For years I sat, pouring over the strings of this guitar, plucking a melody that never seemed to go away from me.

But the song always remained incomplete.

For as much as I could hear the notes of la musica, I could never pen the words to bring it to life.

The more I looked for inspiration, the less I found.

Much like searching for la musica, Arcadia exists in the eternal search for true happiness.

Some of us believe that happiness is a song sung to us by others as a gift, or something that can be attained, a plan that can be put together strategically.

But if happiness was a song we could find by searching, why have so few people ever found it?

♫ Oh no, not me
We never lost control ♫

Narcissa Balenciaga, you seek to offer happiness as a reward for services rendered. A gift offered for a plan well crafted, to those desperate enough to believe it is yours to give.

That’s the genius thing about your plan. Arcadia has been left in the dark, taught to fear that which it does not know. Because miserable people are easy to manipulate. All you have to offer them is the one thing they seek, and they will mold to your hand.

But that is not happiness that you offer. It is merely more misery, painted with lipstick. And no gift song that ever came from your lips was ever free.

The irony is, your cost is happiness itself. For you cannot gift it, but you sure can take it away. All you have to do is get them under your control.

♫ You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world ♫

Oh, mi amigos, how far you have fallen to buy into the false hope she offers. That which she sells so freely, yet cannot provide.

What false hope has she offered you, Grimskull, that you would turn to inflict the same conquest of pain on your friends that you feel every day?

What promises would she make to you, Drewitt, that you would put war above reconciliation?

We rode together, fought alongside each other to stop her.

Yet all you remember is the pain and suffering.

And I cannot blame you.

♫ I thought you died alone
A long, long time ago ♫

You see, I was just like both of you. Seeking elsewhere for a song I thought I needed to find.

What I never realised was that happiness always existed within me. It was covered by a thick layer of poison, like that Nox has used to poison your minds into following her orders. Covered by pain, suffering.

Hurt.

Betrayal.

Mi amigos, Narcissa cannot offer you what you seek. Only friendship, love and trust can undo the hurt you feel.

And she has none of that. This war has drowned out the song of happiness, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still there.

You just have to hear it.

At Invasion, I will fight for that love, that trust… that friendship.

I will teach you to hear your own song again.