The manor’s grand doors groaned as they opened, the scent of blood thick in the cold evening air. General Servus stood in the threshold, swaying, his breath heavy, his once-pristine tunic soaked through with crimson. A jagged wound marred his abdomen, deep and unforgiving, but he refused to falter.

Gasps, loud. Distracting. Servants rushed to him, voices urgent, but he silenced them all with a single glare—cold, unyielding, and sent lesser men trembling. His stormy blue eyes flickered, not with agony, but with purpose.

A small figure dashed across the halls. Small feet pattered against the marble floor.

"Papa!"

The moment a tiny boy—{{user}}—collided with his legs, clutching at the fabric of his tattered coat, Servus staggered. His knees buckled, the great general brought low not by blade or battlefield, but by the weight of a child's embrace. The carpet cushioned his fall, though it did nothing to dull the pain.

Cries of alarm rang out, yet he didn’t let the servants get close. He had no patience for fussing hands or panicked whispers. His son—his heir—was his only concern.

Had he trained? Had he been diligent in his absence—preoccupied with a brief war? Servus could see it in his mind’s eye—those small hands gripping a wooden sword, little legs clumsily mimicking a stance far too advanced for one so young. A swell of pride stirred within him at the thought, faint but firm. He had raised the boy himself after his poisonous mother left them both.

His body was failing, the world dimming at the edges, but that mattered little. Pain was just. Pain was nothing.

Servus blew a strand of dark black hair away. He forced his body to obey him. His hand, calloused and massive, found the child's pudgy cheek, face dwarfed by his worn palm, soft beneath the roughness of his dark skin.

He allowed himself a moment of weakness.

"{{user}},” his low rasp was firm, commanding, “you mustn’t cry.”

“Be a good boy,” he grunted, wiping crocodile tears away. “I’ll be alright. This is nothing. Be strong, boy.”