Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sylvain has never found himself to be the type of person particularly bothered by losing. He doesn’t do it often, mind you, but when it happens he is usually able to let it roll off his back. He’s not so intensely competitive that it consumes him like Felix and even Ingrid at times. 

He doesn’t enjoy losing, he just doesn’t let it hold him back. Lost loves aren’t real loves, lost items can be replaced, and lost games are just learning opportunities. 

In chess, Sylvain doesn’t think of losses as losses. Chess pieces are built for sacrifice and sometimes you lose a game to get a mental step up on an opponent in a future match. Even though he may lose the first game, in a set, Sylvain is always confident he’ll come out on top. 

So, generally, harmless losses are just losses. And yet, Sylvain finds himself hating losing to Claude von Riegan. 

The whole relationship starts harmlessly. Sylvain was working through a new opening he learned from a book when Claude sat down across from him and asked to play a game. 

Sylvain agreed and they played. Claude won the first game quite handily, but Sylvain picked up a few tricks that the Golden Deer House Leader relied on—sacrificial pawns and caging Sylvain’s better pieces with his bishops and queen. So, as he tended to do, he asked for a repeat. 

Claude won the second game too. He played similarly and Sylvain knows that he played better, but Claude pressured him in places he wasn’t expecting, queening a pawn that Sylvain only barely took his eye off of and taking his king-side rook in a single move. 

By then, of course, it’s been almost an hour and a half and they’re interrupted before Sylvain can call for a third game. 

Ingrid is actually the one who peeks into the Knight’s Hall and she straightens up when she sees them passing wooden pieces back to reset the game. “Oh!” she exclaims. “There you are!” 

Sylvain moves to stand up and greet her, but Claude beats him to that as well. 

“Ingrid! Have you come here to say you’ve reconsidered my offer?” Claude says, his tone light. 

Ingrid shoots Claude a withering look that gives Sylvain pause. He knows that look well—he’s usually the one on the receiving end of it—and he’s not sure he’s ever seen her use it on anyone else. 

“No,” she replies flatly. “I don’t think I’ll be changing my stance on that point.” 

Ingrid steps further into the room, her gaze drifting to the chessboard and Sylvain finally stands up. 

“Hey, Ing,” he greets. 

Ingrid’s nose wrinkles imperceptibly at the sight of the board. “Oh,” she mumbles. “You were playing chess.”

Claude brushes his hands together casually and then heads for the entrance to the Knight’s Hall, pausing by the door. “We just finished,” he says smoothly and Sylvain finds himself frowning instinctively.

“Actually,” he starts, but Claude shoots him a wink. 

“If you’re going to ask for a third round, I’ll take a rain check on that. You’re good, Sylvain, but I do have a few other things to get to today.” Claude places enough emphasis on the word ‘check’ that Sylvain realizes it’s a joke just as the Golden Deer House Leader swiftly leaves the room. 

Ingrid folds her arms, looking between Sylvain and the door. “How did that happen?” she asks. 

Sylvain rubs his face. “He asked to play,” he says. 

“Did you beat him?” She sounds genuinely curious, which is more than he normally gets out of Ingrid when it comes to chess. 

“No,” Sylvain admits. “But I don’t usually win the first game. I like to play in sets because then I learn how people play and adapt around it.”

That makes her frown. “But then don’t people learn how you play?”

Sylvain winks at her, his mood lifting. “Ah, you see ‘Grid, that’s when you don’t show all your cards in the first game so you still have a few secrets to pull out later. If you let me—”

She holds up a hand, cutting him off. “The answer is still no, Sylvain. I know how to play chess and I have no interest in learning anything beyond what I already know.”

He shrugs. “Alright.” His gaze flits back to the door where Claude disappeared and he is suddenly reminded of the look Ingrid shot Claude upon her arrival. “Hey,” he starts, “what’s with you and him? You gave him a pretty strong look.”

“He asked me to join the Golden Deer,” Ingrid says nonchalantly.

Sylvain blinks. “What? Change houses? Can you do that?”

“I mean, I could,” Ingrid says. “Linhardt just transferred to the Blue Lions.”

Immediately Sylvain feels a needling feeling of pain in his stomach. He’s not sure exactly whether it’s the thought of Ingrid leaving that sparks it, or the realization that he’s been here for the better part of the afternoon and hasn’t eaten since breakfast. 

