"Oh." That takes even longer to soak in. "I - it worked - I did not think... I expected we - they - would have to destroy everything..."

It feels like letting go of something heavy that he didn't even realize he was carrying, and that sudden relief and easing of pressure he never noticed while it was present leaves him almost lightheaded, giddy, like he's falling except not in the direction of gravity's pull. 

The groundhogs nod, in a manner of speaking, and weed in silence for a moment.

"Thank you for telling me," he says, his own voice sounding distant and strange, and he takes off, which is maybe a little rude but he doesn't actually expect that to harm him, here, or them - 

- he flies toward the sun, dizzy, whirling, in that moment everything is bright and blazing and - not safe, but that isn't the point, right now. 

He should try to get a message to Carissa, again, but not now. Now he's going to fly toward the sea. 

There's a big sandy beach and then water that stretches out for a long, long time, sparkling.

Mhalir flutters down, less tired this time, and lands on the beach, and hops up to the very edge of the water, staring out. 

He misses Carissa. Not that this is something she would want to celebrate with him, necessarily, given - well, everything. 

He wonders if Alloran knows, yet, and what he thinks of it. 

He wonders if Aroden is reunited with Parmida, now, and if they're all right. 

...Eventually it occurs to him that the conditions are different, now, and his previous test might, maybe, come out differently. Or be more informative, if it comes out the same. 

He looks out at the shining water, and prays to Iomedae. It's - not easier, exactly, but it feels clearer, now, finding that mental motion, reaching out from the echoes of triumph and determination he felt when he heard, something bright and eternal and unyielding - that he made a promise, one he can't keep very effectively right now, but he isn't giving up, ever, and he recognizes that he has allies... 

It feels less like falling, this time, more like flying into an intense wind. Maybe that's just the different bodies, interpreting the sensation differently. 

And then she's there, looking steadily at him.

"You did it. I am glad."

He manages to say that much without faltering, and then it's suddenly much harder, and he can't hold onto any of the words that he swears he had a moment ago. 

"We did it." Steadily. "The Yeerks and Andalites haven't signed their treaty yet but I expect them to. We're keeping an eye on it."

"The others who were on my ship, did..." He can't quite shape that into a question. 

"They're also dead. I think mostly in Nirvana and Heaven as well. We're prioritizing for resurrection anyone in a dangerous afterlife. It's - going to be a while. We don't actually have anyone who can cast True Resurrection for us, right now."

He goes very still. "Oh. Nefreti...?" 

"It would not surprise me to learn in a couple of centuries that she's up to something, somewhere. But she died, fighting Moloch, in the sixth level of Hell, and she's nowhere to be found now." Sigh. "Normally I could push someone up to ninth circle but I actually would be somewhat hard-pressed to heal a paper cut, right now. This was - costly."

"I wish I could have - prepared faster, or something, been smarter, so it did not..." He trails off. "I wish I had been there to help. I am sorry I was not, and - very relieved that you won. I was scared." 

"I think you acted reasonably given the information you had. I didn't expect Asmodeus to move when he did but that's - in significant part because I thought he'd lose if he did, and I thought he'd think so too." Shrug. "There's no more Foresight. Even We make mistakes sometimes. And maybe he correctly thought his odds would be even worse if we had another week to prepare."

"Maybe." He tries, briefly, to imagine what it would be like to have Foresight as a sense and then lose it, be forever blinded on that aspect. He remembers, as well as his mind can, the glimpses of Aroden's Foresight-tinged memories.

What does he want, right now. 

"- Can you hug me?" This seems like a silly thing to ask of a god, but also it would help. He misses Carissa, and Iomedae isn't Carissa but there's - a facet of them that's alike, that he recognizes, and he feels a little less lost and unmoored.

"Of course." And then She is hugging him, as if they're both human, sitting on a couch somewhere or something. 

He rests in her arms, and - it's not that everything is okay, far from it, very many things are broken too thoroughly to repair and the past can't be undone and he's sure the awfulness isn't over - but he can exist, here, and this moment is good, and he isn't alone and he isn't scared.

And it's going to be a long time before she or Aroden can bring him back, but they will - and it's all right, being dead (heroically in battle against Hell, too) is a very good excuse not to be around doing politics, and he can be stronger at the end of it, if he has time now to rest.

"- How many souls," he says, eventually, very quietly. "In Hell. How many did we destroy." 

"3.2billion," she says immediately.

More than half the population of Earth.

Which...puts it into proportion, in a sense, because there are possible scenarios where the Andalites might have taken the same scorched-earth approach on Earth as Alloran chose on the Hork-Bajir world, he knows that.

3.2 billion people, and any of them could have been Carissa. 

"I am never going to stop looking for a way to bring them back - for them to be okay, too... I made a promise and it was to them, too, and I am not going to give up on that." 

"Yes. I don't know a way, yet. But it's a big universe. And - Nethys sees - things beyond even that."

"- Did the Andalites ever replicate my ship's hyperspace-drive design. Because - I think - maybe that could go further than our world to Golarion. Now...that we know to look..." 

"Yes. They had to use that to get between planes, once Aroden and Nefreti were out of spells. They pieced it together, from what you sent them and from their records of observing you doing it. They said it was very clever. - grudgingly, and probably only because they expected you wouldn't hear it."

He laughs. Far too much has happened for it to be offensive. "Fair enough. - I do keep wishing I had gotten to talk more with - Firayar, that was his name, I think. About his morph research, my own work was relevant to it but there was not time to finish explaining." 

"There will be time."

"I know. And - you do not need to hurry. I am...all right, here."