"Oh no. Not again. Will they ever cease?" Zaida said, but she seemed to be talking to herself about a matter not yet made clear. "I'm sorry that you've been exposed to such<span style="font-style: italic">awful</span>lies. But they're not true you know. You see I'm not a bad person when people get to know me, the problem is they don't want to know me. As you can see for yourself I'm not the most approachable person. People are intimidated by me and misunderstand me. They make up cruel lies because they are prejudice against me and my kind. That's why we live down here. Not just out of secret but for protection. People tend to fear what they don't understand, and what they don't understand they hate, and when that hate is strong enough . . . deaths occur." Zaida averted her eyes from Draco's at mentioning this.<br/><br/>"I admit that in the past I've done things I'm not proud of. But you must understand that it was out of self defense. They will tell you otherwise. They hate us to the point that they want to see us all eradicated. Have you seen any other insectoids out there on the surface? No? That's because we're all down here. We're the last of our kind. We manage to survive massacre after massacre, but I don't know how much longer we can hold out. You must understand that this is why some of us have grown cold and heartless. We distrust and loathe most, if not all, surface-dwellers. I'm not asking you to trust me, I just want you to know that their are always two sides of a coin. I can see in your eyes that you've already swallowed up everything that they've told you about me, but did you ever once consider hearing my side?"<br/><br/>(( Whew. That was a longer post than I expected. ))