Ingrid is Ingrid. She’s steadfast, loyal, and while a bit short-tempered, she’s always been at Sylvain’s side. They’ve been close since they were little and thinking of her transferring to the Golden Deer, a house distinctly not aligned with the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus that Ingrid reveres, is a strange thought. 

“Jeez, Sylvain,” she says, laughing lightly. “Don’t look so concerned. I’m not leaving the Blue Lions. I’ve told Claude that multiple times. He’s just persistent.” 

Sylvain shakes his head a bit and forces a smile. “That’s a word for it.” 

He thinks briefly of Claude’s chess gameplay—swift and fluid, following through on every move he makes with little hesitation, even if it could back him into a corner. Claude’s queen was his greatest weapon and he was utterly ruthless in utilizing it. Sylvain prefers to create space using his bishops and other pieces while using his knights to lead his head-on assaults. It was one of the reasons he struggled so much repelling Claude’s attacks since he was forced to split his defensive and offensive attentions. 

Ingrid pokes his shoulder and Sylvain jolts. He hadn’t even registered that he was looking at the chessboard again, still set in the checkmate position from the second game. “Am I talking to a wall?” she questions. 

“Sorry,” he says hastily. “Still stuck in the game I guess.” 

She sighs. “I hope you weren’t planning on staying here all night and going through your mistakes.”

Sylvain chuckles. “No. I appreciate the spontaneity of chess. I like learning my opponent’s play styles in a game, not by putting in hours of study. Obviously, I still think about my losses, but I don’t let them bog me down.”

Ingrid’s eyes narrow. “Huh,” she says. “Sure.” 

It doesn’t sound like she believes him, so Sylvain just grins and throws his arm around her. To his delight, she doesn’t immediately shrug him off so he counts it as at least a partial win. “Now, since I’m not going to hang around here and study the game, how about we go find some dinner since I’m sure that’s what you came here looking for me for.” 

She huffs. “I came to tell you that you skipped training again but I suppose we can get dinner.” 

He leans into her, teasingly. “Typical Ingrid. Training and food, huh? Where’s your leisure time?”

This time, she does shove him off, frowning. “More organized than yours,” she retorts. 

Sylvain doesn’t let his smile slip. He’s pissed Ingrid off plenty previously. Most often, her bad moods can be placated by good food so he just hopes that that featured dish in the dining hall tonight is one of Ingrid’s favourites. 

“I heard Ashe was cooking tonight,” Sylvain says and watches Ingrid’s shoulders straighten at the mention of their classmate. “Let’s go grab dinner.”

It isn’t until four hours later that Sylvain remembers he was supposed to go on a date that night—a date he completely blew off in favour of hanging out with Ingrid. And, surprisingly, he doesn’t find himself the least bit bothered by the missed opportunity. 

Sylvain doesn’t get his rematch with Claude for another month. During their third game, Claude reverts back to his strategy from the first match. Sylvain plays aggressively from the start, driving his attacks with his knights. Claude matches him for a while and then Sylvain takes one of his rooks and he sees Claude pause. 

Claude’s hand hovers over his knight and Sylvain sees the move he would make—capture Sylvain’s bishop, Sylvain retakes with his rook, and then Claude likely takes with his queen—but then he changes tactics, capturing Sylvain’s bishop with his queen first. 

Sylvain immediately frowns. He scans the board quickly, looking for a mistake, but doesn’t see one. His pieces are all fine and this way, though Claude will get the final capture with his knight, Sylvain will have removed Claude’s best piece from the board. He takes the knight, frowning, and taps it on the table at his end, watching the Golden Deer House Leader. 

The next few moves play out as planned and a frown bunches Claude’s eyebrows together when Sylvain trades his rook for Claude’s queen. The loss of the queen also frees up Sylvain’s knight to take a pawn and place Claude in check which Sylvain swiftly does. Claude blocks check with his pawn and Sylvain moves his second bishop to force him into check again. 

Although he has forced Claude onto the back foot, Sylvain is suspicious. In the first two games they played, Claude protected his queen with brutal efficiency. It was strange of him to slip and sacrifice it when there were other options to play. 

In fact, his suspicion is probably the only thing that saves him when he catches sight of Claude’s rook creeping closer and closer to Sylvain’s nearly undefended king. Sylvain blocks the play and captures Claude’s last knight, putting himself three moves from checkmate. 

