Song of the Diadem: Part II

A poem handed down from the age of the old aristocracy, said to be the words of "Dawn Knight" Ragnvindr. It tells of his bond with a sword-dancer.

On a morning when first light broke,

a dancer who sang with the sword made landfall in Mondstadt.

Though her whole body was bound in chains and fetters,

in her silence a song still circled.

It was a song of freedom—of a brighter dawn beyond the walls,

and ballads sung free by unbound people.

She was the dawn of the Wanderer's Troupe,

and the killer of nobles.

I once asked her: "Why overthrow our nobles—

do you not know they are our heads?"

"Why do they order you to raise high walls?"

Her voice carried the breath of a light wind:

"If you call the wind your companion,

"if you once possessed freedom?"

She told the lone listener stories of the past,

of the nobles' ancestors who held divine power,

of angels, gods, and dragons of old,

of divinities and their peoples on every land;

every legend she turned into song,

and song rode the wind across the whole realm.

In the nobles' arena she sang again with her sword.

It was her last song—yet it would never be the final one.

A nameless knight took her sword from the blood-spattered grand arena,

and buried it where the soft winds gather.