Heart & Tactics

By H.B.Bacon

Sometimes the villain of your story knows they are one,
but they never let you stop to consider why.

Rion

Rion Valaria, 17th child of the Valarian Royal Line, had never been to a Skythe Stadium before, which was odd for him considering that the Royal Family's team played in the Premier League and was, presumably, fairly decent. Nevertheless, as he stepped through the wide double doors, reinforced with runes and sturdy looking metals, he was greeted with a pleasant sight. 

The entrance was empty. 

He glanced down to the letter in his hand, sealed with the Royal Seal. The wax was the type that the King often used when delivering immense news. It had certainly done that. Whatever the real reason was behind his forced and rather abrupt waking was surely something that could have waited until the next day. It was hardly... Rion looked to the watch on his wrist, the miniature gears and clockworks ticking away like a marvel of engineering. It was one of the new models that didn't use magic more than to provide a constant winding to the internal spring. 

It was 4 in the morning. 

Rion sighed, crumpled the letter slightly, and shoved it into his pocket. 

"Will you need anything more, Prince Rion?" A man, Rions valet, asked as he stepped further into the hall. 

"No, thank you Willighby, I think I can handle myself from here." Rion smiled a reassuring smile, one that was trained by years of being in the public eye. Willighby grimaced and nodded. 

"Very well, I shall tend to the carriage in the meantime. The King is already inside; I've been made to understand that he is in one of the upstairs offices. Presumably the Owners Office, rarely used as it is." 

"Oh, thank you." Rion tapped the letter in his pocket, considering its strangeness. "And you're sure he said not to open it until after whatever this meeting is?" 

"As certain as the day is long, sir."

"It just feels odd that he would want to see me, and here of all places." 

"I couldn't say, sir." Willighby said.

"And so early too. It's hardly the time anyone should be awake."

"Right, sir." Willighby agreed. 

"And-"

"I'm certain there will be answers for you inside," Willighby said.

"Er, right. Thank you." 

"Of course, your highness."

Rion nodded and turned back towards the hall. Its emptiness loomed over the space like a forgotten, hollow tomb. It was the kind of feeling that you can only really get when the streets are all empty and the buildings are all closed. That sensation of seeing something that should be so busy and occupied be so quiet and contained. It was calming, but left him with a strange sense of foreboding. Why here? Why now, before anyone else but the janitors and maintenance staff were moving about. He'd seen some on strange machines out near the Skythe field, and even one moving a can that looked to be for trash collection. 

When no immediate answer occured to him of the thousands of ideas that presented themselves for consideration, Rion nodded once more to Willighby and started towards the end of the hall. The ceiling was only a foot or two taller than Rion, he couldn't be sure, but every bit of the eight foot tall walls were decorated in paintings, jerseys, plaques, and odds and ends that seemed to talk all about the sport and the team. 

He eventually arrived before a case, nearly as tall as the ceiling and ornately decorated. Inside, sitting on glass shelves that gleamed in the light, were hundreds of trophies. Some had small depictions of players on them, others had strings attached to them that showed the colors of the team. Deep purples and a tasteful gold, along with strips of black & white. They were, all of them, listed to the Valdreyan Dawnbreakers. 

"Lovely, aren't they." His Fathers voice broke through the stupor of awe and caused Rion to jump. 

"Father!"

"Good morning Rion, I trust you're doing well." King Deyros Valaria, the puppeteer of Valyria, smiled and placed a hand on Rions shoulder. 

Deyros was not the young man he'd once been in Rion's eyes. He was older now, getting well into the fifties and showing little of the age in anything other than his hair. What had once been a deep black had now fadded and lightened into a salt & pepper style that accented off his sharp cheek bones. In the reflection Rion could see himself alongside his father. He could see the similarities, the connections, the shadow of the man hanging over not just him but his whole being. He'd been gifted with the kings piercing eyes, and sharp frame, but had gained some of the softness of his mother around the lips. He was, in his mind, neither the most attractive nor ugliest person he'd ever seen. Honestly, for a prince he felt that he'd been given a weak hand in the looks department. 

