She'd considered the possibility of ending it all, even if it meant the fires of the Draco would never die.
She'd imagined the flames of wrath bursting from her aching chest, burning away the shell and identity she had been given, liberating her from the shackles of her self.
But when she truly went to touch her flames, desiring to hold them, she suddenly wondered if she never had control over them in the first place.
You wanted me to give you my sincere praise. Is this good enough?
Eblana
Or have you prepared yourself by now... for the shadow to return to the self, for you to replace me as 'The Leader'?
Eblana
I can give you this opportunity. Your next plume of flames will burn me to ashes.
Eblana
Will you... reach out to me?
Reed
......
The flames burn, and her shadow sways slightly.
But Reed averts her eyes.
Not far away, Caireann, who has just woken up, slowly props herself up atop an old apron, and Moran hums as she helps clean her wound.
Reed
Sister, why did you come back?
Reed
What do you see, as you stand here?
The campfire burned bright that night.
At the time, Fionn was wandering around begging for a new foothold to get business up and running, and Selmon was wrapping more wire around her weapon.
Everyone called her the Leader jokingly, but they were serious when they thanked her for bringing them all here.
Reed
I heard that King Gaeil was crowned by the Victorians, and only then did they erect the royal palace over a ceremonial stone circle.
Reed
Before that... it was first home to the Tarans.
She thinks back to festive winter nights from long, long ago.
They would change into new, matching outfits in front of the fireplace, leaving behind a photograph of their smiling faces.
What a lovely... warm little ball of flame.
Reed
So... no.
Reed
I don't care about being a shadow.
Reed
But I am not your shadow. I am simply—the shadow of our people's ideal 'Leader.'
Reed
They want a way out, a way to get their lives back; I happened to be there, and became needed by them.
Not afraid of death? Please don't say that, Caireann. There's nothing wrong with being afraid of dying.
Moran
How tragic would it be to die at Dublinn's hands before we save our fellow Tarans? Dublinn wants to save them too, you know.
Taran Refugee
You're... a lot more well-spoken than before.
Taran Refugee
Lucky we've still got plenty of anti-inflammatories...
Taran Refugee
Ufff...
Moran
Did that hurt? Sorry...
Moran
Ah, Reed, you're back.
Reed
If we hide here tonight, we shouldn't run into any of the Arts-controlled corpses again.
Moran
Have you surveyed around us already? That's good.
Moran
I wish we could stop a bit longer myself, but Caireann's injuries... aren't looking good.
Reed
......
Taran Refugee
Hey, what's that look on you for...
Taran Refugee
Haha. I still remember at the beginning, we all saw you like you were our doctor. Only later we realized you're just like all of us—wounded.
Taran Refugee
Are my own wounds, well, er, serious?
Reed
No, they aren't... Don't worry. Your injuries can be healed.
Reed
It's just... are you afraid of my fire?
Moran
Of course not.
Reed
......
And so she reaches out, to the wounded Taran in front of her.
The Draco's burning anger wells within her blood. In bygone times, the Red Dragon bled for his people, one drop of his blood incinerating plains from end to end.
She swallows her roiling breath. The suppressed flames scorch her.
But if doing so can soothe pain, then she is willing to endure it.
—It is no true flame that burns in her hands, not even a flash of light.
But invariably, the people are filled with the same feeling—the flowing of life, as gentle as one's eyes opening for the first time to the rays of morning.
Taran Refugee
*sigh*...
Moran
I'm guessing by your face... you're already feeling a lot better?
Taran Refugee
Yeah... Reed, you... maybe you really are a doctor? Still, not that you work the same way other docs do.
The Dublinn forces I am in charge of have come from all over Victoria to join His Lordship's army, and together, they will fire the opening shots to the war for their survival.
Eblana
Up until the last few days, many people may not have heard of the Dublinn name, or have any idea what we are fighting for.
Eblana
Your war is picking up steam as we speak, but ours has been raging on and on over the last decade. As we speak, those flying the Taran banner continue to bleed.
Eblana
There are no words that can describe the atrocities that the Tarans have had to endure. I have seen their streets burned to ash, their cities reduced to rubble.
Eblana
And yet they, who deserve everything the land can give them, met with our soldiers at risk of being executed to break their bread with us.
Eblana
I saw the Tarans crying out to us in their struggles. However, their salvation has been deferred not decades, but entire centuries.
