Conquest: The Uninvited

The air buzzes with silent tension inside the auditorium; every member of the audience holds their breath. The heat of the stage lights beams down upon the two men curled over the chessboard. I can practically taste their desire as I stand, arms crossed, a hair’s breadth from the board.

“Opening with the Kan Sicilian?” My brow pulls up into an arch, and I bend over to bring my face closer to the checkered piece of wood. “An interesting choice. Though if he counters with a Maroczy Bind structure--”

“I seriously don’t get how you can sit there and...watch two people move pieces around a board in absolute silence,” War leans his head right next to mine. “It's so boring!”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. War was such a child sometimes.

“This is why you and I are so different.” A smirk twitches at the corner of my mouth, and I can’t resist flicking him on the forehead before straightening back up. “I don’t mind crushing the enemy with the mind instead of the sword -- perhaps you should be glad I’ve never taken you to a Go match instead of Western chess.”

War grumbles, rubbing the red mark I left upon his skin.

“Why are you here?” I ask with a sigh. “We’ve already played more than enough for today.”

“Death’s being weird.”

“You always think she’s weird,” I roll my eyes, taking the moment to walk around the board and players, revelling in the sweat formed on their brows from their intense level of concentration. How great it would be when the winner achieved their victory over the other: the true conquest was in the loser’s humiliation.

“No I don’t,” War sulks.

“Did you ever stop to think that you and she simply have different personalities, so what you see as ‘weird’ is really just when those personalities grate against each other in disagreement?” I look up at him, arching a brow. I do like War, and even all the Wars I knew before him, but this one is certainly proving thus far to be the slowest in terms of maturing out of his rebellious adolescent phase.

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t go running off to Korea for no reason to stare out at some random human city--”

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“Death was in Joseon?” That catches my attention. I had spent a good amount of time there in the humans’ 1950...until it all turned into a mess and ended in an armistice that has remained since as a seemingly silent, ‘cold’ war. Take one closer look, however, and you would be able to see the heat bubbling beneath the surface. Then, of course, there was the late 1970s and 1980s: democracy and military dictatorship doling out blows – not in equal measure – as progress marched ever forward.

One corner of my mouth crooks up in a half-grin, and I bite my lip. “Is something happening there?” I wonder to myself, still watching the chessboard, but now seeing, instead of wooden pieces, the land of tigers and shamans shaking their bells, waving brightly-coloured ribbons and calling out to the gods in the wind.

“I don’t know,” War kicks out at the chess table. “She just got mad at me and told me to fuck off.” His foot brushes against the wood, barely making contact...and in that moment, the shouting begins.

“Why is he getting blueberry yogurt delivered? Nobody said anything about this kind of thing! It’s got to be a sign from his team -- it’s code for something!” The American player yells, jumping to his feet to point at his opponent. His opponent stands as well, shouting back, and before one can blink, we are at the start of a potential all-out brawl between both the two players and their respective teams in the audience.

“War…” I immediately glare at my younger compatriot.

He holds up his hands with a grimace and something close to an apology in his expression, “I seriously didn’t mean to.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I like you,” I groan, running a hand down my face. I’d been looking forward to seeing which way this match went, but that was all over now.

“Because of my devilish charm and killer good looks?” War winks. “Oh, and don’t forget that I’m the most fun to play with.”

“That you are,” I sigh. “Still, you shouldn’t let Death rile you: she’s always been the type to keep to herself and do her job with little-to-no deviation for as long as I’ve had my title.”

“Yeah, but--”

“Trust me: I bet if I’d been there, I’d tell you it was nothing beyond the normal. But now, since you decided to shake up this match,” I don my crown, “I must go back and write my record.”

“Why does everybody keep going on about the records?” War mumbles with a frown before shrugging. “Fine then, go be boring elsewhere.”

“Stop sulking, War. I’m sure that you’re only overreacting because your little sand skirmish didn’t turn out to be as fun as you wanted it to be.”

Even as I say it, something pricks at the back of my neck, and the smallest suspicion sneaks into my mind that something may actually be amiss.