Author's Note: Okay, so I didn't manage to get this chapter out this morning, but it can't be helped (not when I slept 10 hours last night and so badly needed it), so it's out now (not that I expect many people to read this story anyway, but whatever. I write for myself and other people happen to take a liking to some of the things I write; that's how it works).

King of Spades

Arthur really hated it when the Kings died. It was bad enough when he was first whisked away from his comfortable life with his modest silk-making business that he managed with his wife, Elizabeth, and into the position of Queen of Spades without the foggiest idea of what he'd done to deserve such a punishment. Okay, it wasn't that quick; there was that whole whirlwind of a voting process thing that had happened far too quickly for him to get a grasp on what the bloody hell was going on until too late! He was Queen! He (and his wife by extension) had to completely adjust to a new way of life and remember important (actually remember who was important) peoples' bloody names (and not just calling them all twats, frogs, prats, and wankers in his head). And then by the time he'd finally gotten used to being Queen of the Kingdom and what all the different monarchs of the other three kingdoms were like… the Diamond King had to go and die on him and was replaced with the most insufferable, irritating, flirtatious frog of a man he'd ever met!

Arthur wasn't quite sure what he did to catch that man's eye, but he seemed to pop out of nowhere at the most inappropriate times whenever he had to go to the Diamond Kingdom (or when the Diamonds had to come to the Spade Kingdom) and say about twenty different things filled with enough innuendo to make even a satyr blush. It didn't even seem to matter to that depraved man that he was married and also had a son the same age as his own! It had felt like eternity to Arthur (it had only been a month, but screw reality!) before the frequency of these attacks finally leveled off to a reasonable level, but he had been severely tempted into seeing if his big magic clock thing could make the man regress in age or size (he didn't even know if the clock could do that, but it was a nice thought when he was frazzled out of his wits) to something less annoying… like a speck of dust… But knowing his luck, that speck would just fly right up his nose and do who-knew-what to his throat and lungs (with the frog though, he didn't actually want to know what the man would do if he was a dust speck).

The second King that had been replaced while he was in his office as Queen was the King of Hearts. Now that guy hadn't actually died, but becoming a Joker was pretty much the same thing, since a new king still had to be elected. Like the other Card monarchs though, he was absolutely shocked that the Heart King's successor was not only from the same House of Rhineland as the previous king, but was the man's youngest half-brother, just barely an adult and the youngest King of any of the four Card Kingdoms. He'd have thought that none of the Electors would want another Rhineland as King after the last one had become a Joker, the most shameful thing that could happen to a man, but apparently, the kid had really been advocating for the position, acting as a sort-of Regent King until the next one was chosen and doing everything he could to keep the country's government running smoothly.

It seemed to convince the Electors that he was not only worthy, but nothing like his fiery older brother in terms of temperament, but Arthur was concerned. He hoped that King Ludwig hadn't started a precedent with his month-long tenure as Regent King before becoming the King of Hearts. It was absolutely critical that the position of King not be passed down through the family lines, or else concentrated power could lead to corruption of the government via absolute rule under a single authority figure, hence why they had their current system. The Card Kingdoms had already seen a violent and bloody history of what happens when one person wields ultimate authority, and though that was hundreds of years ago, Arthur had no desire to see a repeat of those days if the literature written back then was anything like what really happened (and there were so many accounts of such throughout all four kingdoms that Arthur really couldn't see any way to deny it).

But the point was (yes, he did have a point, thank you very much) that it always sucked when the King died because it was like they did it just to spite him and make his life difficult, and it was even worse with his own King. He'd gotten along very well with the elderly King Anglosaxon (who was consequently the last of the House of Goth), like he was a father to him, and even his own son, Peter, had called the man his grandpapa. But then the idiot had to go and die on him after Arthur had only been in office for ten years and that just wasn't fair! Alcohol would have been his best friend ever except that it would make him feel even worse than before he'd start drinking it, so it was his worst enemy in existence… but only second to the Frog King!

