♫ Everyone wants to be alone,
Until they are alone. ♫

That which is given, mi amigos, cannot be taken back.

A man once had a beautiful daughter. He gave her everything, even the horse her mother loved.

‘Take it, my heart in your hands,’  he told her. She took it, smiling… then she left.

Left him with an empty house and a bottle for company.

Years passed. She never came back. Not for his letters, or his tears. On his deathbed, he whispered her name, over and over, but she never came. I was there, playing him his last song.

‘A gift,’ he cried in his final breath, ‘once given, cannot be taken back.’

That’s what I sang for him in the end, that a gift is like a bird you set free. You may want it to return, but if it doesn’t, you die with your hands empty. Such is the price of giving your soul away, mi amigo, you never get to call it yours again.

So remember this. If you give your heart, give it knowing it may never come home.

♫ Everything around me, that feeds my flame.
The people they surround me, seems I might have underestimated my fame. ♫

You once gave Arcadia the gift of Anthestria, El Mariachi Grande.

For that, I owe you my gratitude Jefe, for the land and the people I call home. But that is where our paths diverge. For once created, you slipped into the shadows and took up your post as a Watcher.

Like the man I sung about, you gave Anthestria everything. You imparted on those you deemed worthy the gifts of La Musica.

And we Mariachi were born of those gifts.

The gift passed on to me, that most cursed of all. La canción de la muerte. You gave me poison, Caido, and I worked it into magic.

Only… everybody wants to be alone, until they are alone.

For what you saw when you watched from the shadows, it broke your heart.

She walked away from you, took your horse… the gift, and squandered it.

And now you want it back.

You seem to not realise, jefe, that is not how gifts work.

♫ It’s not important to me, to write my own history…
It’s not important to me, to sell my sympathy.
It’s quite crystal clear, I bring you to tears. ♫

What you see as a squandered gift, I hold like a treasure. I’ve made this something beautiful. I took this poison and made it into the gift it was always destined to be.

Mercy. Release. Relief.

What I’ve turned your gift into is why you can never have it back.

But I will play it for you, El Mariachi Grande, for old time’s sake. One final song to bring about that sweet mercy your soul yearns for.

That same end that you gave so many Mariachi that tried to hold onto their gifts too. Death, Caido… is the final feather in your cap, and it is not in your control.

It is in mine.

And it will stay that way.

Rest in love Tony.