In the world of Arknights, Tara is a nation that spent a long time under Victorian imperial rule. Then the red dragon Ebhlana reclaimed the old land, scattering fire as she went, and not long ago declared independence.

But ahead of the reclaimed nation's first Samhain festival, what filled people's hands wasn't freedom — it was a few potatoes and a nighttime curfew. And without anyone noticing, everyone came to carry a strange little ember inside their bodies.

This story, as it turns out, is a piece of 'fiction' being told by a drunk writer to a woman he's never met, in some run-down tavern. Except this woman keeps insisting she'll decide the ending herself.

The writer's first subject is an old legend — that a greedy red dragon joined hands with the Black Mist to reclaim her nation, and in exchange, the Flame of Death blurred the line between the living and the dead. And this is also the story of the one autumn night when that legend actually happened.

1. A Victory Feast Made of Potatoes

Rochesnie, going by the alias 'Reed,' arrives in Na Síoraí ahead of her sister. In a city just out of a war, people were producing something out of kitchen knives, bowls, even prosthetic legs.

It turns out to be a massive red dragon statue being built by the hero blacksmith Cullan. Erected in the square in time for Samhain, it will mark Tara's rebirth. But everyone treats Cullan's young apprentice Theo like a thorn in their side, for the sole reason that he's of Victorian blood.

A friendly villager invites Reed to sit down for a 'victory feast.' Meat stew, roasted linsu, oatmeal porridge... the names sound fancy, but the taste, the color, the smell — all of it's identical.

It's all potato.

There's a curfew in the city every night, too. Asked why, she's told the Black Forest's mist sometimes seeps into the streets. Step into that mist uninvited, the friendly villager warns without a flicker of hesitation, and you never come back.

Meanwhile, only the scrap metal for the statue is being gathered with real diligence. A neighbor with an injured leg even insists on donating his own prosthetic — but Cullan flatly refuses, no exceptions.

2. Read as a Blessing, Spelled Out as a Curse

Reed reveals her identity and goes to find her sister. It's been a long time, but the reunion feels awkward. Instead of a warm greeting, Ebhlana asks first where the spear is; Reed dodges, claiming it's safely tucked away in a Rhodes Island storage room.

Looking down at the city from the fortress balcony, Reed finally notices it — that inside everyone laughing, talking, sharing meals, a tiny purple flame is quietly burning.

Waiting for Reed on the balcony is her sister, Ebhlana. She admits the Flame of Death has spread to living people, but won't openly admit any wrongdoing.

Kill me, Rochesnie.

— Ebhlana

Her sister says she'll die herself and take the fire with her — that it's the only way to save Tara. But Reed has no intention of accepting an answer that easy.

3. Hero, Please Stop Making That Statue

Some quiet digging reveals the real reason the city is starving. An official had been secretly siphoning off food supplies under the name 'Dublin.' Meanwhile, people had no idea, and kept blaming innocent Victorians instead.

Around then, the nomad Brigid tries to convince Theo to leave the city with her. Theo refuses, not wanting to be a burden to Cullan — but Brigid's uneasy premonitions have never once been wrong.

As for Brigid herself, she gets bounced back out of the Black Forest five times trying to leave the city. The mist, which always let nomads pass freely before, refuses to let go of her this time.

Suddenly, rumors spread through the city about rooting out 'Victorian spies.' Of all days, that's when Theo disappears. Cullan, Reed, and Nemos, a Soul Guardian who left her tribe, split up to search for him.

The truth they uncover is bitter. The story behind Cullan becoming a 'hero' a few years back actually involved an innocent caravan, not scouts as claimed — and Theo was its sole survivor. And now, having been hit by a carriage, beaten in an alley, and left neglected amid cold hostility, Theo finally dies.

Cullan falls apart. In the middle of his workshop, glaring at the statue he built, he blames himself, and finally decides to destroy it. The statue looks down at him with hollow eyes, as if asking him back — are you really a hero?

Once Samhain is over, once the shadow of war has finally lifted... what is it you all want to do?

— Cullan

4. The Statue Finally Finished, and Its Price

Cullan binds himself in chains and drags the statue to the square himself. Before a crowd crying out for revenge, he confesses that he's actually a false hero, built on a lie.

The crowd erupts in fury. But with his last strength, Cullan strikes the statue's head and collapses, coughing up blood. As he dies, a purple flame rises from his body, and the statue spreads its own wings and flies up to perch on its pedestal.

Reed quietly gathers Cullan's remains and reads aloud the eulogy Nemos wrote for her. It's Na Síoraí's very first Hwanhwa rite — for the first victim of this whole affair.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Let the dead sleep forever, carrying our memory with them.

— Morrin

5. A Time-Travel Journey with the Exiled King

After the funeral is over, Labhraidh, the ghost of a red dragon killed 600 years ago, appears before Reed again. Calling himself 'the Exiled King,' he leads her to the ruins of the old royal castle.

