A thousand years would do that, he supposed.
And in truth, his own home was barely recognizable to him, as well. He found himself in the capitol on his return--set on the porch of the the tree-home that had been his and Amateru's, once. That could be again, if they just...drove off the Chaos that poisoned this place. It had to be possible. There had to be a reason that he had been kept alive so long, so far past his species' usual lifespan, and surely at least part of that reason had to be that there was a chance for him to save his world.
So many centuries that a bird was not meant to fly through. His feathers ought to be grey and aged, these days, but he was as youthful and vibrant as he'd been the day his world was cut off from the wider cosmos. Frozen as he had been, but with the weight of all that time engraved upon his soul.
Such a strange, strange thing. Such a strange existence to walk through, to be a bridge between two worlds separated by a millennium.
At least he was not alone in the experience. Amateru had not been awake for the bleak, empty centuries--and in truth, Elkurud was glad for that. He had suffered, watching his people die one by one, watching them fall to disease and to each other and to the dwindling of resources that came from the poisoning of their home. That Amateru had been spared that was a sort of lightness on his heart.
He walked the empty bridges between trees, following a path he knew by heart. The trek from his home to the central courier's office was something he had walked a thousand times over the years. More, even, perhaps. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Cyrus at his side, laughing and talking on their way to see what awaited Emer for the day.
Once, he had imagined that he would make that trek with a child, to teach his and Cyrus's little one how to do the same work that he had done. To let them learn the workings of the Elkurudan courier service, and help them walk in his footsteps.
That wouldn't happen now.
Children weren't an impossibility, of course, but it would not be what he'd once imagined, him and Cyrus raising their child to learn both of their worlds, integrated in the cultures their parents had come from. There would be no introducing him to Emer's couriers or Cyrus's helpers. There would be no showing him how mail was sorted and how couriers were chosen for jobs, no waiting for him to be old enoguh to be introduced to the more intricate parts of Emer's work.
Because that work was gone. Those people were gone.
All that stood were empty buildings and dying trees.
But the buildings did stand, at least. And Elkurud pushed open the door to the central office, and felt something twist in his chest.
It was so...silent. Dark. Empty. A place that should have been bustling. Where there sohuld have been a dozen overlapping voices arguing and encouraging and delegating and working, there was instead only dust and emptiness.
It was clear that the mobs had made their way here at one point or another--the front desk was overturned, things were thrown about, and papers were scattered everywhere. Honestly, it seemed lucky that the destruction wasn't worse.
But he'd had an idea, when Rhysi had told him that his bag was simply out of charge; that the magic within it had failed not because of some intrinsic fault, or Chaos pollution, or something else, but simply because it had been in service for longer than any of these were expected to be.
He couldn't simply trade for a new one, not the way he would have once upon a time, when he could have emptied the old bag into a new one and moved on. He would have to do something different. But there had to still be untouched bags here, somewhere, buried in the back of the office, waiting to be distributed to couriers who would never take them. There were activations to be done that Elkurud had long since lost any familiarity with, but his bag already had all that--it just needed its batteries changed. Or so he hoped.
All of this, of course, was predicated on any of it working the way he thought it ought to. Which was never a guarantee. But Elkurud was willing to try; there was no point in giving up just because the way forward was slightly obscured.
So he wandered through the empty head office, wilting to see the destruction left in the wake of his world's fall. Things tossed around and broken. Letters abandoned.
At least there were no corpses here. No bloodstains. No one had died in these halls.
He hoped everyone had gotten out. But his people were smart, and had been well aware of what was coming.
Perhaps the mob had found an empty office, hastily abandoned, with only things left for them to vent their Chaos-induced rage on.
Elkurud hoped that was the case.
It was a winding path back to the equipment storage, and while he found the door dented, as if someone had slammed into it to try and force it open, its ancient lock still held. And he still had his old keys. Nothing special, just a postmaster's ring, and the storage door quickly clicked open, letting him inside.
It was untouched. Dusty, yes, and abandoned, but he could see a stack of sealed, untouched courier bags in the back. Only a few--but new, unactivated, waiting for the attachment of the seal that would make them work.
Perfect.
Elkurud slung one over his shoulder.
He would have to find someone to help him back on Earth--perhaps one of Rhysi's comrades, or Rhysi herself. But for now, he had what he needed.
And he would say a momentary goodbye to his world once more.
[wc: 1048 words]
