The next two days went past everyone before they could run around a thought or intend to meet it at the bitter end of a word. During that, a ceremony has played out with the grandfather's witness. Boris, the fourth child, had been relieved of his duties as a father based on his own personal request, cutting his life short. With that, Naina was adopted as the grandfather's daughter in his place and ranked fifth overall, making Aurora go up a rank to be the fourth child. And, although Naina has lost both of her legs, as the only survivor of her team, the blood given to her replacing Boris' was more of honorary title for her achievements. Meanwhile, Hans was condemned for not attending the ceremony despite his children being there.
The ceremony was cut short abruptly by the grandfather, and although Anas tried his best to see him, the shadows surrounding his throne made it impossible for anyone to guess at his features from a distance.
The jester's case was put on hold, as well as Anas' actions outside of missions being handed out to him, while Aurora was given a penalty handled by the research department due to his actions.
On the third day, Anas intended to help Naina get through the hallways into a conference room, but was stopped by a child of hers that she adopted recently, and his offer was rejected.
They made it into the room and sat before a man named Duda, the first son of Hans. Anas' first impression was that he's surely in his late thirties, with sleepy eyes, a pushed back hairline, and a long mustache that decorated his upper lip. But as he felt somewhat intimidated by his looks, he didn't stare too much, and rather got himself busy scanning through the documents, even while being very aware of what they contain.
The vulture bees' case was reassigned to some members of Hans' team, as such, the last two members to encounter had to cooperate and give all the resources they have on and for the case. But in the end, Anas was the one who did all the talking and tried his best to be as helpful as possible, while Naina seemed busy with other matters in her head.
When the meeting ended, Anas again tried to help her get out and to her room, as he might get some time to talk to her alone, but was pushed to the side again by this new daughter of hers.
In Aurora's lab while he was helping with sorting out some documents, Aurora pulled out a checkered board and placed it on the desk, then invited Anas to sit in and arrange the pieces.
It has become a habit throughout the last month to give his thoughts while playing chess with her, but it was still unclear to him what the point of it all was exactly.
He grabbed a pawn and placed it on b3, Aurora raised an eyebrow in response, "This is new. Not fighting for the center?" As she grabbed a black pawn and pushed it to e5. In return, Anas blitzed out the bishop to b2, "That would be too straightforward, going headfirst into a wall. I'm not sure I can win against you still." Knight to c6 in response, Aurora seemed amused by this thought of his as a light smile was hinted at the corner of her mouth, "Not bad, but you're giving me too much freedom." As soon as Aurora made her move, Anas had already placed a pawn on g3, "Ah... maybe, but going around the problem seemed more appealing than trying to stop a train." Aurora started humming while thinking as she moved her pawn to d5, "It's not bad in theory. It's a hypermodern setup. But you can't run away from a fight, eventually, you would wish you had played something like c4 or d4 to challenge the center. Grabbing space with only the bishops sounds like a decent plan but only as a delay to hide your cards and play the long game, besides, you're not moving your knights which have the more obvious route, but if you have no intentions of going forward you'll never get around."
Anas thought for a moment then moved his bishop to g2, "Maybe, but if I did so, wouldn't be harassed by your pawns right away?"
Aurora grabbed her h-pawn and placed it carefully on h5, "Not if you combined the bishop with that in mind. Utilizing all your resources to their fullest potential comes after being familiar with each one's limitations."
Anas stared at the h-pawn for a while, and as if he forgot to make a move or think of one, he grabbed the c-pawn and pushed it to c3, "Doesn't make it better to be told this now, I'm already at a disadvantage."
Aurora sighed and shook her head for a bit, then grabbed her h-pawn and pushed it further down the board, "To be able to think of a strategy and execute it on the spot requires only pattern recognition. Being able to recognize the position you're in and craft a strategy that fits it with little tweaks based on what you've come to know, that in essence is what having experience means."
Anas twisted the corner of his mouth and pulled his weight backward to the chair. The silence stretched on as the only sound was of pieces jumping up and down on the board and shuffling around, which had created a rhythm that can be distinguished with some effort, and after he grabbed his queen, he hesitated for a moment where to put her, but maybe due to being carried away by the rhythm of the moves, or maybe due to being lost in his own thoughts away from the board, he placed it carelessly on c2, "Still, it's not so simple out there. Objectifying everything and treating them as variables to be calculated neatly is easy from a safe distance, but once the person gets involved, different unnoticeable factors come into play that can't be simply brushed off."
Aurora touched her chin with her left hand and rested on it, while her glove seemed empty in the pinky finger area, seemingly due to the penalty given to her. She didn't respond to Anas right away, and instead drove her knight to e3 capturing a pawn with check, forking both the king and the queen, "If you can't decide on the spot you'll put others' lives in harm's way as well. A mistake is ten times better than indecision. You can't sit still and wait for the best idea to come by and-" She suddenly stopped and stood up, then went back to her office as she asked for him to wait for a bit, while Anas took the time to look back on the position on the board, and the knight that galloped into his territory in three moves with no effort. He flicked with his finger the crown of his king, letting the piece fall helplessly, surrounded by its own army.
When Aurora came back, she was holding a clock of some sort in her hands, she explained the necessity for making quick judgment based on instinct and flow, and that even if he had an advantage, even if he captured every piece that the opponent had, a lack of time to execute what victory requires is all it would take for him to lose.
At first, having only one minute on the clock, Anas would lose on the fifth move. Not having time to talk, not having time to think, the time to breathe may as well be in minus. The sound of arranging pieces, placing them, knocking them down, picking them up, hitting the clock before it hit zero, his body started responding to threats that Aurora would make intuitively, and at other times, he would tunnel vision and would not even see what moves she played while giving all his mental energy to his own plans, until Aurora would tell him that it's checkmate, or that he ran out of time. Strategy, dividing the seconds into moves and breathing room, even the blink of an eye may as well be a waste where certain moves could be played and seconds could be saved in place pf it. Trying to stay solid and protected, while still not being too passive that every move becomes reactionary which would force a reaction of running away from the problem until being faced a deadend. Forcing the dynamic play, dropping pawns, and heavy materials for activity and pieces' coordination. The rush, the will, the adrenaline pumping through their veins and sending them into a different dimension. Decisions and decisions were being made with little to no way near a concrete idea where they would lead behind the sun.
By the end of it, both of them have played forty six games, thirty nine games where Aurora has won by either checkmate or on time, five games ended in stalemate or by threefold repetition, and only one where Anas won by checkmate while the other was on time.
At that time, Anas was already exasperated. Playing each game out without resigning a single one even in lost positions was due to Aurora forbidding him from ever stopping unless it's either mate or the clock that forced it. If not for that, he may have gaven up on half of the games, which were leading to checkmate and saved some of his sanity. Though, he couldn't say he hated it still.
Afterwards, Aurora explained this being just one dimension where he seems to be lacking the most, that is to say, in instinct and decision making speed. And that longer time formats are equally important, but for different areas, and so, they would test it out after honing this one down some more on a different occasion.