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[audio] backdated to the end of the de-aging event

[Fortuna begins a network call like normal. Well...sort of like normal. She sounds hesitant now, a little slower to speak and not quite so confident. Wherever she's standing, there's an echo.]

Hey Saeng Seong, you know what? [A beat.] ...no, never mind.

[There's a beep and a soft tap as she sets her commlink down. But the audio continues. She doesn't realize the button to end the call didn't register her touch.

She sighs heavily.]

Thought I'd convinced myself I wasn't ugly. But no, I had to go and look human again for a while. Didn't think I could pull a fast one on myself, but I guess I did. [Another sigh, softer, and a pause.] Now what? Now what... Keep telling myself other trolls have it worse? Right, like I'm gonna call all of them ugly. Living a double standard, that's what that'd be.

Drek...thought I was okay. I thought...

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[Damn it...why did she have to go and miss the button? She wasn't exactly trying to broadcast her insecurities to the whole city...]

No, it's-... [Okay, she has to calm down now. Think. Try to describe an aspect of racism it's hard to put into words to begin with to a kid...]

It's hard to explain. ...Where I come from, most people are human.

[Hoo-boy Fortuna, if you only knew how much racism kit had already run across in her young life. Thundara kind of sucked in that regard.

There's a brief silence on the other end as Kit considers, then takes a guess.]

And the people there were mean to you because you weren't like them?

It's not really that simple. It's not like...bullying. It's more like with so many humans, that's what's "normal".

[Kit thinks about that for a second.]

Were there a bunch of stupid rules that said you weren't allowed to go certain places, or live certain places? Stuff like that?

[Because this is starting to sound familiar.]

Mostly unspoken. It sounds like you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Thundara was like that too. If you weren't a cat, you weren't allowed into the upper city without special permission. It was pretty much the same if you were cats like me and my family, who had tails. We weren't allowed to live in the upper city, and there were certain places that we weren't allowed to go.

There was more to it than that, but no one ever really explained the rest to me. Mama said I'd understand it when I was older, but I still think it's dumb.

Edited 2015-02-05 04:04 (UTC)

It is dumb. But with the way they're handling it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a revolt. At least the people back home have the decency to pretend we can get approved for, say, a nice house with its actual value, they just say no.

...There was. The lizards attacked and destroyed Thundara after Mumm-Ra gave them weapons and technology. It's in ruins now. And one of King Claudis' generals, Grune, turned traitor and helped them in return for power from Mumm-Ra.

[There's a bit of a pause, and when she continues, her tone is quieter and more thoughtful.]

Us cats... we treated the lizards really badly for a long time. Generations. We even turn some of them into slaves. They had every right to be angry, and even to hate us. But... I still don't think that gave them the right to do what they did.

Nobody wants to attack innocents. But when something goes on for generations like that, it's hard to see anyone on the other side as innocent anymore. It can sometimes be just one generation for that kind of hatred to set in, really...

[She's guilty of that, herself, really. It's hard not to blame the random guy in his cubicle for the CEO's decisions sometimes, after all.]

Yeah... Cats and lizards have been fighting each other for a long time. They would attack us, then people would say we needed to get back at them for what they did. Then they would attack us to get back at us for what we did, and it just kept going like that.

It's stupid. And it doesn't fix anything.

[Part of her really wants to go into comparisons of that situation to the local one and her own worries about such, but she's smart enough not to do so on the network. Instead she just sighs and tries to steer the conversation in a slightly more positive direction.]

I'm just glad Lion-O's not going to bring all those stupid rules back once we beat Mumm-Ra. We're gonna have to unite all the animal tribes to be able to do that, and he's already off to a pretty good start.

There's always someone like that. We've got someone looking out for our rights too. Hopefully your Lion-O's a...uh, cat of his word. Here's hoping he can handle the opposition, too. Hate doesn't die easy.

He is. [pause] I think that's why the Sword of Omens chose him; he's just the kind of king we need right now.

I don't know about afterwards, but... I really think he can pull everybody together enough to beat Mumm-Ra. Then we'll just have to try not to mess stuff up again once things settle down.

Edited 2015-03-01 02:55 (UTC)

Hopefully you won't. It's gonna be hard not to, I'll bet. Like I said, hate doesn't die easy.

[A pause, as she looks at herself in the mirror again. Even self-hate doesn't die easily...]

But sometimes all it takes is one powerful person.

Yeah. Especially when that person has help from his friends. Or her friends.

[Slight hint there. Because Kit is always willing to help out a friend, in either world.]

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