Notes:
This chapter might be a bit of a bore, it’s mostly explanations of the lore with some Easter Eggs here and there if you look carefully ;)

As Alfred finished off signing the last document for the morning, he placed it on his out pile with a smile and even stood up to take the pile of forms over to the briefcase, all the while humming a familiar tune. After handing the briefcase to the clerk, whilst also giving him a pat on the shoulder and thanking him for his hard work, he turned to Yao and enthusiastically asked, “What’s next?”

He walked with a skip in his step and his eyes seem to sparkle like stars as he preformed his tasks throughout the day. He strolled round the palace and he greeted his subjects in an enthusiastic manner, winking whilst pointing at them or just giving them a charming salute. He did all of his work with a smile and completed it all without whining or complaining about it.

Yao seemed curious as to why Alfred was in such a good mood when this morning he looked like a zombie ready to go back to its grave. Still he couldn’t complain as all the tasks that needed to be completed ended up getting completed. All of the inspections and meetings were taken of and according to the schedule and work plan, everything was up to date meaning Yao only had to worry about surprises which he could handle.

Now it was lunchtime and as Alfred stuffed his face with his favourite burgers, Yao looked over the schedule and was surprised that everything was completed this morning. “Apart from a chat with the district mayor of the eastern city regarding some policies, it looks like you got a free afternoon.”

“Whewee?” replied Alfred, his mouth currently occupied with a half eaten burger. He forced himself to swallow it and rubbed his greasy lips with the back of his hand. “So there isn’t anything we need to do?”

Yao double checked the monthly plan. “We don’t need to inspect the guest rooms for the other courts until next week, nor do we have to go over the menu just yet as the caterers are currently taking stock. There are no other meetings or events coming up. So... no, we are fully up to date,” confirmed Yao with a smile.

“Aw, shame,” gasped Alfred after downing an ice cold soda, patting his chest to force out a trapped belch. “I’m actually eager to do something today.”

Now Yao was really curious. “Ok, what happened?” he demanded, “This morning you looked ready to meet your maker, and now you’re acting like you’re on top of the world.”

Alfred just smiled and winked at the Jack. “Let’s just say I took a quick trip this morning,” was all that he said.

It wasn’t the answer Yao was hoping for but he took it for what it was. “I just wish you were like this everyday,” he mumbled as he double checked his notes.

Slurping away at his soda, Alfred just smirked as his hardworking Jack went over his notes to try and find something for him to do. He truly did feel a whole lot better than he did earlier on this morning and it was all thanks to his little trip to Arthur’s Garden. He didn’t even realise that he was happy to return there until after he returned to the palace.

Nothing interesting happened during his visit, well nothing majorly interesting. Arthur greeted him politely for a change though he did call him an idiot when Alfred teased him. Arthur then sung to his garden and allowed Alfred to listen in, despite feeling embarrassment with having someone who could talk back as an audience. Once he was done singing the pair of them talked for a while about trivial things. Some of their topics made them either invested in the conversation or get pouty about it, but the longer they talked the more Alfred got lost in Arthur’s world. Despite when he called him an idiot or said one thing when he meant another, Arthur was an interesting guy to talk to. He could get full of himself but he did seem to take an interest in Alfred’s own nonsense.

When Alfred ended up returning from the garden, he found that all of his previous concerns and worries were gone. He was able to wear a smile and do his work without feeling any dread. It was almost as if Arthur had unknowingly placed a spell on him and replaced all of Alfred’s bad vibes with good ones. Well whatever Arthur did it did the trick, for Alfred truly did feel like he was on top of the world and nothing could knock him down. Nothing could get rid of this good mood.

“Well seeing that you got all of your work done and you’re in a good mood, I believe you have time to squeeze this in,” suggested Yao, holding up a document before Alfred.

Alfred stared at the document and his smile vanished. “No, not that!” he begged, “anything but that!”

“Oh come now Alfred, even I have to do this once in a while,” scoffed Yao as he folded his arms, “and you need this more than I do.”

