[ Having her friend's reassurance definitely does help ease some of the pain. The salt stocks aren't nearly as rich at that comforting hand. Breath, Rose. It's okay. It's going to be okay. The terrible mixing can't hurt you anymore. ]

It's... Yeah, it kind of does. I mean, Apollod doesn't seem to know what's going on beyond what he's told me.

When things suddenly sprout up like the Atrium did in the first place, it was just 'Hey! This is a thing now! Go to it!' and we did.

[ She feels like 'Hey, this is a thing now' is going to be the general Xistentia theme. ]