I’m the King but it’s Chess.

The sun turned in the sky, we ate of packed sliced potato and pemmican and after an hour or so of intermittent intimacy and the queen impatiently blasting our clothes with magic sunlight we were dressed and traveling back up the mountain.

We stopped at perhaps nine thousand feet, walking was getting tiring. And perhaps it would be best if we slept before going further up.

My queen understood this acclimation process, presumably despite not understanding the physics.

We rested on a grassy meadow.

And finally catching our breath we could talk across the thin air.

“Well, I figured the lion should have experience before he went to war”

“I’m not sure you accomplished your goal o Dove of mine.”

“What do you mean? I picked one of the most hardened combatants from one of the most successful kingdoms I could find in the other world.”

How did you measure your success?

Global dominance, kill death ratio, reliability…

Uh-oh

“And you didn’t think about why any of those things might be...?”

“Well, it could only be conflict, the people of such a nation must be true warriors, philosophers, poets, kings of an era.”

“So you gave me the dreams of one of these…”

So did the queen think that the life I remembered was a king? That made more sense than a warrior.

What was I? Mechanic? I suppose I would’ve been a peasant. A wheelwright. Or a stable boy.

Sure, there were a lot of bells and whistles, and the steeds of the old era belched flame and smoke and anger.

But aside from the artistry of the mastery of a craft, or the prestige of a guild unnamed. There was little nobility in my past life.

If there is any dignity it was in the harmony of the family. The family I worked for not the family I built.

A man who did not build families themselves are rather the opposite of Noble I think by almost any definition.

Maybe a wheelwright sounded more noble. Carriage maker even, but that was still a distant dream of another world

“From top of my heart my Dove I fear you made a mistake for the dreams I have been having as of late are the dreams of a stable boy not a warrior, nor are they the dreams of a king, and certainly, I would not think this individual knows much of war.”

“Oh lion, I think a stable boy in the realm of the United States of America would have quite the front row seat to the workings of war.” My queen seemed quite convinced as if she had researched the topic of herself.

“Why would that be? A stable boy spends his time cleaning stables shoeing horses trying to be polite and if he’s exceptionally attentive memorizing the horses and their emotions.”

The sweetest of Doves took a breath, I could have watched her forever, and though I love her voice, she somehow annoys me when she speaks this way. Isn’t it confusing? “The people of the United States have a pugnacious and competitive culture, combative language, and indeed, it is in their laws and religion that they shall all own terrible weapons I myself am unable to comprehend. I have little doubt they are a terrifying and lethal race of warriors. They would be even if they didn’t dominate their rivals for nearly a hundred years.”

How much earth history had the Queen read? The USA also had a rather cowardly streak of foreign conflict. But perhaps familiarity breeds contempt and I am wrong. This Kingdom of White we now ruled seemed more like some kind of Sparta, or Order of Knights or Swiss mercenary… mercenary company… oh…

Well maybe that’s how she found the United States, but why this stable boy… man?

“This person you found didn’t fight in wars.”

“But he has all the circumstance and context to truly experience what the war would be like, for he shods the beasts of war.”

The queen took a deep breath of thin mountain air. Before continuing.

“More importantly the United States of America sponsored the simulation of war at the scale of mass of war”

There is no way that my queen was going to play this little card

“I reviewed his performance in these simulations…”

No way she picked the gamer, I suppose she had no clue what a gamer truly was.

From what I remembered, I was not particularly good at video games I was fascinated by strategy and tactics but each time I learned one, I abandoned it for I was bored by practice. Hardly special from what I understand I was a very common type of gamer. The patience to actually get good by practicing was what was uncommon and, at least more valued than the breadth of experience.

But O Dove continued in her ignorance.

“I chose the individual who supplies your dreams my king. One who would first be compatible with you and second one who was highly experimental in his understanding of war”

Again, I’m not sure my queen really understood what a simulation was.

“He should be, one of a host of warriors trained and fresh, practiced in tactics, strategy, even in execution. He did not balk at any challenge. It is these people who made the kingdom I speak of dominant.” The Dove of the Sun’s Radiance stopped and looked at me over her supple shoulder with two big dopey eyes expecting a response.

“And you are not worried at all about the discrepancy between reality and simulation? To the stable boy all of his strategy and tactics were but games.”

“Nonsense! He applied them to his real life. They informed is every day behavior, the risks he took and how he allocated his winnings.”

Winnings? What an odd thing to say. It seemed my queen knew a lot about the old life.

“Perhaps I’m not understanding my queen, but he really didn’t have very much success in much at all. If anything, nine out of ten of his actions were self-destructive. He wasn’t a warrior who was winning indeed he shied from many challenges when they were not abstracted. He was not even brave.”

“He kept trying despite demoralization! Is that not a noble warriors duty?”

“Did you actually meet the guy or did you just find him in a spreadsheet?”

“I found him in a spreadsheet. He was perfectly optimized for you my lion.”

“You are aware that he lived with his parents?”

“I thought it was very noble.”

“In this state’s culture it was considered an inability to grow up, not nobility”

“A warrior who becomes cynical can’t die very well can he?”

“But this manchild was very cynical.”

“As all great strategic minds are. Though I see your point now because you did not to vex me ever so much last week.”

“O Dove who shines her light upon me, I am trying to ask if you are certain that you have picked the right individual for these dreams. Would not a sampling of a population have performed better? “

“And normalize my great powerful Lion who haunts the shadows I cannot into mediocrity? No I wanted someone who had experienced loss, and failure, and total defeat. I wanted to give you the experience you could not have without battle!”

“Surly there is a difference between the mind of a slave and a warrior.”

“Well, I want it specifically a slave they tried to escape and failed. To counter your admittedly admirable, but foolish bravado.”

“Are you sure you were optimizing for war?”

“Yes.” said White Dove.

We sat in silence, looking at a sunset. I suppose the conversation made it less romantic.

I suppose it wasn’t romantic because we were five to ten feet away lounging upon a mountain side taking our break. For the air was so thin, we would tire after only a few steps.

“All things considered my Lion you are handling the dreams well! I knew you were stubborn but some part of me worried that this ‘foreign education’ would be too much!”

That my queen thought the effects were “manageable” was a problem for peacetime.