Light A Way

05

Staring at of the window, Elsie could openly admit that flying got easier as it went on. Dark grey clouds was all she could see from the window, along with the night sky and its shining stars. It was peaceful, to an extent.

Twitching her nose she looked down with a frown. "You do realise that I don't know how to play?" She pointed to the chessboard in front of her. She had become steadily aware that Charles would do things, or prompt a conversation just for the sake of getting her to talk. Elsie was not a rude person, she talked when spoken to, and she was fine with conversing. But there were times where she liked silence. But it seemed that the only other awake person in the cabin didn't like silence all too much.

There was a nonchalant hand waved at her. "I'll teach you."

"You're bored aren't you?" Elsie asked plainly while leaning her head against her hands and looking to him.

Charles sent her a smile. "What makes you say that?"

"For one: you've only been silent for about five or ten minutes if that. Two: you're finding anything to do, just for the sake of doing it." Elsie explained and this seemed to cause his smile to turn into a grin. "Fine!" Throwing her hands in the air she rolled her eyes and looked to the board. "Teach me." She gestured to the board and leaned her head against one of her hands while the other moved the pieces. "So like...you said something earlier which sort of stuck with me."

"I've said a lot of things since meeting you. You're going to have to be more specific." Charles said while casting a look her way.

Elsie pouted and sighed. "Through selection and evolution we have our powers. What do you mean?" She asked and then let out an annoyed noise and waved her hand at him irritably. She had no idea what pieces were meant to do what really. The quick explanations from Charles weren't exactly helpful, in truth she was partially winging this and she thought she wasn't doing too bad. But having one of her pieces swiped off the board did not sit well with her, so much for doing an okay job.

"Exactly that," Charles shrugged and looked thoughtful. Elsie looked confused and nodded at him. With a small sigh he placed his hands on the table. "We are the next step in evolution. Simply put, from single celled organisms, to modern day humans, to mutants." That really was as simply and broken down as he could explain it without throwing her into confusion. Though he was tempted to add in: and all the little parts in between. After all, evolution wasn't as straight forward as he made it sound. But his explanation seemed to suit her, Elsie gave a slow nod.

"So...you're like an expert on this stuff or something?" She looked to him sceptically.

Charles laughed and shook his head. "I studied genetics, but that doesn't make me a genius."

"Yet you look like you're taking some pride in it regardless." Elsie smirked and moved a piece across the board.

Charles smirked, "Don't judge me for it, love."

"Oh, consider me judging," Elsie chuckled quietly, joining in with the minor joking.

"I hate to tell you this," Charles said with a sigh. "But check in three."

"You're kidding?"

"He's probably cheating." Erik's voice came from the sofa. The two of them looked over to him. "He always cheats."

"I do not, that's not true." Charles defended himself while looking from Elsie to Erik and then back again with a sheepish smile.

Erik tilted his head up and looked over the arm of the sofa to them. Rubbing his eyes he sat up slowly and stretched his arms in front of himself. Clicking his neck, he stood and walked over. Leaning an arm on the back of the seat Charles was sat in, he shook his head. "You clearly do not believe in going easy on a beginner, do you?" He moved and stood by Elsie's side. With narrowed eyes, he tilted his head to the side. He was seeing if he could lend a hand, as a fellow chess player who usually always lost to Charles, Erik was up for trying to help her to beat him. Though really it was fruitless, he had her beat. No doubt about that.