“No! No, no, no!” Alfred shook his head and banged his fists on the table, looking like a child throwing a tantrum. “Please Yao! Paperwork, talks with planners, even an argument over dinner arrangements! I’d rather sit and have tea with a bunch of old ladies and talk about the weather! Anything but this!”

“Sorry Alfred, but you are due for one anyway so you might as well get it over and done with,” insisted Yao.

Alfred wailed and felt himself falling off the top of his perfect world into a dark abyss of suffering.

“BUT I HATE SCHOOL!” he screamed, his voice echoing throughout the palace.

——————————

Now it wasn’t exactly school that Alfred had to attend but he called it that because it pretty much like school only worse. In fact he’d rather go to an actual school. Since he was still quite young, and hadn’t been a King for that long, Alfred had to attend private lessons to learn about his lineage and the responsibilities that came with it. Yao attended similar lessons but only rarely nowadays as he had been a Jack long before Alfred became a King, and he full knowledge of his abilities and responsibilities as a Jack. In all honesty he just went for what he called a tune up.

Alfred just slumped on his desk as his tutor droned on and on about proper responsibilities, the history of their Kingdom, and all other things that went in one ear and out the other. He had such a dull tone it made the sound of a ticking clock sound far more appealing.

“This sucks soooo much,” he muttered to himself.

That was the point of these lessons; so Alfred could fully master his abilities as a King of Spades, as well as understand where and when he could use them. Being a King didn’t mean you ruled a Kingdom with a fancy mark upon your body that proved your birthright, it was a whole other ballgame. In a short version all the Kings, their Queens, their Jacks and Aces were responsible for maintaining balance in the world and each Kingdom had a unique power to maintain that balance.

The Kingdom of Spades power was to control time and space.

When Alfred became King he found he could wield the power to manipulate time and space to his will, but just because he could didn’t mean he was supposed to. Even if he wanted to pause time or rewind it to a certain point he couldn’t as it would upset the stability of the world. It was hard to explain but Alfred could only do it with permission from the universe, which was also hard to explain.

Simply put, Alfred wasn’t allowed to mess about with time for his own gain or amusement.

There were some loopholes, for example if Alfred dropped a cup and broke it, he could control the time in that particular space and edit time so that the cup never broke. The cup wasn’t alive and it wouldn’t affect the flow of time wether it was broke or not, of course there were other complications but that was something else. Alfred used to do this all the time when he broke something and the world hadn’t ended yet.

There were other things he could do, like he could fold space and move from one area to another as long as he knew where he was going. It was cheap to call it teleportation but that was basically what it was. He could summon anything to his position, but never living people for obvious reasons. There were other neat things he could do but, as he was told over and over; with great power came great responsibility.

One last thing. Every King was born with their own unique signature ability. It was like their one and only power that they alone possessed and no King before or after them could wield it. You didn’t even need to be a King to wield it for it is present upon birth, as if the Universe already decided who was next in line and granted them a gift before the obtain their mark. Sometimes that made it easy to find who was next in line, depending on what the ability was.

Alfred’s unique ability wasn’t magical or anything like that. He was born with insanely powerful strength. In fact Alfred recalled when he was a young boy he almost knocked down a large statue by accident. Although he got scolded for it, all the scholars and his own father realised that this meant he was to be the next King.

It was the same for Queens, Jacks and Aces. They were born with their own unique ability as well as the powers that came with their mark. Apparently Yao could, in his own words, predict movement. It wasn’t like seeing the future or something like that, but if he got into a fight he could dodge every single move. If somebody threw something he’d knew exactly where to stand to catch it. If somebody tried to sneak up on him he could tell where they were a mile off no matter how sneaky they were. In other other words, Yao was almost untouchable. It didn’t sound at all interesting but Yao claimed it made his life insanely easier.

Anyway, Alfred had to take these lessons at least once a month until the scholars were happy that he knew what he needed to know, and fully understood his powers. It was a right pain in the butt, but it was one of those things that had to be done.

