17. Endgame
Three days later
When the War of Thorns finale credits roll, Vi lets out a loud groan. “Seriously?”
(Sorry to spoil if you haven’t seen it, but FYI: Liliana just died.)
“I don’t even know what to do with that,” Nick says from my other side.
“I feel… bad,” I acknowledge aloud, frowning. “Right? Like, I don’t… I didn’t like it.”
Vi groans again, louder, and buries her face in my shoulder. I give her a squeeze, but distractedly. “Am I too dumb to get it or something?” I ask her. “Is this, like, art?”
“No,” she barks, launching upright. “It’s totally fridging!”
“What?”
“Fridging,” Antonia repeats from the armchair to our left. “It’s when you kill off a female character in order to give a male character motivation.”
“I know that I am only seeing this show for the first time and therefore understand nothing,” says Bash from the floor, “but I have to say, I do not get the hype.”
“It used to be good,” Vi says furiously. “Now it’s stupid. I mean, why did Liliana have to die? Like, literally, for what?”
“Maybe she’s not dead,” says Nick optimistically. “In weird magic shows like this—”
“Stop calling them ‘weird magic shows’ when everyone knows you love them,” Antonia cuts in, throwing popcorn at him.
“As I was saying, in weird magic shows like this, people are never actually dead,” Nick finishes, reaching out to kick his sister’s foot. “And shut up.”
“No, she’s gone,” Vi says, scrolling her phone. Her eyes are narrow slits of wrath, which I try not to find completely amusing. “The actress is doing a bunch of interviews about how she’s not coming back.”
“Have the writers said anything yet?” asks Antonia, leaning over. Vi disentangles from me to show her the screen.
“Not yet. Oh, but here’s an interview with Jeremy Xavier—”
“Ugh. He loves killing off his women,” grumbles Antonia. “Apparently the best kind of woman is one who dies.”
“Right?!” Vi gasps.
“I saw Jeremy Xavier from afar once,” I offer whimsically, which nobody acknowledges.
“I feel like people keep confusing character death with actual meaning, like it’s deep or something,” Vi says, still aggressively scrolling her phone. “People are going nuts on Tumblr. Oh wait, some people think it’s beautiful. Ugh,” she retches, “gross.”
“No way.” Antonia reaches for the screen and the two of them bend over it like a two-headed pop culture machine. “Seriously? They’re calling this ‘brave’? ‘Subversion’? They didn’t invent redemption by death—”
“I feel like people should be more okay with happy endings,” I say.
“That,” Vi says, ungluing to look at me, “is actually a very controversial take.”
“Controversial in that you disagree?” I muse.
“No, I agree profoundly. But it’s considered very feminine,” she qualifies, making a face. “Like only women want to see happy endings. It’s deplorable.”
“But just wait,” Antonia says conspiratorially. “Tomorrow the fanboys are going to be all over Reddit about how Jeremy Xavier is a genius who understands stakes.”
“Again, I don’t understand why people like this show,” comments Bash. “Also, it seems like maybe you two hate it.”
“We’re a critical audience, Sebastian,” says Antonia.
“Yeah,” adds Vi, who’s scrolling again. “I hope someone posts a fix-it fic, like, immediately.”
“You should,” I tell her. “The ending you made up yesterday would have been way better.”
“What ending?” asks Nick.
“Oh, I was just”—Vi waves a hand—“postulating.”
“She said Liliana and Cesario should have to be unwilling enemies,” I say, because Vi might choose to make light of it, but I thought she really had a good concept. I would have watched it. “They’re natural rivals, right? And Liliana dying for Rodrigo doesn’t make sense. Wasn’t her whole thing about being duty-bound for her family? And then she just… sacrifices herself for some guy?”
“Oh my god, you totally get it,” Vi says, gripping my arm with her usual intensity. “That’s such a good point. I’m telling the internet you said that.”
“Okay,” I agree, because I have not worked out the details of stan Twitter, if that’s even what she’s talking about. “I mean, I am usually very right, so…”
“Tell the internet that I am also here,” Bash tells Vi, who nudges his face away with her foot.
WORST, MOST PANDERING FINALE EVER! THREAD, 1/??, she types into her phone, her actual expression placid with purpose, and a wave of affection comes over me.
“You’re a maniac,” I tell her when she gets to her fourth post.
“I’m aware,” she replies without looking up.
