"I don't know," he tells him with a shrug. "I play because it's...enjoyable. I have never been much of a strategist, I think. I studied wars and I followed them, but I was a warrior, in my heart. I never would have made a good leader."

He moves the bishop through the opening, ready to take an opposing pawn across the board.

"Even when I was Sheriff, I did not feel like a competent leader. Sometimes my plans did not work out the way I wanted them to because of unforeseen variables. Because I have spent so long alone, I sometimes don't understand how people- vampires or humans- think any longer."