spend every day with her.