Yes. [ Though he's still sitting poised casually with tea in hand and an appropriately even look on his face, Claude studies Kyle carefully yet again after speaking. Horrific is an understatement and the truth; living it and so many other oddities in close order sometimes numbs this reality out of his mind. Having to be the one to keep morale high and everyone unified during it probably hadn't helped either. ] We did. The society that resurrected them meant to destroy everything about the world. There was no option but for us to succeed.

[ War leaves so few choices, doesn't it? There are things he regrets and those that he doesn't, and most days it blurs together. But as he's thought to himself before: he would make all of his same choices over and over again should time repeat itself on a loop. Unfailing, each and every time.

To dwell on that is tiring, a exhaustion which runs bone deep and one that doesn't get easier to bear. And won't be, now that they're all carrying the weight of it while Thorne and the Free Cities square off against each other with them and everyone else in the middle. Perhaps it wouldn't be the worst to change gears to something lighter, if only for a moment. ]

You'd mentioned earlier this tea is common in your world. Does it have a name?