"Good morning," Rion said after collecting his heart from his throat. He gently removed the Kings hand from his shoulder. "They are, I'm not sure I've ever seen them all." 

"No, you've seen bits and pieces of the collection over the years as the team has won the trophies when you were very young, but without ever having come to the stadium... Well, one can hardly blame you for staring." 

"We've won all that?" 

"They have won all of them, yes. Through hard work, determination, and no small amount of blood. But what they do on that field, ahem, the pitch I believe it is referred to, is entirely their work. Traditionally we've taken little interest or action in the running of the club. Things have been handled largely by parties we hired to manage and direct it."

"That makes sense." Rion said, eyes catching on the most recent trophy in the case. It was from nearly fifteen years ago. He was about to comment on that fact, when a word in his fathers speech caught in his mind. "What do you mean traditionally?" 

Deyros let a wry, thin smile play across his lips as he turned toward a door against the far wall of the hall. When he said nothing and began to walk that direction Rion quickly followed with trepidation. 

"You see," King Deyros said "The team has been lacking a bit of something for some time now. A general sense of... Well I hesitate to call it anything other than a 'sense of purpose'. They are stuck. Stuck in their ways and more importantly, stuck in the past."

"I didn't realize the team hasn't won a trophy in nearly two decades." 

The King nodded "Indeed. And in that time the Royal Family has been constantly bombarded by inquiries and comments from fans about what we plan to do with the team."

"I've never heard about these issues." Rion said

"We've kept the team and the crown largely separated for just that reason, but its finally gone to the point that people are beginning to notice." 

"The paper?"

"The very same. With the advent of the 'News Paper', as I've been informed it's being called, the way that things have been getting around is frankly alarming." 

"Aren't there bigger issues than a Skythe team?"

"Assuredly there are." Deyros said. "Your point?" 

"I just sort of assumed-"

"Ah, well try not to do that. No, there are surely more pressing issues, but those issues aren't the things that people want to know about. The paper makes it money off the sale of rumor and speculation, not truth. If it were truthful, well I doubt there'd be much of a Kingdom left. The team was lower-middle of the table last season, and it seems likely that there will be a battle to not be relegated if things stay the same. The paper seems to believe we've given up on the team entirely and are not planning on investing in them further."

"That doesn't seem very honest."

"I don't believe honesty and journalism often go together. I'm sure they would get along swimmingly if they did."

Rion pulled the letter from his pocket and held it up. "And this?" 

"Instructions. Notes. Odds & ends that I felt you might need." 

"Need for what?" Rion asked. 

The hall they'd stepped into was baren of bright decorations or accolades. Instead it had Jerseys hung up and in frames lining the sides. As the pair made their way through, they passed doors located at odd points. They skipped most of them, until eventually arriving before a small section of indented wall that marked the entrance of a locker room. Across the hall was a room with a full glass wall looking out at the locker room. 

"Here we are." 

"We're where? The middle of the building?" 

"Your new office." Deyros said, motioning to the room behind the glass wall. 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Don't be. This was a careful decision. Your Mother and I think this will be good for you. Get you out of the castle, so to speak. You can still come home, if you'd like, but from today on you are the new Head Coach of the Valdreyan Dawnbreakers."

Coren

As a soldier Coren was used to seeing men be put to death, it wasn't uncommon for it to become a whole event depending on the crime and who the noble was that had been offended. Some chose the simple and clean method of just putting the soldier on the frontline. Others were more a fan of the firing squad, or the executioners axe, those were always something. He could remember watching with horror at the first execution... how quickly those had become second nature. 

What he hadn't expected in the whole of his current life was to witness another execution. He could tell by the way the man... no that was too kind, rather the boy glanced around the room with a tinge of nervous energy. He was young, even by Skythe standards. Sure, he'd been around players who were in their early twenties numerous times, hells there were more than a few of those young faces staring wide-eyed at the figure at the front of the procession, but never, never at the front of the room. 

