Chapter Title // Ch. 2 - Rory ~ Beginnings
Notes // Thanks to Courtney for beta-reading all the shite I pop out of my head X_x I have nothing more to say~

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No one ever knew my real name but me. Even now, I prefer to keep it to myself, probably because it was always mine. I told one person my real name, and . . . well, I've lost that person. It'll stay my and her secret always.

At that point in time I was practically the King's pet, just because I was pitiful and had turned up magically one evening without a memory. Except, of course, my name, but I acted like I didn't know. Alistair decided to name me Rory. I worked in the western rook most of the time, tending much of the time to the 'secret weapons' of the towers that no one but the guards knew of. Gigantic rooks. Demonic birds with beady black eyes that somehow managed to hold a crimson flame within them. Beaks and talons sharper than the keenest knife. Feathers darker than the loneliest night. I hated the birds then, and I still do. They frighten me. . . what frightened me the most was that, if a battle were to arise, I was one of the few assigned to fly into battle on the back of one. But, yes, that is the little known reason that the towers are called rooks. In any case, I had never cared much for working there. When they moved, the gears turning and whirring, it made my heart sick because of the moans that were produced. Sometimes I cried along with the towers, pressing my thin, childish hands to the stone walls, as if to comfort the pained giants. I was small, then. Much shorter than everyone else my age. I do believe I was around 17, but that was an estimate by everyone that surrounded me as well as myself. My hair is a sickly pale blonde, and was always pulled back in a tight, painful braid. Everyone tells me my eyes are disturbing, because they're black, like the rooks'.

I was in the throne room one day, standing in my usual spot, listening to Alistair and Damon, his advisor, converse. I saw Alistair toying with his chessboard. But this was not his usual wooden one. . . this was one I had never seen, and I felt a strong connection to it, oddly enough. The board itself was of obsidian stone, I believe, as well as an almost clear crystal. The black and white squares. The pieces were intricate, each with painstaking detail on their polished surfaces, made out of the same material as the board. Each of the white pieces was outlined in a pale, iridescent blue paint, save for the pawns, which were rimmed with crimson. The opposite held true for the blacks, rimmed in red save for the pawns, which were in blue. I had noticed with slight dismay that the black pawn before the left black rook held a small chip on its base. One of the bishops, oddly, was outlined half in blue, half in crimson. Alistair looked up at me then, eyes glittering as he pulled the odd bishop from the board and set it off to the side.

"Rory. . .my poor doll. I know you're always in pain. Hmm, it makes me a bit sad to see that this is all a game." This bothered me. How dare he say that life was a game? If it was a game, then we were nothing but pieces. He gently touched a rook, then, as well as the pawn set before it. "It'll turn out fine in the end, I promise. You'll have friends, and a life. You'll have something more than you do now, even if it will hurt along the way." Alistair smiled. But it wasn't his usual smile. It was a smile that held both malice and sadness. "After all, I've never lost a game of chess." At that point, he handed me a letter, and sent me to go find a young knight-in-training named Thorne. I complied in silence, leaving nothing but faint, echoing footsteps.

After the whole ordeal with obtaining Thorne, bringing him to the King, and allowing them to speak, Thorne left the room quickly. I saw the eagerness in his eyes. Alistair looked to his chessboard again as soon as we had been left to ourselves, lifting the crystal knight on the left side of the board and moving it forward, up over the row of pawns. His eyes flicked to Damon, who looked about as confused as I did. But, then again, no one understood the King then. No one does now, either. He picked up the white pawn before one of the rooks.

"Rory, I have a special assignment for you. In your rook we have someone in the fifth cell on the third floor that is very, very important. She is in there of her own free will . . . be sure to treat her with kindness." He smiled at me like he always did. Almost like a father proud of his son. It made me wish for parents, back then. It stopped hurting eventually. "I know you'll do your job well. I'm sorry, Rory. Take care of yourself." I left the room, wondering what he had meant. He was sorry? For what? I didn't know. Now that I think about it, Alistair always seemed to know what was going to happen next, and I do believe it pained him deep down inside. He always kept a happy face, though, and apologized in advance, even if it wasn't his fault. Luckily . . . luckily I wasn't aware of that then. If I would have been, I don't think I would have gone back to the rook at all.

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