level_act41side_06_beg

So you won't go to the city, even to perform a fire-returning ceremony?

What you've described is highly unusual. We cannot simply take your word that the residents are no longer among the living.

Besides, the fire-returning ceremony is just that—a ceremony. Do not expect it to be anything more than that.

...Very well, then. You may return, wakewoman. Thank you for your help.

You intend to go back to Na Saoirsí, even without us?

Moran and the others have settled in well, and I've done what Nemos entrusted to me, so...

My work here is done.

Take care, Your Highness.

I will.

The red dragon sets out in the direction from whence she came. Everything that happened yesterday seems but a distant shadow now.

But also a tiny spark of flame.

'Return the fire'...

Have you made up your mind to go to your death?

The stranger?

Good timing, sir. May we talk? If you will help me—

Did your red dragon history lessons ever teach you about a poor wretch by the name of Labhréathach?

Excuse me?

I'll take that as a 'no'.

After returning to the palace for the first time in years, he never even had the chance to see his brother before the guards took him away and plunged a sword through his chest.

I know the story.

Then why are you so eager to follow in his footsteps, and have history remember you as a fool?

Leave. You've seen your sister, and you're still alive. In that, you've already achieved more than he ever did.

The story of Labhréathach and Ailill is not the story of me and Eblana.

...Fine. Let's say I was willing to hear you out. What did you want to talk about?

The city's fire-returning ceremony.

I just wanted to find someone to help with the preparations, but you seem to know a lot about the history and tales of Tara. So I was thinking you might be able to help.

History? Tales?

We can talk on the way. Come.

But that's not the way to the Dark Woods—

Just follow me. It worked out for you in the woods, didn't it?

...The ruins of the palace?

I've been here before. It's dangerous. The Originium-rich environment is—

You said you wanted history and tales. What better place in Tara than this *ancient Tengae expletive* palace?

The <i>what</i> palace?

Ah, never mind.

I appreciate your help in the woods, but I have important business to attend to. I don't have time to—

And what's this 'important business'? Dying for nothing?

Sure, you're different from your sister. That dragon's flames may be cursed, but her personality is as typical as they come. Arrogant, leaving no room for any other voice. You may be better, but—

I'm different from my sister, but she's not who you say she is.

But however different you may be, conflict is in the nature of the red dragons. Even if you were merely dragged into it.

And there is only ever one outcome. Only one may emerge alive.

One of you will die, sooner or later. So what's the hurry?

Have patience, young dragon. We're almost there.

We come here for this altar.

Altar? You mean that thing in the middle? Isn't that... the furnace?

'The furnace which fused together the weapons of every Taran soldier, and overturned the fate of the dynasty'... The furnace from which fallen soldiers were reborn.

That's what you call it today, isn't it? Far more important than just another 'altar', to be sure.

But an altar is an altar, even if it's a little bigger than the others. It was based on the ceremonial stone circle used to coronate the King Gaeil, and the palace was built around it.

Whenever an old red dragon died, this is where the fire was returned to them.

The fire... returned?

What you saw back at those wood-brains' camp. Gotta give them credit: they managed to remember all that, even centuries later.

Fire-returning wasn't just about a bonfire back in the day, though.

By the time of the old hag Máighréad, it was enough for the siblings of the heir to the title of King Gaeil to put their hands into the fire and get a few blisters.

Go back even further, though, and those siblings would have been burned alive together. Or so they say. There's no hard evidence.

Now you've gone even paler.

He flicks his hand, and a speck of purple fire flies forth from his sleeve, joining the same purple fire in the altar.

The flames breathe quietly, like an infant in its mother's embrace.

Your flame is purple too?

No, wait, you're a Draco...? Could you be—

Awfully slow, aren't you? Well, it's too late to run. Put your hand in.

What?!

You want Na Saoirsí to return its fire, didn't you? Put your hand in.

The red dragon falls silent, then stretches out her hand to touch the flame in the furnace. As expected, it is not warm, but to her surprise it does not feel cold either.

Now, I brought you here to see something—

The tragedy of Tara, the ill-repute of the red dragons... It is simply the cruel cycle of fate repeating itself, again and again.

Like your sister, I was an aberration that breathed the flames of death. It is not my intention to disrespect the dead, nor could I even if I wanted to, but I wanted to show you...

The fate of those who die upon this land.

Is this where we should begin? Understandable. Of all recent events, it is the most significant.

Your sister was right. Those who have touched the flames of death are beyond help. Yet the fire should not have spread so readily.

What hatred did it take for the Dracos to once again sire an ill-omened aberration, the first in six hundred years?

Ah, and him.

If you ask me, he slept in far too late. Could hardly drag himself out of bed by sunset. Of course he became the sacrifice.

...Even you should not speak of the dead so lightly. Do not justify it as a sacrifice.

You can only say that because you've seen too little. Those feelings will pass soon enough, once you're used to it—

See, here comes another sacrifice.

The Victorians who killed you have been chased out!

The last Victorian bastard died... before my eyes...

In a sense, your sister's dream did become reality. The Tarans have risen, and the Victorians have fallen. Simple. Direct. 'Satisfying'.

Were you... one of the bystanders too?

Don't get caught up on that, child. You know what I am.

This, I don't recognize. Explain.

...It was a war.

There are always wars. Be specific. Who did she incinerate, and what land did she set her sights on?

Victoria. Eblana wanted to take Tara back from the Aslans. This was the conclusion to that war.

The Aslans? Those conceited bastards? But is she not facing a Sarkaz?

Never mind. The lions were the ones who stole Victoria. That's all I need to know.

