The Tale of a Great Fixer Who Once Reached for The Dream, part 2 (after battle)
How glad I am to have you back, Sancho... With you by our side, this place shall be even happier.
My Family... has finally found true happiness.
Because they have suffered far too long... they deserve this happiness, more so than anyone.
With your return... to La Manchaland... we shall fill this place with even more laughter.
…….
Laughter? What a joke.
We are here to exterminate your kind.
... We have been through so much together, have we not? Sancho.
Let us show them what we have lived through... to these ignorant outsiders...
You were... foolhardy.
Our foes were... Bloodfiends who had grown to the size of giants. Those who had drunk so much human blood that it was boiling, overflowing out of their bodies.
They were formidable foes. Our battles were... challenging.
Even there, you dreamed.
A hollow dream... nothing more.
Hark, my dearest compatriots! Art thou ready for this battle?! We shall soon strike the battlefield with our full might; speak, if aught ails thee!
…….
"Aught" ails me.
Ahem! O Sancho, thou art recognized! Speak thy mind!
Why are you talking like that?
'Tis only right that a Fixer-to-be must speak in a manner befitting of his stature.
Ah, and mine heart beats with such volition whenever I speak in such a manner. O Sancho, prithee, why dost thou not speak as I -
KEEAAAGGHHH!
Because it's ridiculously juvenile.
Yet, I cannot help but cherish that day when we ran across the green fields together, tasting the freedom...
You were ambushed by Bloodfiends who broke your lance.
Yes. A lance... you had crafted me of your own blood.
It was... a mistake. I underestimated my foes; a rather unfortunate yet unshakable habit of mine.
I remember telling you to be mindful of them.
A powerful gust knocked me into the air before smiting me down into the grass...
... And you hurried to my side, didn't you? I remember your face, your breathing hastened from worry.
I wasn't that desperate.
As I lay upon my back, gasping at the sky from the shock...
... you appeared into that view.
Perhaps... it was that moment that led us to victory in that war.
You were already certain of your own victory even before the war began.
I must wonder if that was the moment I had begun to think that we could really change.
Watching you, who hated running all your life, breathlessly sprinting to my side...
... I thought perhaps we were all changing, little by little.
…….
Yet I... we... failed, Sancho.
And everything around us... is a record, a testament to our failures.
Look around as you will, Sancho. At our desolation...