Fairy chess, or just chess in more official settings, is a game developed by emerginging gatherings of nobles. Few rules are very consistent between the game of nobles and its more common or prototypal versions, but it is preferred that one defaults to official chess structure when one is in doubt. Be wary of those who attempt to invent new rules over the course of a match by keeping a ruling official at hand. Should that prove too expensive, a blunt weapon or stern warning should prove sufficient.

Icara forced open the door to the lounge room with determination. It had changed very little in her time away, but she had no urge to reminisce over it. She found the chess table first and began to arrange the pieces herself while Koshchei entered from behind. He watched her hands neatly arrange the game before turning back towards him.

“White goes first, right? I suppose as the king it would be proper form for me to take that place then. Any objection?” Koshchei asked her, moving to the seat already.

“Go ahead. The first move advantage won’t be able to save you. On top of that, being able to react to things is often more important that initiating them.” Icara said and took her seat on the black side of the table.

Koshchei cocked an eyebrow at her odd remark as he looked down at the row of pieces in front of him. They were all carved by hand, leading to small imperfections from each one, but none terribly noticeable. Icara’s eyes were locked onto the board itself, waiting for the sign of his first move. After a momentary hesitation, Koshchei took the second pawn from the right and pushed it forward one square. Icara countered by moving her own pawn, one blocking her bishop.

“Would you be interested in telling me why you would promise to someone that you’d become a good ruler, Icara? I’m afraid I don’t see the chances of me ceeding the throne to you being very good. Unless you plan on becoming a bandit leader, or some sort of military commander?” Koshchei asked, lifting the pawn he had moved off of the board.

“What does it matter why I said it? I only told you because I want you to take this game seriously. After playing your mind games, I’m going to prove to myself that I’m not breaking that promise I made. No matter what you say or show me, that will prove I’m who I say I am.” Icara said and looked him in the eyes. “Now make your move.”

He sighed and placed the piece back on its original square before pushing it forward again. Once he did, Icara shook her head and moved the bishop across the board, taking the pawn he had moved. As she lifted the pawn off to her side, she looked at Koshchei with a glance, hoping to see a reaction. Instead, he seemed bored as she placed it down to the side. Her brow furrowed at the lack of emotion as Koshchei moved a pawn forward and next to the bishop she had used.

“What are you even doing...?” Icara asked.

“I’m playing the game, like you wanted me to, Icara. Come on, don’t get cocky just because you stole one piece in a few moves.” Koshchei said with a small laugh at the end.

She clenched her jaw and stared down at the board. After a momentary analyzation of the pieces, she had figured he was making a shot at the long game. Rather than play into his hands again, Icara chose to force him into action. Her queen boldly moved to the frontlines. Koshchei watched her move with a slight nod of appreciation before he moved his rook up one square. Her fists were clenched, his actions seemed to just be tailing behind her. After moving back her bishop again, the final strike was within her grasp.

Only when the obvious blow came to her did she realize something was off about this situation. She had only remembered the rules of the game from many years ago when she was taught by her father. The memory did not make her stomach hurt again, but it hit her that the rules were fairly simply for an average game. Even in spite of this, Koshchei acted like he barely understood those rules. Each move seemed sudden and callous at the same time.

“Koshchei...” Icara muttered while his hand readied to move another piece.

“Yes, Icara?”

“I told you to take this seriously. You’re not even challenging my plays at all, you’re just barely attempting to move your pieces! Are you trying to play dumb so I can’t prove anything to myself?!”

Koshchei brought his hand back and folded it into his other, placing both in his lap with a smile. “Would you like to give me any advice on how to play then? I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at the game.”

“Liar! I’ve heard about your border expansions, all this growth in territory in such a short time can’t possibly be because of chance. You’ve planned it all out, which means you’ve got a tactical mind, now tell me why you’re letting me win!” Icara demanded, slamming her fist into the table.

“Does that mean I’d be good at chess then? I don’t see how those things are necessarily relevant, Icara.” Koshchei countered, bringing his attention back to the board.

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She joined his gaze and looked over the board with him. Her mind raced at how she could be winning, how he didn’t take a single motion to save himself from the one move she can perform to win. As she slowed her breathing down, she realized he must’ve been playing with her head before he brought it down.

Just then, however, he moved the knight piece in front of one of his pawns. She stared in awe at the move, unable to understand it at first. It held no special tactical advantage, it did nothing to shield even a single pawn from any of her pieces. Her hand moved to the queen slowly, but she refused to move it. A furious fire roared behind her halo-lit eyes.

“Why did you do that?!”

Koshchei cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean? Have I made a mistake?”

“What benefit does moving the knight there do?! I thought you might be toying with me at first, just pretending to play dumb, but this is just blatant idiocy! You’ve got to know how the pieces can move because you haven’t asked, so why would you just let me win like this?!” Her voice rose higher with her body, leaving her standing upright at the end.

Koshchei looked over the board in confusion for a moment until Icara yanked the pawn away and replaced it with her queen. Even if he moved his piece, it would be taken by the bishop she had moved earlier. He nodded his head solemnly and pushed out of the chair, dusting his robe off.

