Chess!!

She's not, like, great at it. Practiced, at most. She does use her familiarity with the promoting-queen rule to pull off an annoying surprise with a sudden knight!

He's saving his for when it will lead to a checkmate. The knight sets him back, though.

She loses and isn't mad about it, just kind of rueful.

"Good game!"

-She suddenly remembers that they're, like, evil, and she's going to leave, and stops face screaming after a few moments, though.

"Quite. Another, or are you through?"

She almost sighs, but then doesn't. This definitely is visible to chelish people.

"Another, a different variant this time."

He has a whole bookful. "Any particular sort?"

"Hmm, nothing that requires new pieces?"

"Berolina pawns are simple and use the normal complement." He shows her the page.

Yeah that's really different! It makes the normal pawn ladder strategy impossible-

She gets a little animated, in the way she does when using her sorcery, when she starts losing. This seems to be making her play better?

Interesting! He doesn't have the measure of her enough to have suggested a handicap and it's looking like it would have been premature anyway.

Well, eventually she notices she's doing it, and shuts that right down, and then immediately gets herself into checkmate in four.

Huh. "Were you... accidentally doing magic?"

"-The Spark woke up a little bit during that last game, yes."

Augh is she in trouble. She didn't do anything it's fiiiine.

"Is that... bad apart from being arguably cheating?"

"-Well, if I get out of the habit of quashing the Spark when I don't need it, I will do unwise things in moments of stress and high emotion. I have done training and exercises specifically to notice, and quash it, because Sparks who just - let themselves do what they want - are Chaotic menaces."

"Ah, I see. Does it - waking up - indicate you need to step back from chess, or...?"

"No, I don't think so. It means I need to stop being frustrated at losing. I can do that."

"We can also add a handicap if you'd find an evener game less trying."