I tuck an arm around her and kiss her cheek, settling in to watch her type the most blistering, incisive criticism that will ever get written about this show and its themes, which includes a discussion about the role of women and the limited perspectives of imperialist narratives in Eurocentric fantasy worlds. (I told her she should start a blog and she elbowed me and said she already had one, duh, I didn’t invent content creation on the internet, which was disappointing news because I 100 percent assumed that I had. Technically my idea was something like ESPN for books, and then she showed me “BookTube.”)
“Jeremy Xavier who?” I murmur in her ear. She’s on tweet twelve.
She won’t admit it, but I know she cracks a smile.
Needless to say, our fight after the tournament didn’t last long.
Which isn’t to say we didn’t fight, because we did. I did, after all, feel shocked and betrayed and angry about everything she kept from me, and I told her so, without leaving anything out. But I also told her that being angry didn’t mean I didn’t care about her, or that I would rather let that anger undo the things between us that I knew were real. “I just want to know who you are,” I said. “I just want you to let me see you, good and bad.”
“Okay,” she said, and even though I know she didn’t really believe me, it meant a lot that she was willing to try. “Well, get ready,” she said with a grimace, “because it’s going to be gross.”
I won’t lie, it’s definitely been weird. She showed me all of her costumes (“cosplay”) and sat me down to explain ConQuest (“It’s an RPG, basically a forerunner to online ones like Twelfth Knight”) and told me she’d have a hard time dating someone who hadn’t at least seen all the Empire Lost films (though I had a valid point about the white storylines). I hung out with Bash (for real) and scrolled through her mom’s blog. It was basically boot camp for everything Vi loves, but like I told her, none of it was “gross.” It was all new and interesting and proof of what I’d always guessed about her, which is that being something Vi Reyes cares about is worth the effort. When she loves something, she loves deeply, thoughtfully, and generously, and she gives back what she gets, tenfold.
Physical therapy is going well. I go for jogs now, which I enjoy. With football season over, things have settled down at home. My dad even got honored at a banquet for his win at State, which Mom and I attended with my brother Cam, during one of his rare visits home.
My dad likes Vi, for the record. “That’s the kind of player who starts,” he said when he met her. “She’s got vision.”
“Please don’t try to train her, okay? Vi only likes sports that deal blows.” That’s a direct quote from her, by the way.
“The girl has perfect calf attachments” was Dad’s protest in response, though thankfully he didn’t tell her to lace up or anything. He just thought her center of gravity would make her a great sprinter and he told her so, which she seemed to recognize as a good thing coming from him.
As for my mom, she was won over when I told her that partially thanks to Vi, I was thinking about taking an intro to computer science class next fall at Illyria. “To see if I like it,” I said quickly, because she was doing the thing where she looked a little too excited for what I was telling her. I think it was always difficult for my mom, both her sons having something in common with Dad and not with her. In that sense, I think she’s a little relieved about Vi giving me other things in life to look forward to, which is something I often feel myself. (Though don’t tell Vi she’s motivating my storyline or who knows what kind of media commentary might come out of it.)
Olivia’s been held equally captive since becoming Bash’s protégée. You’d think it’d be awkward running into my ex-girlfriend unexpectedly while I’m sitting on the couch with my new one, but Olivia and Bash are too busy with their preparations for the spring musical to stop and chat for long. I’m happy for Olivia—it’s clear she’s found something worth her energy, for which her former hobby of being supportive in our relationship was a very poor use of her time. She’ll make a much better Hodel, not that I know who that is.
“Wait, you don’t know who Hodel is? Oh my god, Jack. We’re watching it. It’s like three hours long but it’s worth it, I promise,” says Vi.
(Which is how I got roped into watching Fiddler on the Roof.)
It’s funny to think this year started with what felt like huge ambitions: perfect girlfriend, perfect season, school record, immortality and fame. Illyria, too, not for what it was, but for what it represented. I think there’s an argument to be made that my contentedness is a small thing by comparison; that instead of waking up for a grueling practice I’m going to stretch carefully and run slowly, or that I’ve been sifting through the Illyria catalog to see what electives I might want to consider (a far cry from the “see it, make it happen” drive my father instilled in me). Taken in those terms, it might seem like I’ve accomplished less than I planned.
But because of this year, the world got bigger. The universe expanded for me. I can see beyond football practice, beyond the need to be faster and stronger, beyond running just to prove that I can. For the first time, I am realizing how vast my edges are, how many things I have yet to experience. It’s a discovery that makes me feel brave.
