If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died from battle wounds; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
The air was all but silent. Despite it being comfortably warm and midday, there was almost no sounds to be heard, save for the occasional clicks of a lone bird that soon stopped sounding- a sharp contrast to the noises that had protruded the air just weeks before this, on that fateful day. Gunshots, screams and shots had pierced everyone's ears and hearts before, but nothing was more painful than the heaviness that settled around now. Even the birds and the animals were unnaturally silent, as if they also understood and were paying their debts.
A leader had just been lost.
The body had been buried not long after his death, but only after a suitable coffin had been made for the esteemed man. All that was left of him now was his memory, and the statue that had been built in his honor. The bronze gleamed in the summer light that soaked through the leaves of the maple trees around the statue, as if proud to be standing there. Mounted on a horse, he looked fierce and just as ready for battle as he always did, the horse rearing back on its back legs and both of them looking like they were prepared to take on the world. Axel could almost imagine the same glint in the blue eyes that had belonged to the horse's owner, the sun-kissed spikes of hair that ruffled with the wind, the smile that barely managed to appear whenever Axel was around. The sword in his hand, raised skywards in a challenge even seemed familiar, just like the musket slung over his back and the revolver on his side. He looked every bit like the hero he truly was.
This was the man who had led them through thick and thin, the one who had gave it all in order to give his people the life he thought they deserved. Even now, when there should have been celebration, every soldier knelt to the statue, hats held to their chest and heads bowed in grief. This was the only thing that could be done for him, Axel knew. His tale would be told for years, passed down from generation to generation; the story of the warrior who had died to save the ones he loved.
They had won the war, but the cost was too great for it to be anything but bittersweet.
The identity of the caption is ambiguous- Sora, or Roxas? You decide.