somebox says:
"...What do we do? Can w-we even trust Athisa now?" Eyes downcast, Elora feels totally without direction, like any path forward at this point will not give way to completion while their enemies advance with their machinations and schemes.
Verrian's heart breaks a little as she thinks, for the first time, of the fallout of her unconsidered actions. But no, she refuses to take responsibility for Elora's loss of trust. It is Athisa, not Verrian, who has violated the trust of this very young group of adventurers.
Still, Elora is frightened now, to a degree she wasn't before, and Verrian can't help but feel badly about that.
Machiabelly says:
Verrian, do you think the Naucans that I told you about may have been traveling for the same reason? And maybe where they were going is a meeting place for others who have been displaced. Wil's question takes Verrian aback, so focused is she on Athisa's (and Adaye's) failure to mention clearly vital information prior to their departure from Meriava. She has to stop and remember what Wil had told her about the Naucans he'd met in his travels.
Putting a hand to her forehead as she struggles to redirect her thinking, she says,
"In light of what Coreene has said about the current state of Nauca, I would guess that Boslo and his family were fleeing Nauca to escape the hardline xenophobia. They were probably lucky to get out, just as Coreene..." She trails off, remembering the truncated images and the pain surrounding the memory of Coreene's escape. That's not Verrian's story to tell.
"As for the other Naucan you described," she resumes,
"the one who was almost albino... If it's the person I think it is, he was probably working for the xenophobic movement." She hesitates.
"He sounds like my cousin, Daro of Cyr. We grew up together - he's a couple of years older than I. We were very close, but sometime in his teens, he started to talk a lot about 'Naucan superiority' and the dangers of 'polluting' our society with ideas and interactions with our 'foreign inferiors.' He tried to get me to come to a meeting about it once. So I'm very much afraid that when you met him, he was traveling in service of the new regime in Nauca. What exactly he was doing, I can't really say."