For a time, Rhocanth had no more to say. His breath was sticky and ragged, face bearing wide red stripes where salt-laden tears had once fallen. A hollowness took over his eyes. His hope was sinking gradually, like a ship that had sprung a leak and was taking on icy water, dragged to the dark bottom of the sea. All filled up, the new tears that spilled over were not of desperation, but despair. As if finally taken down by his own weight, he slowly rolled over onto the sergeant. His blazing hot cheek rest against her shoulder, clouds of breath puffing out onto her shirt.
"It's all gone," he whispered at last. "It's really all gone. Everything."
There was yet no color in this surface world he had just joined. No one he was particularly attached to, no rhythm in the rain, no color in the landscapes, no dreams on the horizon. He wanted nothing from it but for it to disappear, to wake up in his bed, the one with his silk sheets and embroidered blankets, and be told he'd suffered from a strange affliction that had led to hallucination. He wanted to go on with his life as it would have been... a pretty wife, children, an audience for his words, people who needed his wealth and guidance. Rhocanth could not fathom what he would do here. There was nothing but a great deal of trees and emptiness, and he did not love humans enough to spend the rest of his life happily with them. The thought was exhausting. Suddenly it would not have mattered to him if he had died at some point, for he could surely not wander any more aimlessly in the spirit realm, torn from the Stone, than he did in that moment.
The thought of the letter only made it worse now. At one point he had hoped beyond all hope to tell his mother he had survived, as if she might do something about it. The further away he got, the more he only realized he did not want her to do anything at all. She could lose everything as well, and to see her out here in such grief would have driven him mad. Perhaps he should not have sent it. A chill ran through him as he thought of his mother reading his words, learning that her child was alive and yet she could never see him again because he was to be a Grey Warden, of all things. Yet another soul claimed for the blight. It was true that every able-bodied dwarf understood it to be a possibility... but it didn't stop the most privileged from imagining they might somehow be immune. That they had things to give beyond their own lives. When it came down to it, the curse that beat down upon their city was not picky about what it took.
The minutes spent silently thinking on death had made him tremble even further, bones rattling at the notion of their own mortality. It was life he wanted to take in, to record, to give away freely, not this. If he were not so well-trained, he might have gotten up and ran, legs on wild springs. It was honor that nailed his feet to the ground. He would not want that sort of person back. Why should anyone else?
Rhocanth tucked his face in a little further onto Lythe's shoulder. At least she was sturdy, steadfast and present. "I don't know what to do." The few words tumbled out on his breath, force-less.