Things may not return to normal for a while-- or it may be that accepting things now as normal will take a while. Either way, for now Raine will take what she can get.

"I wonder," Raine says, softly, and for a moment that's all the answer she has, and she stares at the fire. "It may be that the spirit of the holiday, such as it is, has lowered everyone's guards in the first place, and it isn't such a stretch from ignoring the problems between them to ignoring what grudge they bear us, as well. Special occasions often do make people more charitable than they would be otherwise."

She wishes she had a better answer than that for him, but anything more falls into the baffling category of 'the nature of people,' which is nowhere near explicable. "I'd like to say it's slowly been getting better in general," Raine adds, reflective, "but I may not be in the best position to tell."