The room was filled with a dull noise of conversation that seemed to ebb and flow towards the areas that the boy was looking at. He tried to speak a number of times, but Coren could see the nerves making their way towards his mind. He was freezing, whoever this person was, and he had a sinking suspicion he knew what they were there for, he was going to stall out before the eyes of 22 people who he desperately needed on his side. Coren could feel the room wobble for the boy, he could see his eyes darting back and forth. He wasn't on the cusp of a panic attack from what Coren could see, in fact he almost seemed playfully quiet, but he could tell beneath it was nerves flitting away. 

"Oi, everyone shut your mouths." The room fell silent, and Coren was more surprised than anyone at the voice that had broken the noise. Mainly because it was his. He quickly scrambled for some way to continue the thought. 

Coren could see the captain, Taberny, giving him a confused look of appreciation. He'd tried to speak as well but clearly had been too confused by what was happening. Coren felt a certain level of shared concern with the man, after all this was his team and Coren had only been there for a year. Whether it mattered that most of the team listened to Coren a touch more than Taberny didn't matter, Taberny was the captain and what he said went. He had to walk a very fine line between helping run the team and running it his way. Even if he did think he'd be able to handle it well. 

"Lets hear him out first." Coren said, eventually finding the energy to speak again. 

The silence was palpable, but the boy took the opportunity to jump in. 

"Good morning, uhm, hello. I'm Rion, I'm the new Head Coach of the team starting today." 

The silence grew louder, bolder almost. It seemed to get the nerves up to start breaking the glass of reason and logic in all the room. Coren felt his stomach drop. 

"I'm sure you're all very confused by this turn of events, and believe me I'm not much more in the loop than any of you, but I wanted to introduce myself properly and tell you all that I'm very excited to work with you all and get to know-"

"How old are you?" Someone called, Coren couldn't see who but the voice sounded like Quintice, one of the more annoying strikers. "You don't even look old enough to shave." 

The boy laughed at that, actually laughed and shook his head. "I assure you that I am." 

"You ever even played Skythe?" Another, Mart one of the better defenders, chimed in.

"I haven't, no. Though the tactics seem fairly similar to-"

"You haven't played, and you're younger than most of us here." Said Quintice. "Why the hells should we listen to you?"

The silence returned more violently this time and brought companions in the form of awkward and uncomfortable. They spread out among the players collectively, and Coren felt the room chill. Taberny was grimacing in a way that Coren knew meant disappointment. He could almost imagine what was going through his head now. 

It's probably the same thing going through mine right now. Coren thought We're fucked. They know we're fucked, and yet they still stuck us with someone so inexperienced. This must be some kind of sick joke, it has to be...

"Now I'm certain there are a lot more you'd all like to know," The boy said "but for now, I'd like you all to go about training as if things were no different. I'm going to have to get a feel for the place over the next few days and I genuinely hope to get to know you all too."

Well, that just sealed it.

The boy stepped out of the room and into the office that shared the hall, taking a seat behind a small desk and beginning to read a book. Coren could just make out the shape of a Pyramid on the cover. A minute passed before someone moved, Quintice being the first to break the stillness. 

"Well," Quintice said "Anyone else feel like we're fucked?" 

"Calm down," Taberny said, though the emotion didn't reach his voice. "We don't know what he has in store for us, perhaps it might be-"

"Come on cap," one of the Keepers, Wallace who currently vying for the starter, stepped over to his box and set down the clothes he'd been carrying. "You can't seriously be okay with this." 

"Whether I am or not doesn't really matter," Taberny said solemnly "I don't really have a choice. None of us do."

"We just have to make it to the firing day." Quintice added. "Can't be more than a week or two." 

"He'll probably be out by the second game. I'm sure he has no idea what he's doing." 

There was a general agreement about the team at that. It was decided that they, as a whole, would simply put up with the new arrival and treat them as what they were. An outsider sent from afar to run things into the ground. Jokes were made about his nerves, his appearance, his attitude... But Coren couldn't get into the spirit. He looked to Taberny, who was similarly at a loss for words and failing to find the mirth in the events. 

He couldn't take it. He just couldn't. Something in his soul made him truly feel at odds with the world, and Coren only had one solution to problems. Face them head on. Outwork them. 

