I do not own Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
He's dead.
There's a lance through his middle and blood pooling on the dust covered road. There isn't a breeze to even stir the heat. Feel strange, out of place. Raise your hands up to your face and look at them, and past them the black armor that once housed the spirit men whispered of in fear. The Black Knight. He isn't so fearsome now.
Ponder, wonder. For his father, the boy had shouted. For his father, dead by the Black Knight's hands. For his mother, whose expression is more reminiscent of grief than relief. Her husband's killer is dead, now…right?
Right?
Look at the rest of the caravan. Look at the lance through his middle. Look at the boy, Leon Esla. Recall another caravan, another Leon Esla. Try to remember what happened to him. Killed by the Black Knight? The boy believes so. Recall something about an abyss, a mountain. Remember a name -- Raem. The knight had shouted it once, in his search for a light.
That madness--it didn't make him a killer. Recall the way he hadn't attacked you, in all your encounters. Recall the Marr's Pass caravan, lying defeated at the side of the road, but not dead. Not dead.
Ponder, wonder. She's sent the boy away, she's leaning down and removing the knight's helmet. She's running careful fingers over his face, and he's just a man, just a man and he's dead and lying in the dirt and she's crying now, tears dripping to his motionless face and falling again to the dust.
Feel shock turn to something else. Understanding.
He's just a man then. Not a demon, not a saint, not a killer. Just a man, and his wife, and his son across the road, receiving congratulations from the caravan for avenging his father. Recall gasped words and indefinable sadness. Wonder if he remembered. Pray that he did. Pray that he didn't. Try to imagine a sadness so deep it spanned decades, generations. Try to imagine a life lost long before it ever ended. Try to comfort the widow, then stop. Realize there is nothing you can say. Turn away from the body and return to your own caravan.
As your caravan pulls away from the scene at the crossroads, turn back to look at Leon Esla and wonder if the boy will ever realize that it was he who killed his father.