The aftershocks of a thunder spell still cause spasms to run through Forsyth's lifeless hand. Python wonders if knowing his death had come on the battlefield would make the idiot proud.
The fool is knighted, post mortem. His burial is befitting of a man of his newly acquired status and he's hailed as somewhat of a war hero; a commoner by birth, laid to rest next to nobles and kings, as though to prove just how he'd done the impossible and risen through the ranks.
Python fails to see any good in all that.
After that, he is at loss.
With Forsyth gone and no great aspirations of his own to chase after, with nothing but an aching, broken heart to guide him—
He spends a fortnight contemplating things and people, for once, give him all the space he needs.
Python sleeps a lot, and yet it's never enough.
He rises at the crack of dawn, not of his own volition, woken by the phantom of a boisterous voice ripping him out of his dream.
Sometimes, he cries, but those are the days when he doesn't bother getting up at all.
But none of that behaviour does Forsyth justice.
And when he's at the very end of his rope, Python finally realises what he's meant to do.
So when he stands before the new king and queen and vows to serve the One Kingdom, and when he feels the cold steel of Alm's sword touch his shoulders, and when he rises and the applause rings hollow—
He promises to work hard. Not to a fledgling, unified nation, nor to a village boy made king, nor to anything else honourable- he promises it to the footsteps ahead of him, the pattern of a spirited gait and the depth of a childhood dream, now left for him to follow into.
That's why he needs to apply himself- try as hard as Forsyth would have and then some, give knighthood his all as though it had been his goal all along.
The congratulations he receives from those who know come with a sad smile.
Had anyone told Python a year ago that he would make for an exemplary knight- diligent, hard-working, focussed, strong and skilled and ready to give it his all- he would have laughed. With things as they are now, however, he doesn't have anywhere else to go but down this road.
He wonders if his father would be proud of him. If he would be proud to see his good-for-nothing of a son, adept only at things of his choosing, stand strong and proud and with a Sir to his name and a bright green, dented pauldron for his most ghastly medal of shame.
And maybe if Auntie- Forsyth's sweet, kindly mother- could forgive him, if she could forgive him for returning home with countless battles under his belt and word of her son's demise on his lips.
And of course, if none of this would have happened, if the both of them would be living humble little lives in their humble little village, reading books and building chairs, had they only stayed home.
Well, so he wonders, but time and time again he readies arrow after arrow and takes the lives of small fry criminals and bandits as though they weren't somebody's comrades, too.
He gets used to the scars- and he has plenty of them, now, because he is reckless and stupid like some other idiot who has spent the past two years pushing daisies.
He's got ugly burns down his arms, but his hands still function; he has pulled many an arrow out of his shoulders, and his movements aren't as fluid as they used to be; his torso feels stiff with all the scar tissue pulled taut over it.
They're medals of honour, though, he tells himself, every time he stands among the others knights, awaiting Sir Clive's orders with his head held high, and his body as scarred as his heart, and fatigue in his bones and borrowed dreams—
Dreams, dreams, dreams.
The thing with dreams is, they can't sustain him. A knight's salary can, however.
They can't do anything but remind him of what's been lost. Lots of things do.
But he still likes to pretend that they can hold him together another day.
And then, there's an uprising, somewhere up north- some rebels who are still clinging to delusions of past grandeur, peasants strong enough to hold up a pitchfork but not the weight of their own lives.
It's another off-the-mill uproar, no trouble at all.
But suddenly, it's cold steel and red, red blood, and then, it's black nothingness and Python's almost glad.
a/n: so this one didn't make me cry but it made me shrivel up and die inside. check out my profile in the next days if you wanna bc i feel like i gotta compensate by writing the happy endings they deserve. (bc mommy allie doesn't let any of her boys and girls die in her playthroughs. bc that would be weak.)