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Sitting across from each other in the small shopfronted gallery in Glasgow's West George Street, Ewan Kennedy and Terry Anderson look subdued and a little weary.
Surrounded by an exhibition of political cartoons covering the long, two-year referendum campaign, they are, like many Scots this weekend, picking through the aftermath.
"They don't know what they've done," said Kennedy, owner of the Leiper gallery, a former lawyer, and still wearing his green "yes" badge. In Glasgow, 53.5% voted yes, but the city outvoted by other areas, notably by the capital, Edinburgh, 45 miles away on the opposite coast. There, 61.1% of the electorate voted no.
"The motivations for no were mixed," said Kennedy. "Older people scared over their pensions, the 20-pluses didn't want to rock their career boats.
"There's one 'no' friend I don't think I'll be talking to any more – a Marxist who was busy looking to his shares portfolio – but otherwise we can all still be friends."
Anderson, a cartoonist and organiser of the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio agrees: "It's all on its head. Miliband is like some 1950s gameshow host without the wherewithal, Ruth Davidson [Scottish Tory leader] has done very well. The Lib Dems are dead passengers.
"People need space, to take a step back. This wasn't a bloody revolution, it's been a civic conversation about what a 21st century western European country could look like." He nodded at the cartoons, from international artists as well as Scots. "This is almost more relevant today than it was before the vote. We still need to be able to laugh."
Today there will be a service of reconciliation at St Giles Church, Edinburgh, led by Church of Scotland moderator, Right Rev John Chalmers, who said yes voters felt bereaved.
"Today, we must begin to stop thinking in terms of them and us," he said this weekend. "Let's take heart from the fact that the people of Scotland have shown in overwhelming numbers they are ready to discuss their future aspirations. Let's keep it that way and not hand the game back to the professional politicians to do it all for us."
The historic rivalry between the first and second cities of Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh – "a middle-class rivalry made up by middle-class comedians" according to comic Janey Godley – has been underlined by the yes/no divide of Thursday's vote.
The cities have occupied centre stage for television purposes over the last week. After days of TV cameras filming politicians and academics to the backdrop of Edinburgh's impressive parliament building, on Friday night they were in Glasgow, filming a small crowd of sectarian rioters singing Rule Britannia. Then they rushed to film a group carrying saltire flags in the city's George Square, a rallying spot for yes supporters.
John Donnolly, head of Marketing Edinburgh, said: "Edinburgh is a magnificent city and has gained enormously by being the backdrop for the international media covering the referendum. And I say that as a Weegie [Glaswegian]. The two cities have very different economies and I don't think they'll fall out."
The cities have as many similarities as differences. Weegies and Embra folk have their pockets of deprivation – a quarter of Scottish households live in poverty and the mortality rate is 15% higher than in England. Across the social classes there are problems with substance abuse: Edinburgh was infamously the Aids capital of Europe during its heroin epidemic of the 1980s. In Glasgow almost 50% of domestic abuse cases involve alcohol.
Glasgow, built by merchants, is the centre of the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment, of shipyards and acres of public parks, where, in 1919, the British government sent in tanks to stop what they feared was a Bolshevik uprising. The birthplace of Keir Hardie, the city hasn't had a Tory MP since 1982.
Edinburgh is the elegantly dressed Unesco heritage city, with five national art galleries, and is the home of the Church of Scotland, Holyrood Palace, Adam Smith, Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg.
It is the centre of politics and banking, and also gave us Miss Jean Brodie, the Proclaimers and the Bay City Rollers. Glasgow gave us Malcolm Tucker, two founding members of AC/DC and the post-punk pop group Orange Juice.
"I don't have any M8 envy, I like Edinburgh, I like this town," said Danny Martin, barman at Heraghty's in Glasgow's Shawlands. "Edinburgh is finance and Glasgow commerce so the vote was always going to reflect that. I'm more surprised at Ayrshire, and old mining communities destroyed by Thatcher, voting no. Undeniably, the result is that Scotland has gone to the back of the queue again, waiting for our upgrade. But life goes on, we're all still talking. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are the ones who won – bankers, Westminster, big business and the media."
Ali "Sam" Akhtar, 53, runs a small grocery store in East Kilbride, a new town built to serve Glasgow's emptying inner-city in the 1960s. He was yes but says he has accepted he was outvoted. "It's time for moving on. We don't need to be bitter, life is too short and we need to build a future together. People should be proud of themselves, people get killed in votes like this in other countries."
In Livingston, a new town outside Edinburgh, Alison Liddle was with the majority in voting no. She works in a small bakery. "In the east coast we maybe are more concerned with looking after our finances, heads before hearts." At bars around Murrayfield in Edinburgh, it's a quiet night. Steve Moran, 43, is in reflective mood. "Not much energy here, more exhaustion. It was the right vote. We'd have been mad to do anything else. The risk just wasn't acceptable. Glasgow? Well, they would, wouldn't they – Buckfast socialists, lowest turnout. Daft. Letting Scotland down while all the journalists from down south have their tongues out, desperate to see a bit of blood," Maggie Simmons, 61, said: "It's not so hard to understand, in Edinburgh we had the most to lose with the financial institutions. It's a relief it's all over."
Back in Glasgow though, Terry Anderson is planning a cathartic trip - to Catalonia, the region of Spain which is desperate for its own breakaway.
"They think our referendum was such a gift, such a civilised process," he said. "I'm practising the Catalan for 'We just shat ourselves'."