He waited until everyone had left for the pitch before slipping out of the room and knocking on the door to the Head Coaches office. He heard a muffled "Come in" and pressed open the door. He could see Rion sitting at the desk through the glass wall and noted that he hadn't lowered the book to say it. He'd likely seen Coren stading there too, but made no notion about it. A strong scent of... well he wasn't sure what the scent was, but it was strong and filtered into the room from a single cone of powder on a metal tray in the corner. 

"Ah, it was..." Rion looked at a sheet of paper beneath the book and smiled "Coren Halverk, right? Center Midfielder with a talent for the game that doesn't utilize magic?"

"I-" Coren stopped short. He hadn't expected him to know anything about him. He caught himself quickly and recovered. "Thats right, and look I just wanted to warn you about some things."

"Oh?" Rion placed a thin piece of paper between the pages of the book that Coren immediately noticed was a team sheet. "And what is it that I should know?" 

"This team, these players... They don't like you, they don't trust you, and they're not going to listen to you." 

Rion nodded "I had a feeling that was going to be the case. I'm not as simple as I may seem." 

Rion didn't look simple now that Coren was close. He had striking features that reminded Coren of the Kings appearance. He was handsome by anyone's standards, certainly he looked like he'd have no problem with women, or men if he was in to that. His eyes were piercing and fixed firmly on Coren, which filled him with a strange sense that he was being weighed and judged. 

"They think you're too young." Coren continued. 

"That makes sense, I'm almost the youngest person here. There are only, what, three players younger than me on the team?"

That narrowed it down. There were certainly young players, but the youngest was eighteen. The team had a nineteen year old and a twenty year old too, then the ages jumped up into the mid twenties. So that put him clearly in the early twenties. Young, for sure, but not so much as his appearance made it seem. His lips seemed almost pink and his skin was tanned to a degree that made Coren want to-

"And what about you?" Rion asked. 

Coren was yanked forcefully out of his mind and train of thought, which he was even more confused about where it had been going. He looked to Rion with confusion.

"About what?" Coren asked. 

"What do you think about me and being the Head Coach. I have no Skythe experience at all, barely even watched a game. I don't know basically anything about anything related to the sport, other than some general rules and what I've picked up so far from this." He tapped the book on the desk. Up close now Coren could see that it was a Skythe tactics manual going over the history of the game. 

"I don't really... What I mean is, I don't think that you're the problem. Certainly a problem, but not the only one." 

"Oh? And what is the problem then?" Rion asked. 

"If you don't know that by now, then I'm afraid you won't know at all. Even if I did tell you, I'm not sure you could even do anything about it."

"I could try." Rion said. "That's literally all I can do at this point."

Coren sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "We we're lower middle of the table last season, we lost more games than we won by nearly half. We only lucked out that we drew enough to keep ourselves in the league. Any worse on the table and we would have been relegated."

"Thats dropping down to the lower league, right?" Rion asked. "I've been reading about that. Interesting system, "Relegation" and "Promotion". Seems like it makes things quite interesting in the grand scheme of things." 

"It adds a level of story to the whole thing, yeah, but you're missing the point." 

"Please," Rion motioned for Coren to continue.

Coren couldn't tell why he was wanting to talk about it all, perhaps it was just that he didn't want to see the boy fail. Maybe it was that no one else was going to help him, and the last thing Coren wanted was to watch someone be hung out to dry. 

"The team isn't going to make it through the year at the rate we're going. We'd be lucky to make it middle of the table this year with how things are."

"Do you have any suggestions then? Anything to help right the ship, so to speak." 

"I don't know, but you're going to need to figure it out soon. They don't think you'll last two games." 

Rion smiled sweetly, "I'm sure it'll be an ordeal, but rest assured I've got several ideas in mind." 

"Right, well.." Coren looked from the book to Rion and back. "Thats going to help, is it?" 

"There's nothing wrong with studying." Rion said. "Good night Coren, thank you for your information. I may be calling on you in the future if that's alright with you." 

"What, er, well I don't see why not... But I still don't think that-"

"I really do appreciate you telling me." 

Rion stood and ushered Coren out the door, then gently, but firmly, shut the door. 

"We're so fucked." Coren muttered.