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ShoeBilly_ is the name of Theo’s former mentor, former sort-of ally, former not-really friend. ShoeBilly_ is the name of Theo’s current enemy.
That should be enough to make him grip his bow and let an arrow whistle through the air; should be enough to make him light up a cart and watch a totem explode in a flurry of green-and-gold. I’m going after Parrot should be enough to make him toss triple potions in an arc above his head and swipe at Billy’s neck.
It should be enough, but it isn’t because Billy is the one who taught him how to draw and aim and fire his bow. Billy is the one who taught him how to crossbow cart, how to utilize the terrain. How to best pot up, how to find chinks in the opponent’s armor, when to chug gapples, when to retreat and live another day.
So there’s a tremor in his hands when he swings his once-deadly sword and there’s reluctance hidden in the arrow that he shoots. Because some part of him still calls Billy friend, even though he beat the living daylights out of Theo the one time he referred to his mentor as friend.
Killers don’t have friends, ShoeBilly says, parrying Theo’s blow. It’s more of an all-out duel than the measured training sessions they usually have, but it’ll stop at totem-pop like it usually does. (Probably. Theo hopes so.) The ground is littered with craters, and Theo backs up to chug a gapple as Billy says, friends are weaknesses.
The lesson’s been hammered in hard, the message written like scars on his heart, the rule he always stuck by, until Parrot came and flipped his world upside-down and he had to learn how to live with a friend again. Even now, the word friend feels wrong on his tongue.