So that meant that all the Heads of the noble families of Spade, the Electors as they were called, had to decide and vote for who would become the next King of Spades, someone from any of the Card Kingdom noble families who was a Spadian citizen, over the course of the month following their king's death and Arthur hated it because his work was double what it normally was because he and the Jack had to fill in for the King in the meantime. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have complained seeing as he wasn't the only one suffering under the extra workload. The Jack of Spades and Head of the House of Yangtze, Yao, actually had to do more than most Jacks under these kind of circumstances because not only did he have his normal Jack duties to attend to as well as his half of the absent-King's work, but since he was the Elector of the Spadian Yangtze family, he also had to vote for who would become the next King of Spades. Arthur didn't envy the man at all and was rather glad that he was the Queen and not the Jack, which was proof enough that he'd never once held a noble title in his life… but that didn't mean he wasn't going to complain about his own workload to his wife. Granted, if he wanted any sympathy from the woman, he had to make sure not to drink because his Bess couldn't stand him when he got completely wasted; something to do with him being a whiney bitch and setting a bad example for Peter. But for all his moaning, he really just prayed that everything would go smoothly.

God must hate him.

"What?! What do you mean, the votes were tied?!" a very angry Arthur demanded of the Jack of Spades.

"Exactly what I just said, you half-wit!" Yao yelled back at him, but at least he had a more legit excuse, unlike Arthur; this past month had been a living Hell for him with his duties tripled simply because the King had to go and kick the bucket. "The votes were evenly-split, which means it's up to you to pick who's going to be the next King!"

"But this…! This just doesn't happen!" Arthur protested vehemently.

"It does happen or else there wouldn't have been a provision for it described in the duties of the Queen," Yao retorted as he shoved a copy of The Queen's Book into his hands with a look that said he felt that in Arthur's case, it'd be more appropriately called The Idiot's Guide to Being a Good Queen, and strode away, probably to catch up on his lack of sleep from the past month.

Arthur glared at the book's golden-printed title for a long moment as if it had personally-offended him before he opened the book to the chapter on the formation of a new Tripartite, flipping to the section regarding the Queen's responsibilities when the Tripartite had lost their king. And right there, written in bold italic lettering, almost as if it was glaring back at him, he saw the following words written for the last paragraph under the voting procedure:

"In the rare event that the Electors are evenly split between more than two candidates for Kingship, it behooves the Queen to ask all candidates involved if they still wish to continue to pursue the office of King. If at least one declines, then the voting procedure is re-run for a week between the remaining candidates. In the case of the tie being between two individuals or if all participating members wish to continue, then it is the Queen's responsibility to choose who shall be the next King among all the candidates on the basis of merit alone, so that there is no bias towards individual temperaments and mannerisms or physical attraction."

As Arthur had previously pointed out, God must hate him. Of course it would be during his reign as Queen that the Electors had to come to a sharply-defined split over who they wanted as King. It was times like this when he really hated the aristocracy. Was it really so hard to come to even a marginal agreement over who should be placed upon the throne? Now because of those pricks, it was his bloody responsibility to pick the next King. Arthur let out a sigh and closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. Well, it really couldn't be helped at this point. The Electors had decided, so there was nothing to be done now, but carry on and do his best for the Kingdom, as he'd always done. He didn't even know how many candidates the Electors were divided over; perhaps it was three and one or two of them would quit. It was a lovely thought to entertain, but again, it was sadly unlikely with the way things had been going as of late. "Keep calm, carry on"; that was his motto, even if he didn't actually follow it a good bit of the time.

Arthur retreated to his office space and was not surprised to see the blue folder with the Royal Spade emblem emblazoned upon the front. He presumed that Yao had left it there for him before he'd informed him that he had to pick the King. Resigned to the task, Arthur set himself down at the desk and opened the folder and found that there were only two portfolios present.

"Of course," he murmured to himself, somehow knowing that would happen and picked up the first one.

