The Queen is (technically) deployed.
I woke and approached the chessboard. I didn’t dream in these morning hours.
I couldn’t pretend to sleep any longer, the sun was rising and the tent was getting hot.
Was it ten AM?
No that would be seventeen.
Well I guess it depends on when you start counting.
I didn’t know when to start to be honest.
Black Knight to B six.
The panther either stayed up late or got up early.
I guess he might be nocturnal. I only knew, courtesy of the heavy sleeper in my/our bed.
Taxpayer funded bed?
I guess the panther wanted to free up his light bishop, I had rather hemmed it in.
And how his knights blocked pawns.
Which gave me time.
Seize the board with pawns?
Impulsively I moved my queen to D two.
The tent filled with a scream.
I started and remembered my sword was clean and under the bed.
I turned to see The Radiant Dove sitting up in bed breathing heavily. Her eyes flicked over my face failing to meet my own she started and tensed.
“I lion I had a terrible dream.”
She looked away from me down to a corner of the tent, like she was hurt.
“Whatever was it?”
She didn’t answer for a moment.
I made a move towards her, suddenly she was alert, I detected fear.
We froze for a few seconds awkwardly. Then perhaps a few seconds passing, she seemed to relax.
How awkward… what was she doing? What game were we playing? But I held my silence. Was she testing a power she had over me?
Leave it to a queen...
“What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as her shoulders underneath the cover she had carried up into the sitting position with her fell from the tense panic of nightmare.
“You had grabbed me by the neck and held me to the flame of our campfire.”
How cute. Her nightmare included me.
“It is hot when the mountain sun rises.” I agreed.
“We are so close to it!” The queen agreed.
Crap I had distracted her from her dream, which meant it might be irrecoverable.
“Is burning the only thing you remember?” I asked.
“The world blurred with my tears, our tent was surrounded, horses stomped and metal rang. I turned to you to save us.”
She smiled as if remembering an exciting movie. I suppose she was.
“It was last night, as vivid as the moon on a clear solstice.” Her panic was giving way to the romantic ideation of fantasy.
“What else?” I urged, curious.
“The fire burned with a pale and slickly glow, that of a star not of the sun. Perhaps as the moon. But it was a burning cold. I cried to you and I do not know as to what I asked.”
She looked me in the eye and I was aware of the luxury we had in the other’s eyes.
“You said nothing but moved as a stone, your hand was at my throat and my magic melted from by body. You laughed your sick and unfeeling chuckle, you were barely even amused as you marched me into those terrible pale flames. There were voices in the flame, every voice I had ever heard.”
The queen cast aside our blanket to reveal her soft shoulders and half removed bed robe.
Her heavy chest heaved as I assumed she appreciated the cool refreshing and dry mountain air. She smiled up at me encouragingly.
I was dimly aware of a happy smile on my face.
“My hair turned to ash and I grabbed at your arm to no avail before I woke. You didn’t bleed even when I clawed at you.”
“What does it mean?” I asked her, gently putting my hand on her collarbone.
“Quite obviously that a king has absolute power in this realm.”
“Nonsense.” I replied.
Her dream was a woman’s fantasy… unfeeling monster kills struggling woman.
“Don’t lie O lion.” She pressed her face into my hand. “For I see myself on the map!”
This life was a man’s fantasy… girl actually likes awkward man.
For looking at her eyes I was surprised I had missed her eyes track the chessboard.
Suppose I had moved her. Was it selfish that she had not gone far?
Perhaps she didn’t actually like me.
It was no use to overthink.
“What was your dream about O Mighty Hunter of Men?”
Her face was still in my palm.
I sat beside her and my hand ran to her body, pulling her close.
We had maybe done this a few too many times in the last twelve to twenty time units.
Somehow I wasn’t tired.
“Well the two of us were circus freaks. We invited the masses to pet the animals, and well… eventually one of the animals ate me. But instead you were pinching me in my sleep.”
