Mandatory kingdom building episode
Tonight I just soaked in my sweat or froze uncovered on the bed.
No in-between.
Like a giant stuffed animal my sleeping partner sometimes calmed me.
But not tonight.
Something was wrong and instead of something to cuddle I was stuck in bed with a warm sweaty anchor.
Maybe I should try to get my queen into some kind of fitness activity, sweat was sexy when we weren’t roasting in slumber.
Was that really what I was going to do as a king? Reinvent title nine?
The sports brand not the law…
Well now I’m uncomfortable with this line of thought.
So far my goals as a king were simple,
Dental - a pipe dream I had been too lazy to implement.
Dietary health - a mixed bag, I had used war as a sponsor for citrus production. Perhaps Imagining a plague of heat stroke and scurvy among the troops.
The summer was hot so I surely was not wrong.
And ice cream… an accident borne of a distracted mind. A curse upon my people. Concentrated saturated fat with the tooth rotting side effect.
They hadn’t quite figured it out yet so maybe the damage could still be mitigated.
And naturally the war.
I guess I could say now I was winning?
No I wasn’t up any pieces, only space on the board.
It had only been… a week? Maybe a bit more?
I had gotten rid of the quartermaster. No doubt a man who soured the kingdom. But wasn’t there always another to take his place?
Were the Queen and I any different? Tormenting that Sir Octavian?
Did white knights have such poetic titles? Knight Platinum and Knight Steel seemed less impressive next to, Knight of Midnight‘s Twisted Light…
An entire world could be built of my brother and I titling ever more awesome sounding knights.
What was the name of his counterpart?
Knight of dark water? Knight of bright water?
That lady needed to keep her pet otter on a leash.
Somehow it’s easier to imagine otters monogamous than humans.
Perhaps people like me make eating too easy.
I was want to invest in the health and happiness of the realm.
Which could only favor those whose parents didn’t invest in them.
I guess the war with my brother was an excuse to thin the herd so to speak, undo the unwanted byproduct of our work.
I wonder how common this was in the old world, not the sort of documentation that gets published you know?
Rather a cruel trick to pull upon the less prodigal son isn’t it? He’s liable to spend all his time living vicariously through an otter before an undue demise.
Maybe the sons of the nation would all get a wife if I could secure them some land abroad.
What am I talking about…? fool that I am…
A dream is what you want to do but still haven’t persued. To be what I wanted and to do it since day one I would have to conquer everything.
All great oaks meet the sawmill and a life time of expansion that never passed the tutorial is never remembered, already dead.
I didn’t know my anniversary but it made for a deadline.
Pick of the litter to the litter of the pick.
Recursion of the actions of my wife.
Two rattlesnakes that dance…
Are wizards a bigger variable in the outcome of offspring than parents?
Nature says no, nurture says yes.
Mother Nature probably doesn’t see a contradiction.
And I woke up.
“Lion!”
It was dove.
“I’m not supposed to be here!” She complained in the light of the morning from our open balcony door.
“Can you summon the chessboard?”
“Sure! But really I’m getting anxiety, what if I can kill the enemy queen right now?”
“Kill her?” I asked.
“It’s not tradition and I’m not supposed to, but it’s a matter of dominance. I could, she could… it’s a big deal you know, if a King is willing to sacrifice his Queen. If a Queen ever dies it’s because the king allowed it. You put me in a good position I think.”
Well of course. I’m playing chess after all.
Today was a new day, and I was finally feeling optimistic. Today, today for sure I would summon a carpenter or toy maker to produce the first toothbrushes.
What fine animal hairs could be used?
Perhaps I would need to take an assessment of different furs available in this region of the world.
Which would require a standard for sterilization of animal product.
Which was funded by my demand.
To think it was so cheap in other worlds. Perhaps it was easier to get my queen to steal me a toothbrush or two from that ‘multiverse’ rigamarole. See if she’s all illusion and no practicality.
Am I in they feywilds or is there substance to this tree of pies.
