Gwyddbwyll

The cavern is low and rounded like the belly of a mare in foal. What light there is seems to come from the floor, a dim glow sprouting up in slices of white and black.

It's been an age since he died, since the game began again. An age since the raven-shield was sundered and his path twisted from Annwn to this board Underhill.

An age since all he's heard are the words, "Your move" over and over again.

He still hears the whispers of lore on the winds, of course; his ravens see to that. They tell of a king asleep in a hall with his knights, ready to rise up from his cold slumber to defend the land.

If only that lore were true—death would be far better if it were. A slumbering king is one without the thought or might to battle on the wood for the land. 

For hundreds of years he lost. Lost pieces. Lost the game. Lost the battle. Hundreds of years of seeing his black stacked up on the opposite side of the board while his opponent's white pieces mocked him from the squares.

But that was before the ravens had begun to whisper new tales and his pieces became unstuck.

That was before he got to insist to the so-called Once and Future King, "Your move."

His ravens are yet to bring back word of what it was precisely that shifted, but Owain needs no such tellings to know the Story of the ThisWorld has changed. That change has been humming in his bones for countless moves now, inspiring him to song even while hefting his corvid-colored counters across the board.

A change in the Story, the subtlest of stirrings. A different mother for a different future to come. May the king slumber in his hall forever!

Owain sets down his piece with a grunt and looks Arthur dead in the eyes. The cave shakes and contracts around them. More birthing pains for a new Story in the ThisWorld. Arthur's words have made the mare quake plenty over the years but she quakes for Owain now, and he's had centuries to think about the stories he'd tell.

Arthur begins to shake his head, the word "no" already shaping his lips, but Owain just smiles and speaks the two worst words he knows in a voice full of malice and bite.

"Your. Move.”

The cave shakes again, this time hard enough to tumble rock from above. Owain doesn't just mean to birth Story with his words; he means to break open the cave as well. His mind goes to the many stories in the ThisWorld, sweeping through a cantref's measure of tales. One in particular seems to call out to him, though, a thread of gold in a tapestry of linen and wool. His mind lands on the story like a bird on a branch and settles in to watch it play out.








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