“So I’m white,” Doug says as he places the black pawn in front of Cozy Glow. His is stylized as a young filly, all done in the celestial colors, her yellow mane all in bows with orange highlights and a white coat. His own pawn moves two spaces in front of his queen, d4. “Unless you call that something else, too?”

“Night and day.” Cozy Glow shrugs, beginning to loosen up. She considers for a moment, then pushes her king’s bishop pawn two steps, f5. Its primary color is not quite black; instead, a deep, royal blue, with a bright teal mane accented in purple. “Filly to stallion’s pegasus five.”

“Do you announce all your moves?” Doug asks, wondering if he should be doing the same. Her move isn’t a standard one; it exposes her king, while not putting too much pressure on him. Is she testing him, to see how he responds? “Been a while since I played.”

“Oh, no, sorry. It’s just a habit I have, of thinking aloud to myself.” Cozy Glow smiles innocently; Doug finds it quite disarming. “Plus, it helps you learn the real names!”

“Ah. Thank you.” Now that Doug considers it, all of the pawns - or, fillies - are unique pieces, painted with an incredible attention to detail. Even their coats look like hair, and he half expects the pieces to come alive. Maybe Celestia has a set that’s voice activated, and he can’t imagine it would be terribly difficult to cast some sort of spell to do so. Then again, you’d probably wake up in the middle of the night to find them jousting. “Knight f3.”

“Unicorn,” Cozy Glow corrects, and the piece indeed has a short horn sticking out from her poofy mane. “Filly e6.”

It takes Doug a second to realize the pattern, and he almost slaps himself for not noticing it before. Pawns are fillies, rooks are earth ponies, bishops are pegasi, and knights are unicorns. The day queen is an alicorn, detailed much like Celestia except her mane is a fiery inferno instead of her normal pastels. The stallion looks suspiciously like Prince Blueblood, regal and stately, daring anypony to put him in danger with a contemptuous glare. The night pieces are similar, with a fully barded and helmeted pony as the stallion.

Development continues with Doug bringing out his second unicorn to c3 while Cozy Glow guards her open stallion with unicorn to f6 (Uf6). The game quickly turns aggressive when he pins with Pg5; she stops the pin with Pe7, and Doug trades, Pxf6 followed by night’s Pxf6. He continues the pressure on her stallion side with e4; she takes, fxe4, rather than let him push further.

“Are you always so violent?” Cozy Glow asks curiously as Doug’s unicorn takes the center pawn, Uxe4. She castles to relative safety, 0-0, and gives her earth pony a powerful lane to attack.

“I see a weakness, I exploit it.” Doug continues the attack with Pd3, with potential for attacking the h pawn and allowing his own castle should he need it.

“Is that how you got all your mares?” Cozy Glow grins as she opens up a fianchetto for her alicorn’s bishop, b6. It will be quite dangerous for the two pegasi lined up on the light squares. “Rumor is you’re bucking every professor and assistant teacher here.”

Doug can’t help but laugh at her casual tone bringing up that subject. The ponies have always been far less restrained with such matters, but from such a small pony? It feels like he’s talking to one of his fillies. “No, not quite.” However, she’s almost right; if it wasn’t for Spoiled Rich, that would be the case. He advances, Ue5, while she attacks his guarded pegasus with Pb7.

He glances up as Princess Celestia enters the atrium. He’s been so engrossed in the game he hasn’t noticed that they’ve drawn a bit of a crowd. It seems all of the professors are missing, as well as the foreign students; the assistant teachers are still there, Rainbow Dash only half paying attention to the game but hovering above. The other ponies respectfully wait, curious as to the delay.

He fingers Celestia’s likeness, fascinated, wondering how the artist got her mane so accurate when he’s only seen her ablaze like that when her emotions are running, well, hot. And that’s not a state he knows her to enter often, especially around her ponies. In a sense, though, he’s glad she can get so fired up about those she has sworn to protect, that she cares so deeply about them.

“Touch it move it,” Cozy Glow cheeps, a friendly if pointed reminder, as Celestia waves a fond farewell to Dragon Lord Torch before gracefully striding over to watch.