And she was stalking around our room as if checking to see if she forgot anything.
“O Dove?”
“O Lion?”
“Your multiverses… how do you interact with them? We couldn’t simply go to a world could we?”
“That’s not for you to know.”
“I’m visiting them in my dreams, and while I could reinvent things I see, it would be much easier if I could just buy a few.”
“Oh why didn’t you say so?”
Because I didn’t trust the queen until I moved her probably. And even now I only trust her as a sheep trusts the wolf.
Judy Hopps was the predator in that relationship the Fox was just trying to take the collar off.
You cannot silence any story because a martyr made motor does not quit even if the martyr doesn’t die.
Thank you for helping me to not.
But if I’m being honest I’d prefer you take the bullet…
“O lion?”
I want to chew on my wife’s feet, calves, thighs, hips shoulders…
What good is a wife if she can’t be a chew toy?
“I don’t understand multiverse magic and therefore didn’t know the consequences of buying a toothbrush from another universe.” I confirmed.
“Toothbrush? What is that?” The dove of mini paradises chuckled and made a face. “Why would you want to brush your teeth? they don’t have hair!”
It occurred to me that my wife actually had rather perfect teeth.
And that I woke up quite often without bad breath.
Still, though I sometimes caught the stench of my wife’s morning breath. Which meant some level of toothrot remained in this realm.
I had been demanding spring water be present at every meal. Cold spring water was quite possibly the best beverage ever to be conceived. It would wash away much of the danger to teeth.
But dental hygiene was the result of decades of habit. It could not be encouraged by a simple weekly change of favorite beverage.
And it’s not like we didn’t drink wine or eat sweets with frequency.
Perhaps floss was easier, besides floss was probably more important than simply brushing your teeth.
I stood up and began to get myself dressed. I picked the ceremonial leaf looking short sword for the weapon. I would wear all day today and managed to not forget my wedding ring.
My mind’s tumbled over insults my queen and I could levy at each other before deciding on the words
“I do have plans but most of them revolve around peace time. I do hope this war can end soon, so please do not disappoint me. You set yourself a high standard last night.”
“Are lions always so lazy that they encourage one to lower standards?”
The queen smirked a predatory toothy grin before her staff lept from the bedframe into her hand and with the slight buzz of a magical energy unseen.
“My silly silly Lion, you can’t brush teeth.”
She disappeared
Presumably to B four.
And I was left, wondering if I was about to reinvent the iron triangle and wondering about how easy it was to behead the General Motors execs of the future that I was about to create?
It was innocent enough to issue a message to the kingdom and demand my population bring me the strongest thinnest stringed yarns and ropes that they could imagine.
How shocked would they be when the king attempted to fit each string in between his teeth and remove beef jerky?
What fits with the weavers and tinkers and yarn spinners throw when I selected the winner/s of my little competition by how well they removed debris from my teeth?
“Why didn’t you ask for a tooth cleaning device?” they would lament.
They would never believe me if I told them it was to prevent the grifter from coming to my door with snake oil.
They will research what bribe the winners had given me. They would hire spies to stalk my men and maids to predict future contracts awards.
And suddenly the system of castes, where incentives between classes are separated and prevented from crossing made sense.
Not by bureaucracy then, not by scientific development would I damn my kingdom to castes.
Which left piracy?
Was piracy really the best way to supply my kingdom with better equipment and goods?
That would replace the institution of big fish eating little fish with an institution of crabs dragging each other deeper into the bucket.
More equitable, at least on paper.
The institution of society should be as birds teaching each other to fly and sing.
But how to make that the incentive that so many apes follow?
It probably had to do with birds being more monogamous than mammals…
I was hungry. I should eat food.
But I was puzzling.
How can I reap the benefits of a luxurious and advanced learned world, without losing the backwards and benighted banal supremacy of the dark ages?
I rather liked being king, beat the old world, mostly.
A big ask I know, very selfish, but…
Oh I hate myself.
I could do so much worse. Imagine if I had failed to kill a man in my joust.