Rehoboam is no chess prodigy, merely a lucky player whose occasional games of strategy against disinterested brothers and too-busy parents had granted him only a smattering of skill to leverage against the beast before him. It would not matter if he focused on the game itself - on the giving and taking of pawns and knights and bishops - he would lose anyway. But it wasn't about winning, not yet.

First, it was about knowing how to lose. Rehoboam had watched his father win and lose games of skill in equal measure throughout his childhood. Had seen how he handled his emotions before and after, and tempered both until they blended smoothly together. What he had learned was that of the two, losing was harder, and how you lost would color their impression of how you won. It did not matter if Rehoboam lost now. He wasn't trying to win yet.

He wanted to understand first.

Mostly, he wanted to understand himself. He felt… different from his siblings in the Cove. Not in a way that made him feel special or more or better than them, but in a way that made him feel separate somehow. As if they all lived in a different reality from the world in which he walked, one where things like amassing huge herds and being well known were important, rather than trivial. He also wanted to understand the other horses that he spoke to. The ones that just might share in his own understanding of the world. Ones who maybe, someday, would help him understand himself and how he fit in the grand scheme of the world.

He had no idea if Kingbreaker did or did not. So far, the monochrome stallion had managed to subvert every single assumption that Rehoboam had made without ever appearing to try and do so. Keeping up with him was a bit like running a marathon backward while being pursued by wolves. Each step could be his last, and yet what choice did he have but to keep stepping?

I love you, he confirms again, and Rehoboam nods fractionally, the movement accentuating the small wrinkles of concern cobwebbed across his seal-silver brow. He didn't understand how the man could possibly love him, but he had no way of disproving it either. It wasn't as if the boy had much experience with the emotion - giving or receiving - and if he were entirely honest, he could not yet determine if denying the beast's affections would put him in more or less danger. Baiting him with proximity and proffered nicknames seemed risky enough without adding further complication.

Silently, Rehoboam listened as his companion began to speak again. His words seem to be equal parts ransom note and love letter, and in them, Rehoboam reads the warning that lurks beneath the proffered promise. He wonders briefly (trying not to linger on the thought, not now, not in front of him) how it was possible for someone to love him at first sight, but not after delivering him into this world.

There is only the Kingbreaker. His statement leaves Rehoboam's soft mouth twisting in a frown. It lasts only a moment, flickering to life in the same moment that it dies. It sounds like less of a name and more of a title, like Boss, or King, or Marauder, and this insight, when paired with the metaphorical distance in his voice, gives rise to a question that trips out of his mouth. "Should I call you something else?"

Another move made, and moving his hand back away from the pawn, those dark brown eyes upturn to meet the Kingbreaker's again.