He demonstrated his ability to fold space to move about, or teleport to one of the room to the other. He was able to reverse time in a small space to fix a broken clock. He was able to give an abridged version of their Kingdom’s history and stressed about the importance of using his power responsibly.

It had only been an hour but it felt like an eternity. If Alfred could speed up time he would’ve done it ages ago but he already went through a whole lesson as to why he couldn’t.

“Well, you majesty, we still got ten minutes left,” sighed the tutor, as he checked his watch.

“I guess we can finish early today then?” suggested Alfred, hopeful that he could get out of here and do something to bring some life back into his dying brain.

The tutor laughed, “good one, your majesty,” as he reached for a pile of books.

Alfred didn’t change his expression but he did scream internally. The tutor placed the books upon Alfred’s desk, three of them and upon each cover was a different mark of the Spade Kingdom. The first book had the mark of the King, the other bore the mark of the Jack, and the last one bore a mark that had not been seen in a hundred years; the mark of the Queen.

“I think for a special lesson we can go over some of our famous Kings, Queens and Jacks,” insisted the tutor as he opened the book with the mark of the King.

Alfred groaned and rested his hand upon his arms, staring down at the pages with uninterested eyes. The tutor opened a page that displayed a King from the distant past, a female one with short hair known as King Amelia the Brash. There were two pictures of her on display, one of standing in a garden and the second one was a close up of her mark, which was upon her arm.

“Ah, King Amelia,” proclaimed the tutor, “like the name suggests she often dealt with situations head on, but was a firm believer in justice and truth. The Kingdom adored her for despite her brash actions, she did everything in her power to se that her subjects lived comfortable lives. Apparently she mostly solved her problems with violence but her Queen managed to stop her whenever things got out of hand.”

Under the picture of the King was the name of her Queen and Jack. Queen Alice the Patient and Jack Chun-Yan the Gentle.

As the tutor continued to go on and on about King Amelia, Alfred flipped through the book to look at other Kings, some of them more famous than others. There was King George the Patriot, King Robert the Brave, King Maria the Young, King Elizabeth the Beloved, King Duncan the Warrior and King Abraham the Just. There were so many others but it would take Alfred all day to read them all.

He then glanced at the book with the mark of the Queen. The tutor was still yapping on so Alfred decided to have a little look. The first page he opened was surprisingly Queen Alice, King Amelia’s Queen. She was a fair women with her hair tied up in pigtails, and her mark upon her navel. He flipped through the pages and looked at all the other Queens from the past. Queen Anne the Pleasant, Queen Sarah the Graceful, Queen Theodore the Polite and Queen Oliver the Charming. He eventually landed upon the page that displayed Queen Maria the Last. She was a beautiful to look at, with hair as dark as night and a charming face, but did they really need to call her the Last? Yes she was the last Queen of Spades, but was that how she wanted to be remembered? What would her title have been if she wasn’t the last?

“How long are you going to sit there? It’s rude to not announce yourself when visiting, you should know that by now.”

Alfred looked up and saw the room had changed. He wasn’t at his desk but upon a couch and opposite him on another couch was Arthur.

“You’re unusually quiet this time round,” murmured Arthur, who was in the middle of sewing something.

Although he should be used to this by now, Alfred was surprised that he was back already. He had already been there once this morning during breakfast and now again in the afternoon? Was it because he didn’t go yesterday? Were his visits purely random?

“Hey,” snapped Arthur, snapping his fingers in Alfred’s face, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Sorry,” muttered Alfred as he rubbed his brow, “I’ve got so much on my mind right now.”

“Really now,” replied Arthur, crossing his legs as he sewed and giving his guest a nonchalant stare, “and what exactly is on your mind?”

Where to begin? “I guess, I’m trying to figure out why I keep coming here,” said Alfred as he leaned back in the couch. “I don’t know why I keep coming here and I don’t know when it happens. It just happens wether I want to or not.”

“Do you... not like coming here?” asked Arthur, pausing his work and looking at Alfred with a hint of worry in his eyes.

