[The floor comes to him, as it so often has in the past. He finds himself brought back to golden walls and a circle of chairs adorned with friends. Though the name used is different, how often has Emet-Selch passed discussion to him in that warm, welcoming place? It's far too easy to draw the parallels now.

Warm coffee. Good friends. A home shared.

That cold time where he was both alone and made many is easier to stave off, now, when he is so close to those he loves. He knows that of which Hythlodaeus speaks all too well. Their situations and experiences were markedly different but ultimately came to the same conclusion.

The loss of the self.

When he speaks it's with a laugh in his voice and fondness in his eyes.]

You both are so alike, offering to leave so readily in order to spare the other. I, for one, would speak with you both here. It will bring no further harm to my psyche to speak on my experience with friends - my dreams do that well enough.

[Memories mixed with dreams. A foreign face where his should be in the mirror - but when he attempts to remember his own, it slips through his fingers. People whose identity catches in his throat, leaving him only with the idea that he loves them enough to keep going. One foot after the other, shedding himself piece by piece. For love.

He shakes his head and turns towards Hythlodaeus.]

The path I walked is no doubt different from your own, thrust to the fore as I was. My awareness was ceaseless in that I lacked any capacity to lose sight of what we had given of ourselves to achieve. But in that clarity, I was ever aware of each and every voice that had joined with mine, a choir made of the initial sacrifice as well as the subsequent joining. It was...

[He trails off, looking over now towards Emet-Selch.]

Overwhelming.