Claude stops, studies the board, and then resigns his king. He holds his hand out for Sylvain to shake. “A good game,” he offers. 

Sylvain shakes his hand warily. The corner of Claude’s lips twitch and Sylvain realizes suddenly that Claude gave him the game. 

“You lost on purpose.”

Claude shrugs. “Did I?”

“Your queen,” Sylvain points out. “You were close to checkmate then, weren’t you?”

“Five moves,” Claude agrees. “But, I decided to see if I could win it differently. Obviously, I couldn’t.”

Sylvain’s frown deepens. “You played to your knight. That’s not your strongest piece. After your queen, your bishops are probably your best.”

“Possibly,” Claude says. “But, if I beat you three games in a row, how would you ever agree to play me again?”

Sylvain leans back in his chair. “How do you know how to beat me so easily? We’ve played three games and I’m still figuring out your moves. I’ve played different openings and defences each set.” 

Claude nods. “You have,” he concedes, “but you have a consistency that makes you predictable.” 

In all the years he has played chess, Sylvain has never been called predictable. Usually, people call his gameplay unexpected thanks to his supposedly unassuming front. He’s usually called glib and surprisingly vicious, not predictable. 

“Predictable?” he asks, trying not to let his surprise betray too much. 

Claude winks. “I can’t just tell you. You have to figure that one out on your own. You’re a smart guy. You’ll get there.” 

That night, Sylvain is in his room with the board assembled back to the key position where Claude threw the game when Ingrid finds him. He startles when she knocks on the doorframe, knocking his hand against the pieces and tipping over his own king. Ingrid pauses one step into the room and raises an eyebrow at him.

“What are you doing, Sylvain?” 

He presses his lips together. Usually, he’s unbothered enough by losing he’s not ashamed of it but something about beating Claude—especially when the match was thrown—embarrasses him. 

“Just working on some stuff,” he excuses lamely.

Ingrid, to his surprise, doesn’t call him out on the bald-faced lie. Instead, she drifts into his room and drops down onto his bed. Sylvain spins in his desk chair so that he’s facing her, and drapes his arms along the top of the chair. 

“You alright?” he asks. 

She sighs. “Another letter from home today.”

That immediately dampens his mood. “Already? Wasn’t it just last week that we—”

Ingrid glares at him and Sylvain wisely shuts his mouth. He doesn’t need to make her feel worse than she already does. She twists her hands in her lap, looking up at the ceiling. She’s obviously here because she wants a distraction and, if she came to Sylvain, she must be anticipating a fairly brainless one. Maybe she came here hoping he would have done something stupid so she could yell at him. 

“Anything I can do?” he asks, softer. 

She shakes her head. “Unless you can uproot the entire nobility system and miraculously make it rain in Galatea.”

“Unfortunately,” Sylvain drawls, “I am not the goddess.” He peeks back at his chessboard and brightens. “I can, however, invite you to play a game against me. 

She raises an eyebrow. “Sylvain, you’ll beat me so handily that it won’t be fun for either of us.”

“Hey!” he protests. “You might surprise yourself! Besides, I can always go easy on you.”

Her mouth drops open indignantly. Logically, Sylvain is the better chess player, but Ingrid is stubborn. She hates losing so the mere suggestion that he goes easy on her would be an insult to her game. 

“I’m not that bad,” she sputters. 

He winks. “See, but now you’re mad enough about the fact that I might go easy on you that you’ve forgotten you were upset.”

He stands up and dramatically collects the chessboard from his desk, moving over to his bed. He nudges her with his knee until she moves and then he deposits it on the comforter. Immediately, the soft surface of the bed causes the board to wobble and almost tip, but Sylvain ignores it. He collects all the pieces in the centre of it and gestures for Ingrid to pick her colour. 

She presses her lip together but does finally pick up the white king. She’s stubborn but she’s not stupid—she knows better to pass off the white advantage when it is presented to her. 

Sylvain resets the board, nimbly sorting the pieces and starting to line them up. He gets set faster than Ingrid and then he looks up at her, watching as she carefully balances her own pieces on the lopsided board. Her braid is falling out and she’s worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, already thinking about her first move. 

Her back is to the window in Sylvain’s room and the gentle warmth of the evening light makes her hair glow, casting curious shadows on her face. Ingrid looks up at him, catching his eye, and her lips part in surprise. She’s still holding her last piece—a knight—and Sylvain just smiles. 

