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[beshackled]

"This is Erichthonios. Apologies if I have missed your transmission. Should you feel inclined, pray leave a message, and I shall be sure to return word to you."

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I apparently missed answering this I'm so sorry

[emet_sulk]

You are aware, of course that all of creation is comprised of aether?

[ He sets down his eating utensils and gestures to illustrate his point. ]

Hydaelyn's unique ability is that She can...divide things upon the aetherial level. The result is a copy, its aether perfectly divided. She did this not only to all living things but the star itself, separating its copies - reflections - such that only an immense and devastating flood of aether can break down the barrier between them.

[beshackled]

[Reflection though he is not, Erichthonios begins to grow pale as it dawns on him just what those words mean.]

...So it is alike to when Lahabrea tore his existence in two, and created Hephaistos...

[Two selves. Memories cleaved. Aether diffused, split between a body and a crystal, and then the body the aether from that crystal later inhabited.]

Themis said that his actions had bordered on insanity. That he might have rewritten his very existence, and that escaping with his life was a miracle. So, that is what became of us... not between two, but...

[His head dips, and the last word, he struggles to say.]

...fourteen...

[emet_sulk]

Yes, fourteen. As I recall, you chose to stay behind in Pandaemonium to keep the creatures from escaping. You would not have been spared Her blade.

[ Lahabrea may have mentioned it. During that portion of time when the old man was still lucid. But speaking of Lahabrea-- ]

I'm sorry, you said your father did what?

[beshackled]

[Lifting his head, Erichthonios looks confused for a moment, then considers:]

Ah, that's right. It must have been long ago for you...

[He straightens, gathering his composure so that he might explain properly.]

When my father confronted Athena, his wife, for experimenting upon me, she offered him answers he craved -- why she did what she did, why she would not stop, and in turn he wished to know if she ever loved him. To attain these answers, he consented to bond their souls... and in so doing, he unwittingly exposed himself to her corruption. When she declared this to him, he tore his essence in two, seeking to isolate that corruption from himself... although he has since reabsorbed it to restore himself to his full power.

His corrupted half was... different. Outwardly passionate, manipulative, and cruel.

[emet_sulk]

...So that was why...

[ He had noticed something amiss but, at the time, he hadn't enquired too deeply. Lahabrea had just lost his wife after all. It would have been insensitive. So the old man had torn his soul apart without any hesitation? Well, it explained his behaviour after the Sundering as well. Emet-Selch had assumed it to be a product of his vessel hopping. It seems it WAS that and more. ]

Anyway - yes. Something akin to that I suppose. But...cleaner. Not tearing away specific parts of the soul but an even split.

[beshackled]

...I see.

But the overall effect... would be much the same, wouldn't it. Enervation of vigor, of physical and magical capacity. The soul itself...

It... must have been a terrible thing to witness. How are... all of you? You, my father, and Themis...

[Unlike most of their people, he actually has some idea of what trauma is like and how much it can distort a person's every day perceptions and existence. He expects the answer to be bad. He expects it to be very bad.]

[emet_sulk]

[ He is silent. That silence speaks for itself, but Erichthonios has to know. ]

They're dead, [ he says bluntly. ] As am I. Your father was the first to be vanquished, absorbed into the eye of a wyrm of the First Brood. Then myself. And finally...Elidibus.

[ He doesn't have the heart to admit that he set up Elidibus' downfall. ]