A bright sun rose over rolling green hills. The air bit sharp and cool. Ash and cedar trees rustled from the touch of autumn wind, sending orange and yellow leaves sailing across glades of grass and great grey slabs of stone. The wagon rolled on down a muddy trail winding through the country next to a small singing brook. Salmaer tugged on the reigns, humming merrily to no one in particular. Noel slumped in the passenger’s seat, fast asleep.

Croix grumbled against the wheat bundles in the back of the cart. A bit of it poked him in the ribs, so he hissed. He cursed it silently, brought up his scarf, and tugged it tighter to his shoulders. Then he decided the position was uncomfortable and shifted. His hands were too cold, so he breathed through his mittens into them. His forehead itched, so he scratched it. One irritation after the next manifested all around him, until finally he accepted the horrible truth: nothing was wrong, he was just mind-numbingly bored.

Croix relented. He reached across the back of the wagon and began to rummage through his pack. The rustling shook Ellis awake. She took a deep breath, stretched, and rubbed her blind eyes.

“My Lord Brother,” she mumbled. “Do you think perhaps I might convince you to move only a bit more? It is doing wonders for my comfort while sleeping.”

Croix shook his head and smiled

“Come, sister,” he whispered. “If you were sleeping, it’s only to keep from tearing out your own hair. Travel is turning out to be abysmally dull.”

He watched Ellissandra try her best not to smile. She failed, but it was a valiant effort.

Ellis leaned in and cupped a hand to her brother’s ear.

“I was halfway to kicking a box out of the wagon just for a bit of excitement,” she confessed.

“Well I’m glad you needn’t resort to misbehaving for entertainment,” Croix said. He pulled a small box and a wooden board from the bag, placing both on his sister’s lap. Her fingers scanned them, and her face lit up.

“Our chess board,” she smiled.

“The very same,” Croix said. “And while I know our benefactor asked us not to bring anything unnecessary, I thought perhaps we might have one indulgence. Would you like to play?”

“I think nothing should make me happier,” Ellis said. She set down the board on the floor of the cart, and Croix handed her a few pawns. Piece by piece they set the board. Then the two began to play.

Several minutes passed.

Croix took great delight in his sister’s furrowed brow and intense expression. He watched her reach to move a piece, hesitate, run her fingers over the board again, and set her hand on her chin. Finally she lifted a rook.

“Ah, King’s Ally,” Salmaer’s voice came.

Now, the merchant did not have a strong or booming voice, but as it happened to be the only thing aside from distant running water and chirping birds this autumn afternoon, it shocked Ellis all the same. She dropped the rook and it knocked over one or two pieces, and her very next action was to adamantly refrain from saying or thinking anything unladylike. Instead she took a calm, collected breath to still her racing heart.

Croix on the other hand, having the gift of sight, was less surprised and simply looked up.

“It’s been many years since I’ve played,” Salmaer continued, absent to any thought of intrusion. “What a wonderful game! Chess, I think you call it here?”

He smiled kindly and waited for acknowledgement.

Croix would have said something, if only to be polite. But as he saw the merchant’s question had been directed towards his sister, he chose to keep quiet and fix the toppled chess board. When he finished, he announced it. Then Ellis reached forward to scan it gently before forgetting the rook and moving a pawn up two spaces.

“Miss Weisst?” Salmaer called.

“Hmm?” Ellis said absently, then remembered her manners. “Oh, yes, we do.”

She moved a bishop and took a pawn.

“And have you been playing very long?” Salmaer asked.

Ellis took a deep breath and remembered that not everyone in the world had the sense to know when they were interrupting something.

“I have,” she said, and continued to play.

“And to which piece do you find yourself most partial? I prefer the argus, myself. The only piece that can capture a queen without risk, you know!”

“Indeed?” Ellis mumbled, then scoffed as Croix took the rook she’d forgotten.

“Quite assuredly, miss Weisst. Why, you’d be hard pressed to find a single piece with more worth, save the queen herself. Do be certain to save at least one in all cases!”

The merchant waited for the conversation to continue, looking down towards the siblings with an energetic smile. After a few seconds passed without reply, he called for Ellis again.

“Yes? What is it?” she whirled around abruptly. “Would you like to play? I see no harm in switching places for a game or two. I am quite certain I can steer the horses.”

By this she meant; I am trying to think and stop bothering me.

