I'll be the watcher of the eternal flame [Eachdraidh IC Contact]

[zerotohiro]

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[needmetoo]

[... That's a hell of a story, Hiro.]

Yeah. It does.

[There's a full minute or so where she doesn't say anything. She's got a lot to think about now, in regards to meeting Riku, and the others from the worlds they know best. There's a lot she could say. A lot of things some of her wants to say, but she isn't sure where to start, or how to correctly parse them together.

This whole war thing is... it's overwhelming. In so many ways. Which reminds her of the other question she wanted to ask.]

Hiro... what do the people who live here think about all this? About the war... about the Void... about us?

[zerotohiro]

[That's a loaded question, too.]

They're just like us, people with different opinions based on whoever they're listening to. It depends on who you really ask. Some of them don't see us as a threat and are willing to help us find answers. A lot of them think we're just here to hurt them and they're mad at us for being here and stripping them of their options. [Loose. He's keeping everything loose until he can tell her in person, until he can really break down all of the information he knows about this world. It's too much to load onto one person at one time.]

…there've been a couple of cases of shardbearers being killed by some of the native people. [Some. Some were killed by the Cult, which they didn't realize until later.] A lot of natives aren't very kind to us…there's a lot of anti-shardbearer sentiments depending where you go. They believe the false opinion that we're encroaching on their territory. For all we know, some of them think we're causing the Void. I hate to say it, but be careful with them, too.

[A beat.] I can explain more next time I see you. It's just…a lot.

[needmetoo]

It's... confusing.

[She sighs.]

I think... I know a little about it. There were this guy in Daonna. [Uncomfortable pause] Yuri got into a fight.

The people I met in Leathann acted all different ways too, when they got letters from friends and family about the Void. Is... it always like this?

[To end her earlier statement, she thinks, people with hearts were confusing. She didn't know a lot about them, not being able to remember having one herself. But she would have expected that having one would make things simpler, not more complicated.

[zerotohiro]

...no. [He answers, but he's also not sure he's right.] At least I don't think so. This has just started getting really bad as the Void keeps getting closer. But people are always a little confusing. The thing about people is that their opinions and thoughts change all the time. You've gotta learn to work with them but...it's not always easy. [A pause. He doesn't say anything about Yuri getting into a fight because that doesn't surprise him, really, but that's also not the point here. It means Xion's seen things first-hand.]

The one thing that people have in common is that they act different than they normally would when it's out of fear. Some people are braver, some people are more ruthless, and some people hide. The Natives? A lot of them are acting out of anger because they're afraid of what they're gonna lose, I think. It's kinda the same reason some of us are fighting, too.

Things might go back to normal someday, but who knows when that'll be? [A rhetorical question.] Stay safe until you get back to our territory, okay?