I’m the King but it’s Chess.

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Howdy. I'm gonna slow down a bit here and start releasing only once or twice a week, I have 50k words or so written, but at this point I do need to slow down. I'm not sure I will continue my pace, every other day is pretty quick.

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No queen? Would I be playing a queen down?

No that would be an even more depressing turn.

*CRUNCH!*

“What was that?” Celeste’s angel voice asked the driver over the clopping of horse hooves.

“Fallen branch O Royal!” The old man responded.

The lesson of the twenty first century was to comply and then pretend you were winning and breaking rules, even as you were not.

But that was such an awful game.

But was that refusal to be a dishonest scammer the only thing that made me a loser?

Suppose it was.

Would I rather die?

It was close.

So pick north south east or west.

I’m a loser no matter how you slice it I guess. It wasn’t a problem until I became king. No fun distractions anymore.

How to fix this simple problem?

Well the first step is not to end up the chess king, I can’t move but one square at a time and if I do I’m probably just wasting turns.

Basically the same as modern life. Maybe that’s why the modern world was so “unhappy.” Happy people aren't royalty. Or was that a trick to keep the peasants in their place…?

The shadows changed as we rode up a gentle slope through the wilderness, only past one tiny village now well outside the castle walls. Barely more than a few ramshackle farms and a “mine” dug into the side of a mountain. But we were interested in divine creation not the works of man. We were enjoying the company of each other, not the peasants.

Then trees again, trees and trees and trees sliding up a rude road, no good views yet.

Unless you count the body thief who shared the coach with me. The…. Dove…. was a pretty view no matter where we were. I should be thankful despite everything.

I might not belong in a relationship, but I could enjoy part of it. I drifted to sleep on a soft bosom despite the bumps and creaks of the carriage on a mostly stable dirt road, heaven by another name.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

I had only just closed my eyes. Right?

“What was that?” The Dove asked.

I heard a mechanical clicking outside the carriage and the old man didn’t respond.

A dim recognition in the twilight of my mind.

I had always wanted to do this and had now the legal power to do so.

The click from the four o clock or should I say x over forty equals four over twelve?

X over twenty?

“This is a robbery, hand us over what you got you noble rats! Come out for us! The dull muffled voice outside.

Focus, focus, the queen had recommended I take a blade before we began and I cradled it as I jumped from the side of the carriage, out the side opposite the voice.

Immediate yelling.

*Thwunk* as something heavier than an arrow bounced off the hard rocky dirt at my feet.

“What!?” Yelled the queen. Her voice with a hint of fear now part of the chaos.

I felt the adrenaline high, I would describe my glee as that of a shark that smells blood.

Poor trigger discipline in the hands of my enemies.

But I stopped at the back left wheel of the carriage, how many were there?

The old man gently stepped off his horses on my side of the carriage, he pointed over the horses.

Yea tell me something I don’t know.

“STUPID!” A panicked voice on the other side said all I needed to know. They were weak and the blood in the water was mine.

Then again, that would be such a slick trick.

But it was too late I was accelerating face first, (bad form) hand on hilt towards the voices around the side of the carriage.

I picked them out in between two oaks. A skinny man and a fat man. Only twenty to thirty feet away.

The fat man produced a cudgel, the thin man desperately cranked a crossbow.

I had to slow over the fallen brush at the side of the road which must have obscured them from the driver.

I stomped through the brush thanking the hardened boots I had cursed the last few days.

I was on top of them in moments.

My bare steel erupted from the scabbard, I saw to rend the little one from hip to shoulder he caught it with his crossbow. Both were cast backward foliage.

I briefly wondered if that was a misplay on his part.

I didn’t know if a peasant life was worth more or less than the crossbow.

With my second hand, I sidled sideways as a crab into foliage preparing to execute the man who had jumped away and gone to ground, but I could not avoid being wary of his heavyset friend.

“If you kill him you’ll have held to pay rich boy.” The voice wasn’t as deep as I had imagined.

I really didn’t know how a peasant could grow so large but then I’m not one to understand diet or biology.

The man was fat but nimble.

The sort of creature that is at home in its own girth.

He waded into the ferns with his large club, and the two of us stood weapons drawn over a skinny man in the middle.

I hesitated a moment too long. I could’ve cut them both down. Perhaps in one blow. Did I savor her the moment? Was I that pathetic?

Did I feel a twist of guilt? Was that any better?

Did I see myself? How depressing.

It mattered for the skinny man cried out.

“Radiant Lady! Have pity! We are about two vagabonds who seek to beg!”

I would not be distracted by the presence of my queen there was a man who needed killing in front of me.

But he dropped his guard

And I suppose this would’ve made his slaughter murder.

I will admit to blood thirst.

Even murderous intention.

But I drive the line at the sucker punch.

At least when delivered directly and personally. I suppose that was all violence was. Sucker punches, why was I mad? This was just physics…

Apparitions of drinking this water for too long...

The fat man knelt as if a knight.

“We are at your service for you are the divine beauty of light itself” he called to the queen.

I guess I would have to improve my pillow talk I wasn’t quite as casually poetic and flattering.

“Oh Lion, have you no brain?” My queen had ignored both of them.

The White Dove continued. “You are lucky there were only two but what if there had been more? I would be weeping to see your pain for you would be a pincushion!”

The eyes of the peasants grew wide in realization.

“Oh, forgive us, your majesty! O king let us be at peace we mean nothing and our foolish minds thought to profit where we should not! You have taught us well and we thank you and we beg mercy we shall quit our highway business!

The two men, perhaps late twenties begged pathetically.

The queen smiled.

“Whatever shall we do with them my Lion?”

Her tone was mean, mocking. I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t like social events.

“They look so sad and pathetic. Shall we give them a gold bar and send them to squander it!?”

One of the peasants bit his lip. That was the same anxiety I was feeling.

The queen looked up at me.

“Let us give them armor and they can pretend to be knights and if they can survive a week perhaps I should sleep with one. What would my lion think then?”

The bandits were clearly uncomfortable as my wife sauntered towards me.

“Will he get angry and kill them? Would he take a mistress and run away on his own?” She was a machine optimizing for temporary discomfort. Why?

That’s a silly question, I knew why, it was rude. She turned to the vagabonds abruptly clearly seeking the center of attention.

“They would amuse me o lion! shackle them!” She ordered.

She conjured two pairs of shackles in front of me.

This was the only chance they would get to fight or flee for their freedom.

The two men began to beg me instead.

“We want nothing of wizards and witches kill us for our life is yours for you have taken it a lion!”