Title: "Long Live the King"
Author: The DayDreaming
Warnings: Nothing much. Slight NxTouya if you squint. (I am squinting very hard. ;D)
Summary: "And you're the king, Touya," N whispers. And Touya can hear it, the unsaid words. -You are the king, and I will destroy you.- N calls it a crusade. / slight NxTouya
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Theirs is not a normal relationship.
It's times like these that Touya ponders the validity of N's statement that they are friends. Such thoughts remain on his peripheral, and perhaps that's his own fault (because they'd tell him, tell him, tell him, 'There you go, thinking, thinking, always thinking.').
But Touya is not normal, and neither is N. Their strangeness slinks about them and coils at the roots, and it's easy to understand why and why not they hold this spider silk thread between friend and enemy.
Some part of Touya thinks (the very small and bitter part of him), that N sees him as an enemy; the ekans in the yard that is at once a predator and maintainer of balance.
But Touya does not maintain the balance. He slips and tips and tumbles, the scale shakes, the war alters.
It is very much a halting realization that this is a war.
N calls it a crusade.
Touya slides his pawn forward, fingers lightly pushing but never letting go, lest he take back his play and move another.
N hums, eyes taking it in, eyes always taking everything in. Touya wonders what he sees. There is a world on this chessboard, he knows, something beyond the fragile glass pieces they're using to draw about an elaborate end. There is a line between games and wars (though it's not a thing he can discern), but N does not seem to know the difference. He does everything with his heart, beating and passionate, fast and terrifying.
N has won five times since meeting him in the lounge of a rundown Pokemon center on the outskirts of Icirrus city. The nurse there is tired and old; the chairs creak; water damage stains the ceiling. The center is out of date and forgotten in the presence of the newer center in the middle of town, but remains open due to the public funds channeled into it. N, though he seems to hold a certain distaste for Pokemon centers (something about 'enabling trainers to further harm Pokemon by allowing them to be given back to their abusers'), appears rather fond of the place, perhaps for its seclusion.
As N draws forth a knight from his ranks, he asks Touya a question, the first time he's spoken in the last hour, "Would you ever consider joining me, Touya?"
Touya is thoughtful enough to pause in consideration, before slipping his bishop into the path of an errant rook, "No."
N swiftly captures his exposed bishop, tilting it over with a kind of contained glee that shifts in the air and coats Touya's mind with an unpleasant feeling of unease.
"I wish things could be different," N says.
"You…wish for a lot of things," Touya replies.
A wrinkle skitters across N's forehead, before he smooths it out with an indulgent smile, "Don't be that way, Touya."
What way, he wants to ask. What way? How does N see him, the boy sitting at a rickety table, jacket zipped up in light of a broken heater and face smudged with dirt? Touya is Touya, and that's all he's ever been. All he's ever wanted to be.
He returns with the emergence of a rook to defend his king.
"I've often wondered about the significance of the king's chess piece in reference to the other pieces. Funny how the bishop and the queen and the rook hold all the mobility, yet he is key to success and disaster; a measly little figure, only slightly more powerful than a pawn.
"Kings hold a great deal more significance and power than that, wouldn't you say? Touya?" The way his voice lilts, the glint in his eyes. Touya shudders and does not respond.
"It doesn't matter. Chess is a game that's been heavily altered over generations and centuries. The meaning of the pieces is lost, the true rules and powers tainted. I wouldn't call it diluted, but it certainly has quite a bit of difference from the original," N easily swipes away the existence of a meddling pawn in his direct line of attack to Touya's king.
"Check," he gloats, before Touya wipes out his threatening queen with his forgotten rook. N's eyes widen slightly, smirk growing. "You've gotten a bit better."
Touya nods, "Chess…doesn't really…suit me."
N hums once more, considering his pieces, "What piece would you say represents you? I've seen some interpretations of chess pieces into pokemon and political figures and the like. The pokemon are always the pawns, wouldn't you know it?"
There is a frost on his voice, and Touya blocks it out.
"I…don't know."
The other chuckles, "If I were to categorize the powers on the board, I'd say that Alder would definitely be King. The rooks and bishops would be the Elite Four. The pawns are the gym leaders. But what of the knights and queen?"
He raises his knight appraisingly, its white surface gleaming in the flicker of the old halogen lights, "They always come out at unexpected angles. It's vexing for those who can't track their movement pattern. Trainers, I suppose. Then again, if we were to shift the perspective a bit, we could say that the pawns are actually trainers. The rooks, gym leaders. The knights, the Elite Four. The bishops, Pokemon professors. The Champion is the queen.