So brave, in fact, that I happened to find a Twelfth Knight club on Illyria’s campus and reached out to see what exactly that entails. Because I kind of have to know, right? Plus it turns out that one of the game designers is an alum who lectures sometimes on campus, so—
“You ready?”
Vi looks up at me with all sorts of hope. It’s a different version of her, the kind who wants to share things with me, who’s ready to be seen for everything she is. It’s a private version of her, and as grateful as I am that she’s as tough as she is, this is a rare glimpse of Vi Reyes that I feel lucky to be allowed to experience from time to time.
“You realize we’re going to watch the whole NCAA playoffs, right?” I ask. “Only fair.”
“Yes, and I’m totally counting the days,” she replies.
“No you’re not.”
“No,” she agrees, “I’m not.”
“You’ll like it.”
“Will I?”
“Come on, you love a little barbarity.”
“Yes, but when it’s just about carrying around a toy—”
She makes a face when I kiss her, but melts.
“Okay,” she says, eyes still closed.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, football is very important to me.”
“I didn’t ask you to go that far, but thank you for referring to it by its proper name.”
“It’s not rocket science, Orsino.”
“Viola,” I warn.
“Yes, Your Grace?” she says drily, and only protests a little when I kiss her again.
The energy in the room tonight is stiff, but not with tension. It’s the buzz of excitement before battle, a vibration of camaraderie and nerves that binds us all together. (It’s also hunger, because Lola is in the kitchen frying lumpia and we’ve been able to smell it for the past half hour, which is driving all of us to various acts of desperation.)
“Okay, so,” says Olivia, who has taken detailed notes on her character the same way she broke down our Romeo and Juliet scene. “Do we get, like, character intros?”
Everyone turns to me, including Antonia. “Um, hello? You know how this works,” I remind her.
“Not since you’ve been QuestMaster.” She smiles at me. (We’re doing better. Yesterday she came by spontaneously, like she used to, and ended up staying for dinner.)
“Well, it’s our game, not just mine,” I remind her.
“I helped write it,” Bash contributes.
“We know,” everyone reminds him in unison.
On my right, Nick and Jack exchange a glance of What did we get ourselves into?
“Hey,” I remind them. “You volunteered.”
Olivia’s friend Marta, the wild card of the group in that she’s also a popular, homecoming court–caliber cheerleader but has apparently been in a ConQuest league with her former Girl Scout troop for the last four years, reaches for Olivia’s character sheet. “I think we should do intros.”
“But what if we have no showmanship?” Nick says.
“Then you lose,” trumpets Bash.
“You don’t have to,” I tell Nick.
“No, I want to,” he assures me. “I was referring to Orsino.”
“Excuse me? I’m, like, a hundred percent showmanship,” says Jack, which is true.
“Bash can do mine,” says Mark Curio, handing his page to my brother.
“Oh, with pleasure,” says Bash, reaching for it until Olivia swats him down.
“I think we should definitely do our own,” she scolds him. “You know, in order to really inhabit the characters, right? It would be the best way to feel like we’re all fully taking part.”
“That’s a good point,” I say. “So, shall we? Olivia, you can start.”
Olivia’s character is the same one we designed together a couple of months ago: the former princess with skills in hand-to-hand combat. Bash’s character is a smuggler (“And a rake,” he announces louchely) who speaks several languages and is a gifted thief. Antonia and Marta are their usual OCs: the healer Larissa Highbrow and a half-elf witch, respectively (this is very cool, as it means Marta can manipulate time; very handy). Jack is, of course, a Robin Hood–type nobleman (“duke of skullduggery,” as he puts it), Nick is a seasoned warrior, and Curio, surprisingly, decides to be an astronomer. (We ask why and he says he just likes stars, and anyway, isn’t that useful for navigating? Which is a valid point.)
I’m QuestMaster, though if I weren’t, I’d probably be debuting a new character for this game. Maybe a lone-wolf type who chooses to disguise herself as a man (or a crone) for safety, only to learn that she can do a lot more when she reveals who she is.
Tactically, of course. Within reason. Not every space is safe.
But some definitely are.
I gather my notes, some of which are peppered with Bash’s annotations, and begin reading the opening monologue for the game he and I wrote over the summer.