Croix watched the merchant recoil. He thought to himself, very silently and very deep down, that it was satisfying to find something able to silence the man, if only for a moment. But as Salmaer’s shocked expression seemed frozen in place, and Ellis turned back immediately to run her hands across the pieces, Croix relented with a small chuckle and decided to spare him.

“You’d best let her be, Lord Salmaer,” he said, moving up a pawn to take Ellis’s knight. As he called out his move, Ellis squeaked. “Everything sweet about my sister vanishes when she plays chess.”

“Croix, you stop with such nonsense this instant,” Ellis snapped. With that she brazenly pushed her rook forward on Croix’s, leaving her queen open.

An irritated groan joined the conversation.

“How can three people be so noisy?” Noel grumbled. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stretched her hands above her head.

“How indeed,” Ellis muttered.

Noel turned to glare back into the cart, but paused. Her eyes fell on the chess board, and interest overtook annoyance.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Ellis heaved a heavy sigh.

“It’s chess,” Croix answered, happy and more than half surprised she didn’t chastise him for bringing something unnecessary.

“Oh,” was her reply. 

Then Noel Garlant proceeded to climb over the boxes and under the canvass cover into the back of the cart. She plopped down between the siblings, studying the board as Croix and Ellis moved their pieces.

“How does it work?” she asked.

“Each player has a king,” Croix said. “If you capture it, you win. All the pieces move in different ways.”

“What does this one do?” Noel asked, and reached for a black knight on Ellis’s side.

Ellis swatted Noel’s wrist with supernatural precision.

“Do not touch the pieces,” she ordered. “We are in the middle of a game.”

Noel’s back arched.

Croix felt a chill.

“Don’t you hit me!” Noel sneered, raising her hand for a retaliation swat.

Croix, lacking better alternatives, stepped in. He took Noel’s wrist and mouthed a silent ‘sorry’, ignoring her immediate death-glare and inviting her to sit next to him instead.

Ellis, unaware of her good fortune, quipped back.

“Then try not to be rude,” she said.

Noel whirled back towards her. 

“How do you even play?” she asked. “You’re blind.”

Ellis took one abnormally long, deep breath in through her nose.

Croix noticed, and switched places with Noel.

“The black pieces have pegs on their heads so you can tell them from the white,” he said, moving around and putting an arm around his sister to stop whatever maelstrom she had brewing. “The black squares on the board are raised up just a bit. Each piece has a peg on the bottom that secures it to the board, that way Ellis can scan the pieces without moving them. When we move, we have to announce it.”

“Therefore,” Ellis declared, fidgeting out of her brother’s grip. “It is a simple matter to play, whether one has sight or not. Chess is a delicate matter of anticipation and strategy, not vision. I am certain I could beat you with my eyes closed.”

Croix turned to his sister. “That’s a bad joke, Ellissandra.”

Noel, however, did not find it amusing and immediately took Croix’s place on the other side of the board.

“I bet you can’t,” she said, reaching forward and snatching all the white pieces. “Croix, come teach me where these go.”

Croix had reached his limit. He pursed his lips, made a swift decision on exactly how he planned to spend the next forty-five seconds, and set the board. Then he proceeded to leave the situation entirely, climbing over the boxes and taking the passenger’s seat.

Salmaer, versed in the ways of conflict resolution, gave an approving nod.

“The weather is getting quite cold, wouldn’t you say?” he smiled.

“I have a suspicion things will heat up soon,” Croix groaned. He slouched forward in the wagon and crossed his arms.

“Croix!” Noel called back. “Come and teach me what the pieces do.”

“Yes, and ensure she plays without cheating,” Ellis added.

“I’m not gonna’ cheat!” Noel snapped.

But Croix, skilled in the ways of avoiding problems he didn’t care to solve, settled comfortably into the passenger’s seat.

“If you two want to play an aggressive game of chess, that’s your business and I want no part of it. You got yourselves into this mess, and now you have to get yourselves out.”

“Croix Lovell, you come back here this instant,” Ellis called, pretending it was an order and not a desperate pout.

Noel said nothing but made a sort of ‘tch’ noise before moving some random piece incorrectly. This in turn caused Ellis to protest before unhappily explaining the correct movement, if for no other reason than so she could get on with the game. This, in turn, prompted Noel to move another piece incorrectly, resulting in another explanation.

This continued.

And so, with the sound of their game in the background and his head towards the blue sky—with a gentle breeze and the colors of autumn—far from home and with nothing to his name, his old life gone and his new one on the horizon, Croix Lovell closed his eyes and drifted to sleep…

…and got a good five minutes worth before they called for him again.