This is fragment is different to every other piece in this collection, and I hope you still like it! :)
Track 3:
The Arena
(Phantomhives/Duet)
"It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
– Theodore Roosevelt
We had been born into an arena – shackled to the ground, threads tied around our arms.
This was the curse which laid on our name, which laid on us.
Our choices had been taken away.
We had been pushed into an arena we had never wanted to enter.
And we could not protest, we could not run away. Our arena was a cage, and we would never be free.
We had never known a difference. This was who we were. This was the arena in which we fought.
But that did not mean that we couldn't fight in our own ways.
That we couldn't choose our battles.
That we couldn't move, feel, and think on our own.
That we couldn't try and break free.
We learned to move with the weights keeping us down – and every time, they became heavier we slowed down.
But every time, we learned to walk with more strength than before.
Because we hoped like all those before us – that one day we could be free.
On our way, we would shatter.
We would be laughed at.
We would break and fall and tumble.
But we would always stand up again.
Because it was unlike us to give up.
This was the battle we had to fight – no matter how much of ourselves we had to sacrifice in order to win.
No matter what we would have to give, no matter how our souls would break and shatter – one day, we would leave the arena.
One day, we would be triumphant.
One day, we would come out twisted and dark with the threads in our hands.
And we would walk our victory march hand in hand.
We would never be only puppets on display.
Would never be only pawns in a game with no chessmen in black and white.
Two updates in two days! Why are you asking? It's because, on June 28, 2016, the official music video of "The Arena" came out and I wanted to publish the fragment based on it on the same date one year later.
This is the first reason. The second is that the music video came out on my 17th birthday, and I wanted to upload this fragment on my 18th :D