Being rude to your equals shows a lack of courtesy, being rude only to those you consider your inferiors shows a lack of courage. I will meet with you only as I must." Aeris kept her voice calm and was careful not to slip over the edge into rudeness as she spoke to the Cetra who'd done their best to ignore Sephiroth's efforts at greeting them, treating him like a servant, then talking among themselves in his hearing about what a pity it was that Aeris and Cloud cared so much about 'that mongrel'. If she'd been there, at least within their line of sight they'd probably have treated him a bit better, and Aeris regretted only arriving in time to catch the tail end of their viciousness, not in time to intervene in defence of her brother.

None of them seemed to have the sense to come up with any sort of reply, and Aeris turned on her heel, determined to find a way to work her anger and frustration out. The training hall, that would be good; she could imagine that one of the training dummies was the leader of that pack of bigots. And the worst thing about it was the look of resignation on Sephiroth's face; would he have ever told her or Cloud how he was being mistreated...or had this happened before and he'd kept quiet about it?

She grabbed a staff from the armoury and marched straight to the nearest free training dummy to launch a flurry of furious blows against it. As she attacked she superimposed the face and body of Marian over the dummy, imagining the sounds of pain she wanted so badly to hear her make.

"...misbegotten, bigoted, hypocritical bastard...waste of breath and life-force...filthy sadist...imbecilic coward..."

"You aren't talking about me I hope?" She spun in place to look at Zack, only realising then that she'd actually been cursing their visitors aloud; albeit in a mutter.

"No...it's our guests." She didn't want to explain it to Zack, but he seemed to sense that, hefting his sword in his right hand.

"Want to spar then? Might be a better way of working your anger off than beating up a defenceless training dummy." Aeris attacked at once, making no effort to defend herself, focusing everything on trying to land a blow on Zack; she knew he wouldn't hurt her after all, and he didn't even attack, only defending himself. When she finally lost her anger, because it was almost impossible to maintain it when dealing with that calm defence and care for her, she was too tired to keep on attacking at the same pace. So tired in fact that she dropped her staff to the floor. Zack quickly put his sword down, and stepped forward to pull her into a hug, comforting and supporting her, and Aeris let herself collapse into his strong arms until she got herself back together.

"Thank you Zack, I needed that." She pushed herself away from his embrace, reluctantly, prepared to go and pretend she didn't hate the bastards who'd hurt her brother, that she wasn't going to be imagining them dying to keep from being rude to them. She would take great pleasure in refusing healing to Marian were the woman to appear before her with an infected gut-wound

"I'm glad to help. Do you need to talk about it?" She'd already mentioned the immediate problem, so he wasn't asking about that...could she trust him enough to share the deeper issue? He didn't have any reason to betray her, or any investment in the current power structure independent of her own status, and...truthfully even if her secret did come out he'd suffer from it far more than she would. Still, a quick check that he understood what he was asking was needed.

"I've exorcised the surface problem with your aid. Are you asking about the deeper issues that gave rise to it?" She bent quickly to pick up her staff, as a distraction from Zack's response.

"If it will make you feel better to talk about them, then yes. I just want to help you, and talking does help a lot of times." Aeris wondered how he'd learned that...she didn't think he had experience carrying the sort of secret that gave rise to most of her impatience with the more close-minded of the Cetra. But it didn't matter, he was offering, and she thought it would be nice to let someone know what she sometimes wished, someone who'd probably sympathise with her.

"Come on, we shouldn't talk about this here." From the way the warrior caste training here were glancing at her Aeris knew that they assumed she wanted privacy because she expected to be getting emotional about this. They were partly right, but mostly wrong, not surprising considering what she intended to tell Zack and how well she'd managed to hide it from everyone. Zack smiled and let her lead him away to her quarters, and she hesitated before deciding to take him to the bedroom intended for her future consort. She was certain that it hadn't been bugged yet, which she couldn't say for her own bedroom, and she refused to invade Zack's privacy - but she still cast a quick spell to keep their words private.

"Shit, what's bothering you so badly that you've got to go that far to keep it secret?" Zack looked - and sounded - more than a little shaken by her actions, not that she could blame him for that, or for the way he leaned against the wall for support.

"How I really feel about the Cetra Restoration at times." She sat down on the bed and turned her attention to smoothing out a few of the wrinkles in her skirt as a distraction for her hands and eyes while she talked. "I'm fairly safe and it would just be a social problem for me if people learned that I sometimes wish it had never happened but you'd be in trouble if people learned that I'd told you that and so might my brother."

"I don't get it. Why would Sephiroth be in trouble? And...what could make you wish the Cetra Restoration hadn't happened?" Aeris could understand precisely why there was so much disbelief in Zack's voice; she had a very good life now, far safer than she'd been before Cloud came and dragged her to wake the rest of the Cetra.

"Because Sephiroth, or more accurately the way far too many Cetra treat him, is the reason I sometimes wish the Cetra Restoration never happened. Marian treated him like he was nothing and he just had to stand there and take it. I know that if the Cetra Restoration hadn't happened he'd have a good life, and more control over his life than he's ever had, and I know there's people who suffer because we took over as well."

"Yeah, but you guys stopped a war by coming back when you did. Lots of people would have died in that, and from what the older guys have said, the ones who used to be SOLDIERs there was this group called ShinRa who would have been in total control of the Planet if they'd won that war. And they'd have been much more repressive than you could ever be." Zack came over to kneel in front of Aeris, taking her hands in his with a faint smile. "I...you're really empathic and caring, to understand that for some of us the Cetra Restoration just means pain, but you can't second-guess yourself all the time."

Aeris laughed at that, letting her bodyguard distract her from her dark thoughts as she lifted her hand to stroke his hair.

"Thank you. It's sweet of you to say that. I can't change how I feel, and I don't want to stop being angry when my brother's hurt or insulted, but I'll try not to feel guilty about my own part in bringing the Restoration about."