Fear not, the world will not forget you. The scars you’ve gouged into it spell out your name for all to see.
Joko’s words are the final crack in foundation, and Thannath finds three years of unspoken anguish - silently carried grief - bursting forth from their prisons and keeps. Every regret, every doubt, every despairing fear is horribly confirmed in a single moment, and amongst a backdrop of crunching bone the Commander’s agony is electrified. Set aflame. A torrential downpour. In a single instance it exits his body as ice-in-veins and holds, earth under pressure solidifying, and he feels in horror his essence betray him as a physical manifestation of his own feelings presses into itself as something takes shape. The figure in front of him is darker than night, dripping and swirling as tar and smoke in the same breath. It wipes a hand over its shifting face and Thannath finds himself staring at a reflection, as the essence opens his own eyes and stares back.
The figure before him is wispy, inky and dark, but it is him.
(This is Thannath’s 3rd birthday)