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In the Aftermath of the Sundering

Read below the cut for some fresh baked breadman angst

Returning to consciousness felt like a feat of incredible endurance and strength. Even shielded from the blinding radiance as we were in the rift between worlds, the impact rocked our one safe haven and stole a moment of awareness from us.

I was the first to awaken. Emet-Selch was the next. We exchanged a nod, then turned our wary glances towards Elidibus. He laid on what passed for ground here, restless. Not unconscious, but certainly not aware of his surroundings either.

By turns, his shuddering and moaning eased. He looked to us, barefaced with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I failed you. I failed us all!"

In his tears of regret and frustration, I could not help but see an echo of my son in his youth. Part of me longed to comfort him, but practical needs superceded emotional ones.

"What befell? Emet-Selch, pull us from this rift, we need to know what happened when that light struck Etheirys."

He nodded, eyes haunted as he snapped his fingers.

I blinked for a moment as my surroundings came back into view. The Macarenses Angle, all but destroyed now. Trees withered to naught, buildings that stood for millennia reduced to rubble. And if I squinted across the square, I could see... Something moving. A sign of life where I *knew* Aphroditos stood before the end.

I ran for where I thought he would await me, only to stop short. Something was *wrong*. It was him, unmistakably, but there was barely more than a scantling of his aether remaining. He didn't respond when I called out to him. Didn't even look my way.

And when I beheld him in full, my heart shattered.

He had torn his hair down from its braids and almost ripped his robes and podea from his body. His brow furrowed, grunts and moans that might almost have passed for an infant's speech passing his lips as he poked and prodded the dust before him, etching shaky lines into the ground. Star-cut sapphire eyes now looked almost drowned by the black of his pupils.

Animalistic in nature. A measure of sentience, mayhap, but barely a glint of sapience. And not so much as a *glimmer* of the keen light of intelligence that once shone there.