The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic, chapter 17

This is definitely one of my favorite images, I’m not sure I can emphasize this enough.

Little points about this scene, anyway:

• Riko uses a heavy racquet, we’re told this in The Raven King when Neil’s shopping for his one racquet: “Kevin used a heavy with the Ravens, but he’d switched to a light racquet after his injury. Riko still used one.“ (The Raven King, chapter 11)
• When Aaron uses Neil’s own heavy racquet on Drake, we get this: “He brought Neil’s racquet up and around in an underhanded swing so hard and fast air whistled through the tight strings.” (TRK ch11) When Riko attacks Neil, this is the description: “Riko’s racquet got close enough that Neil heard wind whistling through the strings,“ (TKM ch17) There’s no way this isn’t a deliberate call back, just in case we weren’t sure Riko was about to kill Neil.

Also, this is one of the first things we learn about Andrew: “Two years ago some men attacked Nicky outside of a nightclub. Andrew was within his rights to defend Nicky, but he’d almost killed the four of them“ (The Foxhole Court, chapter 2)** And throughout the series we do see Andrew resort to violence easily enough, and generally it would be considered excessive. But in this scene, though? Maybe you could argue that he could have disarmed Riko instead of breaking his arm, but given that Riko was about to commit murder despite the crowd, I don’t think that would be enough to stop him. And whether it was or not – Andrew stopped him, and that’s it. No retaliation, no further violence, just this – “Andrew put his racquet down in front of Neil like a shield“. Making it clear he will protect Neil, and that’s all.

(and sure the situations are different in many ways, but most of those only matters if Andrew cares about the consequences, for him or for Neil or for the rest of the Foxes) ((and if you want to be optimistic and look at the situation with kindness (which, let’s be honest, i always want to do), it also comes down to a difference in Andrew in himself, who doesn’t need as much anymore to lose himself to violence when those he considers his are threatened))

Anyway though, none of this matters to my initial point, which is :

Andrew using his racquet to shield Neil

which is an image I’m never going to grow tired of.

**((now i think we should keep in mind that neil knows that second hand, and i’m pretty sure when it comes to a foster kid out of juvie defending his cousin against homophobic assault, facts are not presented with much sympathy. still we see enough of Andrew’s MO to know that it wasn’t far from the truth))