so burrich gets this earring from his grandmother - the earring that is a symbol of freedom, that she wore when she won her freedom from the horrors of slavery, her own salvation that she passed on to burrich - and burrich has this earring that he specifically decides to give to his friend ("friend") chivalry, a man who essentially saved his metaphorical life and gave him a reason to live...(and may or may not be one of the loves of his life)...and this is the only thing of value that burrich has, literally worth as much as GOLD, and he gives it away to the prince who is the king-in-waiting because that is how much chivalry means to him...so chivalry is burrich's salvation and in giving chivalry this earring he's saying that chivalry is his new master...until chivalry dies and the earring is seemingly lost forever...except patience - who by the way used to be (is still?) in love with burrich but was married to burrich's "friend" / master chivalry - hangs on to the earring and after a time decides to give that earring to chiv's bastard son fitzchivalry...to connect him to his father? to connect him to her because she wishes he was her son? to give him his own freedom from bastarddom? but fitz is essentially raised and fathered by burrich...who is so close to abandoning his best "friend's" son but stops because he has chivalry's earring and burrich's life is tied to that earring, pledged to the man who wears it, and chivalry's life is still tied to that earring, so now burrich is pledged to his (beloved's) son, and fitzchivalry is just like his father but he's also just like burrich who is also his father and burrich is terrified that he could parent a child who turned out to be just like him, so he tries to save him but fitz is not chivalry but burrich pledged himself to him all the same and so no matter how much this boy messes up or yells at him or makes burrich hate himself or makes burrich miss his chivalry, he cannot forget that that earring is his salvation, that earring is his beloved, that earring is proof that he must go on living...even when he thought that earring had been buried with chivalry in his grave...and maybe fitz never earned that earring the way his father did, but goddammit burrich can't help but feel like fitz earned it on his own, if only because he gave burrich a reason to keep on living day after day even after his beloved was gone
