He is not certain he is wise enough to truly discern the difference between a sure victory and a well-played bluff, and so he hesitates still, saying nothing as the creature of ash and charcoal bows his head in benediction. He stays quiet and still, eyes still studying the chessboard for evidence of his next move. It seemed impossible that he might emerge victorious in this game he had not been prepared to play, and so he distrusted the possibility, more comfortable with the thought of failure.
Ask of you... The words reverberated in the narrow space that separated them; it lacked the thunder of Rehoboam's name, but was no less important to the young painted stallion. It had seemed like the right thing to ask, although he could not have said why the words seemed appropriate to the moment. Only that they had.
I wonder, what I should ask of you. There is no question in his statement, despite the arrangement of the words themselves and he hesitates, breath held, for the inevitable blow that is to come. A hasty scan of his face - all thin skin over strong bone, lashes caging eyes that gleamed too brightly with emotions the amateur could not hope to read, the throb of a heartbeat or the working of a clenched jaw just there, above his temple - reveals nothing and everything at once. Rehoboam still does not see the checkmate that must surely be coming and so his own pale throat tightens as he swallows, charcoal nostrils flaring ever so slightly.
Stay. Of all the things that the erstwhile young stallion might have expected, a command to do the very thing he had intended to do from the beginning had not been among the list. He was yet unfamiliar with the structure of the Lagoon, unaware that his dark villain-turned-companion was not a leader of the men Rehoboam had been taught to fear from his earliest days on the islands. The Kingbreaker carried himself with the confidence that Reh had grown to associate with those in power and had not hesitated to arrest him on his journey inland, to the heart of this swampy wasteland.
The breath he'd held plumed before them, invisible in the humid air but still warm in the confined space between them, and the furrows that had wrinkled his brow for much of their conversation returned. As if the imposing command had not been enough for him to process, the Kingbreaker took a razor's edge and traced it along his features with the reminder of who he was: the unwanted son, the abandoned child, the orphan.
Rehoboam had been right to fear the checkmate, for it came in the way the massive creature sidled forward, his fetid breath molten against the pale swath of ivory. He counted the seconds that stretched between each gust of warmth against muscles held bunched and quivering, black-rimmed ears tilted just so to catch the hungry promise written in the viscosity of the Kingbreaker's speech.
Where I may find you again... The words might as well have been etched into Rehoboam's skin, stitched into the lines where silver and white met, as neatly patching his visible opposites as he had the two halves of Rehoboam's past and future.
Somedays in the future, when his apathy toward these men and their lethargy threatened to send him spiraling off into the void, this promise would keep him here.
Still, despite all of his preparation and dread, despite his absolute certainty that defeat was coming in a way he simply couldn't decipher, it was not the checkmate he expected. For when his pale throat constricted in a nervous swallow some time later, still tense in expectation of the blow that was sure to follow, it was not his King that the Kingmaker toppled to the board. Instead, the silver Queen piece rolled gracelessly toward him, tipped by the grey's hand in a final show of defeat.
Surprise escapes the slender tobiano in a soft pant and he cannot resist craning his dark face ever so subtly to look toward his companion, certain he had misunderstood the play of power. Otherwise motionless, Rehoboam watched the monster he so loved and feared step away from him to peer skyward and contemplated their conversation thus far. He had more questions now than he had when the Kingbreaker had answered his summons not so many minutes ago.
The tobiano turned, pivoting on one delicate pale hoof to face the same direction as the soot-dappled stallion, still not convinced that there wasn't some secret play he'd never heard of, some rule so rarely used it had become the sort of thing that was oft-overlooked by novice players like himself.
What then, my love... the monster murmured, his tone laden with meaning that Rehoboam had not yet discovered.
...would you ask of me? What, indeed.
An instinctive answer rose almost immediately, although he caged it behind lips that tightened with doubt. What did one ask for, in such a situation? Kingbreaker could not be so easily classified. He was no longer a stranger to Rehoboam, despite all of the unknowns that yet lay between them; nor was he familiar enough that the tobiano could comfortably call him friend. He was no confidant, nor protector, nor even enemy, even with the threat that came inherent in his demeanor. For the largely inexperienced new arrival, the Kingbreaker was a little bit of all of them. Friend. Foe. Even lover, if his words were to be believed.
Eventually, for lack of a better alternative, Rehoboam answers with the first thing that had rose to mind, his voice growing less hesitant with each syllable.
"I have your love, as you say." An emotion that Rehoboam cannot name, even for himself, crept into the words that he spoke. It lingered somewhere between longing for the mother that had abandoned him and ended somewhere closer to the resolute acceptance he had learned to embody.
"What more can someone truly ask of another?"
And then, perhaps because he has grown bolder because of his win, or perhaps he has simply grown used to the danger of their conversation, he offers something else with confidence he most certainly had not earned.
"Besides," a flicker of a smile,
"you said you'd visit."