[Arthdal Chronicles] Fight for freedom

CHAPTER 38: A pain always there.

"You are upset, aren't you?" Saya asked as they were walking back to the Shrine. He had noticed well the dark look Tanya had given him when he had proposed for the rebellious workers to be executed: she disagreed with the decision though she hadn't been able to oppose it in the end. "It's necessary. We don't have the choice if we want to avoid other rebell-"

"I know, Saya," Tanya cut him off, "it's the way of Arthdal and there's nothing I can do but from now on, let me speak for myself at the council. I know I am still learning but I am not a child."

"Everything you say at the council could be turned against you. I just don't want you to be on the council's wrong side. Your ideas and the way you see life, they are quite unordinary. Some of the people here will always see you as what you were before so you have to be careful, they could use that to bring discredit upon yourself."

"What do you mean by what I was before?" she asked with a frown.

"Well, the place you came from is not known to be the home of the most educated people of Arth. That's a reality you can't deny and though you adapted well to Arthdal and quickly learnt, some will never accept that you replaced Asa Ron. Especially since you want to change the way things have been for years."

She could have been upset by his words and yet, she knew he wasn't that wrong. Some of the citizens would always see her as an uneducated barbarian, an imposter chosen to replace Asa Ron, a puppet in Tagon's hand. That wasn't what she was. She was Asa Sin's descendant, a member of a sacred lineage, someone chosen to change things and so would she, though they wouldn't all like it.

"They won't show themselves but even dead, Asa Ron still has the loyalty of some and they would follow Asa Yon if he was to go out of the hole he is hidden in," Saya continued.

"Are there any places I could find those people?"

"You- you won't try to befriend them, will you? It would be too stupidly risky."

"I go nowhere unprotected," she made him remark, "it's important that I show everyone I work for them to have a better life. Those people have no reason to hate me and I should prove it to them."

He studied her for a moment. He didn't want her to put herself in unnecessary danger but he could also feel that no matter what his opinion was, she had already taken her decision. "East of the city," he finally gave up, "but if you go there, Yangcha and Sana would have to be there, every time, and that is a non-negotiable condition."

"Condition accepted," she replied with a smile, "I feel safer with them anyway."

"But can Yangcha even concentrate on his job with that mini-Enoria who keeps on talking?"

"Don't worry, I think Enoria is the only one who is actually truly capable of distracting him," she replied before they both lightly laughed and continued on their way to the Shrine.