Eblana
They appeal to their great and mighty compatriots... and to their neighbors of conscience, to all those Victorians who will not be co-conspirators to tyranny.
Eblana
They cry out for our attentive eyes.
Eblana
As I speak, there are those among us who are well-aware of their Taran blood. Yet, there are others who may be asking—who exactly are we going to help?
Tarans. Tarans... With all the time we've spent together, we've all gotten used to using this word.
Moran
But what you said never left my mind, Reed. You said the factory workshop we were in lacked protective measures, so everyone would slowly come down with Oripathy and waste away.
Moran
Yet, the owner of the factory who drove the Tarans to work under such dangerous conditions... was himself a Taran.
Moran
And there are so many people like you who speak bog-standard Victorian. Though they were born in the same place as us, they're afraid of talking with us, and revealing their accents...
Moran
What exactly is a Taran? Who is it we're trying to save?
Reed
It's been on my mind for a long time, too. Do you want to hear what I think?
Taran Refugee
Go on, Reed. We're not looking forward that badly to fleeing for our lives. Of course we're happy to hear you out.
Reed
Mm... At this point, I might say—it's the name given to the centuries of our plight.
Reed
In the past, Victorians spent many years trying to erase the Taran name. But I'm sure you can all feel it—those ties are still there.
Reed
Victorians don't call us Tarans. They call us 'nasty-sounding, uncultured bumpkins, good-for-nothing rascals, ill-bred scum'...
Or, as many people have experienced, they strip us of our property, our land, and our rights... even the lives of our kin. All because of our common name.
Eblana
Some may say to us—then why not give up your language and your traditions? Why not sing the same songs as Victorians at the festivals?
Eblana
As long as others can't tell that we're Tarans, we'll be able to receive the same treatment as them.
Eblana
Of course, there are others who may retort that even though they are Tarans, they've earned wealth through willpower and dedication, receiving enough education to climb up into the upper class.
Eblana
—To this I say, how ironic it is that we must throw aside our culture and betray our own name, just to earn the dignity of being seen as ordinary people by them.
Eblana
Though some of us have achieved greatness, the first step to success invariably is to become Victorian.
Eblana
Duke Wellington, surely you understand this better than anyone else...
Eblana
How many people still remember that your heart pumps a Taran's blood?
Victorian Officer
......
Eblana
But. Given that Victoria is deliberately trying to strip us of our name, does that mean they've really forgotten about Tara's existence?
Eblana
If that were the case, then why did I, a descendent of King Gaeil, a surviving Draco, two hundred years after the fall of the Taran kingdom—
Eblana
—Watch my parents be murdered by the Aslans' assassins, left to lie in their own blood?
Eblana
No. They are afraid that we will remember our names and expose their lies.
Eblana
And I stand before you to remind you of this fact.
So what you're saying is, years and years ago, the Victorian nobles came to Tara to subjugate all its people?
Reed
Yes. That much is what the history books tell us.
Reed
There's numerous fabrications about Tara, but some interspersed truths too.
Reed
Victoria forcibly put King Gaeil into power as monarch of the Tara region, coercing him to canonize many Victorian nobles. The unfair treatment towards Tara as a land was codified into law, too.
Reed
Since then, the Taran's accent has been associated with their lowly status. The Victorians have come to see the Tarans as stupid, vulgar, and uneducated.
Eblana
But who will come to educate the people of Tara? In all these hundreds of years, not a single soul.
Right now, we are docked in Oak Grove, once a Taran community burned to ashes by a tyrant's flames.
Eblana
Perhaps those with keen enough eyesight will be able to see Tara's palace destroyed by a Catastrophe over yonder. Such are the scars left behind on the Taran people.
Eblana
However, it is hardly our intent to recover Tara's ancient lands, or reconstruct our history out of its tatters.
Eblana
We are wanderers in a new land, and the road I wish to take you down is one of constructing a new era and a new order.
But, Reed, what are we fighting for? 'For the survival of the Tarans' is simply too vague.
Reed
Mm... In past times, I always thought—that life was so fragile.
Reed
Upon this great land, many a thing waits to take our lives from us. Everything we do is no more—than a desperate struggle, a stand, against death.
Reed
And in the end, one from which nobody can emerge victorious.
Reed
If I concerned myself too much with people's lives, how would I ever be able to come face-to-face—with the all too ubiquitous sacrifices, with the sea of unmarked graves?
Reed
Yet—the weight of a life... is immense. That is something I can't escape from.
