The Fool's Game

Trust ain’t nothing more than a game, boy. You place your bets and throw down your cards and pray you’ve played your hand right. The other players are doing the same thing. Don’t matter if they’re keepin’ tight-lipped, cards close to their chest; or if they’re talking bigger than their strewn-out cards allow… in the end everyone’s got something to hide.

Now, with that out of the way, do you trust me to tell you a story?

It’s as much mine as a story can be anybody’s, and what you decide to do with it at the end is your own business. Believe me or don’t, remember it or don't, take it for your own- it’ll be as much yours as it is mine when it’s finished.

I once knew a man who met a king in the mud. Only, neither of them knew he was a king. They both thought he was a smart-mouth boy on the run from trouble. The boy’d dared to stand up for himself, and the only reward it earned him was a swift blow and a mouthful of dirt and rainwater. The man, younger then and less cautious, ran to help.

For behind that smart mouth, the man could see a silver tongue- a voice what could make the whole world stop and listen if he wanted it to. There was a hunger there too in his eyes, one that matched his own. If the world wouldn’t listen, they’d take it all the same. That hunger was one worth betting on. He reached down and helped the boy to his feet. A king and his first fool, risin’ together from the squalor.

At first that silver tongue was worth no more than a few meals and somewhere warm to sleep, but the man patiently stoked the hunger in his soul, embers fanning into a fire that made people stop and heed the words the boy wove. They began to listen, slowly, then all at once.

The boy became a man, then a hero, then a leader with an army at his back. Ready to take the world if he so desired.

The hunger in his soul was growing.

They met her on the road, a peddler’s daughter doomed to wander. She’d hair blacker than the raven’s wing and the same look in her eyes they knew all too well. If they’d asked, she’d have burned down the world.

They took the kingdom in a storm of fire and blood. They threw down the injustice that had kept hungry, they feasted on riches long denied. They set up their silver-tongued leader as the new king, and the tides of war ebbed.

The king was good to his people. He said what they wanted to hear, and kept them content. But the fire had not waned. Soon, one kingdom wasn’t enough, and he began to incite in the people thoughts of war once again.

The man warned him to not overplay. There was enough for them to last lifetimes. The king did not listen.

The man heard the whispers spread in the palace. There were those who questioned and muttered, those who weren’t so quick to act like the blood dripping from the king’s hands were rubies instead. Those who felt the same disquiet in his heart.

Now, here’s where he failed. He trusted. He showed his hand to the raven-haired girl and asked for her help. He’d imagined love between them, and maybe it had been there once, but she betrayed that hope and she betrayed his trust. She went to the king and the man fled in the wake of the king’s anger.

There were those outside the palace that wanted to be his friends. They plied him with gold and whispers until there was nothing that could have turned him back from the path he tread. They gave him an army and they gave him hate instead of grief. He returned to the kingdom he’d once help to overcome, in his own mind a savior sent to right his actions and waylaid trusts.

In his arrogance, he saw the battle’s end, and the crown on his own head, gold and glittering. He saw the kingdom bowing the knee, he saw himself guiding them with wisdom that only his past mistakes could provide. He rode out to meet the king, a fool to the end.

By some devil’s blessing or divinity’s curse, he lived. His usuper army lay eradicated on the field, and he ran from defeat. He’d played his hand, and lost.

The king’s victory made his silver tongue shine ever brighter, and he and the girl with hair like a raven’s wing sat upon the throne unchallenged for many a gilded year.

What happened to the man, you ask? What if I told you I was? You’d have to trust me. The man lost the game, and you ought to know by now how to play it. Place your bet if you wish, and we’ll see how it goes.

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Thanks for reading! This story was heavily inspired by this absolutely captivating song by SYR, written as a loose response to the singer's pov. Definitely give it a listen!