The white queen was placed in position.

"Check."

"It is a rather disappointing ending, don't you think?"

A black knight parrys, defending his king.

"In what way?"

The white bishop is drawn across the board.

"A man evolves from predator to dark warrior, rises for the child he saved from the monsters, only for her to die at his feet. Upon her death he ascends a throne, fulfills a prophecy whispered in the ears by believers of the old ones, becomes god king of the dead. And then.."

The black king retreats, the white threat from the bishop predicted, falling to the safety behind a nest of unmoved pawns.

"He is tricked back into the light, the dust, and forgets about the little girl, who grew to be the women, and goes on to... no no I don't like it, there must be more to the story."

The white queen is repositioned.

"Hmm, why should there be?"

"Why? Because it's dissatisfying. It's woefully disappointing and more importantly it's a waste."

"A waste?"

"Yes a waste, they are a lifetime of carefully woven interactions, he's born of the dark both metaphorically and true, raised in the black, whose weakness is the light, the sun, saves a priest of life and light, bringing him to a world of light and sun, with a female child, a giver of life and taker of it, who bled and then bled for him. The opportunities there, the ironies that could be born..."

"How would you end it?"

"I would not have."

"You would not?"

"Well not where it did."

"Then do tell, how would you have woven this great heroic tale."

He laughs.

"Oh he is no hero. Just because his actions were heroic, I am clear in the view that it was only the lack of opportunity that kept him so."

"Again, do tell how you would have altered the outcome"

"The girl, the woman"

"Which one? You forgot, there were many characters in this story."

"Yes, yes I don't forget, well crafted lots of characters, yes all with clear back stories that were given plenty of focus.." He waves dismissively.

"Would you have him take her from across the gate, bring her dead to the living?" She interrupts. "Rescue her from the dead, from the darkness again?"

"No, I think a few have already explored that path rather well."

"How about if the armies of necromonger had never arrived? Were they swayed to other worlds or not to feature in these characters' journeys at all?"

"Again that's been explored, written and elaborated."

The chess game was at a pause. Pieces had remained stoic, unmoved for sometime now. Worlds remained unborn and outcomes undecided.

"So again I ask, how would you have end it? You know just as well as I, that fates are not defined the way they once were. If you wish to lean on their journeys and lead these characters down to a different end then do so." She raises her fingers towards the queen but pauses. "I no longer desire to craft endings for others. Let the imaginations of mortals fuel their own heroics and sufferings."

"So, I am free to intervene?"

He questions a glint of mischief in cold malice eyes.

"I stand not in front of whatever you intend."

"A happy tale or a tale of woe?"

She laughs. Her eyes match his, a dark sadistic grin across a monstrous face.

"Oh never one of happiness, where is the pleasure in that."