"Rook to .... bishop." 

Shelby wrinkled her nose, but moved the chess piece anyway. "Drat... that left me open."

She was on her third game of chess. She'd lost the two previous games so far. She kind of sucked at it. Scoping out the pieces on the board in front of her, while her legs kicked lazily through the air behind her, she decided to move her queen out of the way again. He was going to win, and she couldn't really see a way out of it. 

Who was she playing with that kept so thoroughly whooping her a%$? The captive cockroach she had found spying on her in the danger room. 

As she waited for him to scope out the board and make a decision on his next move, she primed her note pad. They'd been communicating via a little decoder ring that Saph had found in his room. She didn't know where he'd found it, it looked like it had fallen directly out of the 60's. 

She saw the little bug scurry to the ring and set about jotting down the letters he chose as he turned the dial to and fro. "c-h-e-c-k-m-a-t-e." She paused. "Checkmate? What? Where?!" Peering at the board in scrutiny, she finally spotted it. Rook to her king. She couldn't move him, either.  How had she missed that?

Groaning, she flopped over half on the board and knocked all of the pieces to the side. "uuugh.... I knew I should have picked checkers and ignored you." If cockroaches could laugh, he would have.

Shelby was an interesting human, to say the least. If a little bit on the dumb side. After all, he had beaten her at chess three times in a row. Still, he hadn't expected her to approach him at all, let alone with the offer to play a game and an apology about all of that vigorous cup shaking she had done.

He still hadn't quite forgiven her for that.

She had earned points in how she had approached him, however. She'd sat down cross legged in front of his prison and introduced herself. She had explained that she thought they had started off on the wrong foot, oddly, and had offered to put the decoder ring in the glass tank so he could more easily communicate with them.

She'd asked him his name, treated him like more than a simple bug. He would remember it, not that it would really help her case at all. Then she'd asked him if he would like to play a game. That she thought he might be bored just sitting in there. She had agreed to play whatever game he had wanted, hence how Chess had come to be.

To her credit, even though she lost terribly every time she was a pretty good sport. She didn't get angry and throw the board, or shake him again. She didn't dwell on it for long, either. Just huffed and started to set the board back up.

He did have a question that had been bugging him, though. Pun intended. He caught her attention and started spelling something out.

"...W... h...y. Why?" She blinked at him. His antenna bounced up and down like a nod. "As in, why am I doing this?" Another bob. She pursed her lips and dropped her chin into her hands, still lazily kicking her feet in the air.

"I dunno Eric, I guess it's because you don't deserve to just sit there and rot like a criminal. Innocent until proven guilty and all, right?" She had caught him spying on her, but spying by itself wasn't exactly a major offense. "I hate being cooped up in this building. Can't leave by myself." She was careful with her words, even if they had captured him. There was no telling how exactly Roach got his information from them.

"I didn't want to just shove you in a little prison and strip away all of your basic rights with it. You deserve the same rights as me." Speaking of...

She wiggled to the left, toward a small plate of food. It had a few grapes and crackers on it, as well as some cheese. She wasn't an expert on what bugs normally ate so she had just grabbed a few random things.

"Are you hungry? It's been a while since you last ate anything."

The cockroach moved to the decoder and spelled out a simple 'yes'. With a smile and grabbed a cracker and a grape and crawled to the tank. There was a little opening on the lid that popped on and off with some force. It was where you were supposed to be able to easily feed the fish through. In this case it made the task of feeding her prisoner much easier. She simply had to pop the top off and drop the food in real quick. Eric and her had established rules of trust, so when she was getting him water and food he was to stay put on the other side of the tank by the decoder ring.

"There." She sat back on her haunches. Eric skittered over to nibble on the grape.

"Hah! Check!" She moved her queen into check territory triumphantly. "I've got you this time, Eric!"

She waited expectantly as he moved around, getting a view of the board from one angle and then another. Then he moved back to the decoder and she nervously jotted down what he was spelling out. "Knight.. to king? Whaaaat." She followed his direction and panicked. "$%@&!" He'd snuck the damn thing in right through her defenses and under her nose.

"Okay, I give up. You've beaten me soundly five times. I bow to your obvious superiority in all things chess related." With a sigh she started to pack up the board. She paused when she saw him moving to the decoder again and grabbed her pad.

"Better... communicate...method..." She blinked again, pursed her lips and squinted at him. He wanted an easier way to communicate. How, she was't exactly sure. After a few moments of quiet contemplation she grabbed the chess board and pieces, "Hold on one sec, okay?"

She promptly left the room.

When she came back in she had a small tablet in her hands. She was in the process of fiddling with the touch settings to make it easy for Eric to use. Before she put it in his tank, though, she turned on the kids mode. He would have a hard time trying anything funny without access to her password.

"Okay, here. This will make it easier for you." She waited for him to move to the allocated spot, then cracked the lid a little and eased the tablet inside. She fixed the lid back in place and sat back on her haunches.

The roach quickly went to work finding an app on the program that would allow him to type, or draw. He ended up settling on a draw option and started to used his antenna to write a message. Shelby was pleased to see it working well.

"Do I have hobbies?" She blinked at the message and then the little bug beside the tablet. It almost looked like he nodded at her. She made herself comfortable and pondered the question. It was a little personal, and they had agreed early on in negotiations that personal facts about her were off the table.

..but, it was also something she wasn't terribly concerned about him knowing. "Okay, i'll give you this one. I'm pretty heavily into art." Supporting herself on her arms, which were tucked behind her, she watched the little bug watch her.

"Mostly abstract stuff. Variety of colors, loose shapes, more or less free form."

Eric erased his previous message quickly, and started another. 'Favorite type?'

She chuckled, "Skeletons, really. All different types too. I think they are all really fascinating to study."

He get his next message out in record time.

'Show me one?'

She returned quickly from her room with her most recent painting, closed Saph's door and plopped down in front of the tank. "Okay... I don't normally show these kinda things to anyone save for the potential buyer." She paused, dragging the canvas in front of her and rested her chin on the top.

"But I guess I can make an exception in this case." The painting, which she had taken to calling 'Heart'. It was the blue form piece with the skeletal flower she had finished a day ago. In some places where the paint was especially thick she had to use caution, but most of it had dried already.

"So, what do you think?"

The roach seemed to stare at it for quite a while before his antenna twitched and he moved back to the pad.

'Bold. Strong image. Like a lot.'

She smiled, a small one, and drummed her fingers on the edge of the canvas. "Hmm.. well, if you like this one i'll bet you'll like a few of the other ones too!"

Staggering to her feet she headed for the door, intent on dragging a few more paintings into show him. It might had just been her ego, but she rather liked the positive attention. Even if it was coming from a cockroach.