He has her put her hand into a furnace and shows her, one by one, everything he went through — killed by his own younger sibling's hand, contaminating pastures even after death, and only ever able to quiet that fire through the Hwanhwa rite.

Labhraidh also shows Reed scenes from her and her sister's childhood that she doesn't yet know — young Rochesnie reviving a dying wound beast and startling her older sister, and young Ebhlana, standing beside her, never once smiling.

He shows her another scene, too. In the guardian Earl Warrick's mansion, young Rochesnie wrapping her injured sister's bandages and reading her poetry. Her sister falls asleep listening to those verses, neither of them realizing how the Earl was using them both.

The conclusion is cruel. As long as Ebhlana lives, the fire keeps spreading. Labhraidh tells her to run. Reed shakes her head.

Even so, I'm going back. Reed's answer is short — and just as unshakable.

6. The Sisters' Last Dance

Back in Na Síoraí, Ebhlana makes Reed an unexpected offer — to finally dance the dance they never once danced together as children.

The instant their hands touch, Reed notices — her sister's pale hand, her bloodless face. Ebhlana, too, was being slowly consumed by her own flame.

Reed wants to ask why now, of all times — whether she's forgotten all the books and poems they once read together as children. But Ebhlana laughs off every question.

Reed makes one last plea — let's save the people together, it's not too late yet. But Ebhlana's answer was already decided.

Only then does Ebhlana finally break. What flows from the wound isn't blood but a purple flame, instantly swallowing the whole fortress, and then all of Na Síoraí.

7. A Soul Guardian Sings, Dragging a Coffin

At Reed's request, Nemos places Ebhlana's body in a coffin and drags it through every corner of the city, singing an old mourning song, holding the flame up to every window as she goes.

But the response is dismal. Instead of grieving, people just look for someone to take revenge on.

In her despair, Nemos briefly entertains a dark thought, but in the end cries out the truth: the red dragon who killed the red dragon was the red dragon herself — she died to protect all of you.

The first to break down at those words is Emma, who runs the grocery. Having lost her lover Niels in the war, and then the baby in her womb to starvation, she instead tries to walk straight into the mist.

Only after hearing a new song that Morrin and Brigid sing together — not a song of reunion, but one meant to light the path for those who've gone — does Emma decide to return her candle's flame to the red dragon after all.

When dawn breaks, we go to the Black Forest and call the mist.

— Nemos and the townspeople

8. The Red Dragon, Born a Second Time

Reed walks into the square and, at last, returns her own flame. Then she has one final conversation with the giant dragon-shaped apparition conjured from the Black Mist — really, a conversation with her sister.

Ebhlana admits it — this was the 'parting gift' she'd prepared all along. For Rochesnie to kill her with her own hands, then rise again before everyone's eyes as the one true red dragon.

Stepping out of the flames, Reed now stands before the people under the name Rochesnie Dublin. She declares that she has returned from the depths of death thanks to the tears people shed, and vows never again to drive anyone into a place like that.

Tara has one red dragon, and one alone — Rochesnie Dublin.

— Rochesnie

Rather than revenge, she calls on them to light lanterns instead. To take the flame born of humiliation and grief, and turn it into a flame that warms them and lights their way forward.

A few days later, a letter bearing an unfamiliar seal arrives for a caster duke in a neighboring nation. It announces the full lifting of martial law across Na Síoraí and the entire southern region. Tara still hasn't fully broken free of Victoria, but at least, now, it can breathe.

And, Outside the Story

...and with that, the drunk writer finishes his tale. But the unfamiliar woman isn't satisfied. The ending's too idealistic, she says — she'll finish the real ending herself.

That's the moment the writer's true identity comes out. He is, in fact, a remnant of Dublin who fled Na Síoraí — 'the Singer.'

And the woman before him is Ebhlana, who should already be dead. Kept alive by the power of the Black Mist, she has known everything from the very start.

She tells him exactly how she deceived Duke Wellington, and even that Rochesnie had secretly slipped outside the city gates to negotiate. Handing over one city that deserved to die to secure a stable Tara — hardly a bad trade, she says.

The Singer tries desperately to argue back, but no matter how hard he drags his pen across the paper, only illegible ink marks remain. In the end, robbed even of the freedom to speak, he falls silent.

In the epilogue, Ebhlana sits across from a Rhodes Island scholar. While Reed goes by 'the Reed Dancer,' she herself has taken a new name — 'Necrass.' Life is short and death is very long, she says, laughing.

Necrass laughs that death will someday bring her back here, to Rhodes Island, again. And she asks, as if out of old habit, what story they'll tell her when that day comes.

In the end, no one knows the true ending of this story — whether Rochesnie truly let go of her sister for good, or merely brought a shadow of ash back to life. The only certain thing is this: the flame of Na Síoraí is no longer purple.