It enclosed each person individually — not as separate bubbles, but as something each person moved through based on their own relationship with what was inside it. Aether watched Valen's face go through several expressions in sequence, the specific sequence of someone encountering defeats real enough to feel and having to find somewhere to put that feeling. Saw Lion's jaw tighten with the particular tension of someone confronting the version of their fear that they'd been carrying while calling it something else. Saw Liora's eyes track across something invisible, moving from face to face among people who weren't there, her expression finding the specific quality that loss produces when it's anticipated rather than actual.
Then his own mist closed around him.
No enemies. No battle. No impossible situation demanding resolution.
A road.
