"Your opinion? Or Redbright's sincerity?" Please use nouns, Derek... Heiji was going to take a stab at answering the question anyway, though.

"For a very long time in my country, not much changed. We had some contact with the outside world, but mostly we rejected it. Then the Black Ships came. They forced our doors open with the barrel of a gun. And suddenly, everything changed." His tails waved slowly back and forth as he spoke.

"...But it's easier for me to get caught up in the present. I'm not as old as some of the others."