We are the warriors, Flamevein

[Librette]

As a child you would wait, and watch from far away. But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play. Does anyone have enough experience to hold a crown? It's a question that her granddaughter is grappling with as they speak, wrestling down her demons and her fears and some ancient gods far away in the Deserts. But it's a question that Librette has never needed to wrestle with, because she's always known the answer: she will never have enough experience to hold a crown. She will never deserve it. She will always have to work for her home, because she's at such a deficit, such a discrepancy, that she can simply never catch up. She's underwater, drowning in debt to the Valley that has given her so much. And that was the fundamental difference between herself and Flamevein, possibly the thing that was making them spark off one another like two spark-stones. He is content within himself, trusting the knowledge of his flames, knowing without doubt that he is worthy of everything and capable of anything. She is nothing, worthy of nothing, capable of little and less. And that is something she knows down deep to her bones. When he speaks of her death, she shrugs. It had been painful, yes, but mostly it had been strange. "I'd be just a pile of bones now. It was long ago." she says, speaking the truth, her voice muted ever so slightly by the memory. It had been many years ago that she had died; she'd been re-alive for the majority of her memory. Flamevein mentions his parentage, and Librette smiles grimly. That explains so much. She doesn't hate the notorious stallion, which is strange considering that he's the one who killed her, but not strange when you consider her fanatical devotion to the Valley, and the close relationship between Carnage and this land. "Carnage is the one who killed me." she says, after Flamevein has fallen silent. She says it as though remarking on the weather, and she feels just as dispassionate. She doesn't care about it, doesn't hold it against him – if anything, she'd failed the kingdom and really deserved it. "Are we, Flamevein?" she asks, returning to the statement he'd made earlier. "The most powerful, I mean." she might be fanatical in her devotion to the Valley, but she's also not an idiot. She's a realist, and she knows strength when she sees it, and weakness when the land starts to fade, when the horses become harder to find, when the life ebbs out of something. And she worries that it's happening here. "We could be, but are we?" and she isn't sure if she's asking him, or herself. Don't weep for me LIBRETTE Because this will be the labor of my love. Image copyright FFFiiiAA