“No, not at all,” insisted Alfred, not sure himself how true this was. “I just don’t know the reason behind it all. No one I tell believes me and I don’t even know where to start looking.”

Arthur seem to go into a deep thinking state after hearing Alfred’s concerns. “I’ll admit even I don’t know why you keep popping in here at random,” he confessed. “I even asked the faeries about and they have no answer to give me.”

“I see,” sighed Alfred, “well I do appreciate-... hold on a sec, you asked who?”

“Hmm? Oh, I asked the faeries about you,” replied Arthur, talking about it as if it were normal, “they don’t come around so often for certain reasons but when they do we have our little talks. They give me some of the seeds I use for my garden, and they teach me such lovely songs.”

Alfred stared at Arthur with a dumbfounded look. “Faeries?”

“Yes, faeries,” confirmed Arthur with a nod.

He wasn’t sure if Arthur was joking or not but with they he looked at him he was being dead serious, as if what he was saying was completely normal. Faeries were mythical creatures said to be crafty and magical, and to this day there were debates wether they were real or not. Some say they hide from humans because of their violent nature, others say they were made up to tell stories for children. Alfred grew up not believing in them, as his philosophy was if he couldn’t see it then it didn’t exist.

“You speak... to faeries?” asked Alfred, wanting to confirm that his ears were still working.

Arthur nodded as he continued to sew. “When I was little they were my only friends. We played in the forests and meadows, and they showed me things no other man could had seen before.” Arthur looked nostalgic and a little sad as he continued. “I met sprites, pixies, brownies and even Unicorns. One of my closest friends was mint bunny, he was so adorable.”

As Arthur rambled on and on about his enchanted friends, Alfred started to question wether or not Arthur was actually insane and that he had been somehow hiding it really well. Then again he named his plants and who does that anyway!?

Whilst going on about his supposed faerie friends, Arthur noticed the look Alfred was giving him and he stopped. “Not even you believe me,” he sighed.

Noticing how hurt Arthur looked, Alfred felt a little bad but he still couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “It’s just... I don’t really believe in-...”

“Don’t say that,” barked Arthur, suddenly angry, “every time someone says that, a faerie gets ill!”

Alfred bit his tongue to stop himself from finishing his sentence. “Sorry,” he said, choosing his next words carefully, “but do you expect me to believe that you can see things others can’t?”

“I can see you, can’t I?” huffed Arthur. “No one else can.”

That was a fair point. “B-but I’m not a faerie,” argued Alfred, trying not to picture himself dressed in a tutu and donning faerie wings.

“Oh trust me,” snorted Arthur with amusement, “I know for a fact that you are no faerie. You’re too big and unrefined to be one.”

Alfred folded his arms and pouted, not sure if he should be insulted or not. He still refused to believe in such nonsense but Arthur himself seemed to be fully convinced of their existence.

“Would you like to hear a story?” asked Arthur out of the blue.

It seemed a little suspicious and Alfred was wondering if this was elaborate trick to tease him. “What kind of story?”

Arthur smiled innocently at him. “It’s a story of how I rescued some faeries from... an wicked witch.”

Alfred was a little too old for stories like that but he couldn’t deny he was quite intrigued. It sounded like Arthur just wanted to tell him some fancy faerie tale he made up and make himself out to be the hero just to impress him. Alfred decided to humour him and play along.

“Ok then,” he said, leaning back to get comfortable, “go on.”

Arthur cleared his throat and began his story. “Once upon a time, there was this wicked witch who cared only for her vanity, using her spells to trick others into seeing her as the fairest creature in all the land. She was cruel and unkind, only caring for herself and took pleasure in the misery of others. All the other witches were disgusted with how she misused her magic and turned their back on her, much to her anger. For you see she not only wanted to be the fairest but she wanted to be the greatest witch in the world.”

It seemed to be interesting so far, and the way Arthur voiced the tale was catching his attention. Alfred leaned forward as Arthur continued.

