know them by this sign
a beginning a middle but never an end
Crimson and white, colors chosen to imitate the man they stood behind. A bird, a sparrow, fiery and tattered like the man who carried its name became their symbol. Soon, too soon, these pristine uniforms would become ragged and stained, blood and rough living taking a toll. They would come to be infamous, these ivory militant jackets spattered with scarlet, a symbol to all who dared look of revolution.
Sparrow would haltingly don it, and his enemies would unconsciously fear it. And though the colors would fade, coated in gunpowder and gore and an even helping of muck, the symbol would only come to burn brighter. The untamed bird with the unclipped wings, its song the sound of gunfire and steel, the cries of victory, of agony, and the silence that would inevitably settle back in.
And even with the war over and done, the renegades crying victory, the symbol of their cause would linger in the minds of all who bore witness.
Years and years and still it lingers, lurking in the shadows until it is once again needed. And when that time comes, when the new king becomes a tyrant in the eyes of his people, the bird will once again spread its wings and take flight in the minds of those who would enact change.
Only this time, the creature is well known, the sight of it heralding the tides of change in a way it had not before. For this king would know the sign, would understand what it meant long before the call to arms reached its peak. And so too would the new leader know what it meant to bear it, this symbol, more so than any of the others. For though the Hero King was gone, his legacy would live on in the new bearer of his sign, the child who shared his crimson eyes and heroic bloodline.
The child who would do as fate demanded, just as he had.