[ It's all foreign, though perhaps less foreign than it might've been before he'd woken up with a view of the station. Some of the images call up echoes, pale imitations of her modern constructs: stone towers, sprawling castle grounds.
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
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The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
( He didn't show me any bloody lakes. )