#fotb

anyway the war happens, it is bloody and messy and unfocused until they (as mentioned) find focus and unite against the blood magic-using italians, which is fair. honestly. at that point you've got the italians largely just defending their own territory vs making any attempts at invasion, and their "proper" army is pretty flimsy by the end of everything especially once the magic runs out lol (there's some stuff to say about the magic but we'll get into that another time). BUT during one of the later stage border skirmishes (this is after the Defeat of italy but the war drags on a bit after that because of the pre-existing spain-italy beef) there's an incident where valentino is separated from his roving gang of horseback orphans and is near-fatally injured, left for dead, pinned under his dead horse. i have referred to the italians as horse cultists a few times; this is partially because, well, ferrari. and partially because they LOVE their horses. like a lot of these guys have grown up with their horses from childhood and when their horses die it's a massive deal, often more of a big deal than a person dying? there's all sorts of rituals and funeral pyres and things and usually a year-long grieving period where they just. don't have a horse. don't ride. it's agony lol. so vale being pinned under the body of his dead horse who he has been riding for well over a decade is traumatic on a lot of levels lmao

enter: marc marquez! marc, who is like, 19 or 20 at this point? and joined in the fighting three or four years prior more out of honour than outright hate for fantasy italy has also been separated from his gang of roving spaniards, but he is not injured, and he finds vale, and it's like. i think valentino is probably pretty well-known, definitely in fantasy italy and to a lesser extent in fantasy spain? infamous over there for sure. so marc has this opportunity to kill valentino, and to be able to say I Killed Valentino Rossi, which would be... glorious, especially for someone his age. like he'd be lauded forfuckinever about it. but i think also marc at this point has a very tender heart. and he knows enough about the culture to know this dead horse situation is a legitimate tragedy, and so the options then narrow down to mercy-killing (which would still end with Glory, technically) or. save valentino's life.

shocking no one he chooses the latter lmao. so you've got this short stocky dude heaving a full-grown horse off of this guy who has killed So Many of marc's countrymen, and then checking out vale's wounds, and then TREATING his wounds. i don't think marc is big on like healing-craft by any means but he knows enough that vale is stabilized, and he's able to get vale to a relatively safe place (significantly less safe for marc, because they head west and into fantasy italy!). they also camp out that night and marc goes back to the body of vale's horse and clips some of her hair for vale to keep because, as mentioned, he knows enough about the culture to know how significant the horse is. vale wants to hate him sooooooooo bad. but is. so touched by this

it takes them like two weeks, then, but they manage to stumble back to valentino's hometown (where all the orphans are yay! and where luca's dad is the "lord" (there's a bit of a different system in fantasy italy which again we'll get into another time). and marc just. stays there. for like a year and a half. and the rosquez romance grows and grows and it gets very Very serious until there's a fucking raid by a rogue fantasy spain group lmao

essentially what happens then is this town is fucking decimated. any kids that weren't orphans before sure are now, including luca. the town is burnt to the ground, so so so many people die, and this town was sort of one of the last Proper towns left? so it's this extremely horrific final blow and it happens AFTER the war which is like. not good. (nothing ever comes of it because fantasy italy is still on thin ice and since all the countries are sovereign lewis can't intervene and insist on any punishments etc, and fantasy france just doesn't give a fuck). so this is happening, and vale is standing in the fucking inferno that was his home, and he immediately blames marc. how could this group have gotten so close undetected without help? has marc been a plant this whole time? basically vale goes temporarily truly insane and marc is pleading with him and trying to reason with him but obviously this doesn't go well; valentino goes after him with a knife or sword and fucks up marc's arm (!) and at that point marc runs. valentino chases him for ages through the forest in the night, it's all very dramatic. there's some ironing out that needs to be done with the details here but marc encounters An Italian who does believe that he's not been undercover this whole time and helps him escape, and coincidentally (like a day or two later) marc runs into alex close to the border of fantasy spain, at which point he just collapses and is real fucked up for a long time, but they get him home, relatively safe if not entirely whole

and vale spends the next ten years literally roving the land killing any spaniards he sees even close to italian land because he hates marc So Much lmao. marc sort of grows out of it but he carries that sadness with him for a very very long time

(they do see each other again during the second war. but that's another story)