“Among the capitalist ports of Karagatan d’Oro is a thriving black market for exotic goods,” I begin. “Under the corrupt rule of the Shadow King, cargo ships dock each day filled with hundreds of thousands of priceless trinkets. The port is infamous for its security, yet each year there are certain invaluable items that never reach their destination.”
“Who wants lumpia?” yells Lola.
“Shhh,” Bash calls back to her, but then rethinks it. “Actually, I’ll get it.”
“Keep going,” Jack urges me, nudging my hand. (And he claims he’s not a geek.)
“Rumor has it that the Night Market of the Sea of Gold is an actual place,” I continue. “Located somewhere within the Shadow King’s city, it can only be reached by someone who knows how. Almost everyone has an item, a lost thing, that can be found in the Night Market, but just to find it is so dangerous that most people either disappear forever or turn up months, years later, raving nonsensically about the atrocities they’ve survived.”
“Does anyone else have shivers?” Marta whispers. Olivia shushes her.
“Each of you has something you need to find within the Market,” I tell them. “You hold that secret close.” As the game goes on, some will reveal it to each other in order to gain their trust or form an alliance. Some will probably lie, though that will be dependent on their character’s skills, weaknesses, and motivations. (Bash and I agreed that human nature makes for the best kind of mystery.) “First, though, you need to find a way in.”
“We have to find one of the survivors,” Curio says immediately, and with that, the discourse begins.
“What if they lie?”
“That’s our job to figure out, isn’t it?”
“How are we going to find one?”
“It’s a port, someone has to have connections—”
“We can do it, we’re the criminals—”
“We need someone to bribe the guards!”
I can’t help but sit back and smile for a moment. I always hoped the game would be played this way: collaboratively, among people who actually listen to each other, and who are busy trying to solve a puzzle instead of just mindlessly fight. But it’s more than that, I think. It’s the satisfaction of creating a world that other people want to exist in. It’s the… togetherness of it all.
My mom’s advice column had an interesting subject last week. The question was from someone very focused and ambitious who admitted that relationships, or even wanting a relationship, often felt like a waste of time.
My mom asked me what I thought before she wrote up her answer. “It just seems like your area,” she said.
“Why,” I sighed, “because I’m so cold and devoid of human connection?”
“No, hija, the opposite.” She laughed at me. “You don’t really think that about yourself, do you?”
“You’re the one who said I had to be more open to things,” I reminded her.
“Open, yes. I never said you were cold.”
“But it’s hard to be open,” I admitted. “Once you open the door, you have no idea what’s getting in.”
“So then is it worth it?”
I thought about it. “Probably not all the time.”
She laughed again. “Is that your final answer?”
“No.” I drummed my fingers on the desk before asking her something hard. “Do you think I’m too sensitive?”
She arched a brow. “Do you think that?”
I hated to admit it, but I was trying to be honest. (For research purposes.) “Maybe.”
“Is that bad?”
“Sometimes. Means my protective shell is a lot tougher.”
“Harder to get through?” she guessed.
“Yeah.”
She didn’t say anything, so I added, “I think it’s lonely.”
“What is?”
“Life.”
“You’re lonely?”
“No, I think we’re lonely. Like, as a species.”
“So what does that mean?”
“That we can like who we are and like being alone and still want to feel connected.”
“So what would you respond, then? If you were me?”
Mom pointed to her empty document.
A lot of things came to my head; Jack, of course. Antonia, Olivia. King Arthur. The two game developers I put up on my wall. Pastor Ike, who didn’t change my mother’s voice, but nourished it. Helped it grow.
“I think the best thing we can do in this life is take care of each other,” I said. “Which doesn’t have to mean marriage or babies,” I added quickly. “I just think maybe happiness isn’t crossing a finish line, or finally meeting the right person or getting the right job or finding the right life. It’s the little things.” Like finally seeing your contributions valued at a tabletop game of ConQuest. “It’s the thing that happens to you while you’re wide awake and dreaming.”
She printed it, word for word.
“Viola,” says Jack, nudging me. “You with us?”
I blink, realizing they’re waiting on me to determine their next move. For the first time, I’m content to discover what it will be without controlling the outcome.
It makes perfect sense just then, that little lightning bolt of understanding that I can spot in moments of clarity. It’s not just about the endgame, you know what I mean?
The game isn’t the dice. It’s who’s with you at the table.
“All right,” I say with satisfaction, picking one up to give it a roll.
Let the adventure begin.