"And you're the king, Touya," N whispers.
And Touya can hear it, the unsaid words. You are the king, and I will destroy you.
The others don't matter, is what N means to say. Only you.
He doesn't understand. He knows what N is saying, but not why. What has he ever done to him? Why did the N in front of him seem like some sick caricature of the man he knew previously, who spoke kindly and thoughtfully?
"Poison," the word slips out, barely audible. Touya can't bring himself to raise his eyes from the board, to look N squarely in face and ask him, "Who are you? What have you done with him?"
This is a war, and he has chosen the opposing side. He has fallen from the neutral presence of before, only to somehow become the laggard player in an endgame run, the king chained to his throne.
"Did you say something?" N asks cheerily, sliding his bishop along the board, tracing the black squares in their path to Touya's knight. It falls with a resolute clack, glass tinkling against the board. As Touya goes to lift the piece from the board, its tiny, intricate head falls of.
N doesn't notice. Touya quickly hides the head in his hand, holding back a hiss as a jagged cut etches itself into his finger pad. He can't show weakness, must never show weakness.
"I like it this way," N professes. "The world is easy on a board such as this. White and black, separated into their own worlds, no overlap, no run. This is the way the world should be; a perfect pattern of black and white."
"I…," and at his words, N leans over, attentive and happy. His gaze is clear, almost feverish in its intensity, and he knows that they are a stranger's eyes.
And as he watches his reflection in that perfect shade of jade green, Touya cannot help but feel infinitely alone.
He has been left behind.
"I think…a world like that…," each slow and measured word is a count of his fallen pieces, the bodies stacking up one by one. "…I would wish that I had never existed…in such a place."
What if they were real people?
Touko and Cheren and Bianca. Professor Juniper and Fennel. Cilan and his brothers, Lenora, Burgh. Elesa and Clay and Skyla. Every person he has yet to meet, but knows he will.
Would they all become casualties of N's war, his crusade?
Would he be the last to fall, or merely the first?
Touya considers his players. His pawns, scattered helter-skelter across the board, his queen, about to be taken by N's knight, his bishop and rook, flagging the king. To protect him, to keep him safe.
The king in a game of chess is a useless figure, only able to move one square in any direction. He needs constant protection and advisement to remain safe, and a great many sacrifices to maintain on the board.
In the times of kings and queens and wars, is such a predicament plausible?
Touya slides his last knight forward and to the right. N merely keeps looking at him and takes his queen. But instead of letting the delicate figure clatter to the board, he picks it up gently in his palm, holding it up to the light.
"Don't be that way, Touya."
Then he lets it go, to shatter on the floor in a million dashed pieces that crunch under Touya's shoes, like stars, like tears.
He meekly pushes his rook away from his king, to snag the offending knight. N smirks and nestles his pawn into a white eighth row square in Touya's field.
"The pawn is promoted to a queen. The queen will advance to your king, who is blocked on the side by a bishop, and cannot move diagonally to the left because of your rook. If you move the piece forward, I'll snag you with a measly pawn, if you move it diagonally to the right, I'll have you with my bishop. Since you are on the eighth row, you cannot move backwards. You can only move to the left, and that is merely bringing you closer to my queen. And you cannot move any of your other pieces without me just capturing your king with my queen anyway.
"I believe this could be a checkmate."
N smiles, like a snake, like a knife.
There is a line between games and wars, Touya thinks, and N does not know the difference.
Touya looks at the board. It is filled with black and white squares, and errant pieces moving about as small, immortal soldiers. Each move is defined, each action is assured. Every plan comes to fruition no matter the consequences and bearings of reality.
His pieces stack like dead bodies on the side.
Touya gazes at each and every one (What if we are real people? Will you save us?), then back at his board. To his king, his rook, his bishop, his three pawns.
To his knight.
"N…do you still see it? That future…the one you believe… will turn gray…to black and white?"
The other tilts his head, the brim of his cap casting shadows over bright eyes.
"See it?" he asks, hand over his heart. "I can taste it."
Touya nods.
"I wish…that things…didn't have to be this way. Sometimes," and here, his breath hitches. There are a thousand things he wishes he could say. But he is not one for words. N speaks, and Touya listens, and that is how it's always been, and that is how it should always be.
But no. In a world of war, with pieces separated into allotted squares, stark and unbending in their drawn boarders, it cannot be.