Doug glances down; apparently he is tracing lines along her back and wings and imagining himself doing the same to the real thing. At least it’s the piece he was going to move anyway, and he sets the alicorn down, Ah5. “It’s amazing the quality of the depictions. Hay, I might need to get a set commissioned after all those mares and fillies of mine.”

Cozy Glow considers for a moment. “Oh, wow! You have eight fillies, too… well, one’s a colt, but that’s okay, colts can be something other than a stallion, too!” She winks at him, then spins her alicorn around to closely study Luna’s foreboding features. “You’ve got two earth ponies, two pegasi, two unicorns, and an alicorn! Gee golly, mister, that’s half a chess set right there! Are you going for the second half, too?”

Doug snorts at her audacity. “Well, why not, right? Maybe Luna can play stallion to Celestia.” He winks at the elder alicorn.

“Perhaps we would trade off depending on whether we are playing as night or day,” Celestia returns diplomatically, eyes sparkling. Her grin turns worryingly lascivious as her tail flicks from side to side. “Though I may end up filling a board all by myself.”

Doug exaggerates a gulp as he turns back to Cozy Glow. Most of the other ponies share Celestia’s grin, happy for their Princess. “Err, I think it’s your move.”

“Right.” Cozy Glow stares at the night alicorn in her hoof, then at the board. Doug is threatening a nasty discovery: his unicorn is currently blocking his pegasus from supporting his alicorn on an attack on her stallion at h7. But if he moves that unicorn - say, to f6, taking her pegasus and checking her - she will be forced to move her stallion or take the piece. And with his other unicorn keeping her stallion from escaping, checkmate would be guaranteed. So she needs to defend that h filly. The best way to do that would be by pushing her g filly one space, to g6.

Except she has her alicorn in her hoof.

The small pink mare lets the alicorn fall back on the board where it was before, d8. Tears glisten the corner of her eyes.

“You can move a different piece if you want,” Doug gently suggests. “It’s just a friendly game.”

Cozy Glow sniffs, hard. “B-but what if it isn’t a friendly game? I lose if I move my alicorn, but I can’t lose, not if I want to make any friends!”

“Wait, you lose?” Rainbow Dash asks from above, dumbfounded.

“Mate in eight,” Cozy Glow spits out, livid. Rainbow Dash just stares at the board, along with most of the other ponies.

“Does that mean we can’t be friends?” Doug asks, soft and nonthreatening.

Cozy Glow sniffs, lower lip quivering. “W-who would want to be friends with a… a loser?”

“Well, one of us was going to lose,” Doug points out, his hands reaching past the board. He grasps her hooves, squeezing gently. “Unless you draw every game, but that’s not life, not at all. So one of us was going to be friends with a loser, and what does that say about somepony if they are friends with losers?”

Blue curls try to shade her scarlet eyes from him. She goes to pull her hooves away, but he holds on tight. She snarls, “It’d be just awful to be friends with a loser.” She glares up at Rainbow Dash, acidically asking, “Just like your mares, right? Exploit them in a moment of weakness?”

Doug sighs as Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrow; he’s glad the pegasus keeps her mouth shut. “That’s not the point, not at all. The point is, you’re framing the whole thing wrong. Just because you lose a game, that doesn’t make you a loser. Giving up, running away, that makes you a loser.” He lets go of her hooves. “Besides. If you only play against ponies worse than you, that you beat all the time, what does that say about you? It doesn’t mean you’re great. It means you’re competing against the wrong crowd. Doing that won’t help you improve. You’re not going to get better doing that, not compared to playing up against worthy opponents. And a worthy opponent is one who has a chance of beating you.”

“But, what if it’s not a game at all?” Cozy Glow angrily tilts her alicorn this way and that, then topples her. “What then?”

When Doug doesn’t respond, Celestia answers sagely. Her quiet words silence the room. “Then you can lose more than just your pride. You can lose more than you thought you were wagering. If you’re lucky, then you will get the chance to amend your mistakes, to fill in your missteps, to promise those that remain that next time you will do better, yet knowing that we are all imperfect, that there will be times that you fail, despite your best efforts and intentions. But that is what Friends are for; to be there when you stumble, to help pick you up when you fall.”

