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“Let me pick the game this time,” Thrass said, looking over his shoulder at Thrawn as he led the way into the board game cafe. “Just this once.”
“But I thought we were here to play tactica,” Thrawn said. “It’s Saturday afternoon, and we always play tactica on Saturday afternoon.”
“Humor me?” Thrass said. “You won’t regret it.”
Thrawn looked over to the cafe’s board game collection, which was so large it took up an entire wall, and sighed wistfully. Tactica sat in its usual position—middle shelf, second box from the left—untouched by the other people here to play games. Everyone knew Thrawn and Thrass played tactica on Saturday afternoon.
“What do you have in mind?” he said.
“It’s a surprise,” Thrass said, flashing a wicked grin, and he seized his chance, pushing Thrawn into a chair and walking toward the shelf to select another game. He knelt to the lowest shelf—usually reserved from children’s games, Thrawn noted—and slid out a narrow box, which barely seemed thick enough to hold a game and its pieces. Thrass smiled wide as he set the box on the table, presenting his choice to Thrawn.
“Candyland: Kingdom of Sweet Adventures?” Thrawn said, frowning at the violently colorful box. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“All the better,” Thrass said as he took a seat across from Thrawn and opened the box, removing a board, several plastic placemarkers, and a deck of cards. A trail of multicolored squares wove its way around the entire box, twisting and turning back on itself—wildly inefficient, Thrawn thought. “What color do you want to be?” Thrass asked as he set the deck of cards in a corner of the board.
“I will need to study the tactical advantage of each color before I can decide,” Thrawn said. He reached into the box and rooted around. A confused look crossed his face, and he withdrew, returning empty-handed. “That’s strange. There’s no instruction manual. Someone must have lost the sheet.” He pulled his questis out of his bag. “No matter. I’m sure they’re available somewhere.”
“Put that away,” Thrass said, swatting Thrawn’s hand. “There are none.”
“No instructions?”
“No tactical advantages. Now pick a color, and don’t pick green, because that’s the one I want.”
Thrawn furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before selecting the yellow marker and placing it on the board next to Thrass’s. “But surely there must be instructions,” he said.
“Indeed there are, my brother,” Thrass said. He pointed at the deck of cards. “Since it’s your first game, I’ll go first. Watch carefully.” He picked up the top card and held it close to his face, nodding sagely before showing it to Thrawn. “You see, there’s a purple square on this card. Ha, look at that!” he said, moving his marker to the first purple square along the winding trail. “I’m already beating you. But don’t worry—now it’s your turn.”
“So, I simply select a card,” Thrawn said, turning over the next card from the deck. “And go to the assigned square?”
“Yes, sir,” Thrass grinned. “Better luck next time. Seems that you’re still losing,” he said as Thrawn moved his piece to the nearest orange square.
“I see.”
“All this candy is making me hungry,” Thrass said as soon as he completed his next turn. “You want anything?”
“Two scoops—no, make it three—of cromas nectar sorbet,” Thrawn said. “And a grillig juice,” he added as Thrass approached the counter.
“You got it,” Thrass said. “No cheating, okay?”
A few minutes later, he returned with a tray, the brightly colored snacks and drinks almost lurid enough to match the game’s palette.
“You seem troubled,” he said as he set the sorbet in front of Thrawn.
“I have not yet been able to identify a strategy,” Thrawn said, taking a long sip of his juice. “It appears that I am at the mercy of the deck, but there must be something I am missing.”
“And isn’t that a great life lesson?” Thrass said.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s random, Thrawn. There’s no strategy. You go where the cards tell you to go and hope for the best.”
“And then there is no satisfaction in winning,” Thrawn said, frowning, and Thrass snorted.
“Are you kidding me?” he said. “What ever happened to bragging rights? C’mon, play already—it’s your turn, and I’m almost to the gumdrop forest.”
Thrass had expected Thrawn to make it through one game—two, max—and had resigned himself to another losing campaign of tactica, but to his surprise, upon narrowly losing their first game, Thrawn immediately proposed another, and then another, and then another. They raced across the board, laughing as they baselessly accused each other of shuffling poorly and rigging the deck, each advancement and setback increasing the theatrics.
When Thrass finally looked at his chrono, he realized several hours had passed, and they were the last two customers left in the cafe. Sometimes, he thought, it was a relief to simply draw your card and walk your path, hoping for the best. He wasn’t sure what he believed—that his path had intersected with Thrawn’s merely on accident or that no matter where they travelled in the Chaos, they were bound by fate to meet—and he supposed it didn’t really matter, not now, because he knew without a doubt that what he and Thrawn had went deeper than the formality of family politics or bloodlines. They were brothers, after all, long before they'd even decided on that word, and nothing could ever change that.