I don't need you to tell me what this is, just as I can tell the expression beneath the mask.

The satisfaction and joy that only appear on a red dragon's visage in the face of certain death.

No... that wasn't joy. It was the opposite—

The opposite? Maybe you were simply gravely injured and started hallucinating on the brink of death.

But as I said, this's simply repeating the past. Cities may ride on wheels now, and the master of the realm has changed hands, but what's inside never changes.

What is this? Your home? Where did you learn to point your blades at each other? Who's this man?

The Earl of Warwick. Our foster father.

Eblana said he helped Tarans see hope, a hope they could see but never reach. That all he ever did was drive thirsty travelers mad with mirages.

In his hand he held a delicate thread. On one end were the Tarans who had rediscovered their name, on the other lay the oppressors who had trodden upon them for so long.

...That thread was my sister and I.

Looking back... perhaps he was the first to be afflicted by the purple flame.

...Hah.

Not only do you sympathize with your sister, but you also know her well. No wonder you're so loath to kill her.

But I have no intention of becoming like her, nor will I simply allow myself to be killed.

These events, this history you had me recall. What are you trying to tell me?

That the history of Tara is nothing but the continuous accumulation and recombination of ruins of the past. What you have seen, I have too. Nothing new can be found within.

What I see are not ruins, but... the source of the flames.

The flames in Na Saoirsí are indeed my sister's fire, but they are also the great sorrow behind the bloodshed, left with nowhere to go.

It was the war... no, the pain, the oppression, the things taken from them, which began long before the war. That's what lit the fire in their hearts.

My sister shaped their sorrow into hatred, which scorched the fields of Tara and drove out the Victorians.

However, without vengeance to cloak the sorrow, that same fire has come back to burn them, burning away everything they have, until they are nothing but the walking dead.

A fine summary, child. But do you really think that returning the fire would solve all the city's problems?

It's the only path before me.

True. But how do you tread it?

Come. We've seen your story. Now see mine.

(Ancient Tengae) Don't cry now. It's just a cloudbeast.

(Ancient Tengae) But I raised Greyclaw from when she was a baby...

(Ancient Tengae) They say your fire is different, Daidí. You do not heal the living, but instead bring the dead back to life...

(Ancient Tengae) They don't come back. It's just an empty shell.

(Ancient Tengae) Even if it's just an empty shell... Please, Daidí, I just want to hear Greyclaw's voice again...

And so the impulsive red dragon let his daughter's plea get the better of his judgment.

After a few months, strange things began to happen, not just to the cloudbeast, but to all the beasts of the pasture.

Burdenbeasts no longer ate grass. Cystybeasts no longer gave milk. The old refused to die, the young refused to live, and bare skeletons devoid of flesh began to roam the pastures.

As the purple fire spread through the herds, the red dragon was forced to leave the pasture with his people. He made the same mistake many times throughout his brief existence.

The purple fire spread through the herds?

What about it? Your own dear sister dared to burn <i>people</i> with that same fire. Now THAT'S crazy.

How was the fire extinguished?

You'll find out soon enough.

This is... the citadel in Na Saoirsí? That same corridor?

No. But your mistake is understandable.

We simply took a large step back in time. This is how the palace you currently stand in looked six hundred years ago.

It's incredible how stonemasons centuries hence managed to perfectly recreate it in this 'Na Saoirsí' of yours.

So what happened here?

Here... hah...

Labhréathach the fool had made too many mistakes, the likes of which you have already seen. He grew weak, and felt his end coming.

On the eve of Samhain, he came to see the brother he had not seen for twenty years, bearing the finest gifts his nomadic life would allow.

He even convinced the druids of the city, who oversaw the festival's ceremonies, to take him to his brother.

Touched by his familial love, they led him into the city. But he failed to realize when his guide's silhouette, voice, and demeanor changed, not until it was too late.

He was taken to this very corridor, and—

I doubt that Ailill, who gave the order to assassinate his brother, was on that balcony on the other side of the door. For my eyes were wide open until the very end, but I never saw his fire through the gaps.

Where did it all go wrong?

Was he angry that the priests continued to treat me as royalty? Did he consider me leaving without a word twenty years earlier a betrayal?

Or was it someone else who wanted me dead, and he simply had no choice?

I'll never know.

Within this brief, swift act of violence, there was only one thing that I had long known, that I had never doubted—

A red dragon never forgives. The hatred of the dragons is even longer than the history of Tara.

But there is more I want to tell you.

After I died, Ailill ordered my coffin dragged through the city, for all to see the end that befell me.

And so purple fire raged through every pasture I had stayed at with my clan. Life turned its back on all who touched it; only death remained.

Seven days later, the priests returned my fire to me at a clearing outside the Dark Woods. And only when the fire they returned to me was extinguished did the purple flames in the pastures begin to subside.

It was only then that the last vestige of my consciousness that remained in the flames after death faded into darkness.

All living things that touched the flames, people or beasts, were turned to ash.

Your sister spoke true. The flames will continue to spread as long as she lives.

But she is a typical red dragon. She is not so noble as to give up her life to save those who have yet to survive. If she is inviting you back, then it is certainly a trap.

Run. Call for help. Yell. Find someone who is her equal to extinguish the endlessly spreading flames. That is the only way.

But what if she has already decided that I'm the only one worthy to dance with her?

What if I can't abandon the lives in the city to their fates, as long as there is any chance of saving them?

So you'll return the fire to someone who's still alive?

Yes.

And what if that doesn't work?

Regardless, I'm going back, no matter what.

Silence, and then Loughshinny hears a sigh.

(Ancient Tengae) I suppose stubbornness and stupidity really are hereditary.