There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

17- Rage

TRACK 17

Don't look ahead, there's stormy weather

Another roadblock in our way

But if we go, we go together

Our hands are tied here if we stay

Oh, we said our dreams will carry us

(Disparate Youth - Santigold)

********

He felt both Archie and Steve stiffen at the sentence. He did too, willy-nilly.

'That's it. I was right,' he thought, tightening his lips. 'Blast me.'

"You won't?" He asked anyway, managing to avoid a voice crack by a whisker. The reasons for that answer were a bloody mystery to his brain for the moment.

"I admire your determination, Hisirdoux. But as you have said yourself before, you are not a Leader," said Tai-Yang. "You don't know what it means to have an entire population expecting protection, order, and respect from you," a pause in which his red eyes stared back at him with the same silent study shown earlier in the red door room. "When Haoyu chose me as his successor, just before he died, I promised myself not to allow any of my people to end up like that. To suffer in the same way."

"... You are right." Douxie found himself replying, taking a small step forward in the direction of the Vampire.

"I can't understand what it means what you find yourself facing right now. I can't understand what it means to receive such a burden. And I'll probably never understand it," he tightened his lips, a slight desperation going to cling inside his chest. "But as much as I'm not a Leader, I know what it's like to be terrified to see all the people I care about dead around me." He took in oxygen, then threw it out. "If it were up to me, I'd do it all myself. If I had the skills, I swear I would. But with them ? With their mentality and skills? With how many there are going to be of them?"

'Don't raise your voice. Don't raise your voice. Don't you dare raise your voice...'

"I am not a Leader, but my group and Nari of the Eternal Forest, although we are few in number, we are already in a fight against the remaining deities of the Arcane Order," he said. "There are only a few of us. Fewer than it would probably be best for us to be, but there was no time to ask for more people."

There hadn't been any at all. Merlin had given him a short time limit, and even just finding Steve, Toby, and Aaarrrgh had been a war. He was more than sure that if he had had more minutes, he would have been able to find someone else, whoever it was. Maybe Simon if he wasn't working, even though he hadn't been seen as a Guardian of Arcadia by Merlin.

"They are kids. They've barely started living. But they're not backing down. We're not backing down," a small pause. "And if we manage to defeat them, or make sure that they are exhausted enough so that they have no energy to fight back some more for a while, we would be left with them. They are many because they are trying to enlarge their ranks day by day. They have no qualms about finding the most painful methods to assassinate anyone who gets in their way, as you said. That would be a real suicide."

"I think you're underestimating yourself..." he replied calmly.

"No. I think you're overestimating me, Tai-Yang." Douxie rebutted. "I don't make miracles, sadly, even though Magic could be seen as one. One of the many, but most important reasons I'm still alive is that your kind helped me. Or else, I would not be here right now."

"Because you, in turn, had saved someone from the Vienna's Nest before. Saving you back was the least they could have done. The Vampire Codex would have not allowed it otherwise," a moment of silence. "I'm sorry, but my answer remains the same. I will not let any of my Nest get into this situation."