Noth had many despicable traits. He was wroth and livid at the slightest provocation, greedy for domination and power, and terrible in his cruelty. In fact, the negative parts of his personality almost certainly outweighed any positive counterbalance, but that did not mean that there was not any semblance of good within his black heart. No, if he had a single good quality to call upon, it was his loyalty to those who served him, or who had acted kindly towards him. Those who had worked towards his master schemes and had done as they had been asked were treated well by the darkly-feathered bird, and should they have ever been put into danger, he felt confident that he would attempt to rescue them from their calamity as a sort of payment for their own service to him.
Perhaps it was that same strange sense of loyalty that had possessed the Avriel in his mock battle. Few of the pieces truly mattered to him, especially the faceless pawns which acted only as warriors for his cause. He did not despise them, nor wish to waste them needlessly, but at the end of the trial, they were simply meat to him, a means to an end. He had initially attempted to discern the shapes and strange workings of his opponent’s pieces, but he was unable to properly wrap his mind around anything other than the queen or the king, and so he was allowed to perceive the others as simple chess pieces for the sake of his simplistic mind.
The woman before him spoke, her voice as soft as the breeze as it kisses the trees in the early morning, questioning him in an instant upon observing his pieces. She spoke the name of the lady dearest to him, and crimson orbs immediately shot upwards from their strategic observation, glaring into her with an intensity befitting of fire before it utterly devours and devastates something. She spoke arrogantly, as though she actually knew of the person whom she described, of the hybrid he adored. Like clockwork, his mind settled upon a suitable response after she had finished, growling with unhidden anger.
“You do not know her, and you do not know me. Maybe that’s your truth to think you know of what happens in the dark places of the world, but your world is one of fanciful things. You know not of the dregs.” She had been a slave, and he realized after he had spoken that his statement might not have been entirely correct, certainly not nearly as clever as his usual dismissals and aggravations, but she had made mention of someone he cared for dearly, and that incited frustration beyond what was normal within him.
As much as he adored her, however, Noth was quick to use his queen as an offensive piece, lashing out at any mistake that could be sighted from his opponent. Wherever there were not opening, he would create them, sacrificing a bishop hither or a pawn thither. The only piece he protected with almost fanatic devotion was the king; the piece which had taken the figure of his father. There was an absolute anathema that enveloped the hybrid in regards to the idea of losing his father once again, and that played into his aggressive strategy quite well. In a matter of a couple dozen turns, he had nearly annihilated the army of his opponent, and promptly finished the game with one of his lesser units, a pitiable pawn brought into a moment of greatness by his killing.
The hybrid glanced upwards with a smug smile plastered across his feathered face, taking in the glory of having won their first match, and propelled the fates of destiny towards favoring Evil with his victory. He could have been a good sport about the entire thing, could have granted his opponent some measure of compliment for his participation, but as far as he was concerned, the entire ordeal essentially boiled down to a war for the fate of Idalos, and he was certainly not going to be congratulating an enemy in a war.
Still, he did not fall for the usual trap that plagued his kind. He did not begin to speak of how wonderfully he had performed in the match, or even called attention to the mistakes of his opponent; knowing where you went wrong was how you became better, but instead sat silently until the next game had been presented to them. The hybrid was filled with an understanding of the rules for this new challenge, but knowing how something was meant to be played and actually being able to properly achieve that goal were two separate processes.
He started slowly, somewhat uncertain of how to perform the tasks before them, but he quickly began to revert to his usual tendencies, growing aggressive and launching his pieces forward with the same calculated abandon he had displayed in chess. Renju was a far different game, however, and he quickly began to take notice of the fact that he was beginning to lose. Put simply, the idea of having each piece become an equal was one that was not meshing well with the hybrid’s personal world view, and it was throwing his game off rather spectacularly.
But, he struggled onwards as all tyrants do.
