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[Billy's also at some edge of camp, hanging out on his chocobo since he's sick of getting his feet wet. He's bouncing between reading some little beaten-up paperback book and looking out over the spooky unreal sea stretching off into the distance...while his poor bird is still trying to clean all the gunk out of its feathers]

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[Rin pauses and looks at him for a moment, rocking from the balls of her feet to her heels. It makes squelching noises in the now-marshy land.]

Watcha reading?

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Y'know, I'm not even really sure. [looks up from the book, and turns it over in his hands] I just grabbed the first travel-size book I found in the library. I'm halfway through it and still don't quite understand what it's about.

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...Well, what's it called? [Leans a bit, glancing to see if the title shows.]

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'Footprints on Titan.'

I first thought it was some sci-fi story about spaceflight and intergalactic politics...but I'm thinking now that whoever wrote this was being serious.

[sighs and tucks the book away. It was failing as a distraction]

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At least it's not "Footprints on a Titian", right?

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[kinda smirks, at that]

I guess that's true.

Though, maybe we'd be able to find some answers to this big stupid mystery, in a book like that.

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...I kinda wish things had gone differently back there. Really differently.

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[the rest of the humor drops out of his voice. This has obviously been on his mind a while]

Yeah. ...Me too.

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[She looks at him, and her expression alters some, softening. She really is a nice girl, in spite of periods of crazy.]

I kind of figured we could talk to him. After we got him pinned.

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[sighs]

Everyone just started shooting, and...I mean, all it was actually holding was a stick. Surely we could have like...overwhelmed it some other way. Or...something.

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[Nods.]

I don't think... I don't know. It did an awful lot of shouting at us, but did it actually hurt anyone...? And then it died in that awful way. I don't think it wanted to be like that.

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See...[turns in the saddle to face her a little better]...this is what I can't stand. People don't understand something, see something scary and unexplained...and what do they do? Shoot first, and don't bother to ask questions until blood literally rains from the sky. And then, they celebrate their big heroic victory, because there's no surviving evidence left to prove otherwise.

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[Listens, with a little nod.]

I kinda figured - well, at the time I thought if we got him subdued, we could... talk afterward. And maybe things would've been okay.

I keep wondering about that, too. If it had had a human face and was running at us yelling, would people have been so fast to shoot?

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Of course they wouldn't have.
If it had a human face and had actually been wielding that sickle on its belt, they still wouldn't have been so fast to shoot.

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I really lost my head. I wish I'd done more...