She shakes her head at him but then places her knight down. She reaches for her queenside knight and moves it forward, starting the game. Sylvain drops his eyes to the board and immediately starts planning his own moves out in his head—not an aggressive strategy like he might play against Claude, but something strong enough defensively to keep Ingrid at bay. 

“You know,” Ingrid muses as she slides a pawn forward, “I played with Claude the other day.”

Sylvain frowns immediately. “What? You never want to play with me!” He takes her pawn with his. 

“He’s good,” Ingrid says, completely ignoring Sylvain’s indignation. “I can see why you lost to him.” She moves her bishop forward two squares. 

“He is,” Sylvain agrees, “but that doesn’t explain why you played with him?”

“He was asking about Daphnel,” she admits reluctantly. “He wanted to talk about Judith and all that history.”

Sylvain moves his knight to block her bishop’s advance. “Daphnel? Is that why he wanted you to join the Golden Deer too?”

She nods, reaching to pick up one of her pawns but then she stops just short of touching it. It was probably a smart choice given that he would have immediately captured the piece if she moved it. “Well, it was one of the reasons.”

Sylvain frowns. “One of the reasons?”

Ingrid looks up from the board and laughs at the look on his face. “Sylvain, relax. I’m not going anywhere. I’m a Blue Lion.” She moves a different pawn, crowding his knight. 

Sylvain immediately moves the knight to safety, leaving his bishop exposed. Ingrid takes the opening, capturing the bishop, and then Sylvain goes on the offensive. He puts her in check with his queen and then steals both her rook and knight with his knight until he has her four moves from checkmate. 

Once there, he nods to himself and Ingrid’s brow knits as she looks down at the board. 

“Why are you so smug?” she demands, scanning for what she can hope is his next move.” 

“I’ve got you in four,” Sylvain explains, glad to have moved past the Claude discussion. 

Ingrid groans and Sylvain resists the urge to laugh at her. Chess may not be Ingrid’s favourite pastime but at least the match succeeded in distracting both of them. He holds his hand out for her to shake and she pouts. 

“Not even going to let me try?” 

“It won’t work.”

“Sylvain! Let me try!”

He bursts out laughing. “Alright, alright.”

When the war strikes, Sylvain doesn’t have much occasion to play chess. He watches his father or Felix’s move little pieces across the map of the Kingdom to indicate the rise and fall of Faerghus and thinks of how thoughtlessly he could sacrifice pieces in a chess game. 

Sacrificing these pieces—pieces that can represent over a hundred men each—is much harder to stomach. 

With what little downtime he has, Sylvain will walk himself through openings and defences, playing against imaginary opponents, but he knows better than to ask Felix or Ingrid to play with him. Felix has never liked chess and it’s clear that both of them have better things to be thinking about. After Dimitri’s execution, it gets harder and harder to tip the king piece in surrender. 

Eventually, about a year before the Millennium Festival, when Ingrid insists that Dimitri was spotted near Galatea territory, he leaves the chessboard behind and rides out to meet her. It’s raining on the day that he arrives in Galatea but, much to Count Galatea’s embarrassment, there isn’t a guest room ready. 

Sylvain doesn’t mind. He’s been through worse on the Sreng border, colder too, but he is curious why they seem so unprepared for his visit. He’s invited to wait in the count’s study while a room is prepared for him. Sylvain doesn’t go digging through the records on the count’s desk but he does sneak a peek at the letters scattered on the tabletop. 

There are two from Duke Fraldarius and a handful from various Galatea commanders. He barely gets more than a glance at the subject lines of the letters before the door opens and Ingrid appears. 

She frowns at him for his apparent snooping and Sylvain straightens up. 

“Ingrid!” 

“Sorry it took a while,” she excuses, “but there’s a room for you now. I didn’t think you’d be here today.”

He shrugs. “It made more sense for me to ride the whole way in one day than to stretch it out over two, especially when it starts raining.” 

She nods. “I guess.” She bites her lip as if deliberating about sharing more, but his bedraggled appearance must make her take pity. “We’d just had a visitor so we were still wrapping up all of that.” 

Sylvain is surprised. While the Galatea-Leicester border is not the most dangerous border in Faerghus, the Alliance’s neutrality in the war so far has been fragile—held together only by Claude’s deft negotiating skills in keeping a united front. It certainly isn’t conducive to a visiting diplomat. 

“A visitor?” 

Ingrid sighs. “Claude,” she confesses.

