[Though the name itself means nothing to her, Venat listens intently, giving a slight incline of her head– the fate Meteion describes could have quite easily been the one that awaited their own people, had they continued to serve Zodiark and made that all-too-great compromise in exchange for the return of their old way of life. True hardship would have become a distant memory, the horror that had befallen them might inevitably become forgotten, for they had become so accustomed to life without sorrow that joy would have no choice but to eventually lose all meaning.

To think of her people fading to such a state, becoming mere shadows of themselves… it was too great a sorrow to bear.]

You are right. They are stronger for it.

[Even if the people of the present star might not always realize it in the moment. Their victories, their happiness, their joyful moments– they are all so much more for the fact that they are not simply given freely, assumed and expected.]

I think we understand one another quite well, don’t you? I am sorry, little one, for what you have witnessed, but glad, indeed, that you have the courage and strength of will to come back from such darkness.