“Oh.” Cozy Glow sighs, her anger gone. She struggles to get a smile on her muzzle. “I-I guess I have a lot to learn about friendship, huh?”

“It’s a good thing you came here, then.” Doug winks, pats the hoof still close to him, then pulls back. “Now, I think it’s your move.”

Cozy Glow straightens, steeling herself with a deep breath. She rights her alicorn, moving it to e7. Not a good move. A losing one, in fact, but the one that gives her the best chance.

The day alicorn darts forward, exchanging itself for the filly on h7. Celestia raises an eyebrow. “You would sacrifice me so brazenly? I’m right here, you know.”

“We all must play our part, right?” Doug replies, winking at her. Celestia returns the wink, then settles back to watch.

The night stallion takes the alicorn, Sxh7, only for a series of checks to slowly force Cozy Glow’s stallion forward. Uxf6+, from both the pegasus and the unicorn, and if she retreats to h8 the game is all over one move later. Instead she advances Sh6. Ueg4+ forces another step forward, Sg5. A filly of all things comes forward now, h4+, forcing Sf4. The stallion is now on the wrong side of the board, troubles far from over. G3+ forces Sf3. The pegasus that has been doing an admirable job cutting off white squares swings back, Pe2+, and now the night stallion is inside the day’s house of fillies. Eh2+, guarded by the unicorn, leads the stallion to the very back rank, Sg1. And then, to seal the deal with checkmate, an alicorn-side castle 0-0-0#.

Cozy Glow thinks for a second, sighs, then topples her stallion with a smile on her muzzle. “Trapped, like all of your mares. Talk about a fatal attraction.” She gallantly offers a hoof to Doug, which he shakes firmly, matching her smile. “Next time,” she vows, “I’m playing as day, and I’m beating you!”

“I’m afraid that day will have to wait,” Doug apologizes as he releases her hoof. “A new challenger approaches!”

“Indeed,” Celestia says, spinning the board around so she gets the day side. Her horn lights, all the pieces slipping around each other to end up at their starting positions, her stallion filly already moved to e4.

Doug wryly notes that the night stallion has shifted to stand upright, and looks an awful lot like him. He mirrors her with e5, curious how the alicorn will attack, probably utilizing her centuries of experience to utterly demolish him.

“Hmm.” Celestia studies the position for a few long seconds, then pushes her stallion forward, Se2.

It’s not a good move. Not at all. Quite possibly the worst move one can play. He glances up.

Celestia has donned a pair of massively oversized sunglasses, completely black and covering the entirety of her eyes. A thin, wispy trail of smoke comes out of one corner of her mouth.

Yup. Completely and utterly demolished. He plays the optimal move to take advantage of such a play: his own stallion to e7.

“I see.” Celestia stares at the board (he assumes, he can’t see through the opaque sunglasses), going deep into the tank. It seems like minutes pass before she moves Sd3.

Such a simple strategy, but there’s only one thing to do against it. Doug moves Sd6, again mirroring her.

Celestia bites at her lip, pondering her next move. She hesitates, then slides her stallion one more step forward, securing the center of the board with Sc4.

Doug sighs, defeated. At least he can stop her from crossing the center with Sc6.

Celestia lights up, exultant; she picks her stallion up and decisively slams it down on c5.

Doug frowns. She just moved her stallion next to his. “I don’t think you can do that.”

“Oh?” Celestia grins widely, the sunglasses still comically perched on her face. “And what’s stopping me?”

Doug waits a beat, then lifts his stallion, and places his likeness on top of the miniature Daybreaker, riding her.

Celestia stares at the stack of pieces, then pulls down her sunglasses to look Doug in the eyes. “That’s an illegal move. You can’t do that! I’m calling a judge. Judge!”

She looks around, as though somepony might hear her appeal, only for Doug to leap over the table and onto her back!

“And what’s stopping me?” He digs his heels into her barrel and she takes off, raucous laughter echoing down the corridors.

The game is a variation of Fatal Attraction, played between Edward Lasker and George Alan Thomas in 1912. I hope the chess (and alternate names/notation) comes across without too much confusion.