The file didn't even have a name or what family the individual was from, which made sense if the whole point of this Queen-picks-the-King thing was to avoid bias. But File A was a description of a rather ambitious and worldly character. The person was an explorer and had served some time on the seas as a navigator for the Club Kingdom. He was also a fair hand at getting bargain deals for commodities, an expert salesman, and had even tutored a fair number of children of noble families across the Kingdoms. Arthur felt that this person had a pretty strong profile and was sincerely impressed, but reserved his judgment until he read File B.

At first glance, File B's profile seemed rather dull in comparison to File A's, and if Arthur didn't know better, he'd have thought that somebody switched a nobleman's profile for a commoner's. He'd only traveled to another kingdom one time in his life and his accomplishments were rather mundane in comparison. Oh sure, they were important, such as helping with the construction of a dam along the Mishampie River and building back the homes of those that'd been washed out in the flood two years ago, and even personally setting out in a wagon full of grain bought from the Diamond Kingdom at the end of the past summer to make sure that everyone had enough grain because their harvest had been so exceptionally poor last year. Yes, they were all important accomplishments, but they weren't nearly as exciting as those of File A's and Arthur was more than halfway ready to pen his signature onto the top of File A's.

His quill was poised just above the paper when he paused and retracted his hand slightly, thinking very fast. What was he doing? He wasn't picking his favorite book, he was picking the future King of Spades! He shouldn't be thinking about which one was more interesting, but which one was the most likely to be the greatest benefit to the kingdom! Arthur quickly set the quill back down and scanned through the two portfolios again. File A was still more intriguing and exotic than File B's, that hadn't changed, but… the accomplishments were mostly self-serving and the fact that he traveled much meant that even though he was a citizen of the Spade Kingdom, he didn't really know that much about what was going on at home. With the other one however; his accomplishments were almost-entirely altruistic and based largely upon his success in helping people out, even if it might have been at expense to himself because he couldn't imagine all that grain bought from the Diamonds was cheap! Their prices were always so high, but unfortunately, the grain was always top quality and worth the price paid, which sucked because then he couldn't criticize the Diamond Kingdom for overpricing and be justified in his claim. But this kid – he was almost sure this was a kid – definitely wasn't clueless about the hardships in the kingdom and seemed to be doing whatever he could to ameliorate them as well. Arthur had to admit that it was… quite admirable. That somebody so genuinely good and well-meaning actually existed in the world was just… well, really, it made even a born cynic like Arthur have a little more faith in the future and humanity.

Without another moment's hesitation, he penned his signature in the standard royal blue ink of the Spades at the top of File B.

Man, I love writing Britain; I should do so more often! He's such a hypocritical prick and that's just the way I like him! Also, I decided that for this AU, yes, there will be historical people showing up, because frankly, the four kingdoms have to be composed of more people than there are countries available (that have a character design), so the Elizabeth that I'm having be Britain's wife is none other than Queen Elizabeth I. (What? She claimed she was married to England. You don't get more canon than that!)

I based the system of choosing the Card Kings upon the way that the Holy Roman Emperors were voted (lol, I even called the ones with the authority to vote 'Electors' :P) Eh, this little tidbit isn't really all that important, but the person that tied with America for King of Spades was Portugal (which I'm running with as being a guy and Spain's older brother, so yeah).

Lol, I fail. This chapter is about the Kings come into power and yet the actual chosen King of Spades doesn't even show up in this chapter. I was originally going to, but then once I wrote down that last sentence, it just felt like such a good closure and anything added on to that would just be dragging, so yeah. Also, I hope I was able to get it across at least a little bit, but America isn't his normal, modernly-obnoxious self yet. Right now, America's more along the lines of how he was in his colonial days (which is admittedly my favorite kind of America before he became a pain in the ass). Unfortunately, I don't think America will keep that personality after his Kingship even in my take on the Cardverse, no matter how much I want it to, because he at least had some sense of humbleness to him back then. T_T