Sylvain stares. The leader of the Alliance? In Galatea? “What?” 

Ingrid drops her eyes to the floor. “You’re soaked,” she says weakly. “You should get out of your wet clothes and—”

He reaches out, touching her arm. Ingrid winces. “Ingrid,” Sylvain says, “why was Claude here?” 

“To talk,” she says. “He thinks we’ll be better if we merge with Daphnel and rejoin the Alliance.” 

“You told him no, right?”

Ingrid nods. “We’re Faerghan,” she asserts firmly. “But, a part of me is worried that this is the wrong decision for my people.” 

Sylvain shakes his head. “It’s not. I promise, Ingrid. We’re going to find Dimitri and then we’re going to win this war. Galatea is Galatea, not Daphnel. You didn’t make the wrong choice, Ingrid.”

She takes a deep breath and nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Sylvain.” Ingrid gives him a once-over. “Now, before you get sick, you should actually change.”

An hour later, she knocks on his door, a large black box tucked under one arm. Sylvain looks up from the letter he’s drafting to his father and waves her in. He places his pen down and stands to face her. 

“What’s up?”

She offers him the box. “Thought we could both use a distraction tonight.”

He peeks into the box and is surprised to see an old chess set. “What’s this?”

“A distraction,” Ingrid repeats. “To take our mind off of stuff.”

Sylvain takes the box from her and studies her face. Ingrid looks tired. Knowing her, she’s probably been running herself ragged to support her house through the last few years. She’s been tired and stressed every time he has seen her and he can’t imagine that she’s had a good night’s sleep in months, especially with her decision about Claude still weighing on her mind. 

“Or,” he suggests, turning to place the box down on the desk, “we can just catch up.”

She looks a bit surprised and Sylvain sees a bit of pink rise to her face. He tries not to overthink it—nor think about the warmth in his own stomach when he avoids thinking about how pretty Ingrid looks in low light with her short hair. 

Ingrid snaps forward and curls her arms around him, hugging him tightly. With her face pressed into his chest, she mumbles something that Sylvain can’t hear. He hugs her back. She feels both small and strong against him. He exhales slowly, resting his chin atop her head. 

It’s been a long time since he hugged Ingrid—a long time since he hugged anyone at all—and he can’t help but feel that she fits nicely in his arms. 

“Thanks, Ing,” he murmurs.

She twists, looking up at him. “For what?”

“Not leaving,” he says.

“Galatea is Galatea,” she reminds, using his own words against him. 

Sylvain shakes his head. “Back in school too. You could have joined the Deer. You didn’t.”

He might be imagining it, but he thinks that Ingrid’s arms tighten around him just a bit. 

“I’m a Blue Lion. Plus, I couldn’t exactly leave all of you by yourself. Who would have cleaned up your messes?”

“Hey!” 

“Professor, do you mind if I ask you something?” Sylvain asks. 

Byleth looks up from the battle map in front of her. “Sylvain? Ask me about what?”

He hesitates, noticing that she does seem to be wrapped up in their strategy for the next fight. “It’s nothing urgent. It can wait.”

Byleth shakes her head, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve been working at this for too long. Mercedes has already been by to tell me I’ve done enough today.” 

Sylvain nods. “Well, in that case, I feel a bit silly. I guess I’ve just been thinking about some stuff since we came back to the Monastery. I walked past the classroom today and I guess I was thinking about the chess game we played just before the beginning of the war.”

Byleth blinks. “You won, didn’t you?”

“Well, not exactly,” he admits. “I had you in check but I think you could have escaped if,” he trails off, hesitating. 

“If?” she prompts. 

“If you’d have been willing to sacrifice both rooks, I think.” 

Byleth folds her arms. If there was one thing Sylvain remembers from the few times he had played against the professor it’s that she doesn’t like sacrificial plays. She likes to keep as many of her pieces on the board as possible, switching fluidly between them when she gets an opening. She’s definitely good—she beat Sylvain more than a few times—but losing to her didn’t drive him crazy like losing to Claude did. 

“Big call on a game that happened five years ago,” she notes. “I’m surprised you remember it.” 

“I remember a lot about my games,” he confesses. “That's why I don’t usually mind losing the first set.”

She hums, nodding. “Fair enough. Now, if you brought this up, I’m assuming something about the game was bothering you.”

“Do you think I’m predictable?” he asks bluntly. 

