Dangerous Games

“And so, soundly defeated on all sides, he fled into the wilderness to hide his shame,” I pronounced. The dastardly enemy of which I was speaking was my brother and the person I was telling this to was my mother. She didn’t seem to look amused.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that my brother had run into the wilderness, which would be our back yard. Our family is a little eccentric, we live in the middle of nowhere, just a few families, and all of us closely related. I hear we are actually rich, that would explain the big house, a mansion more like, that we live in. The other families that live near us live in houses that are just as big. It is the only lifestyle that I’ve ever known so I don’t mind it, but it drove father crazy and he finally left. That left mother all alone, just her, us twelve kids, my aunt, and uncles, and cousins, my nephews, and nieces, well you get the idea. I don’t think she’s ever really missed him.

The only way to get to civilization is by helicopter, so we don’t bother often. All of us kids were home schooled by mother. If you think of this as a kingdom, which us kids have always done for reasons that will be later explained, mother is the queen. She rules, even her brothers and sisters, no one ever challenges her authority, which is why the fact that she was mad at me so bad.

I might be misleading you by saying us kids, I no kid anymore, I’m in my early twenties already. I mean my bothers, sisters, and cousins when I say we by the way. Back when we were younger we played this game, we pretended that we were knights and ladies in a court, mother was naturally always portrayed as the queen. We had a lot of free time on our hands, living so far from other kids like we were. Mother took advantage of it, telling us that she favored knights who cleaned the dishes, or set the table and made ladies in waiting of ladies who did the laundry and cleaned their rooms.

We used to joust and play at sword battles as well of course. It goes naturally with that sort of game to have sword fights and we had a lot. That was all fine and well while it lasted but it didn’t. You would have thought we would stop this silly play as we got older, but we didn’t have anything better to do even as we did get older. The game continued as we got older, it just grew with us, and I guess it was bound to happen that we would slowly forget that it was a game at all. What I mean to say is that it’s become a game of court politics and even the adults are in it now, though I am one of them so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It isn’t a game anymore, it’s life, and my nephews and nieces have been raised with it from the cradle.

Let’s take a step back and describe us then, you should meet the family after all. I don’t mean all eleven of my brothers and sisters and all that, only the important ones. Most of them are lackeys, and not worth mentioning. Even if they are my siblings and close relatives it doesn’t mean I see why you should care one way or another about a pawn to be used. I will make an exception about my own pawn, I only have one. Since I bring him up I guess he should be the first one I tell you about.

Luke, his name is Luke. He’s one of the weaker of my brothers; if I am judged by my subordinates then I might as well give up now. Still he is painfully loyal to me and that’s worth a lot in this family, a very rare trait, for someone to be loyal to me. He’s tall and skinny, and wears nothing but black with the idea that it will make him look stronger and cooler, it doesn’t.