Aha! So someone out of all these dull years decided to step up and take a nibble at the king position? It’s been long anticipated, actually. It sucks it had to happen in the dead of winter. The ice and snow would make it difficult if a scuffle were to be involved. There’d be a lot of slipping and busting your ass if you weren’t careful, and wouldn’t it be horrible to be dramatically making a proficient attack on your enemy only to fall flat on your face? Of course it would be.

The usually bountiful terrain was empty and as fragile looking as the dull ice sickles that hung from everything. The people in it had either died or vanished, not like there were a lot of them anyways. An irritated sigh escaped from me as I picked my way over to the fool that had come. Halting a few feet before him an unimpressed glower scanned over the ebon brute and I couldn’t help but laugh at his face for his earlier words.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, coming here to challenge someone when you can’t even say the name of your opponent right.”

Some more judgmental glaring, a disgusted snort, and an annoyed expression was the only greeting he got.

“Tell me boy, do you think you’d be good at this? You’re hopeless, they’re hopeless, and to me this whole thing is just hysterical.”

Oh, how fun was this! What a blabbering fool, this stallion is. A highly amused expression flickered across my face momentarily as the other brute gave me options. Hmm, however fun betting the snot out of each other sounded when I gazed around I had no…well, it’s hard to explain. It’s like I just didn’t care to see the place go, actually. I was sick of sitting around here. Sick of being sick and tired of everything. Throwing this chunk of dirt at this stallion didn’t seem like such a bad idea, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to hand it over without being rash. I waited almost, almost patiently for him to finish running his mouth about having his fun either way or whatever. How does it make me laugh? Watching him squirm like a bad-tempered worm trying to keep a good head while being insulted. That’s why. Of course, he’d never know that. I simply ignored the quarry.

“Listen, asshole,” I circled him once, judgingly again, before halting back in front of him, “I’ll give you the land and let you off scot-free, and all this old man is going to ask for in return is to be able to come and go as he pleases.”

I grinned modestly, oddly composed.

“I won’t get in the way. In fact, you probably won’t see me much at all.”

As if that’d even help me any. I tried not to sound so pathetic about it.