Ashes of What We Were

[Verse 1 – Isolde:]
You stand there cloaked in borrowed years,
Calling change a noble name
But I remember what we were,
Before you learned to bend the flame
You let the thunder spill the sky,
You taught the weak to make it burn
Now iron speaks where wings once ruled,
And still you say the world has turned

[Verse 2 – Lim:]
It isn’t simple, Isolde, no matter what you claim
The world did not stay waiting for us to remain the same
I won’t pretend the tide stood still, or history stood kind
We are what survives the fire… not what we left behind

[Chorus – Isolde & Lim:]
[Isolde:] This is ruin you are calling change
A world where fire kneels to range
You opened the door, you set it free—
Now don’t you stand here blaming me
[Lim:] It is not ruin, it is truth
A turning age, a sharpened tooth
We cannot stop what has begun
We live beneath the same sun
[Isolde & Lim (together):]
But Donna…
Donna is different from the rest we knew
A human voice that doesn’t break when we move through
No fear, no blade behind her smile—
Just something neither of us can defile

[Verse 3 – Isolde:]
Then answer me, old brother-ghost,
Who crowned the age of smoke and lead?
You speak like you were forced along—
But you helped build it instead
You could have ended all of this
Before the powder learned to speak

[Verse 4 – Lim:]
Why didn’t you kill Donna?
You had the chance when she stood alone
Tell me, Isolde of the deep green fire,
Why did your blade turn to stone?

[Chorus – Isolde & Lim:]
[Isolde:] This is ruin you are calling change
A world where fire kneels to range
You opened the door, you set it free—
Now don’t you stand here blaming me
[Lim:] It is not ruin, it is truth
A turning age, a sharpened tooth
We cannot stop what has begun
We live beneath the same sun
[Isolde & Lim (together):]
But Donna…
Donna is different from the rest we knew
A human voice that doesn’t break when we move through
No fear, no blade behind her smile—
Just something neither of us can defile

[Bridge – Isolde (Dragon Tongue)]
“Vra’ka sorn elith ka’ren…”
[Bridge – Lim (Mandarin response)]
“你不是不知道后果。”
(You know the consequences.)

[Verse 5 – Isolde]
…She is different.
Not carved from fear like the others I’ve known
She speaks to us without bowing
Like she’s never been shown a throne
I should have ended her story
Before it learned to grow

[Verse 6 – Lim]
I agree.
Donna is unlike any human I have ever seen
There’s something unarmed in the way she stands
As if she remembers what we used to mean
And I feel it too…
That same unsettling truth—
Like the world cracked open,
And let something new break through

[[Chorus – Isolde & Lim:]
[Isolde & Lim (together):]
But Donna…
Donna is different from the rest we knew
A human voice that doesn’t break when we move through
No fear, no blade behind her smile—
Just something neither of us can defile

[Outro]
[Lim:] The world changed long before we agreed to it.
[Isolde:] And yet you still call it survival.
[Both:] If the change has a name [pause] it's Donna

Dark K-pop style: cinematic synths, heavy bass, taiko drums, distorted strings, Isolde female vocals, Lim male vocals