Once upon a time I wrote lots and lots of fanfiction, all day every day, and now I can hardly believe I have a few hundred words to post. I wrote this to see if I could even produce words anymore. I'm just happy I squeezed out a few. Thank you for reading!

Chess

"How in the name of Camelot did you command an army with that rubbish sense of strategy?" Merlin demanded, loud enough to draw stares. A woman frantically grabbed her daughter and steered her the other way down the park path. The locals were sometimes peculiar that way. "Honestly, Arthur, it's a wonder the kingdom didn't fall sooner. Anyone could see that my knight was right there." He moved the small, polished horse and batted the unfortunate rook away with it. All Arthur had left were two pawns, his queen, and of course his king.

Arthur's queen moved to take Merlin's newly positioned knight - the wrong move. Merlin tutted. "They write books and songs and film movies about you, you know, but none of them mention how dreadful you are at chess." He slid his pawn into the queen's space, silencing the most important warrior in Arthur's army. "Check."

The game was done. Anyone with eyes could see that Arthur's king had only one place to go, and even then his doom was certain. The king slid to the right one space, awaiting the inevitable.

Merlin moved his bishop from his own side to the space diagonal to Arthur's king. The trap was complete. "Checkmate!" Merlin declared triumphantly. "You know, one of these days you're going to beat me, and the shock might kill me, and then we could play chess for real, if there are chess sets in Avalon."

Arthur didn't respond. He never did since he'd died, but Merlin could talk enough for the both of them for now, and magic could do the rest.