i've seen all good people

---

"I should've known you'd be an ace at this."

No clock ticked. Malos's internal was accurate enough, and he himself markedly and intrinsically forthright enough, for it not to be necessary.

Such a statement could be a retort, a remark, a rejoinder, an end cap on a scenario...the cadence carried itself with versatility. Of course, the game had gone on long enough that such a comment was appropriate, steeped in its impression.

Malos had stopped breathing, for the moment, perhaps because Jin had also. Absent became the motion of constant rise and fall. But the clock was still going.

"Well."

Jin only spoke because the silence that had preceded was starting to stretch on too long. Then he went back to considering, his words or his opponent or himself, again.

"Yes, you should have. It's not only a capacity for ruthlessness that we share."

Exact. Exacting. Spoken like a true grandmaster, of board and of world. Conversational, yet normative and bordering on accusatory. Implying of something crucial, and yet also laced with nothing at all.

Subtle. Very, very subtle. And like the flash of preternatural speed showing motion in a Blade's blade, absolutely white-hot before your eyes.

Malos grinned, as was his way.

"Nice move, Paragon. Tell me about your strategy."

So Malos's reponse, meanwhile, was several degrees more amateurish. But Jin obliged.

"Do you ever think about our history?"

"Do I?"

Jin folded his hands, dismissing the chessboard entirely - that is to say, if he picked it up again later, that was anyone's unknowable starting gun. He could always play both sides at once, even if only because Malos was so willing.

"Yes, you, Malos. Do you ever think about the history of the Titan you and your partner, your sister, felled?"

"No." Automatic.

"Only...?"

"Only when it concerns you."

"That's right. You are the only one who does so. Everyone else thinks of the hero, Addam."

Not even Amalthus comes into it, only the Aegis and the Aegis and the non-operative prince. Confounding, isn't it, when you stop to think about it?

"Tch. Yeah, right."

"But isn't that lucky? No one remembers Lora. And, thus, no one remembers me."

A knight, hidden behind a bishop and a rook, snuck out and checked, if not mated, the opposing force's king. I needn't explain how or why.

"Such mystery cannot be contrived. Sometimes, I would even go so far as to say that it was, is, fated."

Malos did not answer, busy as he was replaying the past dozen moves in his mind.

"They turn their heads, each day. It's very easy for them. They don't even know they're doing it.

".I should be so glad that it's hidden information