The queen straightened up and looked me in the eyes. “That sounds so silly! I thought your dream was darker than that!”
“Well the color was darker.” I admitted, “All blue and black, the feeling of underwater.”
“No no I mean that you were frightened.” She was tender, “Something made you worry, and I don’t know what it is.” She was too sweet for me to believe. She seemed protective and nurturing. But why? I was not her child, nor her relative. The incentives were skewed. Perhaps I do not understand wizards.
Obviously she was too good to be true, I reminded myself that I was a sort of experiment to her. When would she get bored of me…? Would the chess game end if she did?
No I was the king. The queen can be sacrificed, in fact I can take a new queen if only a pawn gets to the other side of the board. I could have any number of queens if only I protected the pawns.
Any number less than ten.
A sick reward for an impossible task. One queen was much too much for me.
The Doves soft and addictive whispers brought me out of my head and into the real world. “I know your dreams are emotionally dark O Mighty Lion. Why don’t you share more? Tomorrow we may part and then who would you tell?”
She had pulled herself close to me, she had such a soft and inviting body, and forgive me, but I had always appreciated clothing over the bare naked form. Perhaps we should just sleep the whole day away.
like I said, male fantasy. Imagine someone actually caring about your dreams. What an ego rush!
“You arn’t going to ask how I know what it is like underwater?”
“My king is as the leviathan rather than a lion?” She smirked as if aware of something I was not.
“Does it interest you that in my dream we were peasants working for a greater man?”
“Why didn’t you kill him in your dream?” The queen blinked.
Well there it was. I figured that sort of thing would interest her, she was hyper-fixated on authority and power.
“Our job was to take care of the animals, do you know what a circus is?”
“I suppose this is one of those foreign dreams I have given you.” She mused.
“Aren't all my dreams of late?”
“Hmmm I do forget what I did to you O lion.”
We relaxed and I gingerly lay against the thick canvas of the tent, worried if I lay all the way back I would collapse part of our warm residence.
“It’s an eye opening series of experience Sweet Doveling.” Doveling? I like diminutives but I need a better one than that.
“Well yes, so you are saying that this stable boy who guides your dreams, he worked with me in a circus?”
How much did my queen need to know of breads and circuses already? She probably should be kept as far away from plebeians as possible.
“A circus is a business that entertains people for profit. The you and I, I the stableboy, we collected the payment and guided the people to the entertainment.”
“What sort of entertainment?” She idly rested in my arms, content to cuddle and listen.
“The people would pet sharks.”
“Sharks?” The queen asked.
“Sharks are like wild and aggressive dogs of the sea. Perhaps more like panthers or lizards, they hunt fish and have mouths full of jagged irregular teeth.”
She looked at me with curiosity, I suppose a mountain country like ours isn’t near the sea. But she spoke anyway. “There is a stone in a secret cave that bears an image of a creature just like that. How big are sharks?”
“Some are no bigger than my forearm, some are as big as whales.”
“I think I have seek the shadow of one rendered in stone.” The queen confirmed. “But I called it the gluttonous serpent for the stone shows the mess it has eaten in it’s belly.”
I wasn’t going to get into that.
“So people would give me blood to sprinkle into the water to draw the sharks. And they would bask in the shallow man made pool until a shark came close.”
“Why?” The question was asked conveniently.
“To touch them.”
“Are they pleasantly smooth to the touch?” The queen’s hand was on the underside of my forearm.
I almost wanted to confirm that sharks were smooth.
“People wanted to be close to the shark because it is a beautiful and terrifying creature.”
The queen nodded sagely. “Peasants always worship danger, it’s one of their few noble traits.”
“Anyway, the danger never came, and that’s why I was worried.”
“Well I thought your dream couldn’t get any sillier! You are a king! You should have made your own danger!”
“I was a stableboy O Dove did you forget?”
She bit my arm.
Back to bed I guess.