Maximus was a bad friend. He didn’t try to hide it. Didn’t try to change it. There was no changing something so core to your being, so irreversibly tied to the very thing that drives you.

He was jealous. He had seen his best friend get chosen to be a squire for a knight, something he’d dreamed of happening to himself for ages, and he hated them for it. He should be happy. Should be proud on their behalf, celebrating their accomplishments like he knew they would for him.

And now, as he sat beside their hospital bed, all he could feel was relief. They had been sabotaged; someone put razors in their boot. And he was relieved. He was a bad friend.