"The Morning That Would Not Pass"
(Speech of Commander Blackwell to the Soldiers of Naryan)
The morning lingers
a sunshine brighter than it should be,
lovely and cruel,
a beauty too alive to understand.
Sometimes,
it shines so fiercely
as if it no longer wants to live.
Time slows,
the morning stays,
and the world holds its breath.
Our eyes, our hands,
our bodies grow stronger with every fall
because the ground beneath us
is no longer just earth.
It is a school.
And death…
death is the teacher.
Each wound is a lesson.
Each brother fallen
a memory that bleeds but never fades.
Commander Blackwell steps forward,
his boots sinking into mud and blood.
The fog still clings to the air,
and the sun refuses to move.
"Men of Naryan…" he says,
his voice calm, his sword still sheathed.
"Do you feel it? The day doesn't wish to pass."
He looks up at the sky,
the same sky that watched kings rise and fall.
"We fight and we learn.
We lose, and we remember.
Fathers and mothers send their children
for land, for pride,
for kings who no longer care.
But here
here on this ground
we fight not for them."
His hand finds his blade.
He draws it slowly, gently,
the steel catching the light
like a quiet prayer.
"We fight for those beside us.
For brothers who have fallen.
For the honor of the living."
He takes a breath.
The air smells of iron and smoke.
"They call us monsters.
But we are only men who wish to live."
He raises his sword.
Around him, soldiers listen
hearts heavy, but steady.
"Let your blade become
the laughter of war.
Let your bullets sing
the song of freedom.
Today, we fight not for Naryan's pride
but for the souls who march beside us."
Then the silence breaks.
Lady Gaga rushes forward
laughter gone,
her mind still circling around Merlin.
her gun raised,
her hair streaked with ash and wind.
Daris moves through the trees
like a shadow,
while Ema and Twilight
steal through the chaos
to seize the enemy's supplies.
The Arian forces never expected this
never thought Naryans
would cast aside their pride
and strike not as lords,
but as men.
As brothers.
The sky still refuses to move,
and time stands still again.
But this time,
it stops for them.
For Naryan.
For the fallen.
For those who learned
that even in death,
honor still breathing.
[Ground there the tunnels]
The March to Ground Three
The wind howled through the hollow tunnels beneath the earth. Cruella ran breath shallow, boots thudding on stone. She had been sent to Ground Two, bearing a message of war strategy from the upper command. But what she saw there had left her speechless.
The proud nation of Naryans once banners high, their armor gleaming with pride now fought with no emblems, no crowns. They fought as brothers. Shoulder to shoulder, they bled together, their cries echoing through the gray morning that refused to end.
Cruella pressed forward through the tunnels, her lantern trembling in her hand. She thought she was unseen. But Daria had been watching.
Not this time, Daria thought coldly. The Arians won't fool us again.
She had seen how the Arians moved through the old tunnels beneath the battlefield, carved long ago by forgotten wars. That was how they appeared so swiftly on the front lines. Daria said nothing to Cruella, only followed, her rifle low, her mind sharp as steel.
By the time Cruella reached the open ground, the fighting had stopped. The remaining Arian soldiers were tied down like beasts the same way they once hunted their enemies. But the Naryans did not kill them. Not this time.
Instead, Commander Blackwell ordered that they be spared. The Arians would train the Naryan troops teach them to use their guns, their tanks, their cannons before they were executed. A cruel mercy, yet a soldier's wisdom.
The morning still hung unmoving in the sky, like time itself had frozen in fear. But war does not wait for the sun to rise.
Blackwell stood before his men, his uniform torn, his eyes shadowed by exhaustion. Around him, the soldiers murmured with doubt as a stranger stepped forward Twilight, the outsider from another regiment.
"Why him?" one soldier spat. "Our commander is dead, and now we take orders from someone we don't even know?"
Another shouted, "We are Naryans! We follow our own!"
Twilight looked at them eyes calm, voice steady, though the tremor of anger ran beneath his tone.
"Pride," he said quietly, "is what killed your commander. Pride almost killed me too. If not for Commander Blackwell, I'd be buried in the mud with the rest of them."
He took a step forward, his boots sinking into the blood-soaked ground.
"Do you think the Arians will wait for us to prepare? Do you think time will pity us because we are proud? No. If your pride weighs heavier than your gun, then drop it and walk back to your kingdom. But if you still carry the faces of your brothers in your heart, if their blood still calls to you, then pick up your weapon… and fight."
Silence followed. Then one by one, the soldiers lifted their rifles.
Blackwell nodded once. "Then march."
And so they did through the woods where the air still smelled of smoke and iron. Daria, Lady Gaga, and Ema manned the tanks and cannons, their engines roaring like beasts awakening from slumber.
The captured Arians, broken yet unyielding, showed them how to load the guns, how to steady the sights, how to strike at range. Even in defeat, they became unwilling teachers of war.
The Naryans learned quickly. They moved not as soldiers of pride, but as brothers who had lost everything men reborn from the ashes of failure.
And when they reached the edge of Ground Three, the light had still not changed. The morning lingered endless, pale, and cruel.
But this time, they marched not with pride.
They marched with honor.
(Sorry guys it's arian not aria)