She raises an eyebrow. “Predictable? As in, is your strategy predictable?” He nods and Byleth laughs. “Definitely not. You cycle through attacks and defensive strategies better than most people I’ve played, Sylvain. There are a few attacks you favour more than others but when you use them you go for the throat so there isn’t much room to maneuver.”

Her comments reassure him but they also make him wonder. If the professor doesn’t think he’s easy to read, then why did Claude find it so simple? How did Claude find it so simple? 

Byleth notes his pensive expression. “Let me guess,” she muses, “someone said something.”

“A long time ago,” Sylvain says. “It’s kind of stuck with me.”

She nods. “Right. Well, whoever it was, I disagree with them.” She drops her arms back to her sides and looks back at the battle map in front of her. She sighs. “As much fun as it would be to challenge you to a game to test your wit now, I think we both have things to do. Could you do a flying patrol with Ingrid this evening?” 

This is the fifth patrol Sylvain has done with Ingrid in the last nine days. He’s not against it, at all, but he is curious why Byleth keeps sending him out with Ingrid. 

“Why Ingrid and I?” he asks. 

Byleth is smart enough to recognize that he’s asking about the pairing and not the assignment. “You work well together,” she answers simply. 

Sylvain is both surprised and unsurprised. He knows that he does work well with Ingrid, especially since a surprisingly genuine conversation they had after training where he asked her to stay close to him normally. 

“Like a pair of knights, huh?” he jokes. 

Byleth laughs but shakes her head. “Not like that. More like a knight and a bishop,” she says. “You’re not the same but you compliment each other regardless. Felix is much closer to your pair.” 

Sylvain doesn’t need to ask if he’s the knight or the bishop. He’s always thought of Ingrid as his knight anyway. 

“I heard you’re off tomorrow.”

Sylvain spins. He’s not exactly in his room in the Riegan manor, but he didn’t think that he would get caught snooping around in Claude’s library by the Lord himself, especially since Claude was the one who collapsed the Alliance into Faerghus. Sylvain assumed that Dimitri and Claude would still be negotiating. 

“That is the idea, yes,” Sylvain agrees. “We do have a war to finish.”

Claude walks over to a closed cabinet in the corner. “Then, I imagine, you have an hour to kill on a rematch with me, huh? Byleth mentioned that you’ve gotten better in the last five years.”

Sylvain wouldn’t say that he has improved in skill, but he has lost the flippancy he used to play with. He can still transition between attacks and play both sides, but he has started playing with more pieces than just his knights when he gets stuck. The knight remains a centrepiece in his game but it is not his only crutch. 

“A rematch?”

“You won the last game, didn’t you?” Claude points out. 

“You let me win.”

“So beat me now and then we’ll be even.” 

“I’ll take white,” Sylvain finally concedes as Claude pulls a beautifully carved wooden set from the cabinet. He’s not stupid enough to give Claude an advantage from the get-go. 

As they get set up, aligning their pieces, Sylvain pauses, frowning at the Duke. Claude doesn’t even need to look up to note Sylvain’s attention. 

“The king is Dimitri,” Claude says, tapping his index finger against the tip of his king. “You all fought to protect him even when he was the weakest piece on the board.” Claude moves his hand to touch his queenside rook. “Annette and Mercedes would be your rooks. They’re reliable and powerful situationally but they get you in trouble if they get pinned.” 

Sylvain lets out a slow breath. “Bishop and knight,” he mutters under his breath. 

Claude’s lips twitch into a smirk. “Ingrid and Ashe are the knights. Forces of nature but not always the easiest to maneuver. You and Felix are the bishops—strong but rigid and close to the king.”

“And the queen?”

“The professor,” Claude answers simply. “Dedue, too, but I think he starts as a pawn who could either,” Claude pauses, rocking one of his kingside pawns onto its edge, “be sacrificed and throw off your whole game, or be queened and redeem your king’s strategy.”

Sylvain blinks, looking down at his own pieces. He hadn’t thought too much into the professor’s chess metaphor when she made it previously but Claude’s breakdown—the assigning of every member of the Blue Lions almost to a T—is disorienting. 

“Now,” Claude says, “you picked white so you’ve got the first move.” 

Sylvain blames the metaphor. It throws him off just enough that Claude can capitalize on any blunder Sylvain even seems to think about. He loses a rook and a bishop early and Claude marks the first check of the match in return. 