Thin lines might as well be infinite chasms between them. He can no longer see N.
He draws in another breath to steady his voice. He is afraid and alone in the presence of this coiling monster in front of him, who preaches dreams and sets forth to bring about nightmares. He sighs, "Sometimes…I feel as though…you see me…as an enemy. Like I need to be wiped from the board."
N frowns and reaches out, his hand cupping the other's cheek, "What do you mean? I don't understand. We're friends, right?"
Touya purses his lips, a frown pulling at the edges.
"I don't know."
He pulls away from N's hold and looks once more at the board. With a decisive nod, he grips his knight, so far away on N's side of the board. It is hard and unrelenting, the glass beneath his fingers. It's painful before he realizes his still bleeding cut is smearing beads of red across the shiny black surface of the glass.
And Touya thinks that means something, but he doesn't wish to think anymore. He wants to curl up in himself and sleep away a century, to think not of futures cast in stark monochrome, of kings and queens and green monsters.
His knight neatly sweeps away N's king.
"I really…hate it. Chess…just doesn't seem to suit me."
Touya stands and gathers his bags.
N can only stare.
Theirs is not a normal relationship. It twists and writhes, a creature that does not know its own self. Friend or foe, ally or enemy; there is no difference to it. There is the meek, and there is the strong, and it is only a matter of time before it swallows itself whole in its agonizing want of truth and ideals.
Touya makes to leave N and his chessboard, frozen in the quiet flicker of halogen and peeling paint. It really is amazing how something so trivial as an oversight in Touya's ranks could foil his perfect endgame. It makes N shiver and want to gasp, that deep, dark feeling in his chest beating like a drum.
"Oh," Touya says as he stops at the smudged glass doors, outline highlighted by the ambiance of a cool autumn afternoon. "I think…that I'm not a king. If anything…I'd say…
"I'm a knight."
This is war. The movement of pieces, the setting of goals. Dead bodies to the side. Protect, betray, balance, sacrifice.
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
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end
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Sooo…;-; Long author's note will be long. Sorry. But it is chockfull of explanations!
First, I'd like to thank the people that read and reviewed my one-shot, "Words That We Couldn't Say." I wish I could reply to the anonymous reviews, but oh well.
That being said, all those beautiful reviews bolstered my confidence, so when I received inspiration after having read about the history of chess pieces and looking at a fanart on Pixiv of Touya and N playing chess with pieces shaped like characters from the game, I couldn't stop myself from making this…uh…this piece of shit, really.
Anyway, I'm sure that every single thing in here is wrong. I am not good at chess. I only have a rudimentary understanding of the rules, so please forgive me for the butchering and vagueness of it all. It's a good question, though. Why is the king so weak? Chess originated in India, and the king references a wise old leader, not a warrior. The queen has been corrupted by Europeans. Originally, it was the king's advisor, but due to the Europeans seeing that the piece stood next to the king, they assumed it was the queen. It makes sense, because the advisor supports the king and helps him make decisions. A pretty powerful position, if you ask me. There have been other distortions, but strangely enough, knights have remained basically the same in their role since chess' inception. They are warriors, and that's all they've ever been known as.
ALSO, BAD TOUYA. IT'S EXTREMELY POOR MANNERS TO NOT TELL SOMEONE WHEN THEY'RE IN CHECK.
If people are confused as to the timeline of this story, this would take place when the main character first arrives in Icirrus City, before facing Brycen. This is also based off of the universe of "Words That We Couldn't Say." So Touya knows N is going after the legendary dragon, but he doesn't realize that shit is gonna go down at Dragonspiral Tower, and that N is going to challenge him to be the other hero. For him, N has just become strangely obsessed and almost manic. I mean seriously, who else got manic vibes from N when he finally got his hands on Reshiram/Zekrom? And have you seen the official art of N receiving Reshiram in the Dragonspiral Tower? He looks crazed. So it's my head canon that at this point in time, N is kinda going off the obsessive deep end.
By the way, I got Pokemon Black for Christmas! Not only can I now receive perverse pleasure in trading with myself and finally being able to get some pokemon in White Forest (once I reach Black City, though…ugh, so far away!), but I'm getting an awesome review of the game. It reeeeeally makes me want to do a game novelization.
What would you readers think about me writing a game novelization? Please tell me! And thanks for reading, if you've gotten this far. :) I'm sorry this is so confusing, but I hope it was okay!