I’m the King but it’s Chess.

I guess I should check the chessboard. Back in the parlor where I had left it.

If the queen had moved on my order instead of by my hand… that would be interesting.

My own brand of magic that never fails…

I just had to navigate as a beast of the night.

Not that there wasn’t the odd guard or torch or fire or lantern or enchanted mirror left by my queen or a maid of light.

I hadn’t met any maids of light yet.

Perhaps that was intentional?

A king and the nuns should not mix.

But there were also nuns and so maids of light were not nuns?

They were not pawns. And most had left with… what was her name? f two? Fleur Secundus?

Was she a maid of light?

Didn’t dress like one.

They would have been considered… well maybe not scandalous but certainly more skin than required in the past world.

Which maybe indicated something less than happy. At least to me.

But they were the only exposed skin aside from my queen. Who they seemed to imitate.

They were the only magic users I had witnessed aside from my queen… and stopping in the parlor and kicking at the embers in my fireplace for a dim light I turned to see the chessboard.

Confirming that I am a magic user. For the piece had moved in my absence, at my verbal order to the queen. Dreadful...

I pondered the possibilities, I guess there weren’t many, I can order people with chess pieces, and I can move chess pieces by ordering people.

Perhaps I could order people to move my chess pieces for me? Maybe I could move chess pieces to order people to order other people?

Wait I was going in circles…

I needed sleep, I was crashing and it was like two AM. Or… eight over forty? Four over twenty?

The witching hour was at Four?

My queen appeared before me, dressed as a maid of light.

It was cute, but confusing to me. I could never tell if it was a sort of work uniform or lingerie.

The possibility of both just seemed wrong.

It seemed a rule of the male fantasy that a woman’s magic was directly related to revealed skin.

But maybe this world was just less prudish.

This time my queen had brought a little bird.

A red winged black bird.

“Your tramp has refused me a noble death O lion.”

“Who was that?” I asked, it was my job to prevent such slander. Deserved as it may have been.

“Move me again and I shall be as lightning twice” my wife tiptoed up to me and kissed me delicately.

“BEHOLD THE TWO DEVILS THEMSELVES!” Crowed the little bird louder for I had not at first paid heed.

The queen set the bird down upon a love seat.

“That’s Berthold Octavian Knight of Midnight‘s Twisted Light.” I had him before the clouds cleared the moon. His friends are dead and his troops scattered barbarians. He your prisoner. A gift from…”

“FROM A SCATTERBRAINED FLOOZY!” The bird finished.

“…From your queen” she grinned and pressing her body close to me gave me a much longer and deeper kiss.

Eventually we breathed for a moment “Did you have any plans for the bird?” I asked. Refusing to let her go for the moment.

“Well he’s a bird now, clipped wings, and no bowel control. I had thought he would find it a humiliating punishment…

“MAMAS BOY!” Screamed the little bird.

“But it seems the form fits him to begin with… quite a shameless little beast isn’t he?” Dove looked up at me, expecting me to join her in insulting the bird.

The bird launched into a series of vulgarity that would have been quite funny if the internet was less advertiser friendly.

“But is he still intelligent?”

I squeezed my wife as if the bird was a human we were taunting.

“He never was.” A bolt of magic erupted from the queen’s staff and the dimming coals of the parlor erupted into a roaring fire.

My mind wished to speculate as to the fuel that it burned, but I did not.

The cozy, but somewhat unsettling place of leisure designed and utilized as a military bunker warmed with a little aggression.

At this the bird had no response and simply sidled around on the love seat, observing the room as the flickering flames caught the only heraldry he had left. His two red dipped wings.

“Oh king must you? I am going to be too exited to focus when I go back to Quatorri Burmlin.”

B Four for the uninitiated

Whose fault was this situation anyway? And in front of a prisoner? Not that it was important.

Eventually the bird commented.

“Well if there is no shame among white, what’s for dinner and breakfast? I am starving.”

We stopped in amusement for a moment distracted by the bird.

I think we were in a good mood.

“You laugh at honesty? The bird flapped its clipped wings, only a flicker of the little red elbows it bore in the red lit room. Its greasy feathers reminded me that the castle needed more servants.

The queen and I looked at each other

“The panther is going to respond, no?”

“I’m safe” said the queen “so I don’t mind shirking my duties until morning!”

“If you were one of my soldiers I would offer you a reward, but you are my queen and already have all that you wish.”

“Shall you grant me a conquest of some dangerous world for our anniversary? I wish to see what enemies we shall break under our iron fist.”

“I promise nothing but one war won.”

“An empire where the time is all gone!” She pouted “Sun soon to set, what have we lost for sleep and peace today? A net not cast, no fish caught.”

“Be at peace for the keys of victory, in our hands we keep, look away and you won’t see, what greatest of little gifts I have in thee.

“Is this all white does?” The bird complained. “They told me that to surrender was better than to wait around, is what you want my surrender?”

“Let me fetch a cage for our prisoner!” Called Dove.

The queen crawled out of my lap, for we had fallen into a love seat some indeterminate time ago.

With a tap of her ever present staff the cozy chair the bird had perched on was replaced with cage.

This wasn’t some transfiguration I had learned in the past week, it was displacement. The queen had a cavern with junk and she just swapped the chair and the cages’s locations.

“Just in time too, a maid will have to clean that up!”

The bird ignored the biological reality of being a bird that couldn’t fly away anymore.

“This makes more sense now doesn’t it? The bird complained. “I’m content that some small amount of logic remains in this confusing and degenerate labyrinth you call a home.”

“O songbird, do you know any songs?”

The queen returned to lay against me.

“Only ones about infidelity.” The bird’s eye twinkled.

“Spare us!” The queen spoke with royal distain.

“Why should I?” Countered the bird.

“Good behavior may return you to your favored form.” I offered.

“Bah!” Cawed the bird. “You like poetry?”

“Who doesn’t?” Asked the now languid queen.

“I’m not an artist, but I find your fondling offensive to the art of fondlers.”

“Are you just going to be mean?” The queen asked.

“What else can I be? A slave?” The bird was defiant. He was a knight after all.

“That was the hope.” the queen responded.

“This is a knight O Queen, do you really think he would cower and break at becoming a bird? Even with wings clipped he perhaps is lucky to see even glimpses of all hells before his death.” I was the more egalitarian between the two of us.

She sighed “You are right, I suppose a rook or bishop would be weaker of mind, a knight at least knows indignity and the frailty of his mortal flesh.” She picked at my forearm for a moment, tracing my veins.

We sat for a moment or two. In a silence the Dove most radiant found awkward.

“Both of you are allergic to a good roleplay. This night was almost perfect and you foolish sword swingers had to ruin with logic.”

Was there any verbal response I could give?

“You owe me a conquest O Lion, beyond this simple war.”

I like war as much as the next guy, but I prefer it in game form. Even then, I think I like sleep better, call me an old soul. I’ve never had the energy to keep up with youth. Even as a kid.

Aside from in the violent sense. I do like adrenaline.

I had nothing useful to say, so I carried my queen to bed and spoke to her without speaking. She was probably more exhausted than I, magic and all that.

I didn’t sleep too well, but my queen did.

I drifted in and out of sleep, tossing and turning and unable to quiet my mind.

Dove normally complains louder than is polite that I move too much, steal the covers, or am hazardous to sleep with.

But not tonight.