“That was the quickest match I’ve ever had. You’re quite good at this game, Icara!” He said with a warm smile.

“Answer my question, don’t try and pretend like you could have done that on accident! You’ve been scheming for a decade now, how could you have let something so obvious slip past you?!”

“Icara, what were your goals during this game?”

“To show I can be a leader, I already told you that! If you’re asking to be pedantic, my objective was to capture your king. Feels pointless when you just let me do it though...”

He went back to the chess table and picked up Icara’s queen. After he inspected it a few times over, he handed it to her. She palmed the piece and squinted her eyes. Almost immediately she noted that one of the crown pieces was thinner than the others.

“Tell me, Icara, who in a kingdom does that piece represent?”

“What are you... it’s the queen piece.”

“So queens often stride about the battlefield, readily slaying knights and kings with ease, flying as fast as a raven?”

Icara frowned and put the piece back onto the table. “Then fine, there is no equivalent to such a piece. Maybe Berkahn, but he’s not one to be controlled for the use of a mortal army.”

“You won because of that piece, right? That means you won with something that has no equal within an army or civic unit. Do you think that means anything to politics? Does this game, or any pieces within it, reflect the nature of reality?”

She cocked her head to the side and looked back at the board. At first she considered the pawns might be soldiers, but found the idea too demeaning. Knights could act like knight, but the real ones were often more heralded for their leadership abilities. Similarly, a bishop would always be more relevant as a religious guide than any sort of directly political or military figure. Piece after piece, none of them seemed to align with themselves in any manner. Even worse, the board itself was nothing like a real battlefield.

“No...” Icara finally muttered before glaring at him again. “You knew that this would mean nothing from the beginning, didn’t you? Of course you’d let me win, you just wanted to show how fruitless this was from the beginning...”

“That’s one possibility. You aren’t likely to accept the truth, that I’m just rather bad at games like this altogether, would you?”

“But you’ve done so much for the kingdom! Even if you’re an immoral monster, you have to have a tactical mind to do what you’ve done, some ability to control and lead others!”

“With people, yes, I can often be very charismatic. Not to brag, obviously. The issue is really with the game of chess itself, in a way. It is by its nature a game that requires a set of rules in order to be fair to both parties. However, that is never the case in reality. Poor, cripple, sickly, foolish, weak-willed, there are countless hindrances to people everywhere in the world. On top of that, you can’t ever find specific rules for how to deal with other people. You can’t assume that life operates like pieces of chess, Icara, all you’ll do is end up losing a game where you’re the only player.”

“So all of this... none of it really mattered in leadership? There was no point in that game at all then, I was tricked again...” Icara said, her voice dropping quietly towards the end.

“Nonsense, there was something to be learned. You revealed your true nature as a tactical thinker, someone who can accurately assess fights from a logistical standard act on those analyses. Your fighting all this time has left you quite well acclimated to being in combat, and you’ve clearly got a good head to match your body. It’s a shame then, that you’re a demon hybrid.”

“What does that have to do with this?!” She demanded, accidentally conceding the theory for once.

Koshchei opened the door to the game room and waved over a nearby servant. As he explained a simple order, Icara tapped her foot impatiently. Her anger was momentarily broken by the nature of his request. An order for two Alastair apples, one peeled, and the other unpeeled. He closed the door and waited for the footsteps to fade before he began again.

“Icara, demons are not like mortal races, so a hybrid of them means something very different. If you take a male donkey and a female horse, for example, their generate an offspring of a mule. Demons cannot mate at all in the natural sense, so they hybridize with something else entirely... they fuse with the soul of a mortal. If you would like to be less romantic about it, their thoughts mingle with one another and form a new whole. However, the demon and the host are not necessarily one and the same. A perfect hybrid doesn’t exist, so only malformed creations that are weaker than both can be created.”

“What... what are you...” Icara tried to reply, but her mind raced too fast for her lips to keep up.

“Why do you think you’ve been struggling so much recently since actually coming back here? Your mind is in a dangerous state of flux from the demon that died, it’s trying to take over the last scraps of your mentality by tricking you into a no-win scenario. All you’ve done for the past ten years has been the result of a maddened state of mind, Icara. Whatever goal you were working towards is impossible, I’m sorry.”

Icara collapsed to her knees again, but without pain. Where she had expected the agony to swell, she instead found a deep emptiness. One hand rested on her stomach as it spread around her core. Her breathing grew shallow and slow, like she was dying just from hearing the news. It felt like foreign thoughts were forced into her head now exposing the horrible nature of her real mind to the forefront. No tears fell from her face, but as she rose up to her feet, she didn’t say anything.

The door opened again, a servant girl intruding to speak to Koshchei. As she entered, she gave a glace to Icara in the middle of the room and pulled back slightly. The girl leaned into his ear and gave him the message she was sent to before quickly exiting the room. Koshchei put a hand on Icara’s shoulder, drawing her attention up to him again.

“Our guests have arrived, Icara. They’re the old friends of yours, actually. Gwindon and Lilith was it? Let’s go and meet them now, maybe they can help console you after that terrible news.” Koshchei said with a gentle smile.

Icara only nodded in response and both of them exited the room together.