Sylvain plays his knight forward and pushes back Claude’s attack. He is careful to not let Claude’s queen get anywhere near his good pieces. He remembers all too well the ruthlessness that Claude plays his queen with. He can’t afford to lose another piece yet. 

The game drags on and Sylvain finds himself playing on his back foot. Claude doesn’t seem interested in pressing in aggressively, choosing to react to Sylvain’s moves. Sylvain, at the very least, makes a few plays that give Claude pause—he splits an attack between the black rook and bishop, forcing Claude to pick a piece to lose.

Sylvain, for the first time in all the games he has played against Claude, doesn’t feel like he’s losing. He doesn’t want to get overconfident, but after his rocky start, he is starting to feel much better. Claude lost both rooks, a knight, half his pawns, and one of his bishops. Sylvain has only lost a rook, a bishop, and five pawns. 

So, when Claude moves his queen to attack Sylvain’s knight, the piece that he heavily used to dig his way out of the hole that his bad start was, Sylvain doesn’t think twice about blocking the move by shifting his knight out of harm’s way. It has done too much in this match to fall to Claude’s queen. 

Claude leaves his queen and switches to his own knight, stepping into a space previously protected by Sylvain’s knight, and ending the game. 

“Checkmate.”

Sylvain blinks at the board. His mind had been so singularly focused on saving the knight he had somehow managed to miss Claude’s steady approach to checkmate. 

“Huh,” he muses quietly. “I guess it is, isn’t it?” Sylvain tips his king, letting the white piece fall to the chessboard. 

“Do you see it now?” Claude asks. “And how it makes you predictable?”

“The knight,” Sylvain murmurs. “I play for the knight.” Even in the strategies and attacks he tries that don’t involve his knights, it usually takes him longer to get to mate and he still feels more uncomfortable sacrificing a knight than any of his other pieces. 

Claude nods. “Just like in real life.” 

That makes Sylvain frown. “What?” 

“Come on, Sylvain. You’re going to tell me you thought I cold-read you in that first game and figured that out?” Claude chuckles. “You play for your knight. You do everything for her.” 

Ingrid.

It’s not...an impossible proposal. She makes him happy. He wants to see her happy—safe and strong after the war, chasing down her every dream. He asked her to stay where he could see her and he has found himself tongue-tied when she smiles on more than one occasion. 

Sylvain picks up a white knight from the chessboard. Ingrid is the knight. He plays for the knight. 

“Ingrid!” 

He catches her just before she mounts up and she turns back to face him, putting a hand on her hip. 

“Sylvain? What’s up?” 

He had this whole speech planned in his head—something about how she makes him want to be a better person and that he’s never cared for anyone like her—but it all turns to mush the second that she smiles, green eyes twinkling in the late morning light. 

He digs into his pocket and pulls out the wooden chess piece that he stole from Claude. “You’re the knight,” he says, breathlessly.

Ingrid’s brows furrow. “What?”

“I lost to Claude again,” he continues hastily. “For all the same reasons I lost before.”

She sighs. “Sylvain, what are you talking about?” 

“You’re the knight, Ingrid. I play for the knight. I would do anything for you.” 

His last sentence takes a second to register but he sees the pink in her face when she seems to process what his words mean. 

“Sylvain—”

“It’s why I didn’t want you to leave the Blue Lions and why I didn’t want you to leave Faerghus. It’s why I’m so predictable because I look at you and I’d drop everything to keep you safe.”

“Sylvain—”

He shakes his head. “I know this is a bad time. We’re about to march for Enbarr and I’ve been carrying this around for two months but I just couldn’t find a good—”

Sylvain is abruptly cut off when Ingrid grabs him by his face and pulls him down into a hard kiss. Her lips are warm and a little chapped. She tastes sweet like the pastries they had for breakfast and Sylvain’s hands flail for a moment before he manages to wrap them around her and pull her in tighter. 

Ingrid doesn’t let him deepen the kiss as she pulls back. Sylvain holds onto her, not letting her move away. 

“Sorry,” he breathes. “Was I talking too much?”

“You always talk too much,” she says, but she’s smiling so he reasons she doesn’t mind that much. “And, Sylvain, I knew.”

He chuckles. “I’m glad.”

She twists, lifting the chess piece up. “Is it cheesy if I say that you’re my knight too?”

He laughs, kissing her forehead. “I think I’m more of a bishop, honestly.”