“One day she managed to trap five faeries inside five bottles, made from an enchanted glass that allowed anyone to see them, for faeries were difficult to see with the naked eye.”

“How’d she trap them?” asked Alfred.

“She supposedly tricked them with an enchantment, luring them into the bottles and sealing them shut before they could escape. They begged her to release them but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The witch planned to use the poor creatures in her spells to further her own beauty and show off to the other witches, for catching a single faerie was considered a great feat to all witch kind. As the poor faeries resigned to their fate, they wept and wept.”

Alfred was now resting his elbows upon his legs, his full attention focused on Arthur’s story. “They didn’t... die, did they?”

“Patience,” chuckled Arthur, “anyway, seeing a faerie is difficult and hearing one is just as hard, especially if you’re trapped inside a glass bottle. However their small cries eventually caught the attention of a passing wanderer, who happened to a charming and well refined young man.”

“Is this wanderer you?” asked Alfred.

“He was,” confirmed Arthur with a grin, “and he heard the cries coming from the witch’s house. He knew he couldn’t leave those poor creatures to such a terrible fate but the wanderer was afraid of going into the witch’s house. So he waited patiently until the witch went into a deep sleep, her snores so loud that even the bats and lizards fled in all directions to get away from her.”

That last part made Alfred chortle a little.

“So the wanderer crept into the house, being careful not to utter a single sound. It was dark and filled with all of her gear, like her broom, her pointy hat, her boxes filled with frogs and newts. The wanderer was afraid but he knew he had to save those faeries. So he moved around the cauldron filled with her disgusting brew and had to hold his nose as he passed her potions, for they smelled so disgusting that they’d make a cockroach pass out.”

“Ew,” laughed Alfred as he imagined the smell.

“He stepped over her mouldy boots and passed her as she slept upon her bed, covered in the rotting fungus and moss from a foul bog. He finally reached the table where she kept the faeries trapped in their bottles, the little creatures now filled with hope that their freedom was close. The wanderer didn’t want to stay there any longer so he had no choice but to take all five bottles at once.”

Yikes, even Alfred couldn’t imagine holding five bottle whilst sneaking through a room with a snoring witch.

“So with all five bottles in hand, the wanderer crept back towards the door, trying his best not to clink the bottles. He just made it past her bed when suddenly one of the bottles fell from his grip!”

That actually made Alfred gasp. “He dropped it!?”

“Almost,” answered Arthur using a dramatic tone, “he managed to break its fall with his foot, preventing the bottle from smashing and keeping the trapped faerie safe. The witch continued to slumber so he quickly picked up the bottle and finally escaped from the witch’s house. He took the bottles as far as he could, freeing the faeries and smashing the bottles so that they’d never trap another faerie ever again. The faeries were grateful but they wanted to quickly return to their home so that the witch could never find them, and so they each gave the wanderer a seed and told him if he planted them and raised them with love, they would grant any wish he desired.”

Arthur stopped talking, leaving Alfred wondering if that was the end or not. “Is that it?”

“For now,” chuckled Arthur, “he’s still tending to them, and hopes that once they grow they’ll grant his hearts deepest wish.”

“What is his wish?” asked Alfred.

Arthur placed his finger to his lips. “It’s a secret.”

Alfred made a “boo” sound and flopped back on the couch. “That story was too short and I hated the ending,” he huffed, “tell me another one!”

“Another one?” Arthur tried to think of another story to tell. “How about the story of when I saved some maidens from a dragon?”

“You did not,” chuckled Alfred, knowing now that Arthur was just making all this up, “but tell me anyway!”

Arthur rolled his eyes with an amused smile and told Alfred a tale of a terrible dragon and the maidens he saved from his fiery wrath. He then told him a story of how he met a Unicorn who lead him to a long forgotten grove filled with treasure, and another story of how a goblin tried to eat him when he was a child, but was saved by a flying mint bunny. Alfred listened to every word, his eyes filled with wonder and enchantment as the words Arthur spoke formed beautiful pictures in his mind.