Her Shadow

I can give you this opportunity. Your next plume of flames will burn me to ashes.

Will you... reach out to me?

......

Sister, why did you come back?

What do you see, as you stand here?

I heard that King Gaeil was crowned by the Victorians, and only then did they erect the royal palace over a ceremonial stone circle.

Before that... it was first home to the Tarans.

So... no.

I don't care about being a shadow.

But I am not your shadow. I am simply—the shadow of our people's ideal 'Leader.'

They want a way out, a way to get their lives back; I happened to be there, and became needed by them.

So why must I defeat you, Sister?

Not afraid of death? Please don't say that, Caireann. There's nothing wrong with being afraid of dying.

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.

You're... a lot more well-spoken than before.

Did that hurt? Sorry...

Ah, Reed, you're back.

If we hide here tonight, we shouldn't run into any of the Arts-controlled corpses again.

Have you surveyed around us already? That's good.

I wish we could stop a bit longer myself, but Caireann's injuries... aren't looking good.

......

Hey, what's that look on you for...

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.

Are my own wounds, well, er, serious?

No, they aren't... Don't worry. Your injuries can be healed.

It's just... are you afraid of my fire?

Of course not.

......

*sigh*...

I'm guessing by your face... you're already feeling a lot better?

Yeah... Reed, you... maybe you really are a doctor? Still, not that you work the same way other docs do.

May you sleep soundly tonight, Caireann.

Never thought I'd see the day someone outside the Victorian Army would board a high-speed battleship.

That should've been the first thing on your mind the moment you lowered the Victorian flag.

I have nothing against you, Taran—I just want to see your forces' military proficiency. Plus, I'm rather curious about that Leader of yours.

I certainly hope the Duke's guest isn't just relying on her Draco bloodline.

Your arrogance towards us seeps from your very bones, Victorian.

But when she gets up on stage to give her speech, you'll find that she is the true master of the forces on this ship.

I still don't get it. Are you people Dublinn or not? After all, you don't dress anything like them.

But, regardless of who you are, you saved us from the Victorians. I'll follow you anywhere.

...I'm sorry we couldn't—help your friend.

It's fine... it's fine. As long as others can be saved, I suppose you can say he's still living through them.

...Alright.

By the way, Reed, have those people given up on hunting us?

Hmm... The team that was tailing us vanished fairly abruptly, but in any case, things work to our advantage.

Dublinn's forces should be assembled now.

...The Tarans are about to make their voice heard throughout Victoria.

Soldiers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I saw the Tarans crying out to us in their struggles. However, their salvation has been deferred not decades, but entire centuries.

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.

They cry out for our attentive eyes.

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.

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.

Yet, the owner of the factory who drove the Tarans to work under such dangerous conditions... was himself a Taran.

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...

What exactly is a Taran? Who is it we're trying to save?

It's been on my mind for a long time, too. Do you want to hear what I think?

Go on, Reed. We're not looking forward that badly to fleeing for our lives. Of course we're happy to hear you out.

Mm... At this point, I might say—it's the name given to the centuries of our plight.

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.

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.

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?

As long as others can't tell that we're Tarans, we'll be able to receive the same treatment as them.

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.

—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.

Though some of us have achieved greatness, the first step to success invariably is to become Victorian.

Duke Wellington, surely you understand this better than anyone else...

How many people still remember that your heart pumps a Taran's blood?

......

But. Given that Victoria is deliberately trying to strip us of our name, does that mean they've really forgotten about Tara's existence?

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—

—Watch my parents be murdered by the Aslans' assassins, left to lie in their own blood?

No. They are afraid that we will remember our names and expose their lies.

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?

Yes. That much is what the history books tell us.

There's numerous fabrications about Tara, but some interspersed truths too.

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.

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.

But who will come to educate the people of Tara? In all these hundreds of years, not a single soul.

The Tarans have slowly fled from their homeland, perhaps drifting through Victoria along with its nomadic cities, but never enjoying the same rights and privileges as the Victorians.

Have we ever had seats at prestigious banquets or institutions of higher education? If there are layabouts among us, is that not because the Victorians have taken away our right to work?

The injustices we've long endured were so cleverly hidden away in the lengthy years after the word 'Taran' was expunged. But, no longer. We finally understand why we have been driven to despair.

There is much I know, both about Tara's history, as well as about the legends spun by subsequent generations to trace Tara's origins.

I can tell you about everything—true injustices, and fabricated dreams alike.

But I won't speak of them. You'll all want to... escape from your past lives.

Well, of course! We can't live on like this!

Mm. So, it's alright even if we can't tell we're Tarans.

I just think—wherever the lights-out chimes, everyone must need a flame that burns through the night.

The only thing we must fight is the misfortune thrust upon us.

Right now, we are docked in Oak Grove, once a Taran community burned to ashes by a tyrant's flames.

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.

However, it is hardly our intent to recover Tara's ancient lands, or reconstruct our history out of its tatters.

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.

—This battleship's next stop will be at the port of Londinium.

Naturally, we are not going to compete for Victoria's crown. We simply are taking our destiny back from the Victorians, into our own hands.

Our eyes are open now—we clearly see that our suffering is rooted in the dominion and servitude that Victoria imposed upon Tara. As such, we ought to let Victoria deny the legitimacy of its own past actions.

The war may not end in Londinium, but surely we do not fear a long and bitter fight?

The flames have already been kindled.

They will burn away the ancient order of this land, taking our rotten shackles along with it.

As for the new order that shall be established, I turn to all of you.

I implore all of you, regardless of whether you're Taran or Victorian, regardless of who you are or where you came from, to simply fight for the glory of justice, for the unprecedented era to come.

Until the Tarans are free to compose their own dreams, just as the Victorians are, nothing shall stand in our way.

But, Reed, what are we fighting for? 'For the survival of the Tarans' is simply too vague.

Mm... In past times, I always thought—that life was so fragile.

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.

And in the end, one from which nobody can emerge victorious.

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?

Yet—the weight of a life... is immense. That is something I can't escape from.

We cannot defeat death. But we can—and we should—give dignity to the living.

I believe... that the people of Tara should have a warm fire at night, and wine in their glasses when they sing their songs.

There should be a day, when the people of Tara no longer have to run away, or bid farewell to their families and lovers.

I hope—for the people of Tara to have their own homeland, where they can live in peace.

I hope... that all those we've parted ways with—will all be reunited there.

...Dublinn's flames will burn this land.

Surely... it will be harrowing. Thousands upon thousands of lives, nothing more than fuel for the flames of war.

But even then, the weight of a life cannot ever be diminished.

Let's go. We are a part of it too.

Oh, right, I got a letter from home yesterday.

They're all alive and well. Maybe when we get back from war, they'll be doing even better. Haha!

Lost for words again, Moran?

Sorry. I couldn't help wondering to myself. What should living life be like?

Well, how about starting with a song?

Go on. You might as well—nobody's after our heads for once.

......

Say, Reed. What are you gonna do if we end up siding with Dublinn?

Don't worry.

There's no difference between her and I. We're both trying to realize the same single dream for the Taran people.

When that day comes, I will go see her.